#23

The issue in England right now isn’t that the schools are poorly equipped or the kids are badly behaved, it’s that both the kids and teachers are really stressed and anxious about having constantly changing unrealistic expectations put on them by the government.

For example they have bought software that takes the test result of an 11 year old and creates a predicted grade for every term until they’re 16. If the student doesn’t achieve the target the computer came up with, the teacher is officially in trouble. Leading teachers to have to spend stupid amounts of time on complete nonsense statistics.

#24

TeachFirst is a training programme for new teachers. Basically the school gets a trainee teacher for cheap for the first two years and it’s sink or swim. They’re trying to axe the traditional university courses with school placements.

#25

Yeah, it’s the same here. The stats get in the way of the teaching. Totally a thing.

#26

They did a similar thing over here. Virtually the same results. A tonne of high drama revolving around different forms of culture shock.

#27

The previous Educational Minister, Michael Gove was also a complete loon who has done loads of harm. He had no background in education, only in tabloid journalism. So he took that mentality of constant change and headline drama and applied it to things like school syllabi (which he has no clue about, and also has a weird fetish for Victorian times).

So for example a fairly straightforward English progress test for 10 year olds got turned overnight into a high-stakes exam full of in depth questions about theoretical grammar topics like subjunctive moods (with a “creative” writing activity that was basically "how many of these grammar points can you shoe-horn into a paragraph). Totally inappropriate material for that age group and caused massive stress for small kids, and massive stress for the teachers who were then told that their job security/school funding rests on their school’s pass rate of this test.

#28

Righto. That sounds pretty grim. Melbourne it is!

#29

Just come and work in a bar or something. Pays about as well as being a new teacher

#30

There’s a big recruitment crisis in England because they are losing teachers left, right and centre. Some schools have almost no teachers over the age of 30, because all they can do is keep recent graduates for a couple of years before they burn out.

Also the Academy programme is a way to privatise schools by the back door. A private company (often mysteriously owned by the close personal friend of a Tory politician or a big party donor) takes over a state school under the guise of “modernisation” and basically asset-strips it/uses the school to make profit on public funding by outsourcing things to other companies mysteriously owned by the same parent company. Lots of Academy schools are over the top strict too, like they’re running a prison rather than a school, and treat staff badly/can’t keep them.

I think the whole academy scheme is going to be a big corruption scandal in the near future.

(Scotland and NI are different and not having the same problems I think. Wales runs on the same system but I think the situation there might not be quite so extreme)

2 Likes
#31

Just to give you another glimpse of life in the UK, someone in my office has voluntarily started playing the kooks on the stereo.
Yeah.

#32

Yeah, do it, it’s fine. You’ll work loads of hours beyond your working week, like any proper job, but you will tell everyone about it and get like 20 weeks holiday a year.

#33

Hahaha.

20 weeks of “holiday” that your work will somehow turn into you doing a small mountain of admin work now the students aren’t there to get in the way.

#35

Just move to Melbourne you melt.

1 Like
#36

Miley Cyrus voice
Yeah-ee-yeah, ee-yeah-ee-yeh
Teaching in the U-oo-K

Anyway, don’t teach in the UK, I’ve heard its shit. Teach in some posh international school in Europe.

#37

There have been a few threads on DiS recently that have really worried me, as someone who is starting a Schools Direct course in September (secondary chemistry).

I have a few friends who teach in the North East of England and claim to really like it. The stress seems to be offset by how rewarding a job it is. At my interview the teachers I spoke to seemed really enthusiastic happy in their jobs. I dunno, maybe it just depends on the school/area you work in?

#38

Why did you write a massive post about it then?

As an actual teacher, I recommend looking to get GTCS status and teaching in Scotland. The problems mentioned above with regards to teaching in England aren’t going to get better any time soon. The Scottish curriculum has way more flexibility, gives teachers more autonomy, and although the implementation of the new exams in secondary hasn’t been great, there are no league tables, very little standardised testing (only in S4 and S5) and there is a greater focus on interdisciplinary learning.

https://www.education.gov.scot

1 Like
#39

Loads of teachers love to moan tough, so always take what they say with a pinch of salt.

#40

I didn’t say much about teaching. I talked about places to live in the UK, which he also asked about.

#41

Yeah didn’t read your post actually

#42

ALSO: rural secondary schools in Scotland are desperate for teachers

1 Like
#43

I’m a teacher. I had a mild panic attack on the way in this morning but don’t let it put you off

1 Like