8,500 on the line

[Rupert_Baehr]

Not wishing to say you are incorrect, but which teachers work for 60 hours a week?

 

I spent 25 years living next door to a teacher, and she was ALWAYS home before I got home from work and spent most of her time either watching the TV far too loud or outside in the garden.

 

She left after I left, and arrived back before I got back. It hardly seems like the same cruel working practices you make out.

 

She may perhaps have been a Primary school teacher - not a lot of homework to mark, most lessons prepared. Even so, she would've had to attend the 'O' rings* and Parent-teacher evenings.

 

I wouldn't describe the working practices as 'cruel' and I didn't pluck the '60 hours a week' figure out of thin air. - it was what I and most of my colleagues worked. They were long hours, but that was a part of the job.

 

I taught in a secondary school which had a Vl form. About 60% of my classes were post -16 (and I had originally been offered a 60% contract) but that was extended to a full contract because I agreed to do some SEN teaching. (NQT's are not supposed to be given SEN, but the school had a staff shortage in that department and the head said to me: "You're an NQT, so I can't require you to do this - but you're a dad (she didn't add 'and you're nearly old enough to be a grand-dad') and I"m sure you can do it."

 

Consider 'Marking'. If you were the parent of a child in Yr 11 (studying for GCSE) and your child had spent 45 mins - 1 hr doing a piece of homework, how much time would you expect your child's teacher to spend considering, analysing and assessing that homework? Would you expect your child's teacher to do the job properly and to provide constructive feedback, or would you be happy with a handful of random red and green crosses and ticks?

 

Would you be happy if your child's teacher spent 5 whole minutes reviewing your child's efforts, or would you expect 10?

 

At 5 minutes per child, with a class of 30 students, the teacher is going to spend 2½ hours marking. At 10 minutes, that's 5 hours 'homework' for the teacher. That's for one class. - If two classes submitted homework on the same day, the teacher has 10 hours homework. (I soon learned to schedule homework so that I didn't get 2 lots the same night. The people who did the work deserve feedback ASAP - if they hand the work in on time, then (IMO) the teacher should mark it on time.)

 

Then there's lesson planning. Have you ever given a presentation to colleagues/customers at work? - I've done more than one or two of those. A 30-minute presentation would probably take me an hour to plan, then a further hour to do 2 practice 'run-throughs'. 4:1. it takes 4 times as long to plan the presentation as it does to deliver it. (Those are rules which served me well in my first career.)

 

Apply that rule to teaching and you're totally screwed! - If you have to deliver 25 hours of lessons per week and you need 100 hours to plan them, you can reckon on not getting a lot of sleep. - Teachers soon become expert at lesson planning, but it still takes time ... and while you're taking that time, the bloody government is changing the syllabus! - Don't expect the same syllabus for two years in a row. Much of my lesson planning was done in that 13 weeks of holiday... I knew there was a reason they gave it to us and that reason had nothing to do with making life easy.

 

Parent evenings: I had students in every year group, so I went to every Parent evening. 2 evenings for years 7,11 and 12, 1 each for years 8,9,10 and 13. Ten 5-hour parent evenings. (An hour to plan and 4 hours sitting around talking to parents.) Just part of the job - and if the parents were interested in their children a rewarding part of the job for everybody.

 

Unfortunately, the parents I usually most needed to see were those who (apparently) didn't give a damn about their children and couldn't be bothered to show up. I had to chase them up (usually in writing) and because I'm perhaps 'not the most tactful person in the world' some of the 'discussions' involved 'an in-depth exploration of a wide range of topics'.

 

* 'O' rings. - Staff meetings. That's where you sit around nodding and saying 'Oh' at appropriate intervals. There were more staff meetings than you can imagine! General staff meetings, Year group staff meetings, Key stage staff meetings, Subject staff meetings, Department staff meetings, Vl form staff meetings. I don't know who devised them, but I suspect that he/she didn't have to go to them all. They all take time and they all generate paperwork (I suspect that was the reason for their existence.)

 

I didn't quit teaching because of the workload (that's a part of the job and I started teaching in my early 40's, so none of it came as a surprise.) I didn't quit teaching because of the pay. - Would you turn down a job which paid nearly £7 an hour? (That's what I was earning.) I quit because my wife (who earned more than 4 times as much) got a job elsewhere.

 

After we moved, I got a job teaching in a prison. Much easier - the students were better behaved and I didn't have to put up with cr*p from their parents. I did that for 4 years, then decided to become a crook myself serve society in another manner and went to law school.

