Originally Posted by Ignitionnet

Thanks for clearing that up for me. There I was thinking that being married to a teacher, watching the hours she works and discussing things with her and with colleagues I might have some clue about education.

I'll let her know she's incompetent, her purposes nefarious rather than anything to do with dedication to her job, and she spends her time covering her arse rather than teaching.

---------- Post added at 19:33 ---------- Previous post was at 19:32 ----------



They're constantly tested through learning walks, work scrutinies and lesson observations. They have performance targets annually and the kind of level of scrutiny that I have never been under in the private sector.

---------- Post added at 19:35 ---------- Previous post was at 19:33 ----------



See above.

Funny, there was me thinking that the tests were there to allow progress of the kids to be measured.

That attitude comes from on high, and is dictated to teachers. You want teachers to teach 'useful stuff', ask the government to stop micromanaging the curriculum and obsessing over data.

Government obsessing over it means Ofsted obsess over it. Ofsted obsessing over it means SLT (Senior Leadership Team though I'm sure all you education experts knew that) obsess over it as they're fond of being employed, and that feeds down into the classroom.

Of course the idea of testing the teacher through their pupils does have the minor issue that, while many seem to consider teachers nothing more than state-funded child care, they only have the kids for a limited period each week. If the parents don't care and home life is hideous there's little teachers can do to remedy that. If the kids have various educational needs that require additional support this can also impact on the data.

Asian kids under the same teachers in the same schools make better progress than white British kids. Why do you think that is? Think perhaps it's something to do with what happens when the kids aren't at school? Same also goes for Eastern European kids, for the same reason.

But, hey, why like facts get in the way of some teacher bashing?