Justine Greening/ Continuity Gove

[Tubby Isaacs]

You get blase about bad news in Education, don't you?

Then again the much praised Harris Federation managed to lose 66 teachers from just 2 schools in South London a couple of years ago, so I suppose we're only trying to run the whole system like them.

[Bored Of Education]

Not blase but tired. There genuinely doesn't seem to be anyone that is doing anything to reverse this perpetual decline. The thing is that the newer teachers have now been brought up completely in the system so don't know anything else.

[Flynnie]

Not blase but tired. There genuinely doesn't seem to be anyone that is doing anything to reverse this perpetual decline. The thing is that the newer teachers have now been brought up completely in the system so don't know anything else.

Why bother ramming your head against a wall? Might as well bide your time and wait for a Labour Government. My wife's an FE teacher and that's basically the feeling among the rank-and-file.

[Tubby Isaacs]

About the only positive thing I can think of is Sheriff Mike Wilshaw having disappeared, and been replaced by somebody who doesn't piss about in the media all the time.

[Bored Of Education]

Why bother ramming your head against a wall? Might as well bide your time and wait for a Labour Government. My wife's an FE teacher and that's basically the feeling among the rank-and-file.

Because that didn't work last time. I suppose we are nearer to getting an actual Labour Government this time. Also, it's not so much me but the kids that are getting let down. I mean that Wakefield thing is a fucking disaster.

[Tubby Isaacs]

The sound of tanks being withdrawn from "Labour's lawn".

The Times report that private schools who don't do much for state schools are keeping their charitable status.

In other news, how do you get kids to do better at GCSE? You make them start the course a year early and drop other subjects a year early.

Rosemary BennettVerified account
@RosieDBennett
GCSEs becoming 3 year course with loss of crucial subjects for 13 yr olds warns @amanda_spielman @Ofstednews

I'm glad Rosie Bennett (Times Edu Editor) tweeted about it. Amanda Spielman (Chief Inspector of Schools) didn't.

[Antepli Ejderha]

The 3 year GCSE has been going on at my school for the years I've been there and its really common. Many kids are now taking only 9 subjects for GCSE, the 8 needed for progress 8 and an insurance. In Year 11 they often drop the worst one. It's a game of data with kids being treated as pieces of data on a spreadsheet and no thought given for their future. It's horrendous.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Crikey.

I shouldn't be surprised, I suppose. It's a pretty obvious way of gaming results. I can't recall Sheriff Mike making much of it, strangely. Surely one for him? Maybe he was too busy on his brilliant schemes like having neigbours go into the house of kids with poor attendance, to get them up and dressed. Who wouldn't volunteer for that one, eh?

[Antepli Ejderha]

Education is fucked in the UK Tubby if we carry on like this. It's results based only in the vast majority of schools. It's not a profession I'd recommend anyone to go into currently.

[Bored Of Education]

A lack of supply work has got my education dander up. It's almost like being a teacher is so busy that it stops you looking at the wider world of education....wait a minute. Actually, it is more my wider world specifically.

Firstly, I have fallen foul of this little scam and told the company that they have to pay back the apprentice levy and stop deducting it in the future or I am leaving the company immediately.

Secondly, I sent this to the NEU (the NUT plus the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, not the Krautrock band).

I wonder if you can help with a quite complicated but possibly not unique situation? I have been a supply teacher for 4 years. I am also an NQT. Last year, I tried to complete my last term of NQT three different times on long-term cover. I couldn't complete all three times as I just found the stress was too much - especially as I ended up doing the same work-load as full-time reachers. I have a mental health condition - generalised anxiety disorder (panic attacks) - which is managed by medication so I don't have attacks but I have to watch my stress levels.
I really don't think that I can do long-term supply cover any more but day-to-day supply is fine. I have no intention of getting a full-time job due to stress but carrying on with supply in the long term. However, at the end of this year, I will be coming to the end of my 5 year NQT period from qualification which means that I can't do supply after. Is it possible to apply to have my period of NQT extended due to mental health reasons asI am just going to be doing supply?

and got this rather insipid reply

We are sorry to hear of the difficulties you are having.

We have to refer you to the DfE document governing Induction (attached) and specifically the extract below to say that unfortunately there is no discretion to extend the 5 year limit on short term supply contracts after achieving QTS.

Eligibility to carry out short-term (less than one term) supply teaching
2.13 A qualified teacher who gained QTS on or after 1 September 2007 and who has not completed an induction period, can undertake short-term supply work of less than one term in a relevant school for a maximum period of 5 years from the point of award of QTS. This is a fixed time limit with no discretion to extend.

1.7 There is no legal requirement to satisfactorily complete an induction period if an NQT intends to work solely in the independent sector, an academy, a free school, a BSO, an independent nursery school or an FE institution. However, it may be possible for an NQT to serve a statutory induction period in such settings as set out in this guidance.

We would therefore advise that if you wish to continue short term supply contracts, you should be able to do so in the institutions named above.

