You're all jelouse because you have **** jobs. Get over it. Cun.s

 

Another eloquent, well thought out post Ooper.

 

I couldn't care less how long teachers have off - as long as they teach my kids well in the time they're at school, and so far so good at our schools.

 

...

 

I have a friend who is a teacher - he seems to work harder than anyone I know


when I go to parents evening (and with 5 kids I have been to a few) they all seem, by and large a really committed bunch of people - totally dedicated in what they do

50 years ago they had the same social standing/pay as lawyers, bankers, doctors, and accountants

how they must wish they had a union like the fire brigade union

 

http://www.lincolnshireecho.co.uk/Li...ail/story.html

High profile story on Look North last night with Mr Orange.

So other than the unproven link to better learning by having a shorter break, the obvious plus side is that when they take a week off at other times of the year, it won't be normal school holiday time, so holidays will be cheaper for parents.

The flip side of this that I've seen is that a lot of sporting type events are scheduled to take place in school holidays. If schools no longer have a unified approach to holidays, then it's going to be difficult to plan such events without someone, somewhere having to take their kids out of school. An example I know of first hand is sailing events. I'm sure some other sports are exactly the same. Can't see this ending well.

 

Any child that does that should be birched in public.

 

Of course parents want them in school....free childcare!!!

WHEN will these idiots realisethat the sole purpose of a school is to educate.

NOT childcare, NOT socialising, NOT discipline...all those are the responsibility of PARENTS!!

Who shouldn't have had children if they can't do the simple things.

LOads of places have been bleating on about the so-called four-term year, in order to equalise the lengths of the terms. My wife's LA have recently EXTENDED the Autumn term by almost a week, she re-starts 1st Sept

And as for kids forgetting stuff, no-one has yet explained why countries whose children get FAR longer breaks than ours, (France, Germany, Finland, the USA etc etc) do far better than ours.

Of course, it COULDN'T be our very proscriptive National Curriculum...could it?????

 

absolutely correct - I suspect this forms part of the frustration of teachers

they are acting as the "catch all" for societies social ills

part of the problem is that we seem to have built a society where it is virtually impossible to survive on a single income

the pressures on families are overwhelming

 

My other half is a department head at her school. I don't think that's her job title because they have all sorts of guff titles/acronyms these days and I glaze over when I hear them.
Anyway, my point is that being a teacher isn't a cushy little number IF you do the job properly. However, as it's Public Sector the usual lack of accountability applies and as a result it can be a very cushy little number if you play the numbers. The absence figures due to 'sickness' (often in name only) are truly shocking/disgraceful/reprehensible etc. More often than not now, I don't want to hear what some of the staff are up to because it winds me up. In the private sector where profits rule it would never happen but politics and complicity at all levels appears to create an environment where nobody wishes to rock the boat.

 

Did your keyboard break down?

 

Those who can, do
Those who can't, teach
Those who can't teach, teach PE
Those who can't teach Pe, work for Ofsted

 

Sigh, THAT old chestnut.

If it's right, then everything in the country depends on those who can't.

After all, without their teaching, where would those who "can" be?

 

Exactly, which its frustrating as to why they spend the last 2 weeks of the summer term messing about watching dvd's. The same is true in the run up to Christmas

 

LOL

Obviously it is full of flaws but it was lighthearted dig at Ofsted if anything

There is an awful lot wrong with education in this country

 

Absolutely, most of it down to successive governments, beginning with that spiteful cow in 1988.

OFSTED, the enabling of parents, the start of lay governors, SAT's, league tables .........much of it already dumped in Wales and Scotland, but kept in England for us lucky enough to live there.

 

What are your thoughts about bringing back Grammer Schools?

 

Difficult to say......on the one hand I went to one, and did well enough, but I'm not a fan of deciding how a kid's future is to be at age eleven.

And tbh, with gcse's being pretty much what everyone does, what's the point?

 

Or even Grammar Skools?

 

Lol, and i did actually look at the spelling....

Anyway I will leave it unedited, just to show perfection is an overrated virtue

 

Yes tricky but wholeheartedly agree with the above

 

It gets even dafter if you look at the age differential, ie: academic age vs real age for girls vs boys. Girls mature so much earlier at that age.

If they didn't fudge the exam results, they would have ended up with grammar schools being 2/3 girls.

 

And that does not take into account the year cut off

I am an August baby, so always struggled at school

 

I'm a march baby and I always struggled at school. But my problem was the thicko's that didn't get it, then I'd just get bored listening to the same crap over and over, then start to mess around and end up in the corridor, when what I actually needed was the next class or two up.

 

Agree totally 100%

 

Yeah, but your school was particularly $hite.

 

Most inside the profession agree too.

Yet EVERY time the politicos want some change, or something headline grabbing, they don't ask teachers, they ask the media and stupid think-tanks. Worse, they EXCLUDE teachers from the discussions, then, when it all goes wrong, it somehow becomes the school's fault for not implementing it properly.

This latest round of SAT's: what mastermind came up with the idea that 65% of the population should be above average? Do they not understand average?

And what's this crap about "coasting" schools? You get good results and a good OFSTED, you don't improve AGAIN the next year, suddenly you are no good?

Bull****.

 

This looks like an import from the business world,

 

Oh it will be, plus it's a good stick with which to beat schools.

My father was a well-respected deputy head in a hard school. I used to think he was exaggerating when he said that "everyone hates teachers".

Then, as soon as the Bliar government got in, and OFSTED had been run by an idiot called Chris Woodhead, that ALL teachers loathed, (a real "do as I say, not as I do", guy), Bliar wanted rid of Woodhead, but the blindman, who was education minister, told him no, we need to keep him, the public like to see a government tough on teachers.

My dad was right.

 

It may have had something to do with the fact I spent most of my time in the corridors or outside my head of years office waiting to get the cane.


But yeah it was a bit Grange Hill.