My fellow teachers are really under it at the moment. There are targets to set, stats to read, data to analyse, results to input, assessments to mark, reviews of assessment procedures to undertake, PLCs to which we must contribute, meetings to attend, twilight training to tackle, Literacy Strategies to put into action, reports to write, and somewhere at the bottom of the pile there is teaching to do as well, which is the (supposed) fun part of the job, and what we chose this job to do. Increasingly, it isn’t fun. Behaviour is poor, mainly because teachers have very little time to spend on producing 25 mentally stimulating lessons every week because they’re so busy doing all the data analysis, setting the targets, writing the reports, inputting the results, assessing the pupils, reviewing the assessment policies, being members of PLCs, attending meetings, taking part in training and implementing Literacy Strategies across the curriculum… have I forgotten anything? Oh, yes, managing the admin for discipline procedures which is necessary to maintain the façade of actually having some jurisdiction in the esteemed institution we call Education – which, let’s face it, seems to have very little to do with education at all these days…
Before I'd even reached half way across the school car park this morning, I'd had two separate conversations with two very disgruntled teachers. Something is not right in the state of Denmark and I think if Hamlet were a teacher, he would come to a very different conclusion about slings and arrows... The Head had better not go hiding behind any curtains, that's all I'm going to say.
No comments:
Post a Comment