Teachers threaten to boycott Ofsted Inspections

[Lo Siento.]

I'm bemused as to what positive effect the government expects to get out of performance related pay. I mean, do they imagine that most teachers just aren't trying? Or do they imagine that the prospect of a bonus is going to attract the type of people who currently choose better paid, less stressful work into teaching?

As someone who is definitely the profile of person they'd want this to attract, with some experience of teaching kids, there's absolutely no way in hell this makes teaching a more attractive career...

 

[ymu]

i just read the goldacre thing. it depressed me. evidence-based research will lend athority to dictats which increasingly tell us there is one, correct way to teach. but teaching is not something you do with your actions, it is something you are with your personality. my closest colleague, in music, is also an outstandng teacher - but she rules with a rod of iron. her lessons are all about structure and control. it works wonderfully for her, but i cannot teach that way. conversely, my teaching is about mutual happiness and emotions and respect and freedom. about jokes and laughing. we are both outstanding teachers, but neither of us can say "do as i do, and you will be outstanding too" - it just doesnt work that way.

I call this sort of research "Aunty Mary" (she might be fucking brilliant at whatever it is she is doing, but it's not reproducible).

There is a role for evidence in teaching, but not, as you say, that require teachers to become robots. Things like phonics, homework in primary school, later starting times, etc can be usefully tested. Unfortunately there is usually very little high quality research addressing useful questions and a whole heap of Aunty Mary crap that gets cherry-picked by policy-makers to justify what they want to do, or are doing.

I haven't dared look at Goldacre's stuff yet. My heart sank a bit when I saw he'd been asked to contribute.

 

[equationgirl]

Evidence-based medicine is bad enough sometimes, let alone applied to anything else, in my opinion.

 

[sim667]

We're constantly on high alert for ofsted. I've stopped giving a fuck tbh

 

[goldenecitrone]

We're constantly on high alert for ofsted. I've stopped giving a fuck tbh

It's the best way to deal with it. Fuck living in a state of fear for months on end.

 

[spanglechick]

i used to be like that. then i started working at an academy.