Chair of OFSTEAD “Every school should have a useless teacher.”
15 July 2010, 09:15 AM
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Chair of OFSTEAD “Every school should have a useless teacher.”
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standa...ry-sad-tale.do (second artical down)
A new career path for the idiots in class
Ofsted's Zenna Atkins emerges as something of a lateral thinker. Rather than seek to root out the estimated 17,000 dud teachers in our schools, she announces: “Every school should have a useless teacher.” “I'd like to keep the number low, but if every primary school has one pretty naff teacher, this helps,” she says, explaining that “schools need to reflect society”.
When you grow up, you will be surrounded by idiots, runs her argument, and many of them will have power over you. Learning how to run rings around them will be far more useful than any amount of trigonometry. That's true enough, but for the head of Ofsted to be saying it is depressing.
Incompetent teachers have hitherto done valuable work free from bureaucratic interference. Are they, too, now to be stifled by a culture of quotas and targets, their level of uselessness calibrated in successive Ofsted reports? Must we end up with a two-track system, where able teachers compete for jobs while complete ding-dongs are “fast-tracked” into specially reserved hopeless-teacher roles? I so hope not. That system may work for the civil service but it will ruin the character of our schools.
She is a high flier with a strong academic past
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/lif...cle2886635.ece
what a ******* idiot and what a stupid thing to say, why just stop at one, the more the better surely?!?
A new career path for the idiots in class
Ofsted's Zenna Atkins emerges as something of a lateral thinker. Rather than seek to root out the estimated 17,000 dud teachers in our schools, she announces: “Every school should have a useless teacher.” “I'd like to keep the number low, but if every primary school has one pretty naff teacher, this helps,” she says, explaining that “schools need to reflect society”.
When you grow up, you will be surrounded by idiots, runs her argument, and many of them will have power over you. Learning how to run rings around them will be far more useful than any amount of trigonometry. That's true enough, but for the head of Ofsted to be saying it is depressing.
Incompetent teachers have hitherto done valuable work free from bureaucratic interference. Are they, too, now to be stifled by a culture of quotas and targets, their level of uselessness calibrated in successive Ofsted reports? Must we end up with a two-track system, where able teachers compete for jobs while complete ding-dongs are “fast-tracked” into specially reserved hopeless-teacher roles? I so hope not. That system may work for the civil service but it will ruin the character of our schools.
She is a high flier with a strong academic past
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/lif...cle2886635.ece
what a ******* idiot and what a stupid thing to say, why just stop at one, the more the better surely?!?
Last edited by The Zohan; 15 July 2010 at 09:29 AM.
15 July 2010, 10:25 AM
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That just about sums it up 
Odd this teacher business. I went to a posh school and many of the teachers were high flyer graduates with top degree from Oxbridge. They certainly knew their subjects but many of them were completely useless as teachers. The Head was a double first classics man with a vile temper who turned out to be a gay alcoholic - not exactly Head Teacher material for an all boys school
========
Been meaning to ask for ages. What's EFA mean?
dl
Odd this teacher business. I went to a posh school and many of the teachers were high flyer graduates with top degree from Oxbridge. They certainly knew their subjects but many of them were completely useless as teachers. The Head was a double first classics man with a vile temper who turned out to be a gay alcoholic - not exactly Head Teacher material for an all boys school
========
Been meaning to ask for ages. What's EFA mean?
dl
15 July 2010, 10:29 AM
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And so which year of a child's education should they suffer the useless teacher? What an absurd statement to be making and with such views should be removed from their position.
David EFA means edited for accuracy. Oh and agree that teachers are quite often a strange lot. A school I went to both the Head and Deputy Head were gay and gave out corporal punishment of smacked bottoms by way of a slipper. That was all the threat I needed to behave at school, two nonces waiting to bend you over and smack your ar$e
David EFA means edited for accuracy. Oh and agree that teachers are quite often a strange lot. A school I went to both the Head and Deputy Head were gay and gave out corporal punishment of smacked bottoms by way of a slipper. That was all the threat I needed to behave at school, two nonces waiting to bend you over and smack your ar$e
Last edited by Bravo2zero_sps; 15 July 2010 at 10:35 AM.
15 July 2010, 10:43 AM
#6
I've heard this woman interviewed on TV and radio since this went to print, and unless she's been doing some big-style major back-tracking, I think it's fair to say she was quoted out of context quite badly. You might or might not remember another news story from around a week ago, but it was her department that came out with the statement that in the past 40 or 50 years, there have only been 8 teachers in the entire country actually struck off for incompetence(!) She repeated this in all of her interviews that I heard, adding that a system obviously needed to be put in place to make it easier to do this, but also said that parents, headmasters, other teachers, had it for the most part completely wrong in thinking that the current system made it a lot harder to do than it actually is.
