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Teachers threaten to boycott Ofsted Inspections

goldenecitrone

goldenecitrone

post tenebras lux
Will be interesting to see how this one develops. Is it just North Korean sabre-rattling?

Liam Conway, an NUT member from central Nottinghamshire, told the union's annual conference in Liverpool that teachers should "stop hiding behind legal impediments" to a boycott. "All things being equal, I think we should have boycotted Ofsted years and years ago," he told the conference. "We owe it to all of our teachers who are literally being torn to bits by education secretaryMichael Gove and Sir Michael Wilshaw,
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Literally tearing teachers to bits. That's a bit much, even for a cunt like Gove.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2013/mar/30/teachers-threaten-boycott-ofsted-inspections
 
spanglechick said:
well, incorrect use of literally, sure - but does it feel like being torn to bits? very much so at my place.
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Really? In what way? We've got an Ofsted inspection looming, but I'm feeling fairly relaxed about it. Have most of my paperwork sorted out and some pretty good lessons stashed away for when they arrive.
 
goldenecitrone said:
Really? In what way? We've got an Ofsted inspection looming, but I'm feeling fairly relaxed about it. Have most of my paperwork sorted out and some pretty good lessons stashed away for when they arrive.
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everything in our school is done for the benefit of ofsted. we have three 'mocksteds' a year during which someone could walk into your classroom and if if they judged anything at a grade 3 (for example the numeracy content of any given drama lesson, or my evidencing numeracy progress over time... or whether there is a written dialogue in their books after every piece of written work (I make a comment, a target and a learning question. student must respond to this, I must then respond to their response, also marking any literacy errors. For every piece of work. When i see over 400 kids for an hour a week...) ... or if a student arrives late... or if any student for any reason doesn't make expected progress... or if their books have messy handwriting... if any of these things are seen during the mocksteds (or at any other time), I will be put on a six week 'capabilities' programme, during which I must submit all my lesson plans in advance and will have unlimited observations. Most people resign during 'capabilities', and then, obviously, can never get a teaching job again.

all this is done so that when ofsted do come (and we're not due for another three years), we can present to them a portfolio of inarguably rigorous evidence of how exacting our standards are.

ofsted used to be a mildly stressful few weeks of prep, and then a boozeup in the pub. At a lot of schools now it's a permanent state of fear.
 
spanglechick said:
everything in our school is done for the benefit of ofsted. we have three 'mocksteds' a year during which someone could walk into your classroom and if if they judged anything at a grade 3 (for example the numeracy content of any given drama lesson, or my evidencing numeracy progress over time... or whether there is a written dialogue in their books after every piece of written work (I make a comment, a target and a learning question. student must respond to this, I must then respond to their response, also marking any literacy errors. For every piece of work. When i see over 400 kids for an hour a week...) ... or if a student arrives late... or if any student for any reason doesn't make expected progress... or if their books have messy handwriting... if any of these things are seen during the mocksteds (or at any other time), I will be put on a six week 'capabilities' programme, during which I must submit all my lesson plans in advance and will have unlimited observations. Most people resign during 'capabilities', and then, obviously, can never get a teaching job again.

all this is done so that when ofsted do come (and we're not due for another three years), we can present to them a portfolio of inarguably rigorous evidence of how exacting our standards are.

ofsted used to be a mildly stressful few weeks of prep, and then a boozeup in the pub. At a lot of schools now it's a permanent state of fear.
Click to expand...

We are just starting to take on board all the literacy and numeracy stuff that has to be referenced in each lesson. Fortunately I teach both, so they are part of all my lesson plans anyway. I do feel sorry for colleagues teaching other subjects in which literacy and numeracy are less prevalent. It seems crazy trying to shoehorn stuff into lessons that doesn't really belong there. All I could think of for drama would be time-keeping, but I suppose if you bring in the wider aspects of a real theatre you could be doing ticket sales, audience numbers, length of runs etc...It does all sound a right, royal pain in the arse though.
 
