Strike Action

Today was strike day and due to being a rep for a striking union I duly stayed at home. I actually voted "No" on the strike, but as the union apparently overwhelmingly voted in favour of industrial action and the subsequent correspondence seemed to imply that I had little choice, I toed the party line.

Will it make any difference? No, in my opinion. At the moment we appear to have the backing of the general public but if there are more strikes (and I hear rumours that there will be) the sympathy will quickly disappear.

Is there an alternative? Yes - work to rule. Teachers are paid from the hours of about 8.30am to 3.30pm roughly. In that time they get free time (PPA time) to plan lessons and write reports (a mandatory one per year per student). Teachers are also supposed to go to one meeting per week and a parents evening for each child. The work to rule policy would mean that the statutory requirements would be covered but nothing else. No lunch duties for example (teachers aren't paid in their lunch hour) so children would have to be unsupervised or told to leave the school grounds during lunch. Meetings would end on time as people would just leave at 4.30pm (most should end long before then anyway, and many meeting. are ultimately pointless). This policy would not annoy the general public. This policy would not leave teachers out of pocket. This policy would give teachers a proper work/life balance again.

Surely it's a no-brainer. I won't be striking next time as I can't really afford to. It's not that I don;t agree that we should fight to save our benefits, but I think that we are essentially cutting our noses off to spite our own faces.

All those private sector people who say we're lazy and say that they have to contribute to expensive private pension schemes seem to conveniently forget about their hefty annual bonus, the fact that they are paid more to work longer in general, and can therefore afford to make bigger pension contributions.

The so-called benefits of being a teacher are these:

• Long holidays - they indeed are, 13 weeks per year to be precise, where travel companies double or triple their prices meaning that you can't afford to go anywhere.
• Good pension scheme - not any more!

Work to rule people, and stick to it for a while! It's the way forward.

Homework - what's the point?

I've never been a fan of homework, whether as a student or as a teacher. The reason - it takes time that could often be better used doing something else, not always, but often.

That view has not changed in the umpteen years that I have been involved in the setting of homework, but every school I've in has a policy of setting it, so I duly set it. The real hassle for teachers is not the setting of it but the day of collection when a number of students feel that the homework didn't apply to them.

In one of my classes today, about a quarter (of a class of 28) felt that they didn't have to do the homework and so as it was the end of the day I decided to keep them for the school policy 15 minute detention. One walked out, but the rest stayed, albeit whilst moaning incessantly. That was until one girl who had claimed all lesson to not be allowed to stay answered her phone, and so the conversation went:

Me: Don't answer you phone please.
Student: It's my mum.
Me: I don't care, you are not supposed to have your phone out in school.
Student: Hello Mum - he's keeping me for a detention.
Me - dumbstruck by the sheer cheek of both mother and child.
Student: Do you want to speak to my mum?
Me: No, I want you to turn your phone off and do your detention.
Student - holds the phone towards me as I hear the mother shouting.
Mother: I've told you lot before, she ain't f*****g staying after school.
Me: I think I've heard enough enough, you might as well go.
Student: See ya!

At the same time another non-doer was balling their eyes out saying the following, although I should put this in context that they have had extra time and been offered time in learning support, but failed to take up the offer:

Student: I'm a young carer - I have to get home.
Me: I realise that and I have sympathy (and I really do) with you, but you need to do your homework too, and I'm only keeping you for 15 minutes, no longer.
Student: But last time I was a minute late I found her on the floor totally helpless.
Me: I don't need this grief, you might as well go.

These conversations will be followed up with phone calls saying something along the following lines:

"I am just ringing to tell you that your child is not doing their homework, apparently with your consent - I'd just like to check that is the case. I would therefore like to inform you that I respect your decision but I ought to warn you that this decision comes with a likelihood that your child will not get a GCSE in my subject. If you are happy with that, then that's fine and they will no longer be hassled for homework ever again, although they will be expected to work in class so that they have a very small chance of passing their exams."

We live in what a politician called the other day "a society of accountability" whereupon I, as a teacher, get constantly told off for my students failing to reach their ridiculously high targets at GCSE by people in suits who don't teach anymore. I don't really see that I can do anything if parents condone their child's lack of work.