She didn't at all sound like the looney-leftie that article made her out to be.
She didn't at all sound like the looney-leftie that article made her out to be.
15 July 2010, 10:49 AM
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I've heard this woman interviewed on TV and radio since this went to print, and unless she's been doing some big-style major back-tracking, I think it's fair to say she was quoted out of context quite badly. You might or might not remember another news story from around a week ago, but it was her department that came out with the statement that in the past 40 or 50 years, there have only been 8 teachers in the entire country actually struck off for incompetence(!) She repeated this in all of her interviews that I heard, adding that a system obviously needed to be put in place to make it easier to do this, but also said that parents, headmasters, other teachers, had it for the most part completely wrong in thinking that the current system made it a lot harder to do than it actually is.
She didn't at all sound like the looney-leftie that article made her out to be.
She didn't at all sound like the looney-leftie that article made her out to be.
Zenna Atkins. 22 Havelock Road, Portsmouth, PO5 1RU. 02392363335 h 07773 770524 m zenna@socialsolutions.co.uk.
Amazing and a little worrying what googling her name chucks up for ALL to see!
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15 July 2010, 10:53 AM
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Oh and i liked this
http://www.spectator.co.uk/rodliddle...shootout.thtml
Just a quick one: who do you think is the more truly ****ing stupid, the legions of thick Geordies who have signed the Facebook campaign claiming that Raoul Moat was a “legend”, or the outgoing chair of Ofsted Zenna Atkins, who said that it was good for schools to have incompetent or useless teachers because it taught kids how to deal with incompetent adults? I’ve written about “Moaty” (© Paul Gascoigne) in the mag this week; suffice to say 18,000 imbeciles have joined the campaign to commemorate His Life and Works, firing off illiterate comments about “the filth” and “the pigs” and the “system”. But then there’s Zenna – who managed to achieve a magnificent one o level whilst at school, incidentally – saying that schools should reflect society and that meant having inadequates teaching children, because there are plenty of inadequates in society. She has since, disingenuously, rowed back a little from this position, but has not denied having said it in the first place. So Zenna v the Raoul Posse – who is the more stupid?
http://www.spectator.co.uk/rodliddle...shootout.thtml
Just a quick one: who do you think is the more truly ****ing stupid, the legions of thick Geordies who have signed the Facebook campaign claiming that Raoul Moat was a “legend”, or the outgoing chair of Ofsted Zenna Atkins, who said that it was good for schools to have incompetent or useless teachers because it taught kids how to deal with incompetent adults? I’ve written about “Moaty” (© Paul Gascoigne) in the mag this week; suffice to say 18,000 imbeciles have joined the campaign to commemorate His Life and Works, firing off illiterate comments about “the filth” and “the pigs” and the “system”. But then there’s Zenna – who managed to achieve a magnificent one o level whilst at school, incidentally – saying that schools should reflect society and that meant having inadequates teaching children, because there are plenty of inadequates in society. She has since, disingenuously, rowed back a little from this position, but has not denied having said it in the first place. So Zenna v the Raoul Posse – who is the more stupid?
15 July 2010, 11:17 AM
#9
Well, there are a few points to be made:
Firstly, it's OFSTED, (Office For STandards in EDucation).
Secondly, isn't it weird how, just as we have a new government intent on making cuts, and cutting budgets to education, suddenly we have this "15,000 useless teachers", (which I note has now swelled to 17,000), trotted out? A bit of spin, perhaps, so that when teachers complain about the way they are treated, and no payriese this year, Joe Public hates them again?
Let's NEVER foregt that the original accusation of useless teachers was made by Chris Woodhead, under the Tories, for that self same reason, to keep down teachers' pay, and he, himself, was an ex-teacher who had had an affair with one of his pupils......allegedly
Thirdly, what, exactly, makes a teacher "useless"? Because OFSTED, with their brief view and tick-boxes, say so? I think not.
My wife is a VERY respected headteacher and has been "sent" one or two "failing" teachers to take under her wing. One is now a deputy head, another running a large nursery unit and has been on Teacher's TV showing others how to do it.
Maybe THEY weren't useless? Maybe, the people judging them/looking after them in the first instance were not so useFUL themselves?
Firstly, it's OFSTED, (Office For STandards in EDucation).
Secondly, isn't it weird how, just as we have a new government intent on making cuts, and cutting budgets to education, suddenly we have this "15,000 useless teachers", (which I note has now swelled to 17,000), trotted out? A bit of spin, perhaps, so that when teachers complain about the way they are treated, and no payriese this year, Joe Public hates them again?
Let's NEVER foregt that the original accusation of useless teachers was made by Chris Woodhead, under the Tories, for that self same reason, to keep down teachers' pay, and he, himself, was an ex-teacher who had had an affair with one of his pupils......allegedly
Thirdly, what, exactly, makes a teacher "useless"? Because OFSTED, with their brief view and tick-boxes, say so? I think not.
