You mean dropped to train kids how to pass exams. Instead of focusing on teaching kids life skills for their future.
Time to ‘rethink school’?
- Thread starter johnny6
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You mean dropped to train kids how to pass exams. Instead of focusing on teaching kids life skills for their future.
Who said a new system needed to be classroom based?
As eluded to why not have a centralised resource library rather than getting teachers up and down the country to rewrite materials every time something changes.
Why does it have to be a low paid job?
Soldato
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One thing to understand is most teachers in state schools work around 70 hours a week , which includes all weekends and most of their holidays. This means they are teaching our children often while mentally and physically shattered. This is not fair on them and not good for our children. Add to this hours of pointless bureaucracy, an aggressive inspection regime which simply enforced the education whim of the day regardless of real world impact and an employer who freely criticises them in the media.
Why anyone would do this job under those circumstances and a very low real hourly rate with the negative impact on their health and life is beyond me. Until this changes nothing significant will change in education in general. The current cuts schools are having to make currently are making this much worse.
Parents who want longer school hours should set the example and volunteer to provide them.
Why anyone would do this job under those circumstances and a very low real hourly rate with the negative impact on their health and life is beyond me. Until this changes nothing significant will change in education in general. The current cuts schools are having to make currently are making this much worse.
Parents who want longer school hours should set the example and volunteer to provide them.
True, its all good saying kids need longer in school. Completely forgetting about the teachers, they are human too, also have families and have a life aswell. They are not robots no matter how good or bad the pay is.
Apart from one, all my friends who were teachers have now quit due to the high workloads, hours and the lack of respect from the kids.
Apart from one, all my friends who were teachers have now quit due to the high workloads, hours and the lack of respect from the kids.
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Soldato
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true, my point was more that you can't start from nothing when trying to self-learn via yt as you won't be able to disseminate the useless/false information from the good information.
Soldato
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My GF is a primary school teacher and she already goes in at 7.15 and comes home about 6.00 odd as it is. So this would mean she will be working 7.15 to 8.30/9 now, seems like quite the hard day. There is now way you could get primary school children doing this, they would be knackered and probably turn into nightmares by the end of the day.
Soldato
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UK independent schools often have boarders and day boarders all of whom have a school day that goes through till 6pm or later. As I understand it they have structured lessons until school ends, take a break, then eat in the dining hall then sit down for a communal home work period. Once this is over they are finished for the day. Because they are not being taught for the additional hours the teacher burden is not substantially increased and sixth formers often oversee the younger children during their homework time.
Soldato
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It doesn't 'mean' that. The scenario in your head might suggest that but without details you're just assuming it'll make things worse.
Soldato
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Unless they employ two teachers per class how would it get better? She still has to teach the class then complete all the paperwork?
Soldato
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What if she did exactly the same amount of teaching during the day? But instead of cramming it in 9-3 it was 9-5, or 8-6. More breaks for the kids, more breaks for her. She'd have to use the breaks to do the outside classroom work that she already does. That's just one option.
Soldato
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Isn't that missing the point of OP? He was asking for more practical subjects not increased breaks. That seems a way make it more convenient for some parents and in that case they already do after school clubs and the like.
The problem with that idea is that breaks in school when students are around are not anywhere near as productive as breaks when students aren't around. I can't remember the last lunch break I had that wasn't disturbed in one form or another, most frees I have in school get taken up with things other than PPA. Extending the school day isn't really going to help that much. More parental engagement, the realisation that teachers are not the only people responsible for the education of the child and a more forward thinking curriculum that is actually given time to work rather than being changed every couple of years is probably going to help more.
The students that do well in school are the ones from homes that value education and support the school and, more importantly, the child, in their education.
Soldato
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That's fair enough and totally understandable. Out of interest, what do you think of home schooling?