Unfortunately any pay increase I ever wish to have relies on the students I teach actually caring whether they do well in my subject, which is fine, but if I'm literally fighting against the parents too, what chance have I got? And I would like to point out that this is not uncommon - I teach in a nice area apparently. Something's broken, and I will be searching the local paper for jobs outside of teaching. Sad really, but I do this every now and then only to fail to find anything that I want to do. Fingers crossed people, and if the government get their way over pensions, you will find far more disaffected teachers in the profession.

The Verdict

The official announcement came today, and as expected it was "Satisfactory".

The reasons:

1. Just under half of our students achieve above what's expected of them, and in order to get the next grade up ("Good") it must be 50% or more. I shudder to think what the percentage is for an "Outstanding"! So doing what's expected is no longer good enough is all I can gather from that. We, as teachers, are given targets for each child, which are invariably high in the first place - some are even A*. If the targets are challenging in the first place, you are always going to struggle, and if the target was A* in the first place, then you're stuffed.
2. Although we had loads of "Outstanding" lessons apparently, we also had quite a few "Satisfactory" too. Does that not average out at a "Good"? Call me logical/naive, but there you go.
3. We have to use more data (yes, more, if there can possibly be any more to use) in our planning. The mind boggles a little at this point as we are essentially drowning in the stuff now.

They were the main points as far as I remember, although there may have been more (I switched off to be honest). This meant that, due to there being too many lessons that weren't "Good" or "Outstanding", that makes the management "Satisfactory", which I suppose is fair. The implication was that if the teachers who were below "Good" sorted themselves out, then that would sort out the management grade of "Satisfactory". An organisation being run from the bottom up - interesting concept.

We'll see - the leadership team are having a day off soon to formulate a plan of action, and we are likely to get a monitoring visit in a year or so, which will be fun. Essentially the minds of the inspectors is made up before they arrive, from the data they receive on the school.

All-in-all a thoroughly demoralising experience, but I think that's what they set out to do for the reasons given in previous posts. Worth every penny of that £200 million per year, I'm sure you'd agree.

Ofsted - What An Experience!

They've just left and I must say that I was surprised that it was an even more negative experience than I imagined it could be.The team of 6 (1 of whom was just seeing what it was like so she could go and ruin the morale at another school) had an average age of around 55, if not higher. None of them had been a teacher for a number of years, quite clearly. I don't see how someone who is so far removed from the regular classroom experience can make an accurate and constructive assessment of full or part-time teachers.

The speech at the start of the inspection filled people with hope, but from there it was downhill. The lead inspector explained how this was to be a "positive experience", but it was anything but. Accusations were made of the school that were simply untrue - statistics-based accusations that had to be retracted. Many staff in so-called "important" departments (3 out of 7 maths teachers for example) were not seen at all and conversation such as these going on during observations:

Inspector: You should write your questions on the lesson plan.
Teacher: Have you looked at it? They are highlighted in yellow.
Inspector: Oh - well you should name the student that you are targeting each question too.

Frankly, that is a stupid comment, as any practicing teacher would know straight away. Why not just write a script and get actors in to teach lessons through a screenplay?

Another inspector was quoted as saying "I can't give you an outstanding for that lesson because you didn't do such-and-such". The teacher replied with "Can you give me an example of what you mean?", followed by a period of silence and then eventually a "No".

When the report gets published I will be interested to read it, purely to see the rubbish that they have used as evidence to downgrade us (which is what I presume they have done - I don't actually know the verdict yet).

My opinion is this:

We are going through a period of austerity measures when it comes to public spending. Most teachers are striking over their pensions (work longer, pay more and get less - like anyone's going to be happy about that). Ofsted costs £200 million per year (a quick and easy saving one would think). They need to make out that schools are getting worse to justify their existence as a quango that is vital in the drive to push standards up, and therefore convince the government into not getting rid of them.
Either that, or as a colleague said, the new government needs to downgrade schools at the beginning of their term in office and then upgrade them at the end (as our next inspection will be towards the end of their current term); they can then claim during the election campaign that standards are improving having dropped under the previous government. Cynical but not beyond our beloved politicians I would say.

I've said it before, but the only way Ofsted can be of any use to the teaching profession is to change radically in the following way: inspectors should be current, practicing teachers, and the money that currently pays for  inspectors should be spent on cover staff.

The atmosphere at my school has been awful over the past 48 hours and will remain so, probably until the end of term. Thanks for that.

The Call of the Wild, sorry, Ofsted

Middle managers are running around like headless chickens with reams of data falling from their sweaty palms. The headteacher amazingly hasn't got meeting after lunch every day, new furniture that arrived weeks ago is being hastily assembled and put in place and flowers have arrived in reception. It can only mean one thing: Ofsted are coming.