 

There are, no doubt, teachers who are incompetent and there are teachers who are lazy - but the vast majority of teachers are (IMO) hard-working dedicated individuals who are over-worked and under-valued.

 

If you can read this, thank a teacher.

[donkey]

Them that can do them that can't teach.

 

What about them that can teach?

 

What do they do?

 

Give Defoe a few tutorials on the use of punctuation? Unless he really meant that those who get the opportunity have sex with people who can't teach.

[Longcol]

You said teachers - not newly qualifed!

 

Check point 6 on the attached then tell me where my new house is! Is there a shower in the bathroom? Kitchen Diner or two separate rooms? I'm so excited!

 

 

http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=6000186

 

Like hard2miss said "you will find teachers on less than £30k" - under point 6 they do.

 

Newly qualified earn £21.6k - not as you stated "I believe newly qualified teachers are on the mid £20ks".

[rubydazzler]

If we want services,then we have to pay for them ... but if we want a nice,clean,safe,well serviced city to live in,then we all have to pay for it.

I absolutely agree with you and, as a person who actually pays her own council tax, I would have no problem paying a little more to help SCC staff keep their jobs. Once the service has been pared down to what the CEO reports is a reasonable level, of course. Although I'd prefer to see it spent on effective street cleaning, if I could choose.

Even if want to blame the last Government for the need for the cuts, it doesn't mean you have to behave like scum when making the cuts. You can behave with compassion, even when laying people off.

 

Oh, John Mothersole is the Chief Executive of the Council, his direct superior is Paul Scriven (well, until May, when it changes to Julie Dore, really can't see how LibDems can hold on to power in Sheffield), so Scriven is responsible for this, don't make excuses for him.

Who is behaving like scum? Scum is a peculiar word bandied about today, often by people with small vocabularies, whom perhaps some others would regard as being fairly 'scummy' themselves? Spare us the political rhetoric, please. Do you think that an administration headed up by Julie Dore is likely to handle things any differently? If so, in what way?

 

IIRC it was Labour who initiated all the outsourcing years ago, merely to rid themselves of staff who'd become too expensive for them to continue employing. We all know what happened to them once the TUPE ran out. So don't let's talk about Labour being sole holders of the moral highground.

[rubydazzler]

8,500 notices of impending loss of jobs sent out by Sheffield City Council. I found this on the Yorkshire Post website. Cllr Scriven coudn't even be bothered to warn staff. He treats them like scum

I don't want to dampen your righteous wrath, but aren't the letters themselves a 'warning' of possible redundancies? According to the link you couldn't be bothered to post (or even bother to read, if your post is anything to go by) they are an initial part of a process which may (or may not) lead to redundancies.

 

A spokesman for Sheffield City Council said the forms sent out were a "technical process", not redundancy notices.

 

*I took the liberty of correcting your deathless prose to make it easier to read. No offence.

[Defoe]

I don't want to dampen your righteous wrath, but aren't the letters themselves a 'warning' of possible redundancies? According to the link you couldn't be bothered to post (or even bother to read, if your post is anything to go by) they are an initial part of a process which may (or may not) lead to redundancies.

 

A spokesman for Sheffield City Council said the forms sent out were a "technical process", not redundancy notices.

 

*I took the liberty of correcting your deathless prose to make it easier to read. No offence.

 

It is merely a legal procedure that they are going through. Redundancies invariably follow.

We must remember that the Con government hate South Yorks historically, they are always going to single it out for a special hammering.

Anybody who voted for the Tories must either hate S. Yorks people or be really naive.

[crookesey]

School teachers are a special case in that they get 13 weeks holiday a year!

 

But they put in a lot of pre term work whilst sitting in their tent on their camping holiday.

[Guest sibon]

But they put a lot of pre term work whilst sitting in their tent on their camping holiday.

 

I prefer a nice gite personally. The Chablis tastes better properly chilled:)

[Defoe]

But they put a lot of pre term work whilst sitting in their tent on their camping holiday.

 

They should be very careful about sitting in their tent for too long. A friend of mine sat in his tent for 5 hours while it was raining heavily. The tent was raided by the police and he was arrested for .....loitering within tent?

 

Well worth waiting for!:hihi:

[L00b]

<...most constructive reply I've seen in a thread today...>

If you can read this, thank a teacher.

 

Snagged the closing line for my sig, if you'll permit.