Schools

Our granddaughter is absolutely devastated! Due to sit A levels, Geography, History and Politics, and has absolutely worked her socks off!
Although her parents and us try to tell her , it will all sort, she feels cheated in a way as she really wanted to sit her exams!!
No doubt , in the future, she will look back on this horrendous year and then it will all be in perspective .
I really feel for all of the truly committed students.

Grandad

How would you feel about teachers if one of your children took up the profession?

How would you feel if your grandchildren became teachers?

Would you be proud of them?

Or ashamed?

What does that make you?

Iam64 many employees in various trade sectors and industries have jobs that encompass working early mornings, evenings, nights and weekends. However, in those industries and trade sectors no one hears them constantly whinging and whining about their lot.

My teaching was the most difficult work I ever did. I put in nearly as many hours at home (unpaid) as I did at work.

Lesson preparation, marking, course design and exam preparation notes don't magically appear from thin air!

The only opinions of teachers that I'd find valid (or take any notice of) would be from fellow teachers. All my other jobs were a real doddle by comparison!

No idea what your point is, Grandad

Practise and district Nurses being willingly "requisitioned" into hospitals for the duration of this unprecedented crisis symbolises the true spirit of Britains NHS and other essential services and industries at this time.

Just wonderful, and puts the actions or non-actions of other professions very much to shame in this crisis.

Young teachers pay for 'the years of expensive training'. They leave university with large debts to work very hard in a job that demands real skill, dedication and commitment. It's true that some leave after about five years. It isn't that they aren't 'prepared to stick at the job', it's that the work extends into every evening and every weekend. My experience is of teachers leaving home at 7am, arriving home by 6pm, then working 3 or 4 hours most evenings and a day at the weekend. They work during holidays.
As well as teaching, they're increasingly doing social work with children and their families. Vulnerable parents who once had Sure Start are asking the class teacher or the Senco for advice on behaviour management.
Reading some of the comments here, no wonder teachers don't feel valued, and leave their profession. They go into the private sector, they set up their own businesses. Imagine that, giving up what many here seem to see as easy work for massive gains to risk working independently or in the private sector.

My word

My daughter's a teacher

She works very hard

It's disheartening to say the least to read some of these comments

Trisher made an interesting point that many young teachers are walking away from the job after a couple of years because they don't feel valued. I thought teaching was meant to be a vocation, so why aren't they prepared to stick at the job after the years of expensive training? Maybe they want all the goods bit from a career in teaching and don't realise how privileged they really are.
My hope is that the coming weeks bring out the best in the really committed teachers and that the lazy ones are weeded out.

BoBo53, in regard to your post @21:04 today, our youngest daughter was an RGN (I think that's the grade term) in an intensive care ward. Due to staff shortages etc, she left that hospital to become a practice nurse within a large GP practice here in North Somerset.

At a Covid-19 practice strategy meeting held this week at one of the surgeries, all the practise nurses were informed that at "stage two" of the outbreak they would be transferred into local hospitals to support the situation they will find in those hospitals.

Apparently, if they can be recruited retired nurses will replace them at the GP surgeries.

I found the above quite chilling when our daughter was telling us.

GS and GD are having work set for them to do over the shut down.

GD will have course work which will count towards her GCSEs that she was due to take from next week ( Art and Textiles , earlier than the other exams) I assume that her mock exam results will also count towards her grades, but the teachers haven’t been told yet.
I’m not sure yet how the course work will be marked, their internet connection is bad at the best of times.

Started reading this thread but haven’t got the time to read 12 pages of comments unfortunately. Of the few pages I have read, I’ve got the drift - same old, same old - teachers are next to God in terms of saintliness etc. Whilst I know there are some amazing teachers out there, my job brings me into contact daily with schools and teaching staff. More importantly. I see reported absence levels and, let me tell you, they are unbelievably, ridiculously, high. Teachers can, and do, take time off for the most mundane and trivial reasons, sometimes (often!) for extended periods - and this all before the current crisis. In my opinion, it’s a career choice that attracts a LOT of snowflakes! And please don’t start on about stress ... everyone has stress in their working life ....

Grandad1943 the surest way to lose a debate is to keep posting information which has been proved to be inaccurate and insisting it is true.
By the way there are two reasons teachers will not be giving the usual lessons to the children in schools. Firstly there would be a huge outcry from the parents about these children being specially educated and secondly the disadvantaged children being required to go into school won't go unless there is something to attract them.

