To think too much is expected of teachers these days

meryl Don't go near the boys ? That was it.
My mother told me about periods but it was left to an older girl who I played out in the street with, to warn me that ‘if a boy was rude to you, you’d have a baby and disgrace your family’.
This rather puzzled me and I asked my mother what my friend meant. Mum replied that I was too young to understand. I must have been 9 or10.
Enlightenment only came when we did human reproduction at school.
Our 40-something, bachelor science teacher, Mr Finch, told the wide-eyed class of 11-year-old boys and girls that having sex must be nice because it resulted in having children, so no-one would do it if it wasn’t
Needless to say it wasn’t long before some of the class were trying it out for themselves

For all those saying schools managed in the past without any help when I started teaching there was a children's health section which provided a local clinic serving an area, where a doctor, dentist and nurses were available, and nurses were sent to schools to do regular checks. Children also had regular medicals at the clinic or in school. There was also a school attendance officer (they had various nicknames) who investigated and followed up children who didn't attend. Some of those people were absolute dragons but they did provide a degree of support and care-all gone now.

Galaxy
I didn’t say I took the advice. ?

I went to a really rough comprehensive school in a mining area in the West Midlands and they actually showed us a slide show of sexually transmitted diseases and quite a few people fainted

Ellieanne your comments about working late, doing above and beyond are a joy to hear but sadly not all teachers are as conscientious or dedicated

I worked in secondary schools for a while and saw the sheer slog that some teachers put into their working day, supporting, caring, helping with homework etc. but unfortunately if they are not backed by a good Head Teacher the ones who have stopped caring can slide out early, take full holidays and do the minimum required to take home the same wage. I suppose it is the same in many types of employment.

The model in Stage One & Two schools is by far the most thorough but somehow all the good work done gets lost in the big Secondary Schools

As a side note: I once had a class of 28 where 14 of the students were deemed 'difficult/special needs/ disruptive/needing extra help etc. Almost impossible to get any work done of any value with the students who were eager to get on. At best it was crowd control, at worst it was a war-zone. I felt sad for the students, they were all being short-changed

So in answer to the thread: Yes, it takes a specialise, trained and supported team with excellent back-up resources to raise and educate a child, all working together and for the same purpose: to fulfil the potential, enhance the learning and give pride and confidence to each and every student, what ever their starting point

A friend who was a TA in a sex ed lesson for year 7 said when told that at age 16 sexual intercourse was “legal” looked v upset. It transpired that she thought legal meant compulsory and she didn’t think she would want to!

In the 70s, the secondary school were I started teaching had a full-time matron and part-shares in an EWO (Educational Welfare Officer, a retired police officer who came in at least once a week to review the registers) who brought kids back into school when he saw them in town, and knew them all by name, and plenty of their parents too because he'd go round to the homes. If no-one was home, he'd go back later. Quite a lot of pastoral care was done by those 2.
Nowadays an admin assistant rings home.

Oh yes, far too much expected this is nothing new.
I remember years ago, 1970’s, when friends and I used to attend music festivals. Maggie was a teacher, and she was always the last to be picked up for the journey. Many times she was in her front room marking piles of student’s books and we would be hollering for her to hurry up.

Buffy is only speaking about the reality of girls wearing skirts that barely cover their butts - yes in an ideal world girls and women should be able to wear anything they like without unwanted male attention. Unfortunately this is not the case. My mother would not have let me out the door at that age wearing a skirt so short!

MaizieD

^ There was no army of teaching assistants to help us, and large classes were normal.^

There is no 'army of teaching assistants' in schools any more, Riggie. The number of TAs was greatly increased under Labour from 1997, but since 2010 the tory's austerity measures meant cuts to school budgets and TAs have gradually disappeared. Along with a number of the support services which schools tried to offer.

I am firmly of the opinion that too much is expected of teachers as per the OP.

I had a mixed year class of 39 or 40 children in the 1990s with no TA. Now all the classes where I work have 29 or 30 children and have a TA at least in the morning in KS2 and all day in KS1 along with various support assistants.
We have a SENDCo and mentor who deals with social problems and works with children and families. Things are far better than they were up to 2010.

adaunas

MaizieD

^ There was no army of teaching assistants to help us, and large classes were normal.^

There is no 'army of teaching assistants' in schools any more, Riggie. The number of TAs was greatly increased under Labour from 1997, but since 2010 the tory's austerity measures meant cuts to school budgets and TAs have gradually disappeared. Along with a number of the support services which schools tried to offer.

I am firmly of the opinion that too much is expected of teachers as per the OP.

I had a mixed year class of 39 or 40 children in the 1990s with no TA. Now all the classes where I work have 29 or 30 children and have a TA at least in the morning in KS2 and all day in KS1 along with various support assistants.
We have a SENDCo and mentor who deals with social problems and works with children and families. Things are far better than they were up to 2010.

