The days, for example, of a PE teacher being allowed to drive round the streets, while smoking a fag and barking instructions at his class doing cross country are long gone.
If only that were completely true. In every workforce there are saints like yourself, but there are sinners too. There are certainly teachers who doss and stumble along haphazardly, because even thought their autonomy has been clipped, it has not gone and they are able to avoid the kind of scrutiny that would ensure they actually did some meaningful work. It happens, and if you are the student trying to learn something from a rubbish teacher you only get the one chance.
The days, for example, of a PE teacher being allowed to drive round the streets, while smoking a fag and barking instructions at his class doing cross country are long gone.
If only that were completely true. In every workforce there are saints like yourself, but there are sinners too. There are certainly teachers who doss and stumble along haphazardly, because even thought their autonomy has been clipped, it has not gone and they are able to avoid the kind of scrutiny that would ensure they actually did some meaningful work. It happens, and if you are the student trying to learn something from a rubbish teacher you only get the one chance.
Absolutely. There are poor teachers and others who are just lazy and see the job as a doss. However, they are quickly found out and do not tend to stay long in the profession. They soon realise that it is not an easy job if your heart is not in it.
There is much more scrutiny now and performance management and appraisal schemes in place that very quickly highlight such people. I can speak from experience when I say a number of such people in the profession are quickly identified and supported within a short timescale and hopefully improve. Others are let go.
The issue was in the news again recently when Stewart and Natasha Sutherland, from Telford, Shropshire, were ordered to pay £1,000 in fines and costs for taking their three children on a week-long holiday to the Greek island of Rhodes.
The couple decided to take the holiday without permission saying they had booked it before the new law came into effect.
A spokesman for Worcestershire County Council said: “50 penalty notices for non-school attendance have been issued by Worcestershire County Council on behalf of schools since September 2013.
If teaching is such a wonderful job with lots of money and a huge amount of holidays why do 40% of newly qualified teachers leave the profession within 5 years then?
If teaching is such a wonderful job with lots of money and a huge amount of holidays why do 40% of newly qualified teachers leave the profession within 5 years then?
probably because of some of the little shitbags they have to teach.
"Holiday firms claims of supply and demand are a joke."
They are not really - there are just not enough hotel beds etc available for everyone to take their holidays at the same time and it would be totally uneconomic for it to be so. When the supply is fixed and demand increases then prices are bid up until enough people are put off. At the moment holiday companies are not making big profits - in fact quite the opposite as many people are quite sensibly cutting out the middleman and arranging things themselves. We forget the otherside of the story when Holiday companies have to buy room allocations outside the main season often at a loss in order to get the main season allocation of rooms
If we want to keep kids at school - we need to spread the periods when school holidays occur and do something to force/encourage those without kids to take their holidays outside the school holiday periods. We could of course tax those without kids more and give the tax received to those with kids - so as to counter the benefit the former get from cheaper, in effect subsidised holidays, outside the main periods?
Good idea, maybe we could call it something like, I don't know, off the top of my head 'child benefit'. That's not to mention the fact that those without children are paying for the education of other people's children. Seriously you seem to be suggesting that people deliberatley don't have children so that they can have cheaper holidays.
Coming from the perspective of someone who doesn't have kids, and doesn't want them, why should I be made to pay extra to subsidise people with kids who want someone to intervene and force holiday companies, airlines etc to implement pricing that prevents them increasing/decreasing costs bases on the principles of supply and demand?
Holidays are not a right. It's also a choice to have kids. I already get pissed off enough as it is that I pretty much can't take any time off during half terms or most of the summer holidays because I'm expected to cover work of people who don't even bother to ask me whether I'd like to take time off during those periods - they just assume that I'm ok with the situation.
Not a rant against people with kids - that's your choice. Just don't expect to have your cake and eat it.
When you are old, you may be grateful to our kids for looking after you or paying taxes so you can get a pension!
And I don't wish to be a teacher and can see there are pros and cons to the job. I won't knock them as that is what we do too much in this country - we never aim our fury at the right targets and allow ourselves to be played off against each other.
By the time the likes of Leroy and I are old enough to draw a pension it'll be subsistence at best. Also, the taxes that I've paid are paying for my pension. If anyone is thinking of knocking out an army of brats to take care of my dotage, I'd rather they didn't.
If teaching is such a wonderful job with lots of money and a huge amount of holidays why do 40% of newly qualified teachers leave the profession within 5 years then?
Probably because they have to pay a fortune for taking their holidays....:)
Having a country full of educated children does benefit everyone, including those without any children of their own.
Unfortunately in truth our education system seems to produce millions of semi-illiterate morons, but the theory still holds.
Our education system produces semi-illerate morans with aspirations that they can walk into very highly paid jobs. We have thousands of young adults on the dole and thousands of immigrants taking the menial level jobs they don't want.
yes Suzi,agree, excepting....... my youngest son lives with his mum, I have taken him out for a couple of days here and there to go on holiday with me. The school understand that we, his mum and I, cant have him with us at the same time but understood time with his dad was important. This year he has exams so we will obviously not ask to take him out.
Having a country full of educated children does benefit everyone, including those without any children of their own.
Unfortunately in truth our education system seems to produce millions of semi-illiterate morons, but the theory still holds.
Our education system produces semi-illerate morans with aspirations that they can walk into very highly paid jobs. We have thousands of young adults on the dole and thousands of immigrants taking the menial level jobs they don't want.
Agree but you could equally be referring to virtually any developed market economy today. Wish more kids would aspire to work for Facebook or Twitter rather than waste their developmental years using them.