Well posted trisher
I’m impressed by your understanding of our valuable teachers situation. Difficult times ahead for us all. It’s always easy to vilify others when you don’t have full knowledge of the circumstances. Teachers responsibility is to be educators first and foremost.
?

We shouldn’t be pitting one group of workers against another. Maybe all those laid of from hospitality and travel industries could be requisitioned to do essential work in food distribution or whatever - has anyone suggested that? Obviously no one is going to convince those who think teachers are always skiving, or that teaching is a complete doddle, that it actually is a full on job with 30 or so teenagers to face several times a day, plus all the prep and admin that creates. Teachers will be in the frontline in determining the grades of the children not sitting exams, who else will be doing it? With the advice on self isolation it became increasingly impossible to keep schools open and ensure the safety of staff and children. My own teacher relative has volunteered to go into school to help with key workers children and those on free school meals - she has been told this will run into the Easter holidays. She is prepared for that.

Meta, I understand that special needs children will be in the groups that will be allowed to attend schools that remain open while this crisis continues.

I stand to be corrected if you are aware that the above is not the case.

magshard20 we live opposite a primary school, I love hearing the children.

At the school I work in, all children have work set for them by the teacher using Google Classroom. Teachers will mark and comment on the work the children do, so not a holiday for the teachers.

Just gone online to check the situation regarding key workers as our two grandsons brought home nearly identical letters stating both parents had to be key workers. My daughter is an senior OT who is to be redeployed to the wards. According to what I read on the Sun page parents have been reassured it is ONE parent and all NHS workers whatever their roles in hospitals.

Grandad1943 I can’t claim to understand all the ins and outs of your personal situation, but as a former special needs teacher I would just like to reiterate the posts of others that teachers will not be having an extra paid holiday. My daughter-in-law is a teacher in a very deprived area- she will be continuing to work hard as she always does, dealing with young people with a high proportion of special needs and poverty. I know how she, and all the other teachers try to go above and beyond, and at what hidden cost. Your posts have made me feel so sad today.

Same old...same old from the usual forum members. Personal insults by the bucketful which demonstrates they are incapable of intelligent debate.

Or is it this happens when they realise they have lost a debate?

Oh dear Grandad1943 did no one ever tell you that when you don't know much it's best to keep quiet and not expose your ignorance? Regardless of what is happening there will be children passing through two crucial periods in their education, the GCSE and A level children and those children will need grades, otherwise the entire system including post18 will be stuck. So with no exams, teachers and Ofqual will be looking at ways to ensure grades are given. Teacher assessment, course work and online assesment may be used no one yet knows. So there you are teachers once again trying to cope, working to do their best for the children they teach. And what do they get for their efforts? People who think they are skiving or having a holiday. No wonder young teachers walk away after a few years in the job. It's simply not worth doing when you are not valued.

Ethel I believe it was stated several times today that all GCSE and A level exams were now cancelled for this year. It was also expressed that other means will be brought forward to decide the grades of the students affected.

It was also stated on local radio and tv tonight that children allowed to attend open schools for various reasons here in the west country will not be receiving any formal education lessons.

So why all the preparation for exams and tuition that will not take place?

grandad teachers are busier than ever at the moment. They are in a terrible situation, and still trying to support the children. They are putting together resources for children to use while they are away and trying hard to make it available. My GC school have given the children a pack of resources and made more available on their Web page and will continue to update them. Teachers in secondary schools will have to work with whatever system the government decide to use to assess for GCSE and A levels. Whatever that is I am sure it will involve a lot of work for teachers.
All this is without mentioning that schools will still be open for children with SEN, children with a social worker and children whose parents are classed as key workers.
Teachers certainly are not going to have a long holiday!

growstuff drivers are classed as essential workers but all those that support them are not at present classed as similar. forty-ton trailers do not assemble and disassemble the freight which is loaded on to them.

Therefore all who work in those operations must be free to attend the distribution centres unrestricted from the needs of child care.

When anyone thinks about the situation, vehicle technicians, fork truck drivers, pickers, traffic handlers and many others are essential workers in support of the truck drivers, and that is just in the haulage and distribution industry.

Many others attached to other essential trade sectors and professions could state likewise.