My wife is a VERY respected headteacher and has been "sent" one or two "failing" teachers to take under her wing. One is now a deputy head, another running a large nursery unit and has been on Teacher's TV showing others how to do it.
Maybe THEY weren't useless? Maybe, the people judging them/looking after them in the first instance were not so useFUL themselves?
15 July 2010, 11:17 AM
#10
Well, there are a few points to be made:
Firstly, it's OFSTED, (Office For STandards in EDucation).
Secondly, isn't it weird how, just as we have a new government intent on making cuts, and cutting budgets to education, suddenly we have this "15,000 useless teachers", (which I note has now swelled to 17,000), trotted out? A bit of spin, perhaps, so that when teachers complain about the way they are treated, and no payriese this year, Joe Public hates them again?
Let's NEVER foregt that the original accusation of useless teachers was made by Chris Woodhead, under the Tories, for that self same reason, to keep down teachers' pay, and he, himself, was an ex-teacher who had had an affair with one of his pupils......allegedly
Thirdly, what, exactly, makes a teacher "useless"? Because OFSTED, with their brief view and tick-boxes, say so? I think not.
My wife is a VERY respected headteacher and has been "sent" one or two "failing" teachers to take under her wing. One is now a deputy head, another running a large nursery unit and has been on Teacher's TV showing others how to do it.
Maybe THEY weren't useless? Maybe, the people judging them/looking after them in the first instance were not so useFUL themselves?
Firstly, it's OFSTED, (Office For STandards in EDucation).
Secondly, isn't it weird how, just as we have a new government intent on making cuts, and cutting budgets to education, suddenly we have this "15,000 useless teachers", (which I note has now swelled to 17,000), trotted out? A bit of spin, perhaps, so that when teachers complain about the way they are treated, and no payriese this year, Joe Public hates them again?
Let's NEVER foregt that the original accusation of useless teachers was made by Chris Woodhead, under the Tories, for that self same reason, to keep down teachers' pay, and he, himself, was an ex-teacher who had had an affair with one of his pupils......allegedly
Thirdly, what, exactly, makes a teacher "useless"? Because OFSTED, with their brief view and tick-boxes, say so? I think not.
My wife is a VERY respected headteacher and has been "sent" one or two "failing" teachers to take under her wing. One is now a deputy head, another running a large nursery unit and has been on Teacher's TV showing others how to do it.
Maybe THEY weren't useless? Maybe, the people judging them/looking after them in the first instance were not so useFUL themselves?
15 July 2010, 11:21 AM
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Well, there are a few points to be made:
Firstly, it's OFSTED, (Office For STandards in EDucation).
Secondly, isn't it weird how, just as we have a new government intent on making cuts, and cutting budgets to education, suddenly we have this "15,000 useless teachers", (which I note has now swelled to 17,000), trotted out? A bit of spin, perhaps, so that when teachers complain about the way they are treated, and no payriese this year, Joe Public hates them again?
Let's NEVER foregt that the original accusation of useless teachers was made by Chris Woodhead, under the Tories, for that self same reason, to keep down teachers' pay, and he, himself, was an ex-teacher who had had an affair with one of his pupils......allegedly
Thirdly, what, exactly, makes a teacher "useless"? Because OFSTED, with their brief view and tick-boxes, say so? I think not.
My wife is a VERY respected headteacher and has been "sent" one or two "failing" teachers to take under her wing. One is now a deputy head, another running a large nursery unit and has been on Teacher's TV showing others how to do it.
Maybe THEY weren't useless? Maybe, the people judging them/looking after them in the first instance were not so useFUL themselves?
Firstly, it's OFSTED, (Office For STandards in EDucation).
Secondly, isn't it weird how, just as we have a new government intent on making cuts, and cutting budgets to education, suddenly we have this "15,000 useless teachers", (which I note has now swelled to 17,000), trotted out? A bit of spin, perhaps, so that when teachers complain about the way they are treated, and no payriese this year, Joe Public hates them again?
Let's NEVER foregt that the original accusation of useless teachers was made by Chris Woodhead, under the Tories, for that self same reason, to keep down teachers' pay, and he, himself, was an ex-teacher who had had an affair with one of his pupils......allegedly
Thirdly, what, exactly, makes a teacher "useless"? Because OFSTED, with their brief view and tick-boxes, say so? I think not.
My wife is a VERY respected headteacher and has been "sent" one or two "failing" teachers to take under her wing. One is now a deputy head, another running a large nursery unit and has been on Teacher's TV showing others how to do it.
Maybe THEY weren't useless? Maybe, the people judging them/looking after them in the first instance were not so useFUL themselves?
Last edited by The Zohan; 15 July 2010 at 11:22 AM.
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