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.