Sunak V Starmer

Me too Dingleberry

Looking back 40+ years, I was in a class of 40 with a single teacher, bad behavior in class was unknown, there was some bullying in break times but prefects and staff kept that under control. We all respected the teachers, today many pupils and parents don’t respect teachers or any other authority.

Mollygo

LizzieDrip

Add into that, disruptive behaviour which makes T&L even more difficult

MollyGo I’m not denying that but, arguably, there’s a link between the ‘disruptive behaviour’ and children’s needs not being met! I’m sure you know the concept of hierarchy of needs, and the emotional context of learning.

Yes I’m aware of all that. It’s easy to say and easy to tell others to put into practice.
How would you assess the needs of each child, then meet all the differing needs of a class of 30 children? Or, if you aren’t a teacher, do you think you’d do it.
And how would you construct a curriculum with continuity, and progression in the development of skills and learning for each child’s hierarchy of needs?

It isn't necessary to construct a curriculum simply to adapt the present curriculum to the needs of children. So the idea that by a certain age children will have certain abilities is dropped and the concept that learning needs to be appropriate to the child's progress is adopted. Some children will spend much longer on basic skills, but if these are properly established then the child will be less likely to abandon learning in favour of disruptive behaviour.
Smaller classes, more teachers and more support staff would be necessary to enable this.

I thought Sunak talked over others less than in previous interviews but was so fed up of hearing about the £2000. Likewise Starmer couldn't stop mentioning his CPs service.
Not an enlightening debate especially after listening to the various fact checkers on different news progs afterwards. Sunak looked confident ( why?) and Starmer looked caught in the headlights so imo a slender victory for Sunak.

The way Starmer is behaving l wouldn’t trust him with my shopping list let alone the Country.
Giving votes to 16 year olds ?
My granddaughter is 16 and she can’t decided what she wants to eat let alone vote.
He needs to get his Act together and start by getting rid of
Angela Rayner, how can you expect her to represent the Country with dreadful language she uses,
I have always voted Labour unfortunately I’m having secon thoughs.

I didn't bother to watch as my mind is made up that we need a change, not more of the same. Just undecided who to vote for, Labour or LibDems? Rishi cannot say anything to convince me about the deterioration of the country over the past 14 years. He was part of the San e government. Blaming the pandemic won't help either. We had 10 years of austerity. Where is the money? Lots were wasted on HS2, money to help businesses not paid back and failed PPE equipment.

Mollygo I won’t go in to the length of time I’ve spent teaching e.g. putting it in practice … but it’s a long time.

polly123

As a retired teacher I can confirm that disruptive behaviour of children with little or no support, is a major factor in causing an exodus of the teaching profession. That together with difficult and unreasonable parents make teaching a real challenge. One or more challenging pupils can distract other children who want to learn and create an atmosphere of tension as well as waste immeasurable amounts of teaching time. There are always 'behaviour management' strategies in place but without support, they are useless.

Will more classroom assistants help with this or supervised spaces in schools where pupils can be sent to?

Whatever the Party political arguments who did what when

- its time to reduce the SATS and give teachers more control over setting a curriculum to become more child centred dare I say it more fun especially younger pupils, reduce the forced SATS coaching and forcing teacher paperwork.

and above all fund schools more adequately.

As a retired teacher I can confirm that disruptive behaviour of children with little or no support, is a major factor in causing an exodus of the teaching profession. That together with difficult and unreasonable parents make teaching a real challenge. One or more challenging pupils can distract other children who want to learn and create an atmosphere of tension as well as waste immeasurable amounts of teaching time. There are always 'behaviour management' strategies in place but without support, they are useless.

LizzieDrip

^Add into that, disruptive behaviour which makes T&L even more difficult^

MollyGo I’m not denying that but, arguably, there’s a link between the ‘disruptive behaviour’ and children’s needs not being met! I’m sure you know the concept of hierarchy of needs, and the emotional context of learning.

Yes I’m aware of all that. It’s easy to say and easy to tell others to put into practice.
How would you assess the needs of each child, then meet all the differing needs of a class of 30 children? Or, if you aren’t a teacher, do you think you’d do it.
And how would you construct a curriculum with continuity, and progression in the development of skills and learning for each child’s hierarchy of needs?

Starmer didn't answer one question. He just replied by criticising the govt. we leant absolutely nothing about what his policies will be or where the money will come from. I am genuinely fearful that the country is doomed with him and the awful Angela in charge.

Be careful what you wish for Labour voters.

I’ve no confidence in either of them to be honest. I think they’re both liars and hypocrites. Yuck 🤮

LizzieDrip

Yes Joseann the introduction of SATs for Primary children caused un-told harm to many children … in state schools!

I'm surprised that SATS weren't slung out of the window by the government at this time, as in Wales, when the damage was evident. Yes, the Conservatives messed up by introducing them, but Labour should have been brave enough to ditch them instead of constantly increasing the pass rate targets. (That's the beauty of an independent school where teachers can pick and chose only the best bits.) Wasn't there a Labour MP, Estelle Morris, who resigned because the SATS were flawed?
Time for a big rethink, .. if anyone dares.

Sunak proved yesterday that he puts party before country - shame on him.

Add into that, disruptive behaviour which makes T&L even more difficult

MollyGo I’m not denying that but, arguably, there’s a link between the ‘disruptive behaviour’ and children’s needs not being met! I’m sure you know the concept of hierarchy of needs, and the emotional context of learning.

