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Teachers
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John
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BigT said:
I'm sorry but posting on a message board from work whilst at the same time trying to argue that you are working harder than people in another profession seems somewhat ironic.
From the teachers I have spoken to, it is my understanding that the opening hours of a school represents somewhere in the region of 50% of the total time required by teachers to do their job fully. To suggest that a significant proportion of them are lazy based on seemingly little evidence is a massive insult to the all the dedicated hard working teachers out there.
Islander
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Given that we're talking about workload, I thought I'd try and demystify the process of lesson planning. I probably won't succeed.
I think a large number of people (not in this thread, but generally in life) vastly underestimate the amount of planning required in state schools. For each one hour lesson I taught, on average, I would spend around an hour planning. Sometimes it was easier and took a little less time (I had two year seven classes, for instance, so there was a certain amount of duplication*), a lot of the time it was much harder, and took much, much longer (I did not have proper schemes of work for some of my classes, so had to start entirely from scratch, resulting in weekends, not hours, of work), but 1h prep for a 1h lesson is a fair average.
For some idea as to what planning involved, here is a PDF of a lesson plan from one of my own Y7 lessons (names/details censored, of course). Looking over it, it's actually not a particularly good one - the learning outcomes are a bit basic, key answers are sketchy, and my assessment methods are poor. Eh, it's from near the start of my teaching career, and it's the first one I laid my hands on and could quickly anonymise.
Still, one of these, for each and every lesson. That's around 18-19 every week when you're newly qualified, and 22ish after your first year. Of course it gets easier the longer you teach, and the plans can become less detailed. You can also recycle plans to a small extent, but as I note below, every class is different, so every class needs an individual plan.
This was in addition to an overall weekly plan, to make sure I was sticking to schedule, was not too far ahead of/behind other teachers, to make sure I would cover the specification, and to ensure my daily workload was managable (a hard feat, ensuring you don't accidentally plan a day with five heavily practical lessons, for instance). This is what was done in the infamous 'teacher's planner'.
Those plans were also in addition to my weekly requisitions - as a Science teacher, I needed to take my weekly lesson plan, work out what equipment I needed for each lesson, and then fill out a requisition form a week in advance, for the following week, to allow the technicians to prepare equipment for my lessons.
I also had to prepare any exercises, worksheets, homeworks etc. for students to do during/after lessons. They're not all pre-prepared - many you have to write from scratch. That's surprisingly difficult.
That just covers the lesson planning. I then of course had to...
That's just curricular stuff that I can remember off-bat - there is undoubtedly more that I have omitted.
That doesn't include pastoral work - looking after a tutor group, and ensuring the social welfare of all those pupils. Preparing for tutor time as well.
That doesn't include any extra-curricula activities, which as a teacher you are expected to (and want to!) be involved in.
Overall, it's a huge amount of work
I'm not trying to suggest that other professions don't have large workloads - they of course do. Just never, ever suggest that teaching is a 'doss subject', to use a pertinent bit of school language. It's anything but.
*Note that I'd still have to produce a full lesson plan for each and every lesson, even if it was the same lesson to two Y7 classes - two classes, two different sets of pupils, two abilities, two differing styles that worked with one but not the other etc. etc. etc.
I think a large number of people (not in this thread, but generally in life) vastly underestimate the amount of planning required in state schools. For each one hour lesson I taught, on average, I would spend around an hour planning. Sometimes it was easier and took a little less time (I had two year seven classes, for instance, so there was a certain amount of duplication*), a lot of the time it was much harder, and took much, much longer (I did not have proper schemes of work for some of my classes, so had to start entirely from scratch, resulting in weekends, not hours, of work), but 1h prep for a 1h lesson is a fair average.
For some idea as to what planning involved, here is a PDF of a lesson plan from one of my own Y7 lessons (names/details censored, of course). Looking over it, it's actually not a particularly good one - the learning outcomes are a bit basic, key answers are sketchy, and my assessment methods are poor. Eh, it's from near the start of my teaching career, and it's the first one I laid my hands on and could quickly anonymise.
Still, one of these, for each and every lesson. That's around 18-19 every week when you're newly qualified, and 22ish after your first year. Of course it gets easier the longer you teach, and the plans can become less detailed. You can also recycle plans to a small extent, but as I note below, every class is different, so every class needs an individual plan.