We get HMIE - same thing, different name. They are not drawn from teachers but managers and in several of the cases I know of managers who quickly jumped out of the classroom as soon as they could as it didn't go so well for them. If any students report anything negative they are on it like a dog with a bone (even if it is unevidenced), if it is something positive they are suspicious and think they have been drilled to say it. Its often akin to sending an NHS accountant in to make a judgement about a doctors treatment - although they are supposed to have knowledge of teaching practice for most I come across its old and they have little conception of the fact that some people just want to teach. Management is not an end goal for many thus if you have been in the classroom for 20 years its because you want to teach not faff around with budgets and spread sheets and issue dictats. The last one we had my class were doing co operative learning and the inspector had never heard of it and gave me grief about it, wouldn't listen to explanations or theoretical underpinning or the students opinions on how it helped them retain information and gave them confidence. We have just had a missive about what they expect to see this time round - co operative learning at the top of the list.

The motto of HMIE appears to be 'its not a good or workable idea unless it comes from us'. They jump on 'fashions' and trumpet them as the latest holy grail despite the fact that these come around every few years with a different name. One year its 'you must have an IT element in every class' then its 'individual learning styles of all students must be evidenced throughout the session' then its a return to 'old fashioned values' now its 'curriculum for excellence' - pack that into 2 hours along with a creative element, an employability element, three core skills, citizenship, problem solving, individual feedback and 1 - 1, oops forgot the actual subject matter (which oddly they never seem to have the slightest interest in - I am considering a session dealing with how Marx and Engles ran a cake shop in Ottley and see if they notice).
 
goldenecitrone said:
We are just starting to take on board all the literacy and numeracy stuff that has to be referenced in each lesson. Fortunately I teach both, so they are part of all my lesson plans anyway. I do feel sorry for colleagues teaching other subjects in which literacy and numeracy are less prevalent. It seems crazy trying to shoehorn stuff into lessons that doesn't really belong there. All I could think of for drama would be time-keeping, but I suppose if you bring in the wider aspects of a real theatre you could be doing ticket sales, audience numbers, length of runs etc...It does all sound a right, royal pain in the arse though.
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yes, everyone keeps mentioning box office data. i have them for one hour a week. when do i get to teach the actual stuff they need to know?
 
spanglechick said:
yes, everyone keeps mentioning box office data. i have them for one hour a week. when do i get to teach the actual stuff they need to know?
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Don't actually teach it. Just do one small part of a lesson on it and reference it each week. As long as you've commented on it, and do a bit of it in your Mocksteds, then who will be any the wiser?
 
kittyP said:
I have seen brilliant teachers crushed by ofsted inspections.
The reality of them and the threat of them.
They create a state of perpetual fear.

It often effects the best the hardest and the worst still don't get weedled out.
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I seem to remember school inspections taking place back in the 80s... how much has it changed since then? At the time they were clearly completely ineffective. Was there a period when they got the balance right? Or have they just swung between extremes?
 
goldenecitrone said:
Do an ongoing project so they have to break up each lesson into its constituent parts and make a little piechart of how they spent their hour with you.
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No way. how much of the lesson would i have left? I have sixty minutes. the first fifteen minutes are (alternate weeks) a five-question test, which i should be doing every week as it is our school's policy, or the students responding to my written feedback, and to my corrections and comments for their previous responses. This is all in a room with no desks. In the following 45 mins i need to introduce, model and facilitate that lesson's skill, students need to have a chance to work on it themselves, and then every student must perform, and each performance must be verbally evaluated, plus i need to write a written assessment of half the class every week (so each child across two weeks). I do not have time to do projects which actively take away from their learning time in my subject. I'm not prepared to be a bit shit at teaching drama just because they could hit this hoop-jumping criteria in a way that could be shoehorned into my lesson. It would take ages - especially with some classes. I incorporated the use of tally charts into a lesson a few weeks back - with one class (year 8) it took over twenty minutes for them to understand how to record and count their tally marks. I need to be smarter about numeracy than that, because i haven't got time to be a maths teacher.

