plumber – Member
I would think an education is gained through life and the most important thing for a parent to instil is an enjoyment of learning and an amount of tenacity to keep going when the subject gets tougher.

Yup, and we have brough ours up to believe that they need not to accept everything at face value, they should ask questions until satisfied, and to know that not all adults/people of import/etc are right just because of the position they hold. (Obvs the only exceptions to this are me and MrsCat who should be obeyed instantly without question and to the full and exact extent of any instruction). 😀

IMO it’s important to instil an insatiable curiosity in them, loving to learn new things and experiences.

Sadly, last night we heard a few too many parents berating teachers for not instilling discipline in their kids!!!

stilltortoise – Member
I was incredibly bright though

You seem to be using the past tense there chap, explains much. 😀

The ponds kept getting bigger for this fish 😉

Well, as OP mentions 95% of the teachers being inspirational with a further 5% being bumbling idiots. 2 bumbling idiots are mentioned specifically within the OP, giving a total of 40 teachers. 38 good, 2 bad.

Couldn’t be bothered to read the whole thread to see if anyone else had been as bored as me 😀

What’s the average of [1, 1, 1, 10]? How many are below average?

1, 0 (for the majority of definitions of average)

HTH

Couldn’t be bothered to read the whole thread to see if anyone else had been as bored as me

We’ve been far more bored. What’s your Roman history like?

Pretty good, watched Life of Brian again last week 🙂

Caught up with the whole thread now, impressed with Northwinds derail to Roman military units 😀

As an “outstanding”, “excellent” teacher I’ll weigh in as another fool that’s taken the bait.
“getting rid” of teachers is actually quite achievable if they are useless AND the school can be bothered to go through the capability process. On the other hand many teachers that would be excellent are overworked in the extreme.
Yes, we do have “poor” teachers but when you take into account the contact hours, the creativity etc, the UK system is extremely good. If we had the low contact hours and the “thinking about things” time of other systems along withe the actually very strict requirements for PGCE/QTS, we would have the best system in the world by any measure.

Oh and for what it’s worth, before it descends into a “lazy gits” thread. The average competent secondary teacher works the same as anyone else when averaged over the year. Personally I have worked 48 hours so far this week and it has been a relatively “easy” week.
Let me be clear. I am NOT complaining, I work the same as most others, only compressed into a shorter part of the year. I DO get annoyed at people not realizing that many teachers do it for the love of it. Anyone doing it for the money will quit in a few months.

As an “outstanding”, “excellent” teacher I’ll weigh in as another fool that’s taken the bait.

Pfft. Take your educated, fact-based opinions elsewhere!

On the other hand many teachers that would be excellent are overworked in the extreme.

And don’t forget all the NQTs that are used as cannon fodder. Employ ’em because they are cheap and drop ’em in at the deep end. Imagine being a 22 year old with very little teaching time being given full reposibility of a class of 32 little angels. It doesn’t matter if they only last a year because a new batch will be along shortly.