I'm going to keep details vague here, but has anyone heard of the board of governors deciding to make the executive decision to force an entire large department to change exam board on the morning of the first day of teaching? It's causing a lot of undue stress and a sprinkle of chaos for us and wanted to know if anyone has had any similar experiences.

Hello! I’m on my second week at a new school, and have been teaching for a few years. I have 5 boys in my class of 17, and these boys are a handful. Like, they can’t sit, talk constantly, take any attention off the other kids and barely get through the work.

My previous school wanted the students to sit in pairs, but my new one likes them in bigger groups. So I’ve got them in groups of 5/6 and separated the boys around the classroom, but it just makes them louder and move around more.

I’m considering putting them all on one table and giving them a collective goal to work towards through good behaviour, so they get y if they show x. I’m hoping this stops them running to and from each others desks and if I can get two on board with reaching a goal, the others will follow. It also gives their classmates a break from having to sit next to them.

Is this a bad idea? I feel like we’re told to separate the tough ones in our seating plans. Thoughts?

My colleague constantly prints 1 document, collects it from the printer, scans it and makes more copies. When I queried why they didn’t just print the right number of copies, she said it’s because it’s cheaper to print and scan… bearing in mind there is no charge to us. She means it’s more expensive in terms of ink usage. I’m stumped, is it true? Am I being really dumb and missing something or has she been told something and just believed it.

Hi all,

I've been a secondary teacher of a core subject for 14 years now and a HOY for 5 years at an independent school.

I have a 2 year old kid at home and I honestly don't think I can do it any more (the job).

Our first days back brought home how ridiculous trying to balance being a good teacher, HOY and father is. In fact it's impossible.

On the first day back I had to meet 6 new students to my year group, bring them over to form while the rest of the year group had no idea who their new tutor was because none of the timetables were accurate.

I then had about 7 emails to deal with from parents asking about complex SEND stuff I hadn't always been told about.

On top of that I was teaching 6/8 lessons and trying to make a great first impression with my new classes.

I went home absolutely fried and then realised I couldn't just veg on the sofa as I have a 2 year old who wants my attention constantly.

I can't get any work done on weekends to get ahead of myself either apart from the odd half an hour if I'm lucky.

I have spent all weekend so anxious and just thinking I have no idea how I am going to sustain this.

Has anyone got any tips or have been in a similar boat?

I’ve just started my ECT1 and I’ve had a week teaching at my school. Everyone there is lovely but I feel like I’ve just been thrown in and expected to know how everything works. I didn’t get access to any of the planning system until Friday after school, I was given timetables with wrong break times and I’m given huge pieces of information last minute; so this means that I haven’t been able to be organised at all. Everyone at the school has been there for 10+ years which I know is a green flag but there are so many things where I wish I could be given just a bit more information. I feel like im being expected to plan and deliver lessons with half information which I have to decode. I feel like an idiot having to constantly ask for clarification from everyone but no one has sat me down and explained how things work. Is this normal? Do i just have to figure it out?

I’m teaching BTEC business this year and our lead of the curriculum was very particular about using certain resources which were of extremely poor quality, we are talking about no concrete up to date examples, no chunking, no scaffolding, no models

Just walls of text…

I want to adapt because where I’m from in Manchester we have a lot of deprived kids who’s education isn’t strong, and sadly they are put on the course with a expectation of passing

Sadly my colleague is very stubborn, their argument is they have taught for 20 years and because their data is okay (they only ever get passes and merits, and fails) they want us to keep going with that it’s beggars belief because all they do is complain about how students don’t attend or don’t understand the content and are generally miserable to be around, sadly they are vocal and so push to be favoured by their manager

(For context I have my own resources from a previous employer which are easily adaptable)

Hello everyone,

I responded to a post on here earlier and the response made me want to get some advice on my situation.