I think you re mixing things up a bit. In the 1990s schools wre in dire straits thanks to Thatcher and the Tories. Buildings were literally faling to bits and class sizes were huge. One of the best things the Blair governement did was invest heavily in education (although the PFI buildings are questionable they were better than the leaking and uninhabitable classrooms they replaced). Class numbers were limited and classroom assistants increased. Things were in fact getting better. I was still teaching then and I saw the money poured in to support students. Unfortunately that all came to a stop with the Tories returning power. In an effort to break the ties with local authorities schools became responsible for what had always been the LEA's responsibility. The resulting shortage of money reduced support staff numbers, meant experienced teachers lost out to cheaper junior colleagues and generally reduced provision in schools. Easiest of all to get rid of were the support staff.
I suspect your school is an Academy, they were given more funding for the same political reasons. I know you are not typical.

Sorry Trisher, my school is a local county primary, not an academy. It is in a mid-range area, not affluent but not seriously deprived.
Our TA numbers have increased since 2012 and employing a learning mentor, although an additional expense has been really worthwhile. This is true of all the primary schools in the area, though one does receive extra funding for deprivation.

adaunas

Sorry Trisher, my school is a local county primary, not an academy. It is in a mid-range area, not affluent but not seriously deprived.
Our TA numbers have increased since 2012 and employing a learning mentor, although an additional expense has been really worthwhile. This is true of all the primary schools in the area, though one does receive extra funding for deprivation.

So how has your school funded these things adaunas . I can only think of a few ways- lots of NQTs or young teachers who cost less. Lack of cleaning/caretaking staff.
Of course you may just be in a Tory run area where funding hasn't been cut as much. In my area most of the Primary schools are suffering serious cuts to their funding totalling over £200 per pupil per annum. How can they afford TAs on that?

Theres more info about cuts here schoolcuts.org.uk

Never asked about how we fund it trisher, though we are warned that we should not be profligate in our use of resources because of budget cuts.
The staffing could be split into 3 almost equal parts:
Less than 5 year’s experience. (The latest NQT will be RQT by the end of this year.)
6-15 years experience and more than 15 years.
We have enough welfare and cleaning staff and a site supervisor.
Our area is a Labour council and our MP is Labour.
Perhaps I should congratulate the governors on managing our budget.
If you’re saying that under a Tory run council we would have suffered fewer cuts, I wonder if we are being short-changed.

That's still quite a few younger staff adaunas which helps. If you are interested look at the schoolcuts site and see if you have lost money

Ignoring funding and TAs, the Faculty of Dental Surgery has urged schools to supervise tooth-brushing lessons among children, because, guess what, parents haven't been doing it during the pandemic.

Thanks for the link. I’ll have a look.
I suspect no staff division would have been acceptable for your point. Most of our teachers are on UPS 2 some on UPS3 or leadership pay scale and most of the newer, I won’t say younger because it’s not true are at M6. TA age/experience tends to be higher.
I’m still interested to know if we would be getting more if we were under a Tory council.

eazybee

Ignoring funding and TAs, the Faculty of Dental Surgery has urged schools to supervise tooth-brushing lessons among children, because, guess what, parents haven't been doing it during the pandemic.

adaunas www.tes.com/news/agnew-accused-funding-tory-areas-expense-poor

Sorryeasybee I didn't need to quote that, don't know why it happened.

Well I’ve looked at the links and it doesn’t reflect my school so I’ll definitely be sending a compliment about budget management to the governing body, via the Head.
I don’t know about the secondary school provision.

3 years ago I was made redundant so decided to fulfil a lifelong passion and do a PGCE to become an English teacher. I lasted 8 months.

It wasn't because of OP's issues, I'm fully on board with all of the pastoral requirements. It's the curriculum. From aged 11 onwards each lesson is structured to show how to write in a specific way to pass the GCSE. None of it engendered a passion for literature or the wonders of words, just rote comprehension and structured requirements.

I think if I was a 12 year old now, I'd be on my phone every evening and not trying to read a novel under the bedclothes. There's no passion for reading when you're being taught to read even great literature in a specific, mind numbing way.

Well exactly. It’s things like “imposed” curricula which take the joy out of teaching.
Such a shame. I loved teaching, being in the classroom with young people, helping them, learning from them as well. I especially enjoyed when I could teach in my own way without someone coming along to tell me my lesson fell short of “outstanding” because I didn’t include this or that latest buzz word technique! E.g. I didn’t “demonstrate progress” every five minutes.

So how can teachers these days be good at their job if they don't enjoy it? I listened to a lifeboat coxswain on the radio the other day and he said his crew were only great at their sea rescues because they enjoyed them.

I'm guessing all teachers love the children, but are very disillusioned with the actual work involved.
I know the mention of private schools ruffles feathers on here but I am grateful that teachers there can be so much more free and innovative in their teaching. They can be flexible that if a particular lesson isn't going well you ditch it and spontaneously come up with something different. I agree with Lucca that too much rigidity and too many imposed techniques do not bring about the best results, nor make the best teachers.

What a loss you were to the profession Stilton but I can understand how you must have felt.

There a lot of time and money wasted on assessing teachers. Obviously we should be accountable, but casually, spontaneously.
I always thought they could save a lot of time by asking the students ! They always knew who was a good teacher Even if said teacher was strict etc