Teachers should be prepared to ‘sacrifice their lives’, says ex-Ofsted head

trisher

Wow a senior Ofsted official condemning teachers! Nothing new really, although I think the actual dying might go a bit further than usual-nervous breakdowns being the accepted result. I have a suggestion. Take all the money currently spent on Ofsted and give it to schools.

Quite, trisher. I actually glad I had the excuse of cancer to be off the Ofsted inspection. It was preferable.

Catch up with what? Stupid rote learning of made up grammar (fronted adverbials?) or dated GCSE curricula (curriculums?) - all of which put many kids off education for life. Perhaps the assessments need modification. Universities have adapted their methods of assessment - not sure why it’s so difficult for govt to see the same would be possible in schools.

Many kids are exhausted as well. Any catch ups should be focussed on play, creativity, time outside. The last thing they need is to be cooped up all summer rote learning.

If they were organising a summer of community activities (as they used to here) I’d be well and truly up for that. The council here used to arrange loads of free sessions anyone could sign up to for free - it might be something like working on a magazine, or surfing or football skills, or some sort of mystery to solve, or IT, or sailing, kayaking, or print making, cycling, cooking etc - all aimed at different ages, and abilities, some disability only activities. One of my kids did some dancing together with a dance group - for people with disabilities, they spent a week making a film, my disabled son went surfing which was filmed then spent a morning making music to accompany the film. Middle son spent a week at the local football club doing football skills. The youngest did some diving & climbing .It was brilliant - there was so much choice and all free. We used to look forward to the annual course catalogue. All went because of austerity. That’s the sort of thing kids need to be doing this summer not cramming in classrooms.

The catch up programme, or the National Tutoring Programme as it is known, is providing 3/4 of the cost of 15 hours one-to-one tutoring for children who have fallen behind, due to school closures.

The problem is that whereas all children have had a disrupted education not all of them have fallen behind by the same extent. For this reason, making all children repeat a year is not going to solve the problem.

I absolutely agree with the poster who said children should be allowed time to play and socialise with their friends - this is vital to their well being, so catch -up lessons during the summer holidays are a very bad idea.

I also agree that there is no law of nature that says children should learn to read, for example, by a certain age. But the fact is that the way our education system is organised children are at a big disadvantage if they cannot do what the rest of their year group can. And unless we are going to totally reorganise our education system (plenty of scope for another thread there) it is very important that those who have fallen behind the furthest have a chance to catch up with their peers. Otherwise they will fail throughout their school life.

Incidentally 15 hours is by no means long enough but it is a start.

I've got nothing but praise for my GC schools. There has been some internet problems but the on line schooling seems to be generally working. I don't envy them their first week back with the Covid testing going on, but looks like they have it organised.
My reception aged GS has been with me for this lockdown, but the online teaching didn't work for him. No worries as he is very bright and he has been learning ( sometimes by stealth). School is in regular contact and his little friends can contact him through the system. He just needs the social side of being at school really.
The BBC bitesize has helped, plus the one to one attention of grandparents.
Children are very resilient and I'm sure most will pick up what they missed, but some have been very damaged.

So that is why they were told they were not to wear masks - it was so that they could be sure of catching the virus and becoming martyrs!

Elegran

So that is why they were told they were not to wear masks - it was so that they could be sure of catching the virus and becoming martyrs!

This may be part of a long term plan to rid the country of pesky teacher unions, after all no teachers, no unions!

Nezumi65 Couldn’t agree more!!

DD1 is head of a large ASN dept at a local academy. She has worked right through the pandemic-sometimes in school, sometimes at home, sometimes a combination of both depending on whether schools are open/closed/hub school. Her work load has been horrendous and she has worked until after 9 many evenings. She cannot distance from ASN pupils therefore increasing potential exposure. She has also had to teach her own subject if there are staff shortages. My daughter is a widow with a 14 year old daughter......she should put her life on the line?! DS also teaches, he is a pupil support manager, what used to be called guidance. He swears he’s going to have a t shirt printed with a guinea pig on the front as he believes that is what they have been. There is a lot of anger in the profession.

Disgusting way to treat teachers. In France schools have been open since September. The teachers are given special masks by the schools, two a day. All the children above the age of six have to wear them also, clean one for the morning and another for the afternoon. After the first few days they got used to wearing them. My 5 DGC have no problems. We are also told not to use the homemade ones as the new variants are too virulent