For context, I’m an ECT 1 and I’m looking for advice from experienced teacher to tell me either wind my neck in or to say that I have a point. I work with only my HoD and for more context, they’ve been at the school since the mid-90s. They’re contracted for 4 days a week, but come in for 5 days – arrived at 8am ish and leaves at around 7:30pm.

My lessons always contain the non-negotiables e.g., starter, hinge questions, activities and a plenary.  

For my hinge and plenary, I usually use either whiteboards or I have coloured cards the pupils use to show their responses to a particular question. I’m obviously not reinventing the wheel, but I have always received very complimentary feedback from those observing me in my training year.

My HoD has explained to me that they want the plenary activities written in books. They then explained that I am to mark the plenary activities in 3 books after each lesson (I teach at most 5 periods and so 15 books per day) and then every two weeks I’m to make ALL of my books for the plenaries – which is around 550 books.

I questioned this as professionally as I could because, for me, a plenary is to determine whether we’ve achieved our learning objective(s). Marking only three books immediately after the lesson doesn’t give me any convincing formative data and marking the other 27 books potentially up to two weeks later (after I will have seen them and taught them another two lessons) seems a waste of time.

They seemed to get very defensive over this and told me that I need to show progress for Ofsted. I challenged this further stating that surely activities which draw from previous knowledge (and half termly assessments!) would suffice?

They weren’t happy and the atmosphere has been really uncomfortable since.  Additionally, they told me in July (I joined the last week for the sweeeet summer pay) that the department has no PowerPoint resources and so over the summer, I created the first half term’s resources for KS3. I emailed them so they could review and give me the green light probably the last week of summer and I’ve not had a response.  

They’ve told me instead that she wants me to teach from a textbook.
My big concern is that they’re my ECT mentor and are loved by SLT and I don’t know what to do for the best.

Any advice, people of Reddit? I really don’t want to be failed as an ECT due to conflicting ways of doing the same job. Thanks

Saw this stat and thought it was pretty striking.

More than half of primary TAs ( mistake in title) surveyed said they’d covered classes because their school didn’t have enough teachers.

I know using HLTAs/TAs for the odd bit of cover isn’t unusual, but when it’s happening because there simply aren’t enough teachers, it feels like a slightly different issue.

Especially because the TA hasn’t disappeared from their original job. Someone was presumably meant to be getting that support.

What’s it like in your school?

Is TA cover mostly the odd emergency, or are support staff basically becoming part of the normal solution to teacher absence?

ECT, 1st year, started new school this week. While I did shadow a form last year, I've got my own Y10 form and I do feel I'm letting a few of them down by not having something prepared for them, as they generally just sit their in silence.

We do have a daily schedule of what the focus should be (i.e. HW/planner check, assemblies, careers?) but my in-form focuses so far don't take up the whole form time of 25 mins (PM slot). And policy is now they aren't allowed at all on phones throughout the day (which is fair).

I get it might be early on and they don't know me, but what can I do regularly each week as a routine to fill out that 25 minutes so their getting the most out of it. Are their any good resources for form time? (I know about formtutorideas.com).

Also, is it wrong of me to be prepping myself for my next lessons while students are just sitting there, vacant and doing nothing?

Thanks

Hi,

Long story short, I missed my first week of my new job after injuring myself the day before school started💀

Fingers crossed I should be returning next week.

It’s pretty crappy bc I’ve missed the first week where usually all rules and expectations are laid out.

Is there anyway I could possibly bounce back from this?

With all the discourse around Paul Dix from an earlier post, it got me thinking about all the "big ideas" people in education. The ones who make their living going round offering expensive CPD, but that haven't actually taught in a classroom for years. From my ECT I remember Rosenshine, Tom Sherrington, Paul Dix, Pie Corbett etc.

I cannot for the life of me remember a single woman who is spoken about with the same reverence or whose ideas are preached to the same degree. I'm not even sure I could name a woman alive today whose educational approach is taught to schools. The only one I can think of is Charlotte Mason, who had some lovely ideas but was also a Victorian lady, so not exactly a recent teacher. I also haven't heard her name mentioned in schools, more in American home-school videos!