This was in addition to an overall weekly plan, to make sure I was sticking to schedule, was not too far ahead of/behind other teachers, to make sure I would cover the specification, and to ensure my daily workload was managable (a hard feat, ensuring you don't accidentally plan a day with five heavily practical lessons, for instance). This is what was done in the infamous 'teacher's planner'.
Those plans were also in addition to my weekly requisitions - as a Science teacher, I needed to take my weekly lesson plan, work out what equipment I needed for each lesson, and then fill out a requisition form a week in advance, for the following week, to allow the technicians to prepare equipment for my lessons.
I also had to prepare any exercises, worksheets, homeworks etc. for students to do during/after lessons. They're not all pre-prepared - many you have to write from scratch. That's surprisingly difficult.
That just covers the lesson planning. I then of course had to...
- Deliver the lessons - that of course was the majority of my '8am - 3:30pm work'
- Evaluate some lessons, to ensure that I was doing the right thing
- Mark classwork, homework, tests, exams, coursework (very, VERY big job), and any other work.
- Moderate work marked by other teachers, and evaluate my marked work that's been moderated
- Track each students progress, making regular judgements as to their attainment, progress, understanding etc. (Remember, in a Secondary teacher's case, that could be 200+ students. In a Primary teacher's case, that's 31-odd students in 8+ subjects)
- Write full summative reports to go to parents. Tricky, especially with so many students
- Help students falling below target, or who are keen to learn more, outside of planned lessons
- Deal with behavioural and work related issues - detentions, logging problems, spotting patterns etc.
That's just curricular stuff that I can remember off-bat - there is undoubtedly more that I have omitted.
That doesn't include pastoral work - looking after a tutor group, and ensuring the social welfare of all those pupils. Preparing for tutor time as well.
That doesn't include any extra-curricula activities, which as a teacher you are expected to (and want to!) be involved in.
Overall, it's a huge amount of work
I'm not trying to suggest that other professions don't have large workloads - they of course do. Just never, ever suggest that teaching is a 'doss subject', to use a pertinent bit of school language. It's anything but.
*Note that I'd still have to produce a full lesson plan for each and every lesson, even if it was the same lesson to two Y7 classes - two classes, two different sets of pupils, two abilities, two differing styles that worked with one but not the other etc. etc. etc.
This topic sickens me- how on earth can you call teachers lazy?
I'm a higher leveled student, and I am more than grateful for all the work that my teachers put into teaching us.i've learnt so much from these people, who have made me feel better about myself- they've not just been there for teaching- I can trust everyone of them to deal with any problems that I have, or happily help me with anything.
My school was recently put into special measures, when I joined in 2011 i helped put suggestions forward to make it better. Okay, I was very harsh in what I was saying, but everything I said was taken in, and obvious improvements were made. Every student feels that they are able to make comments forward, like I did, and can trust that they will be worked on.
I'm just saying, my parents feel their school would never do this, they would be punished for constructive criticism.
In my school its clear which teachers work harder than others.
English- Our lessons are always different! We do new things every time, getting everyone invllved, and even assessments feel like they're not boring old 5 page essays on Shakespeare!
Maths- we're working on higher leveled GCSE papers, getting pushed so hard to make us the highest level possible. I'm already over my Ks3 target level, as are many others in our class, and we're vstill moving up.
These teachers, plus many more in my school put hours into planning lessons- we could easily work out of textbooks, which would be far more easier for the teachers, however they put effort into making school a good place.
Teachers do get ill, they are sometimes unable to get into school. Schools put everything they can into keeping open, however somedays they just cant, days where student and staff safety will be put at risk.
Now, whoever started this is obviously not familiar with the schooling system, it seems that they are still stuck around 30 years ago, as many of the points you've made are disgustingly wrong.
Sincerely, a 12 year old with more sense than whoever created this discussion. Xxx
I'm a higher leveled student, and I am more than grateful for all the work that my teachers put into teaching us.i've learnt so much from these people, who have made me feel better about myself- they've not just been there for teaching- I can trust everyone of them to deal with any problems that I have, or happily help me with anything.
My school was recently put into special measures, when I joined in 2011 i helped put suggestions forward to make it better. Okay, I was very harsh in what I was saying, but everything I said was taken in, and obvious improvements were made. Every student feels that they are able to make comments forward, like I did, and can trust that they will be worked on.
I'm just saying, my parents feel their school would never do this, they would be punished for constructive criticism.
In my school its clear which teachers work harder than others.
English- Our lessons are always different! We do new things every time, getting everyone invllved, and even assessments feel like they're not boring old 5 page essays on Shakespeare!
