Give teachers a ‘mark from home’ day, says NEU boss Daniel Kebede

I taught secondary school pupils in Scotland. One class of thirty higher pupils meant hours of marking. I always did preparation before school started and was in by seven thirty for a quarter to nine start. Lunch was thirty minutes. Often we were expected to attend welfare meetings during that time for specific pupils. After school I would mark until six. Go home, walk the dog and feed my children then go back to marking until I went to bed. Saturday I did housework and marked most of Sunday.

As others have said, marking after school is only the tip of the iceberg. I have 120/150 books to mark per day. At one school even if we had a lesson that didn't produce marking we still had to take photos of every child and stick it in their books to prove learning had happened. Then there's the meetings, the planning, the assessments, the after school clubs you are made to do and threatened you won't get your pay increment if you don't. And the joy of recent years, SLT who have only taught for a couple of years yet know it all and tell you, you are doing it wrong and demand more paperwork. Then there's the appalling behaviour of children in recent years and their entitled parents. Never have I known a profession treated so badly and shown so little respect by the general public who just tell us we have long holidays and leave at 3.30pm.

I think one or two shorter/half days (maybe late starts on these days) would be a start towards easing the pressure.

Look after your staff better and they will work well without burn-out!

We take them for granted I fear.

I think the "conversation" around this is not new, escaped but maybe the idea resurfaced recently and I just missed it.

I'm a retired teacher and I think it is a debate to be had.
The drop - out rate in teaching is very high, which is such a waste of the individual's time and money, and of the taxpayer's time and money, also.
My children are the product of two teachers, and nieces and nephew of teachers .
None of mine considered it as a career.
One SIL teaches, and a second SIL tried it, but left swiftly .

My daughter-in-law is a teacher.
She keeps up to date but no longer teaches in the state sector.
Now she has some home-life!

I feel for teachers ....there's a lot to fit in....I'm NHS community ....we all flexi work ( start early or finish late) all the full timers compress their hours , so do a 4 day week or 9 day fortnight. Many of the part timers compress as well....and we all work from home at least one day a week....teaching just doesn't lend itself to any of this I guess

I don’t know where this idea came from but it isn’t workable.

Latterly I taught in an independent school, but the pressures were just as great as in the state sector. The bonus was that the pupils were for the most part well behaved and motivated, but some of the parents were incredibly pushy. Expectations were extremely high.
I worked at school until 5.45, went home and cooked tea then worked all evening, sometimes until 11pm. More hours at weekends. Probably at least three weeks in the holidays. As HoD, there were lots of extra responsibilities as well as planning and marking.
Actually I loved the job, but wouldn’t do it again now and certainly would not have wanted to work until 67.

If teachers have a day off for marking - never going to happen - how about a day off for preparing for Ofsted, which doesn’t just occur a few weeks before Ofsted btw but is pretty much most of the teaching year.
Having to prepare the kind of evidence that lawyers lug along to courts.
Or how about a full week of good old teaching and the minimum of paperwork.

Oreo

Am sure that marking and lesson prep takes up a lot of time, but surely teachers can do this as school ends at around 3.15 so they could either stay in class and do it when the children have gone or go home to do it.

I used to reckon that an hour lesson required another hour in prep and marking.
As for doing it at 3.15, after a full teaching day, being in school an hour before the pupils and working through lunch (and being on duty one day a week), it's probably time for a break, or a meeting.

keepingquiet

Where are you reading this? If you are abroad why should it be an issue- do you have GC in the UK?

I haven't heard a squeek about it here...

Seems news travels even when abroad!! Also in the Times I believe.
www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/teachers-four-day-week-daniel-kebede-b2826711.html
The NEU in my title refers to the National Education Union, in case anyone thought I meant new boss, in German!
It's of interest to me for several reasons.

LOUISA1523

I feel for teachers ....there's a lot to fit in....I'm NHS community ....we all flexi work ( start early or finish late) all the full timers compress their hours , so do a 4 day week or 9 day fortnight. Many of the part timers compress as well....and we all work from home at least one day a week....teaching just doesn't lend itself to any of this I guess

Agree... If you can compress the workload in other professions something surely must be done for Teachers. They educate this country's future citizens, a stressed out overstretched teacher isn't good for children or themselves.

escaped

keepingquiet

Where are you reading this? If you are abroad why should it be an issue- do you have GC in the UK?

I haven't heard a squeek about it here...

Seems news travels even when abroad!! Also in the Times I believe.
www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/teachers-four-day-week-daniel-kebede-b2826711.html
The NEU in my title refers to the National Education Union, in case anyone thought I meant new boss, in German!
It's of interest to me for several reasons.