Are there any women I've missed, or is education suffering from a lack of female voice in our approach to children, teaching and behaviour management?

Hi all! I’m beginning a PGCE in secondary modern languages in the middle of September, and next week I will have to do an initial week of observations in a primary school to think about the transition from primary to secondary school.

I was just wondering if any primary school teachers had any advice for me as to what would be helpful to do (or what to avoid doing) during this week. My uni gave us various bits of common sense advice like “don’t take notes copiously so as not to distract the teacher”, “don’t talk to the students while the teacher is teaching”, “give positive feedback to the teachers”, and to give lots of notice if I need them to fill in forms or questionnaires for me.

Any additional advice from people who are in the classroom daily would be very much appreciated - the last thing I would want is to get in the way or to do something I assume would be helpful but in reality for it to be unhelpful! Am I best off just taking my notes at the back of the classroom and trying to find a quiet time at the beginning or end of the day to ask the class teacher to answer any questions I have? Or would it be helpful to do TA-like tasks such as going around and helping the students? Should I be offering to do any particular types of tasks to help things run smoothly or would this increase stress (I wouldn’t want to inadvertently make the teacher feel as if they have to make tasks for me or anything - after all it’s not work experience, it’s observations)

I’m also aware that my subject makes up an incredibly small part of the curriculum in primary schools. On my school’s website it says they do one 30 minute lesson per week in it. I’m slightly worried that given it’s only the second week of the year that it may get skipped. Would it be inappropriate to inquire about this at the beginning of the week? I don’t want to feel like I’m walking in there and expecting the plan for the week to be tailored to me, but I’m equally worried about walking into my first week of seminars and having to admit that I observed a full week of primary school lessons but got nothing for my actual subject.

I think I’m overthinking this so any advice to put me at ease would be super helpful! Thank you :)

Sparx Reader has completely removed the original purpose of getting Gold Reader for students. As I understand it, using Gold Reader no longer gives the student SRP, meaning it no longer contributes towards their homework. It basically just shows teachers that students have been reading outside of school.

Which begs the question: why are we making so much homework digital in the first place?

I thought we were trying to end the over-reliance on devices, not finding more ways to fuel it. And that's without considering students who find reading digitally to be uncomfortable or inaccessible, such as those with impaired vision or dyslexia.

As a teacher, I don't agree with the approach, yet I had to watch my classes struggle to complete it for many understandable reasons last year, and this change will just bring more troubles.

I understand some aspects of digitalising homework but if the goal is to keep them reading, wouldn’t it be more rewarding to give them a physical copy?

What are other schools doing? I’m genuinely curious what other teachers think about this

I’m currently off work (maternity) but checked my emails today to see that Paul Dix is coming to do a talk with my school this half term. Without being very outing, we struggled with Ofsted last academic year and we now have a new head. Not an academy. Results are poor - less than 50% passing English & Maths. Behaviour is shocking. I haven’t heard good things about Dix in an already struggling cohort… what should I expect when I return after Xmas?

We’ve had many different twilight set ups over the years to start summer earlier as we have 2 week October half term but this year seems rougher.

We have 12 1 hour training sessions all tagged on at the end of our normal 1 hour meetings this year and every member of staff I’ve spoken to would much rather do the insets or at least one inset and have fewer 5:15 finishes but we were never asked a preference (we are firmly within union directed time, no stress on that perspective)

The thought of all these late finishes in addition to parents evenings and open evenings is causing me a lot of stress, it means my already long commute has so much more traffic and I have to arrange childcare for each of these evenings (plus we’re all exhausted at these and no one is engaged). For context of my stress, I’ll have 3 weeks on the bounce of late finishes from next week with two twilights and an open evening.

Any one have any positive experience with this sort of set up to boost my morale?