As I said to them, I am a bit disappointed that my union is accepting rather than challenging such a policy that could be seen as discriminatory towards those with mental health issues and that sets such an arbitrary maximum period. I was hoping for some support in, at least, looking at the possibility of appealing against this policy. I have found that, in the past, the NUT hasn't exactly been the most supportive of supply teachers. It's almost like they aren't bothered unless we are full-time.

By the way, have I ever posted up my ranting and moaning into the ether dressed up as a blog?

[E10 Rifle]

The union should at least outline its own policy position on that sort of thing, and its campaigning plans, even if they're unable to force anything.

My daughter's class needs a supply teacher after half-term as it goes, as their regular teacher goes on maternity leave, and they still haven't made an appointment.

[Bored Of Education]

Sorry, you mean their policy as far as the first or the second?

How long is her maternity leave?

[E10 Rifle]

I dunno, just some sort of indication that they believed in fighting for members who had circumstances like yours, even if the guidelines and rules were against them.

Maternity leave's until next summer, I think.

[Bored Of Education]

They should be able to get a 'proper' teacher on a fixed term contract.

I will go back to them about that but have since received this -

we are not able to challenge this as it is not a policy but a statutory regulation.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Sorry to hear this, Bored.

As a tangent, I used to be in the ATL, when I was a part-time Latin teacher at a private school. It's surprising to think of them and the NUT merging, but good, I think.

[E10 Rifle]

ATL had shifted to a more conventional trade-union stance under Mary Bowsted, having been a slightly eccentric posh-teachers federation for a long time (a mate of mine works for them and did quite a lot of the heavy lifting around the merger). There should, of course, be only one teaching union, and it's time the NAS/UWT got on board too.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Yeah, 3 unions was silly.

Good work by your mate on this.

[Tubby Isaacs]

I think the NASUWT used to have some private school members, who basically never went on strike.

Where I was, I think there was a decent ATL contingent, though no meetings were ever held. A couple of years before a teacher had been wrongly accused of something extremely nasty, and I think that may have focussed a few minds.

There you go, private school teachers. Unions are for everybody.

[Bored Of Education]

The reason I joined the NUT is they were the bolshiest bastards going. Hence my disappointment with their acquiescence to 'statutory regulation'.

[Tubby Isaacs]

A reasonable call by you.

[NickSTFU]

Sorry to hear about your woes with the NUT BE.

And the RAC group sound like a right bunch of arseholes. Illegal deductions indeed....

Anyway, the mention of the apprenticeship levy has got me in a cold sweat about the new apprenticeship standards, the new (old way) of doing apprenticeships and the lack of support from Awarding Organisations to training providers around End Point Assessment materials, support and independent assessment provision.

I suspect there will be some sort angry blog/article/investigation coming soon. But, not from a practitioner, we're too buy getting our heads around it all.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Liz Truss, seems to be signalling the end of the teachers' pay cap.

https://www.theguardian.com/educatio...e-for-teachers

Which is encouraging, but what's going to pay for it? Investment cuts?

Well might they wish they had some of that Gove-era overspent cash back.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Is that a first sighting of the new merged teacher union in there?

[Tubby Isaacs]

This on the other hand isn't very encouraging.

The pay news comes as Justine Greening, the education secretary, prepares to tell the Conservatives in Manchester that she wants to go ahead with a manifesto pledge to open teacher training to apprenticeships.

In her speech to the conference on Sunday, Greening will indicate she wants a new route into teaching via high quality degree apprenticeships, which would allow school-leavers to train and study while getting paid.

The "flagship" academies and free schools like to see prestigious universities, I expect. If these trainees wind up at places that can't get anybody else, it's not going to do the scheme any favours.

What is it with Tories and teachers? Why do they have to announce some "anybody can do it" dogwhistle at ever conference? Simon Jenkins, of all people, nailed this years ago. Just accept that our teachers are likely the best ones we're going to get, and move on.

[Tubby Isaacs]

The great thing about free schools is that they don't have dogmatic bureaucrats telling them what to do.

https://schoolsweek.co.uk/uks-bigges...lity-teaching/

UK’s biggest free school bans mixed ability teaching

“All the schools in our trust operate the same way. We find it works best in terms of stretching students, or giving them extra attention. There’s lots of moving between the bands, no one is stuck in one place,” said Partnership Learning’s CEO Roger Leighton.

“From year 3 it’s helpful, particularly to those who need more help. They are taught in smaller groups where they can be supported properly and given the extra focus they need.”

He added: “If you go into any year 3 class and pick any child and ask them to arrange their class in order of ability, you will find that they know. Even at that age, they know who finishes work first and who needs extra help.

“The idea this is a mystery to children isn’t correct. You aren’t doing them a service by pretending it’s a secret. By acting like that, you are doing them a disservice. Teaching them separately allows us to help them achieve the best they can.”

At my "trendy-leftist-school-out-of-If-cricket-with-Jack-Davenport" alma mater, we did History in a mixed ability class. It worked well enough, from memory.