It is easy for those of us who don't do a certain job to jump to conclusions about it and use those conclusions to justify certain things. Of course, the truth is sometimes inconvenient. I think that all the evidence for reasonable people to find is that teaching is a hard but rewarding and stressful job. It is certainly one we should respect people more for doing - but sometimes it is convenient for the establishment to play people off against each other (human nature). Yes, I would like to have the same leave as teachers but there are lots of other things I wouldn't like to do. This debate is always immotive and serves absolutely no purpose.
And if we are going to use the fact that there are bad teachers - well we can use that fact for anything. There are bad footballers, bad employees. The fact there are and will always be doesn't actually prove an argument, especially as such teachers and employees are identified and dealt with.
It is easy for those of us who don't do a certain job to jump to conclusions about it and use those conclusions to justify certain things. Of course, the truth is sometimes inconvenient. I think that all the evidence for reasonable people to find is that teaching is a hard but rewarding and stressful job. It is certainly one we should respect people more for doing - but sometimes it is convenient for the establishment to play people off against each other (human nature). Yes, I would like to have the same leave as teachers but there are lots of other things I wouldn't like to do. This debate is always immotive and serves absolutely no purpose.
And if we are going to use the fact that there are bad teachers - well we can use that fact for anything. There are bad footballers, bad employees. The fact there are and will always be doesn't actually prove an argument, especially as such teachers and employees are identified and dealt with.
Whilst there is no arguing there are good and bad teachers and good and bad everything else, I think teachers need to hear the lesson that they may jump to conclusions about other people's job as well. Most teachers I know think it is the most stressfull job in the world but none of them have been anything else. Very few people have been high up in business and then become teachers or visa versa so they are hardly any truely impartial voices to listen to.
We all think our jobs are the most stressful. I suppose if you are being paid a lot for the stress it is more bearable than if you are not. If you asked me if I thought my job was more stressful than a teachers I would probably say it was- even though I don't really know. That is where human nature kicks in. In reality I don't think it matters, for the money they get, it is a reasonably stressful job and it is vital too. So I'm not going to join the queue to kick them because I need a scapegoat.
Re training days / preparation time. Why dont the teachers be given 30 days holiday a year, to be used during the school holidays. The rest of the time they go into school (workplace) and do their preparation and training?
In letters page in newspaper this morning - 'fine the parents for taking the kids out but only if they are being taught the whole time they are meant to be being educated. The last weeks before xmas and summer breaks are like holidays with dvds and games being played'
In letters page in newspaper this morning - 'fine the parents for taking the kids out but only if they are being taught the whole time they are meant to be being educated. The last weeks before xmas and summer breaks are like holidays with dvds and games being played'
Again with the two wrongs making a right. I do think schools need to look at why they waste those last few days before a holiday - although I think it's only under age 11 schools that do it? And I agree that those children can afford to miss school more than those in senior school.
I would say tell that to my son who in his last lesson before Christmas had a maths test.
As a husband of a teacher I would say walk a mile in their shoes (probably not my wife's as she doesn't have many and her feet are really small) before complaining. Most jobs are hard, even more so in recent years. That said most jobs do not have the government minister responsible spending huge amounts of time telling them they are rubbish at their job simply because they do things differently to when he was at school.
Comments
In every workforce there are saints like yourself, but there are sinners too. There are certainly teachers who doss and stumble along haphazardly, because even thought their autonomy has been clipped, it has not gone and they are able to avoid the kind of scrutiny that would ensure they actually did some meaningful work.
It happens, and if you are the student trying to learn something from a rubbish teacher you only get the one chance.
There is much more scrutiny now and performance management and appraisal schemes in place that very quickly highlight such people. I can speak from experience when I say a number of such people in the profession are quickly identified and supported within a short timescale and hopefully improve. Others are let go.
The couple decided to take the holiday without permission saying they had booked it before the new law came into effect.
A spokesman for Worcestershire County Council said: “50 penalty notices for non-school attendance have been issued by Worcestershire County Council on behalf of schools since September 2013.
That's not to mention the fact that those without children are paying for the education of other people's children.
Seriously you seem to be suggesting that people deliberatley don't have children so that they can have cheaper holidays.
Unfortunately in truth our education system seems to produce millions of semi-illiterate morons, but the theory still holds.
yes Suzi,agree, excepting....... my youngest son lives with his mum, I have taken him out for a couple of days here and there to go on holiday with me. The school understand that we, his mum and I, cant have him with us at the same time but understood time with his dad was important. This year he has exams so we will obviously not ask to take him out.
Ps - you spelt 'illiterate' wrongly :-)
And if we are going to use the fact that there are bad teachers - well we can use that fact for anything. There are bad footballers, bad employees. The fact there are and will always be doesn't actually prove an argument, especially as such teachers and employees are identified and dealt with.
Whilst there is no arguing there are good and bad teachers and good and bad everything else, I think teachers need to hear the lesson that they may jump to conclusions about other people's job as well. Most teachers I know think it is the most stressfull job in the world but none of them have been anything else. Very few people have been high up in business and then become teachers or visa versa so they are hardly any truely impartial voices to listen to.
Why dont the teachers be given 30 days holiday a year, to be used during the school holidays. The rest of the time they go into school (workplace) and do their preparation and training?
Again with the two wrongs making a right. I do think schools need to look at why they waste those last few days before a holiday - although I think it's only under age 11 schools that do it? And I agree that those children can afford to miss school more than those in senior school.
As a husband of a teacher I would say walk a mile in their shoes (probably not my wife's as she doesn't have many and her feet are really small) before complaining. Most jobs are hard, even more so in recent years. That said most jobs do not have the government minister responsible spending huge amounts of time telling them they are rubbish at their job simply because they do things differently to when he was at school.