Maths- we're working on higher leveled GCSE papers, getting pushed so hard to make us the highest level possible. I'm already over my Ks3 target level, as are many others in our class, and we're vstill moving up.
These teachers, plus many more in my school put hours into planning lessons- we could easily work out of textbooks, which would be far more easier for the teachers, however they put effort into making school a good place.
Teachers do get ill, they are sometimes unable to get into school. Schools put everything they can into keeping open, however somedays they just cant, days where student and staff safety will be put at risk.
Now, whoever started this is obviously not familiar with the schooling system, it seems that they are still stuck around 30 years ago, as many of the points you've made are disgustingly wrong.
Sincerely, a 12 year old with more sense than whoever created this discussion. Xxx
Joseph
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I'm just going to say this one thing... For any fans of Pink Floyd's song "Another Brick in The Wall"
School is becoming more into the basis of an exam factory, segregating the lowers and the highers and not giving the lower classes the much needed attention. Teachers (High-School basis) are only allowed to do teach so they can fuel childeren into getting that school into a higher lead of exam levels. Which isn't fair. thats why I'm totally against EBACS and the Foundation and Higher GCSE's
School is becoming more into the basis of an exam factory, segregating the lowers and the highers and not giving the lower classes the much needed attention. Teachers (High-School basis) are only allowed to do teach so they can fuel childeren into getting that school into a higher lead of exam levels. Which isn't fair. thats why I'm totally against EBACS and the Foundation and Higher GCSE's
Sam said:
Err, that might be because literally every poster is a teacher or a student of some sort as I wrote above.
I have to be honest I wasn't expecting any support in this topic from the people who occupy these boards.
My first sarcastic comment in the NHS thread was a little tongue in cheek as I was still a little bit pissed of about last Monday, but I thought I would carry it on as it was slightly amusing winding you lot up.
However I'm getting a little bored now so I'm off to celebrate my award by drinking more coffee during yet another tea break. (yep still at work)
Sam said:BigT said:
I'm not a teacher or a student. :
Can't you just admit that you said something horrible about an essential group of people in society and just apologise, rather than dragging this out and embarrassing yourself?
What you mean apologise like you did for calling me a liar.
I've had my fun, god you lot should stop taking yourselves so seriously.
IanB
TS Member
Okay, so I am not a teacher, I have worked in the public sector for 6ish years, and recently moved to the private sector.
The private sector is a lot more rewarding, and in my experience harder work. I think there is a feeling in public sector, that it is a job for life, which can lead to people been less motivated, than someone who is working for a private company, and knows if they miss there deadline, they wont be getting paid.
That being said, Teachers, Police, Fire Fighters, Nurses, Doctors, Military Personal, and any other front line public workers should never be called lazy, should never be given a hard time over there pay, and private sector companies should be going out of there way to give them freebies or incentives to use their products and a lot do.
People doing these jobs, more often that not choose to do so because they care, and have a passion for what they do. They work longer hours than they should, and try there best to make the lives of the people they are there for better. They do jobs that I would not want to do, with little thanks or thought given to what a difficult and challenging job it is.
I don't think they get paid enough for what they do, yet they still make a choice to do it, even though I am sure many of these people could get better paid jobs elsewhere.
At the end of the day, when I have children, if there is any chance of getting to spend more time with them, even if it means taking a unpaid day off work, I would take it with both hands. Money is important in life, but there is plenty of things that are more important, and family is top of that.
Ian
The private sector is a lot more rewarding, and in my experience harder work. I think there is a feeling in public sector, that it is a job for life, which can lead to people been less motivated, than someone who is working for a private company, and knows if they miss there deadline, they wont be getting paid.
That being said, Teachers, Police, Fire Fighters, Nurses, Doctors, Military Personal, and any other front line public workers should never be called lazy, should never be given a hard time over there pay, and private sector companies should be going out of there way to give them freebies or incentives to use their products and a lot do.
People doing these jobs, more often that not choose to do so because they care, and have a passion for what they do. They work longer hours than they should, and try there best to make the lives of the people they are there for better. They do jobs that I would not want to do, with little thanks or thought given to what a difficult and challenging job it is.
I don't think they get paid enough for what they do, yet they still make a choice to do it, even though I am sure many of these people could get better paid jobs elsewhere.
At the end of the day, when I have children, if there is any chance of getting to spend more time with them, even if it means taking a unpaid day off work, I would take it with both hands. Money is important in life, but there is plenty of things that are more important, and family is top of that.
Ian
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