We had the call on Monday and they are in on Wednesday. We've had the profiles of the inspectors, which makes interesting reading. It appears that none of the 5 illustrious people have taught for a number of years, with the Maths, MFL and Music "expert" (what a bizarre combination) having never been a teacher. It's difficult to tell with a couple of the others' profiles as they are vague, saying something along the lines of "has worked in education for 37 years and inspected lots of schools in the state and independent sector". I am writing this at about 5am because although I'm not that stressed about it, I had this nagging in the back of my mind that I should find another quiz for my form to do in tutor time, even though I know I've got plenty. I opted to download a Toy Story trivia quiz from the site (www.quizardry.com - try it, it's brilliant). Not sure how well that will go down with our illustrious inspectors, as let's face it, when, or even if they were teachers the internet probably didn't exist.

I know that all schools do it, but Ofsted inspection teams never see any school in its true light. If they were really serious about inspecting schools, they'd just drop in to them without telling anyone, not expect to see lesson plans (which are a total load of waffle) and see how the school runs from day-to-day. I did duty at lunch yesterday (the day before the big arrival) and it was carnage. There are normally a number of assistant heads out there (we have numerous) but there was only me and 1 colleague to cover the entire outside space due to number crunching and general panic attacks in various offices around the building.

A colleague said to me yesterday that the importance of Ofsted has been made very clear by the length of time it takes. When Ofsted inspections started they lasted 5 days; now they last about 1.5 days. It say a lot really.

Just remember fellow teachers, as your pensions are being cut, contributions to it are increasing and retirement age being pushed further away, Ofsted are spending £200 million per year. Reassuring, don't you think?

Anyway, I can't sit here blogging all day, I have mini-plenaries to plan!

Holiday Revision

As a teacher you are constantly banging on about the importance of steady revision over the holiday period to your charges. Most, as we all know, will ignore your advice and try and cram in a little revision on the morning of the exam. Waste of time - you might as well do yourself a fry up instead.

Then there's the revision sessions put on by the schools. It is an expectation that teachers will stay after school on one day per week and do an extra lesson - unpaid. You obviously not obliged, but it is severely frowned upon if you don't do it. I don't mind being frowned upon, but plenty do.

There's also the revision sessions put on during the holidays - Easter and Summer Half Term. These do tend to be paid as they are during holiday time, and I tend to do those as I'm being paid for my time. And let's face it, you don't get much (if anything) for free nowadays.

The way we tend to run our revision sessions is to "invite" a select band of students along - they are the ones who have target grades that are now well beyond them due to their inability to actually try in class. Letters are sent home and reply slips grudgingly brought back in by disgruntles students whose delusional parents still believe that little Johnny is going to be a top draw lawyer, or a Premier League footballer needing an education to fall back on in case he gets a career threatening injury.

Inevitably the sessions are pretty pointless, with the students just there because they know that their games console will be confiscated if they not. They have also come to the realisation that even a pass is probably beyond them, let alone their target grade of A* (which the majority seem to have now). I had one member of my class try to persuade me to move them from higher tier (which they were perfectly capable of doing) to foundation tier, where the highest they can get is a C grade. This is less than a week before the exam. I refused for the following reasons:

1. It costs the school an extra £25 that it can't really afford, not that that's a major issue.
2. Ultimately they have been idle, and when offered help refused it with the comment "My mum's tutoring me". They even went on holiday over the last revision session they were invited to attend.
3. They did in class (i.e. with help) a foundation paper and totally messed it up by making silly mistakes due to not concentrating. Since you need to get around 70% to 80% for a C on the foundation paper, that doesn't leave much scope for silly mistakes. The higher tier will allow them to make silly mistakes because you can get a C grade with around 35% (yes, you did read that correctly).
4. Why should I rush around making a massive effort to change their tier of entry when they have made absolutely no effort whatsoever in 2 years? Get used to reaping what you sow pal!

Each revision day costs a school around £350 per subject, which includes printing the letters, posting letters home, and then paying two members of a department to be there for 5 hours or so. After the latest waste of my life, I said that it was pointless to my colleague and they replied with this:

"We have to do these sessions because it ticks another box, and when they all fail and try to blame us, we can just say that we offered these revision sessions." Sad, but true and wisely said.