As an only recently retired memeber of the NEU I knew exactly what you were referring to, I just hadn't come across the report in the media here.

I once worked with a French teacher working in this country who was surprised teachers did their own marking. She said where she had worked in France marking is done by the teacher's assistant, leaving the teacher to focus on planning and progress monitoring, both of which take up a great deal of time.

I don't know if it is still the same.

Do you think that could work keepingquiet or do you think the teacher actually learns quite a bit about the students by marking their work?

I expect I'll be shouted at, but at my grandchildren's senior schools the teachers do very little marking - or lesson preparation! The switch to doing so much online started during COVID and hasn't stopped. Much of the classwork and most of the homework is done via computer. For example maths homework is all completed on the child's computer - they access a particular set of questions and their answers are marked automatically - with no teacher input. Similarly parents' evenings are all "virtual" with parents only allowed a set time before they are "switched off".
This is at two different schools in the southwest which both have good reputations.

Does it matter with some subjects/topics, eddiecat?

My grandson had this, my daughter was initially angry - but then realised the teacher looked over the results every time and spent time with him on the area he was weaker at.
She gave him more explanations and exercises in that area.

Could it actually be helpful?

I was a teacher for many years and loved the teaching/ integrating with pupils side of things. But the admin. was a nightmare. I left the profession when I worked out that for the hours I was putting in, I was earning around £3 an hour !!

Fae1

I was a teacher for many years and loved the teaching/ integrating with pupils side of things. But the admin. was a nightmare. I left the profession when I worked out that for the hours I was putting in, I was earning around £3 an hour !!

Thats terrible...i can't understand d why anyone would choose teaching as a career

It’s a notional day. Not all hours at once. In schools in other countries. Teachers can leave school when not teaching. Non teachers are employed for other duties and dealing with pastoral/ year issues. It works

eddiecat78

I expect I'll be shouted at, but at my grandchildren's senior schools the teachers do very little marking - or lesson preparation! The switch to doing so much online started during COVID and hasn't stopped. Much of the classwork and most of the homework is done via computer. For example maths homework is all completed on the child's computer - they access a particular set of questions and their answers are marked automatically - with no teacher input. Similarly parents' evenings are all "virtual" with parents only allowed a set time before they are "switched off".
This is at two different schools in the southwest which both have good reputations.

I'm definitely not shouting at you but I think you've made a sweeping generalisation. Retired now, but I used to use the maths app you're referring to for homework, and very useful it was too because it gives an opportunity for pupils to have that part of the topic explained again if necessary. But that is only one subject. I don't know about other subjects.

Exercise books have to be marked at least once a fortnight, comments written, and feedback given. The computer work mentioned above is only part of it.

I don't recognise what you say about classwork. The homework results are analysed and then the teacher has to produce a resource to extend the pupil knowledge, or support misunderstandings that have led to them getting a low mark. Likewise when an exam class does a formal exam, the marking load is huge (for best results it needs to be done by next lesson, even if that's the following day) and then there is extensive debrief regarding which topics the whole class needs to address in the following week, and which topics individuals need to sort out. I used to write formatted spreadsheets to identify these. But that's also is hugely time-consuming.

As for parents' evenings, since the mid-70s, it's always been each child's parent only get 5 minutes. Remember there are 30 pupils to a class!

I thought that was one of the reasons the school day was shortened for children already.

They have one already, often two.
They’re called Saturday and Sunday

I didn’t appreciate that weekends were supposed to be family/fun /hobby /sporting activity days until I retired from teaching.

😬 I remember be astounded when I realised that other people actually went out after work, during the week, for meals and cinema and stuff.

Bukkie

I have taught for over 30 years, the workload especially the paperwork is ridiculous. All of you who call teachers lazy need a few weeks marking until the early hours and not having a Sunday to relax.

Well said! Add into this all the other hats teachers seem to have to wear, it’s different but equally onerous challenges in Primary and Secondary schools.

My primary school teacher daughter leaves home at 6:30am, arriving at school at 7:30am every school day, she has staff meetings every Wednesday evening, when its Parents evening, 2 per term, she’s not home til after 7:00pm. She runs one after school club a week.

She’s lucky this year as she only has 30 children in her class, last two years she had 34.

She lives her job, but it takes its toll and she often struggles with “poor parenting” and appalling behaviour of some pupils. Add into this children with additional needs and the amount of paperwork in all aspects, it’s no wonder no one wants to be a teacher these days!

.*loves, not lives!