Teacher Shortage Crisis

nabby

WRT to smacking and shouting, I went to a state grammar school (all boys, all passed the 11 , 95% off to uni with good A-levels) from 1985 to 1992, so over 30 years ago.  We had a number of older teachers and some NQTs too.  Without fail, any teacher that shouted or threw things across the classroom (chalk, books, board rubbers) got a whole load of disrespect back from the pupils.  We also had corporal punishment for the first two years I was there and it didn't stop kids misbehaving.

The teachers who treated us in the right way got respect and admiration many times over in return. A simple equation if you ask me.  Fear is not the way to install good behaviour, manners and respect.  Ask anyone who's had a boss or manager act in that way.

As for ill-manners, that's a parenting thing, plain and simple.  I aim not to shout at my kids as much as possible, as they'll normalise that behavioural pattern as they grow up. Having a non-verbal child with ASD does make that a tough challenge!  I don't swear in front of them and if my eldest hears a swear word I'll tell her it's a swear word not to be used until she's old enough to understand when and how to use it correctly and the consequences of using it.

nheather

I’m not putting her on a pedestal, I think she is putting too much into it, especially given how little the rewards are.

I’m sure there are teachers that put in as much but I know there are plenty that don’t because I encountered some when my two children were going through school.

Personally I’d rather she stop doing it - especially given some of the treatment she has had to put up with from some of the kids and their parents recently - but it is up to her.  One thing is clear, when she started doing it I could see how much she was enjoying it, now I don’t see that very often.

BTW when I talk of the unified payscale I am of course only talking about her school because I don’t know any others.  What is clear is that they follow the payscales that anyone can google minus the bit that the LEA has decided to hold back.  It has already been explained that as it is an ‘outstanding’ school it is likely that everyone gets an increment.  So from that point of view, regardless of what others say, the teachers salaries at that school are following a unified payscale.  Teachers there with the same number of years, regardless of whether they are adequate, good, very good, amazing, regardless of the subject and regardless of how many hours they work a week will all be on exactly the same pay. Not saying it is like that at every school.

Cheers,

Nigel

nheather

Not entirely.  My wife had to ring a parent who got quite agressive, swearing at my wife, calling her incompetent and unprofessional.  Any other business, you might have to have remained calm but you would politely tell them that their business was no longer welcome.

We have seen on this site what happens when you call a customer service rep at an electronics company a “see you next tuesday”.  Well a few weeks ago my wife got that from a parent and just had to put up with it.

Cheers,

Nigel

domtheone

Nope.

rustybin

And this is what makes a mockery of Performance Related Pay for Teachers. You don't get extra money for doing your job particularly well. A binary system is in place whereby you either meet your PM targets or you don't. If you do, you increment (unless you're at the top of a band, in which case you probably won't); if you don't, you don't.

However if you are consistently brilliant at your job (like me), you will get TLR additional responsibility payments, leadership opportunities and get more money that way.

It's the excellent teachers (like my wife), who've got no aspirations of being anything more than an excellent classroom teacher who get taken advantage of, and therefore demoralised. She's 'retiring' next summer and I can't wait.

tapzilla2k

Seems that a lot of teachers are switching to supply work or leaving the profession entirely.
Implosion in progress in education appears to be happening.

Pecker

Swings and roundabouts.

Firstly, it will depend on whether the PE teacher teaches GCSE.  If not, then they may have it easier, but are far less likely to be on a TLR.

But whilst they may have it easier for marking, the maths teacher won't be doing things like after school football matches.  I did a few of those earlier in my career, and you can end up getting home a couple of hours later than you otherwise would.

Back to maths teachers, there are some systems of teaching maths which are a lot easier than others.  I have a mate who works in the next city from where I live and his school was taken over a few months ago.  The trust they now belong to does a system called Mastery.  Apparently it involves a lot of work by pupils on small whiteboards, and there's not a lot of marking because they don't write much in their books.  There's not a lot of preparation because the trust provides a powerpoint for every lesson, along with all the necessary worksheets.  I think the PE teachers have more marking and preparation.