An academy is to lose 17 members of staff because of cuts in Government funding.OMG!
Headteacher Jenny Davies said the cuts would hit the children at a vulnerable point in their lives. She said: “It is quite dismal. I understand the national perspective, but these children will not be six, seven, eight or nine again and this could affect their education.”*insert rending of garments, weeping, wailing etc here*
Mrs Davies said a host of initiatives directly funded by the Labour government have now been ended.Yes, love. They lost, remember?
Still, since the latest incumbents on the Westminster gravy train haven’t exactly covered themselves in glory, what’s the result of these cuts likely to be? I mean, you might actually have a valid issues with…
Oh. Oh, my…
She said: “We have not gone down the route of making redundancies at the moment, but we have had to decide not to renew short term contracts.”
Mrs Davies said the staff affected were on a year-long contract to help provide certain schemes, for example help provide regular outdoor learning sessions where classes are taken at the beach – this will now be scaled back – and after school clubs for karate, kickboxing and dancing have been stopped.So, let me get this straight.
She said a behaviour improvement project at the school, which helped pupils with behaviour issues and aimed to keep them in class, will have to stop.
As a result of these savage, all-encompassing cuts, that will imperil the futures of the lickle kiddiewinks, there will be no more lessons at the beach, no more out-of-school activities and disruptive pupils will no longer be retained in class to disrupt the education of the others?
Fantastic! This is clearly a win/win!
More please, faster!
I went to 6th Form college here in the UK in the 80's...until I had to leave due to alcoholic induced liver dysfunctions & an embarrassing little STD...
ReplyDeleteAnyways thing is that means I was at college with the present crop of teachers.
Back then you had to apply to seats of higher learning and teacher training colleges. You applied and they sent you an 'offer' ie get such and such a grade and you can have a place on our course.
Fair enough, that was back in the Unenlightened times when you actually had to have some qualifications and pass exams.
Sooo if you wanted to go to, say, Canterbury Uni then you'd need 3 A's at A level and one of those had better be in English 'lang'!
Everyone of my circle of friends who applied to a Teacher Training College was sent offers of or similar to '2 E Grades'...ie two failures at A level....I even knew one guy who was told he could have a place even if he didn't bother taking his A' Levels!
I kid you not.
Does anyone still wonder why teaching is in the state it is in?
Nope, thought not.
The sooner that these educated idiots are dragged, kicking & screaming into the real world which the rest of us inhabit, the better ..
ReplyDeleteSomeone needs to explain (obviously in very simple terms, because the likes of Headteacher Jenny Davies are simple-minded people) that Karate, Kick-boxing, Break-dancing, Limbo-dancing etc are not part of the National Curriculum .. and if parents wish their offspring to participate, then they should be prepared to pay for that ..
As for the kiddywinks who indulge in what appears to be Teacher-approved "tantrum-throwing" sessions .. give me an hour or two with them .. I guarantee to have them pleading to be allowed to behave properly ..
"pupils with behaviour issues"
ReplyDeleteYes, I have taught -- admittedly at a college -- and seen some of these issues close up. Badly behaved, illiterate and uninterested (and for that matter, uninteresting) kids lolling around.
Try to engage them in what they might have read or seen or even what their plans are and you get a predictable response: they have seen nothing, done nothing and aim for nothing.
But the funny thing is, despite a college wide ban on mobile phones in the classroom, they spend a lot of time texting each other (often the person sat next to them) though exchanging f-all information. They know all about the latest games and music but have no idea how it's produced.
If you have to teach them you do it through gritted teeth: you can't tell them honestly that they are likely to turn out to be a waste of oxygen. You are required to be positive and helpful and not critical. But believe me, there are some I could cheerfully but merely intellectually tear to shreds.
The demand of educashun is merely to get them through it all without loss of blood so they can lurch towards the dole. As one of my colleagues put it: we set them up to fail.