But anyway, thanks - but i wasn't looking for help. I've actually delivered training on numeracy in drama to other heads of drama. I am an 'outstanding' teacher. Even in my numeracy. But that doesn't mean that the pressure that this fucking ridiculous hoop-jumping that ofsted and the preparation for ofsted causes isn't metaphorically ripping me apart. I jus gave the fcking ridiculous numeracy stuff as an example of the bollocks that has to be delivered upon or else. I do deliver on it, because i'm terrified of the or else. I shouldn't be so scared.
 
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Hollis said:
I seem to remember school inspections taking place back in the 80s... how much has it changed since then? At the time they were clearly completely ineffective. Was there a period when they got the balance right? Or have they just swung between extremes?
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there must've been inspections but the first OFSTEDs were in 1996-7ish. Back then you knew in advance when they were coming. We spent 6 weeks neglecting our teaching because we were preparing, and the next six weeks neglecting our teaching because we were recovering. Now ofsteds can be at 24hrsnotice, which is supposed to take away that 'preparation period'. What actually happens in my school and a lot of others is that you spend every day for up to four years in that state of panic.
 
spanglechick said:
everything in our school is done for the benefit of ofsted. we have three 'mocksteds' a year during which someone could walk into your classroom and if if they judged anything at a grade 3 (for example the numeracy content of any given drama lesson, or my evidencing numeracy progress over time... or whether there is a written dialogue in their books after every piece of written work (I make a comment, a target and a learning question. student must respond to this, I must then respond to their response, also marking any literacy errors. For every piece of work. When i see over 400 kids for an hour a week...) ... or if a student arrives late... or if any student for any reason doesn't make expected progress... or if their books have messy handwriting... if any of these things are seen during the mocksteds (or at any other time), I will be put on a six week 'capabilities' programme, during which I must submit all my lesson plans in advance and will have unlimited observations. Most people resign during 'capabilities', and then, obviously, can never get a teaching job again.

all this is done so that when ofsted do come (and we're not due for another three years), we can present to them a portfolio of inarguably rigorous evidence of how exacting our standards are.

ofsted used to be a mildly stressful few weeks of prep, and then a boozeup in the pub. At a lot of schools now it's a permanent state of fear.
Click to expand...

I vaguely remember 25 one-hour slots per week at school, so about 4 minutes per student per week 1:1 contact time, if you did nothing else.

Dr Ben Goldacre (Bad Science) said he got asked by Gove to input on evidence-based teaching. Which would be encouraging except in Gove's case I just assume he want's to leech Goldacre's credibility.
http://www.badscience.net/2013/03/h...ence-and-teaching-for-the-education-minister/
 
As a parent I am sick of hearing about assessments and can only imagine how teachers feel about it. In fact that's not true, my mother was a teacher but when she returned to Ireland her enjoyment of the profession had been bed dry so she didn't bother converting her qualifications to each in Ireland and is a classroom assistant instead.
The pressure heaped on teachers regarding evidenced learning and meeting targets, satisfactory outcomes etc trickles down to the children and it's not fair. I am sick of hearing that my son (yr6) will be assessed based on documented learning outcomes, he also has to respond to marking as spanglechicks describes and there is a real awareness of the importance of Ofsted inspections and SATS, target settings and so forth. It creates a pressured environment for teachers and for children. So I would wholeheartedly support teachers in their actions aimed at improving the learning environment for both staff and pupils.
 
Im not a teacher, my mother is a retired primary school teacher, retired about 8 years ago

Playing devil's advocate

We've had 20 years of trying to standardize curricula, measure teacher performance, inspections and league tables; under 3 administrations. It is the same in other parts of the world. I don't think it's going to go away.

