I think we can take it for granted that teachers are predominantly a liberal bunch, so I don’t think anyone will be heart broken at me questioning the PM. Why on earth does he think the way to fix the system is to lure people in to the first five years with more money? 5K more a year for five years? It’s as if he thinks the whole strike was about money. Money that we are obviously not really going to get as agreed. Schools will now have to go into debt or lay people off thanks to the mistakes the treasury have admitted this week. 370 million isn’t exactly a small budgetary inconvenience. But why has he assumed that 23 year olds get into teaching for the money. That just seems a bit dim. Why hasn’t he noticed that the point of the strike was that the government were asking teachers to do too much for this little money. Emphasis being on the ‘you’re asking too much’ part. And now he wants to increase directed time.
This week I found out that a colleague who I watched become unwell last year, and started at a new school in September, has already quit. I honestly don’t think she’d mind me saying. She’s broken. She’s out. Another has been off sick already because her job was just so tediously miserable. That’s why people quit Rishi, because you make their jobs so hard they end up debating whether it’s worth their life.
As fortune has it, I started working at a peaceful and organised school this term. It’s the first time in years where I feel valued and respected. What stuns me about this, is that I’m the same. The kids still try and get their phones out when I’m not looking. They still try and pretend they didn’t see the homework. I’m the same. I’m doing things the same. Yet in this school. In virtually every class I’ve had a pupil has said to me something along the lines of “I just wanted to say miss, you’re a really good teacher”. Just off their own back. 15 year olds just dishing up compliments for free. Not only that, but the school have pretty much created a job for me. We’ve created the role together. When have you ever even heard of that?
My point is that so much of your experience as a teacher is regional. Well, region and luck. When you read comments on twitter like “what are all these teachers doing who work till midnight”, you might well have the same first thought I do (Argh. P.E. again) but they might just be teachers who are in a genuinely much easier job. Not all jobs are created equal. Why can’t Rishi or his government acknowledge that properly. I don’t want a token ‘yes, teaching can be hard’. I want cash. If I’m going to have to work every hour of the day, give me the cash to pay someone else to clean my house and pay my horrific mortgage. Though as I’ve said in previous blogs. Deep down I’m really all about the time. Money is only so useful. Unless I can buy time with it, it’s useless to me. I’m time poor.
If Rishi gives a new English teacher 5 more grand. That would be the same as UPS1 on 0.8 (which I used to be). Why on earth would I give my time and effort to train someone if that’s the case? If you earn the same as me, I expect you to provide the same level of value as me. The government just seems hell bent against providing teacher training. It wants everyone to do SCITT, and now it wants everyone to do SCITT blindfolded. I think teachers are going to have to change the face of teacher training themselves. It’s effectively going to have to become a privatised enterprise. Universities don’t offer value for money, but they do have a monopoly on PGCE certificates, so I guess they have to stay in the process. But so far as actually learning how to teach goes, as far as professional development goes, I think that’s down to us.
It should be possible for a new teacher to reach out using google and come across affordable training resources that enhance their career and their life. I’m just so done with training being monopolised by a few extortionate providers who charge £275 for a day course. I’ve been on a few of those, and whilst being very sweet, I didn’t find anything out. You don’t leave knowing stuff you didn’t know before.
Though, I do, notoriously, think that virtually all training is crap. My feedback after every training session I’ve had bar 2 over the past 5 years has been “well that was insulting” or “Hmm, would’ve been good if I had never taught before”. I’m sure in later blogs I will rant about poor training. I must already have ranted about the head of my learning trust doing a whole staff to create a word cloud. My blood boiled for a while about that. She’s getting paid 6 figures to be responsible for the education of thousands. Last time I saw her was to whistle blow on how poorly the trust are dealing with staff who have been given black eyes or bruised ribs from pupils, and she just rocks up with a QR code so we can tell her what her vision should be.
There is so much more to say about this, but I digress.
Either I’m way off the mark, and I should shut up about how bad training is, or I’ve got the seeds of better ideas, and I should hurry up and just plant them.
I better start some course design. Lordy, how do I even do that?
I shall begin.