But the thing is they set themselves up to fail. They might expect a minimum of a 20 thousand a year job 'designing games' but have no idea how to go about it. The state will provide, as it has for some of their parents.
All the teacher's fault? Perhaps... But I think more it is that we are not allowed to be honest and weed out the failures to make more room for those who want to succeed. Not all of them are hopeless but the system we have has to safeguard the useless at the cost of the capable.
Rant over. Carry on.
"All the teacher's fault? Perhaps... But I think more it is that we are not allowed to be honest and weed out the failures "
ReplyDeleteThere was a time when teaching was a vocation NOT a vacation! Or as my old Headmaster was wont to say 'there are no failed pupils just crap teachers' (Old Headmaster was Welsh and from a time when teachers spoke bluntly and 'insensitively' at times...not having had the benefits of modern Teacher Training).
SBC: I think you misunderstand my point here. A vocation indeed for many and trust me, when a kid goes eyeball-to-eyeball with you it really doesn't seem like much of a vacation. They are usually stronger and fitter and a damn sight more aggressive than you.
ReplyDeleteBut like a lot of people who have never taught you exhibit the usual ability to make statements as if you "know," as if somehow teachers are less capable than they were.
Let me reiterate so you understand: irrespective of the hours many teachers put in and the insults and laziness they encounter, the system the nation has developed rewards failure at the expense of the able and willing. Mediocrity has to be forgiven, passes have to be gained at any cost. The standards slide lower and lower and the pressure grows on those at the chalk face to 'achieve targets' and be seen to be fair and open.
At the college I taught at there were lectures from above to staff about the need for the students to achieve but never anything from them to the students about achieving.
Case in point: mobile phones. If I tried to take a phone off a student, even right in front of the sign that said "no mobile phones" it was me that would be in the wrong. I have to 'enforce rules' without any remote possibility of the college backing me up. I knew a teacher who was assaulted in class but she was in the wrong for "saying something out of turn" to the kid. The college was fine that the brat was allowed to continue.
The system we have has it wrong, but until you have taught and seen what it is like, you really don't know. It's no good looking at the past through rose coloured glasses and dreaming of a 'golden age.' Kids are awful but the distractions today are huge. I have no idea if this school in the original piece has it right, but I will bet there are teachers there who hate the fact that the emphasis goes on the non-learners, the stupid and the anti-social.
"the system the nation has developed rewards failure at the expense of the able and willing. "
ReplyDeleteI agree entirely, excepting the fact you express it too mildly. I've said elsewhere that pretty much my entire family were teachers of some ilk or t'other so I'm aware of the frustrations, targets, policies and sometimes sheer lunacy of it.
[For example in a Nat.Circ. Science Guidance For Teachers document: "Children should get 'hands on' experience of.... radioactive materials"]
There was no Golden Age of teaching, the pre National Circ. era had it's dark sides too.
But it's the teacher's fault for cow towing to Blair et al. True professionals would have simply refused to teach something they knew to be wrong or that would 'damage' their pupil's education.
Every teacher I have ever met thought that the Nat. Circ was a good idea in principle until they saw what it would actually involve teaching or not teaching to be more precise but they taught it anyway. They failed their pupils.
"I even knew one guy who was told he could have a place even if he didn't bother taking his A' Levels!"
ReplyDelete/facepalm
"Someone needs to explain (obviously in very simple terms, because the likes of Headteacher Jenny Davies are simple-minded people) that Karate, Kick-boxing, Break-dancing, Limbo-dancing etc are not part of the National Curriculum..."
But so much easier than trying to teach the hard stuff..
" As one of my colleagues put it: we set them up to fail.
But the thing is they set themselves up to fail."
With the help of their parent/parents?
"Every teacher I have ever met thought that the Nat. Circ was a good idea in principle until they saw what it would actually involve teaching or not teaching to be more precise but they taught it anyway. They failed their pupils."
Funnily enough, Mary Dejevsky had a column in the 'Indy' yesterday on the decline of status of teachers. If I get a chance, I might blog it.