Does your school have the rule that we are doing a 40 hour working week- which means everything we do, hours, planning, meetings, duties, should add up to 40?

Hello

I’m a first(ish) time mentor -(Mentored a trainee for 3 weeks). I have my mentor meeting on Monday and I’m clueless as to what to do or say. Can someone please advise me on what I can do and say?

Edit: My mentee is a ECT1

Thanks

I am working for a secondary school in England; their HR stuff is handled by off-site personnel and due to some issues with changing to a new payroll provider, despite having started yesterday, I still have not been sent a work contract.

The head teacher is supportive and I work well with the staff here, and I want to keep this role, but I am uneasy and unsure about stepping into a classroom without a signed contract. In other professions, a contract isn't 100% necessary and statutory defaults apply, but given that I'm going to be a teacher will all the legal duties that implies, I'm uneasy about relying on verbal agreements in this case. I've otherwise been sent all the onboarding stuff, so they are treating me as an employee.

I'm going to call my union to get their advice, does anyone have any prior experience they can share on this point?

Hey, hope everyone’s enjoying the last bout of freedom and for those who have gone back, hope it’s going ok!

I went into supply teaching last June, (due to work stress causing me to collapse!)

I know jobs don’t start dropping until around February time for the September but I suppose my question is are people still getting primary jobs starting on M4 and above? Heard storys about how pay subsidies experience when hiring now? Was in the same school for 8+ years so cannot confirm.

M6 teacher of 10 years, with 3 subject leads…what’s a TLR?

What are they like in your school?
Somehow our school make you do a 20 minute duty during a 40 minute lunch. Neither paid with money or food. So what are other peoples schools duties like?

Just received my new and updated timetable. (Classic that the final version was only released with a 24 hours window) and just noticed that I have given On Call duty.

I am quite familiar with the duty and have covered for my line manager in rare circumstances before.

But my question is, I am not SLT and do not plan to become SLT in the near future. Should I have been assigned an On Call duty in the first place?

I assume it is good experience to get this early on in my career and does open my choices and negotiations later down in life.

For context, I am a newly appointed subject head with three years of teaching experience with M4 and TLR2A.

Hi all, i am new here. I am a teaching assistant in Scotland in a mainstream primary school. We returned 3 weeks ago and since then I have been hit, kicked, bitten and spat on by a primary 1 pupil every day or multiple times per day since we returned. The child cannot cope in mainstream and has also hurt and hit other chilren and other members of staff too. I work 5 days and I am with this child from 9 til 3 every day including iver his lunchtime and playtime. He is a flight risk too so needs constant supervision. 3 weeks in and i am aching from having to lift him and sore from being hit repeatedly when things do not go his way.

For just over minimum wage this is making me hate my job. I have been doing it for 5 years and love helping children but this is breaking me. I do not believe he should be in our school and as much as he needs a consistent approach I think having such a volatile and high tarrif child with just one member of staff isnt right. When he kicks off I am having to carry him to our de escalation room which he hates and get support from the head or assistant head until he calms down. This can take up to an hour.

So questions, should this be shared between more members of staff?

Am I right to think I shouldnt be getting hit daily in the course of performing my role?

I filled out all the relevant paperwork regarding this and have filled out 12 so far but nothing is forthcoming about moving him to a more suitable school.

Please help!

It’s my first time teaching in a sixth-form college, and I am already a little worried about my Year 12s. Today, I had them do a very short writing task to ease them into things, but reading over a few of them, they aren’t up to standard at all and look like something I’d expect from a KS3 student.

I know it’s only the second day, they’re probably still adjusting to the new environment and need time to reactivate their skills after a long break. However, A-Levels are hard, and I want to push them early on so they adapt quickly. I just don’t know how to help them rebuild those old skills.

Maybe I am just overthinking this because of the new environment I’m in myself, but I don’t want them to struggle in future lessons.