No - watched sewing Bee - can’t bare the lies, personal attacks! Sunak said he had ‘honesty? Integrity & I can’t remember the third’ all lies

Yes Joseann the introduction of SATs for Primary children caused un-told harm to many children … in state schools!

No, oseann, it was Thatcher's government that put the initial pressure on. They introduced SATs and League tables and a massive National Curriculum. My DD took Y9 SATs in 1994 (thankfully now abolished), and the pressure was well on then...

Blunkett had no understanding of Education. I think he was trying to copy the apparently successful imposition of targets in the NHS. Which of course didn't work the same way.

Yes MaizieD the rot started with Thatcher. When Gove was Minister for Education he completely reformed the education system, building on Thatcher’s work. He entrenched the testing regime - but ‘weighing the pig’ never makes it fatter!

Among many, many changes he re-introduced terminal exams at GCSE. This type of assessment focuses on memorising facts rather than actually understanding them. Yes, it’s probably how we were examined, but the understanding of learning and assessment has moved on since then.

Gove rejected the voices of many educationalists protesting against such rigid, narrow assessment. One size does not fit all - particularly neurodivergent youngsters.

I would argue that this, in part, has led to the disengagement of many teenagers and therefore to the some of the behaviour experienced in classrooms today. It has also led to those with SEN not having their needs adequately met. Not to mention the stress for teachers who are constantly trying to fit square pegs into round holes.

Teaching has been made more difficult in the early years by more children arriving without sufficient language and social skills. Frequently this is accompanied by poor behaviour and lack of parental support for strategies you use to try and improve behaviour.

Disruptive behaviour continues up the school and creates a barrier to their own and to other children’s learning. By the time they get to KS3 disruptive behaviour is ingrained in some children and it’s not always the children with EBD who cause the problems.

Additional TA support, whilst essential, adds another layer of responsibility to the teacher’s workload. Planning for the TA, especially those new to the job, ensuring they know what the child is expected to achieve and that the TA can provide feedback on what the child has managed/ been doing all takes extra time. How will that be provided?

The National curriculum-which was a nightmare initially, was to ensure progress of skills as well as learning and in some schools that was not happening.

I’ve read posters on here saying tables or spelling weren’t considered important at my child’s school, so while I really dislike league tables, was there possibly a need for testing to ensure all children were being offered the same opportunities?

I agree that knowing about a clerihew is not vital or that all the technical phrases e.g. to describe sentence starters are overwhelming, a lot of the grammar needs introducing. Funny that nobody complains about learning all the names for tenses when they learn French.

Phrases like
teach to the needs of the pupils rather the requirements of a politically enforced curriculum make me laugh.
Providing differentiated activities for 30 children in a mixed class, with increasing numbers of different needs is difficult enough. Add into that, disruptive behaviour which makes T&L even more difficult.
Then that above phrase implies you want teachers to add the need to invent their own curriculum which provides continuity and progression for each child’s needs in developing skills and knowledge. This would also involve the whole school teaching staff to ensure that subject matter is not repeated in class after class, outwith English and Maths where some repetition is vital.

I’ll be interested to see what the next government decides to do.

MaizieD

^Currently, teachers are bound by inappropriate testing, target setting and league tables - pitting school against school.^

You can hardly blame Gove for that. It goes way back to the Thatcher era.

Didn't much of that start to go horribly wrong when David Blunkett kept setting unrealistic, unachievable targets in SATS ? Pupils were put under enormous pressure to succeed, schools only cared about the levels they scored in the tests in order to improve their league table positions. That was when I believe teaching became distorted, like teaching monkeys to do tricks, (to use --a not deliberately unkind animal analogy--).
I'm sure someone will correct me if I am wrong, thankfully we didn't have to bother with SATS in the independent (phew!), but this wasn't this around 2000 onwards under a Labour government? I think the minister in charge was Stephen Clarke? Authors like Michael Rosen refused to support the English papers. I remember speaking with Devon author Michael Murpugo who refused to have passages from his books in the papers because English standards in the selected passages were slipping so badly in order to massage the 85% pass rate results.

Currently, teachers are bound by inappropriate testing, target setting and league tables - pitting school against school.

You can hardly blame Gove for that. It goes way back to the Thatcher era.

LizzieDrip

Regarding retention of teachers, I agree with posters on here who have family experience of the profession. Teaching is a difficult job, and has been made almost intolerable by consecutive Conservative governments. Michael Gove alone set classroom practice back 50 years!

Few teachers cite ‘classroom discipline’ as a reason for leaving the profession. They become teachers because they want to make a difference for children, and they understand the challenges that many children face. If teachers were allowed to teach to the needs of the pupils rather the requirements of a politically enforced curriculum I believe things could change.

Currently, teachers are bound by inappropriate testing, target setting and league tables - pitting school against school. All this leads to too much teaching and not enough learning which, in turn, leads to disaffected young people. I could go on & on but I’m sure you’d rather I didn’t!

I will never ‘write off’ swathes of children by likening them to animals when, in reality, it’s the system from the top that is failing them. We are the adults!

I agree so much.

If teachers were allowed to teach to the needs of the pupils rather the requirements of a politically enforced curriculum I believe things could change

Currently, teachers are bound by inappropriate testing, target setting and league tables - pitting school against school.

All this leads to too much teaching and not enough learning which, in turn, leads to disaffected young people. I could go on & on but I’m sure you’d rather I didn’t!"

rather than missed out than! One day I’ll write a post with no omissions