It seems the NUT and other unions seem to be objecting on principal to and performance measurement and rewards. Surely it's time for the profession, as in the unions, come up with alternative proposals, rather than going back to the 70s/80s when teaching was fairly unstructured.

My mother used to teach in a small village primary school where she was required to fill in a record book for every lesson. These record books were a continuous record tothe founding of the school in the 19th century. It was stopped when the head changed, a little before implementation of the national curriculum. School bureaucracy is not new,and it's not necessarily bad.

A few years ago I took part in a careers day at an American elementary school in a poor Hispanic neighbourhood in Houston. The idea was to get professionals to talk about their work hoping to inspire elevated goals for the kids.

Myself and a petroleum engineer talked to 3 classes. One of disinterested kids with a disinterested teacher, one with a very good teacher who lead the kids to ask interesting questions, including subjects like salary. The third class had a teach for America teacher who was keen but failed to carry the children with her.

What was interesting was the hideous performance pay system in Houston with all the teachers bonuses listed online identified the guy we thought was good as being the best teacher in the school. I'm not convinced performance cannot be measured. The other interesting thing about the Houston system is that across the city it was the specialist elementary school teachers without a class that came top, but I digress.

So, can a rational system be created? OFSTEAD inspectors are presumably former teachers, so why is the system running wild?

When are real teachers going to propose the answers, or maybe they have, it's just not being publicised. The NUT has plenty of resources so that's not an excuse..
 
You should see the faces of the inspectors when they walk in to a special needs school. And find that not all those children are in wheelchairs and some want to bite your face off for disrupting their normal lessons.
I saw an inspector leap a foot off the floor once upon encountering one of my students.

:D but :(
 
most teachers are not educational theorists. Unions aren't either. The unions' considerable resources are spent fighting against bullying regimes and gove's more extreme ideas.

performance-related pay has never been used in teaching. where is the evidence that it drives up standards instead of, along with most of the other wrongs in teaching, driving up students' abilities to pass exams?

How can we have performance-related pay if every single teacher is working with different kids n different contexts? how do you quantify the mitigation of "this class was taught by a series of shit supply teachers for two years before i got them". What about the teacher whose gcse lesson gets scheduled for last thing on a friday? or the period after they've just been in a lesson with a teacher who gets them all wound up?

these aren't 'excuses' - they are a tiny number of the hundreds of variables that mean any given set of 30 kids might not make the progress of any other set. Would you propose paying doctors based on how many lives they save? what about those who treat more borderline patients? what about those in areas with lower life expectancy? how do you compare the skin cancer specialist with the pancreatic cancer doc? Some things do not fit neatly into an idea of "input x, add process y, get outcome z".

the plural of anecdote is not data. of course teachers recognised as good are likely to be so (hey - i'm outstanding, i would say that)... but not every teacher who doesn't measure up to whatever arbitrary key performance indicator has been selected is a bad teacher.
 
spanglechick said:
most teachers are not educational theorists. Unions aren't either. The unions' considerable resources are spent fighting against bullying regimes and gove's more extreme ideas.

performance-related pay has never been used in teaching. where is the evidence that it drives up standards instead of, along with most of the other wrongs in teaching, driving up students' abilities to pass exams?
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It was used in the Victorian era. It was scrapped in the early 20th century because we all woke up and realised it was stupid, didn't work and negatively affected pupils and teachers alike. Doesn't Gove bang on about how important history is? Maybe he should do some fucking reading of his own. :mad:
 
purenarcotic said:
It was used in the Victorian era. It was scrapped in the early 20th century because we all woke up and realised it was stupid, didn't work and negatively affected pupils and teachers alike. Doesn't Gove bang on about how important history is? Maybe he should do some fucking reading of his own. :mad:
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if any tories did any fucking reading they wouldn't bang on about victorian values. cause it's all bullshit.
 
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