School days to get longer

@Anonymity I have every sympathy. I really get how frustrating it is to feel like the only one who sees the problem and is prepared to do something about it yet realises you need the support of (unwilling) others in order to not end up as the scapegoat.

You've kind of answered my question actually. I did wonder whether the majority of those coming into teaching now are already too institutionalised to question/act independently, as everything is so micromanaged/fear-based now. Which is a shame in itself.

To those of you who feel you are helping your colleagues and children by being compliant, I will say that you are just supporting a system which is stifling and unhealthy at the very least. Short term pain for long term gain, for everyone. I can tell you this would not be happening in France. Solidarité, anyone?

 

Sadly, even now I doubt that.

We are collectively our own worst enemy.

 

Wow, you are right on the money there. However, I fear that many of these people will not do anything but roll over and take it. It is all too good crying and moaning in front of a computer screen. I would like to see the day where no one went into teacher training or simply refused to go in and teach.

 

Exactly - people moan on here all the time pointlessly like whining kids without being constructive. If you don't like, it try to change it. If you can't change it then either accept it or quit.

 

Teachers are reacting though. Many are just packing it in. Many within a few years of retirement are giving up. At the other end very few are coming forward to teach. Those in the middle are a bit stuck. too many commitments to risk jumping ship. But on the whole teachers are responding, they are walking (or in some cases, running) away.

 

the problem is if you stand up on your own your picked of by schools...... there is not defence except in strength.Yet the media will be against you, the parents will moan about you and the heads will try to crucify you.I used to be a union man back in the 70's and raising folk to action was a thankless task.Teachers wont rise..they worry to much about others.....and to the shame of ALL governments they are taken advantage off and treated like lower serfs,while government mouth off we are a great profession....just don't want to pay for it and take actions which jepordises the role of education in the years to come

 

They are reacting (as I did) but individually so not really noticed as a protest (until the government finally admits quite how bad the 'teacher recruitment crisis' is). Mass action by all, as I have just posted on another thread, is what is needed, including heads and management. Or do they all think the system we have is adequate?

The BMA have the right idea. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-35840111

 

We should be maximising the time we do have with the students, not 'bolting on' yet another hour. If students want to have extra classes and enjoy them, and some teachers want to do this, then great. But nothing should be forced upon anyone...it will be ridiculous...

 

Personally, I don't see why extending school till 4.30 is causing such a fuss. I went to an East London state Grammar in the 1950s where lessons ended at 4.15 and after-school activities finished at 5.30pm. I can't remember when this nonsense of finishing at 3.15 first crept in.[/QUOTE]
i would be surprised if you had to mark in quite the same way then as now, or type lis/dates or write out lesson plans, or enter data many times a year, or run extra revision classes, or photo copy, or laminate, or back work for display, or design and save IWB screens for every lesson .......
I only started in the nineties, but even that recently the job was far easier. A text book, stick of chalk and pupils who were able to write a title and date for themselves freed up an awful lot of teacher time.

 

or perhaps everyone should run a club/revision class/ homework support session, or nobody should do it at all.

 

I have mentioned in several posts a school where an extra session was added to the one school day a week as a compulsory 'enrichment' session. all teachers had to do this....except the teacher whose job it was to organise and plan for this. That person spent the hour each week making sure everyone else was working. They never ran a group.

 

Oh dear and lunch hours were longer too and teachers respected far more. .....and I believe they even had discipline then and not quite the same Ofsted.....

 

As previous posters have said, how will this work in rural catchments. Some of the fenland schools I supply teach have kids travelling very long distances, getting up to get the school bus which trudges around remote backwaters for miles, taking over 40 minutes for the ones who get on at the start of the run. They will be out of the house from 7.30 until after 6 pm. They'll need food and drink. They won't see daylight in winter. How will this help them achieve? Another London based, make it up as you go along, don't consult people nonsense idea.

 

My teachers - in the mid 1970s - were often suing the same notes that they had preprepared after leaving University (one even admitted so). Reports were often one line, once a year. Marking was a tick & '9/10' or whatever.

Teaching was a different world then...


FWIW I actually liked the lessons, and being at school then. I'm not sure I would now...

 

Personally, I don't see why extending school till 4.30 is causing such a fuss. I went to an East London state Grammar in the 1950s where lessons ended at 4.15 and after-school activities finished at 5.30pm. I can't remember when this nonsense of finishing at 3.15 first crept in.

Surprising though it may seem, pupils did not mark work in the 1950s, or type lis/dates or write out lesson plans, or enter data many times a year. My point is that pupils are perfectly capable of staying awake for another hour and even benefitting from co-curricular activities, rather than hanging around outside the local sweet shop or MacDonalds until their parents get back from work.

But you are making the same mistake as others in assuming that teaching staff will be required to run these extra activities. If that were the case, the government wouldn't bother to provide extra funds for staffing. It is much more likely that schools will employ sports coaches, music hubs, craft instructors, animateurs and so forth to provide a range of activities. Teaching staff already have more than enough to do.

 

What colour is the sky on your planet?

 

Do tell me: are the teaching staff at your school required to cook the lunches for the pupils each day? Are they required to clean the toilets and mow the games pitches? Sweep the corridors, perhaps? Maintain the central heating boilers?

BIG HINT: All schools employ people to do non-teaching jobs. Have you seen anything in the white paper to suggest that they will not be allowed to do so in future?

 

Not a question of permission, more a question of funding. And what did happen to that long list of administrative tasks teachers were no longer required to do?

 

It's certainly true that there is only funding for 25% of secondary schools to run the proposed longer day.

 

And what did happen to that long list of administrative tasks teachers were no longer required to do?