If done well, I am sure, in certain circumstances, in can work. Probably more at primary rather than secondary. However teaching is a profession and there is more to it than just going "Here you go, read this text book" so the breadth of knowledge you would require at GCSE and A Level would be significant. The teacher/student ratio is also pretty good, so rather than 4 minutes teacher time per hour they can get much more. But the curriculum offered is going to be much more restricted as few parents or even groups of parents will be able to cover the range of subjects a decent secondary can offer. This can lead to restricted life and career choices.
Not to mention that pretty much every home schooled child I have met has either been slightly odd or had parents that were more than slightly odd. Anecdotal I know, but just my experience.
My children are schooled in India (albeit at a top fee paying school). My daughter is 4 and my son is 8. I do not envy my son's school existence at all, and it is vastly different from my experience in the UK ( I was lucky enough to be grammar school educated).
School timings are 08:00 to 15:00 six days a week, and on top of that around an hours homework every night, with around 3 hours at the weekend.
This puts a massive amount of pressure on my wife to support my son, and with this there is a massive amount of pressure to succeed and compete. In India the mentality of middle class families is that their children will be competing against western children for employment opportunities so they need to ensure that they are a step ahead.
Its too much, and I question the impact it has on my son.
He is missing out on the opportunity to be a child.
We are considering changing him to another school with a different and (to me) radical methodology. The principle that children should learn at their own pace and more importantly learn what they want to and how they want to. We have a friend, and their son goes there and he loves it (of course he would), a lot of free time and no homework. According to the school's metric (exam performance) it performs well and more than holds its own, so why are we reluctant? Quite simply because as parents we have been brainwashed to believe that education can only follow a specific format to achieve results, following this method puts a massive amount of trust in a system with my son's future.
School timings are 08:00 to 15:00 six days a week, and on top of that around an hours homework every night, with around 3 hours at the weekend.
This puts a massive amount of pressure on my wife to support my son, and with this there is a massive amount of pressure to succeed and compete. In India the mentality of middle class families is that their children will be competing against western children for employment opportunities so they need to ensure that they are a step ahead.
Its too much, and I question the impact it has on my son.
He is missing out on the opportunity to be a child.
We are considering changing him to another school with a different and (to me) radical methodology. The principle that children should learn at their own pace and more importantly learn what they want to and how they want to. We have a friend, and their son goes there and he loves it (of course he would), a lot of free time and no homework. According to the school's metric (exam performance) it performs well and more than holds its own, so why are we reluctant? Quite simply because as parents we have been brainwashed to believe that education can only follow a specific format to achieve results, following this method puts a massive amount of trust in a system with my son's future.
Soldato
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That happens as they don't have enough money. In a perfect world every class would be 20 max and have at least one TA, they just can't afford it though.
By the very nature of extending the day you would need to increase break time for the children. If only to make sure they received 2 meals throughout the day to keep their energy levels up and not distracted by hunger. I can't remember its name but I watched a program a couple of months ago which stated school children were at their healthiest in the 1970 (despite the calorie heavy meals being provided) and it was down to making sure all school children received a meal and the amount of exercise they did.
I suppose my position is better quality teaching rather than more, of which only one part is extending the school day. Possibly with the exception of health, nutrition and physical education as I don't feel school children are active enough under the current system. My son gets 2 one hour sessions a week, being 5 that really means 2, 45 minute sessions as he has to get changed into/out of his PE kit.
After school clubs simply aren't the same thing regardless of how good or bad they are in your school. For starters not all children attend them. So are we staying that the children who do not attend them are at a disadvantage to the ones that do? Also their structure isn't based on an educational foundation. So if the after school club is simply the children playing xbox for 2 hours that's what it is.
From my experience of parents evenings we get a 4 page check list of everything our son needs to be able to do by the end of the year. Whilst I wouldn't disagree that this has its place far too much focus is placed on making sure all of the boxes are ticked off.
I also don't understand why we have teachers up and down the country preparing their own materials (as suggested by another poster) every time there is a change in subject priority. Surely by now we could have build a centralised library of teaching materials that all schools could access and tweak slightly if necessary. Having individual teachers doing this admin task seems hugely inefficient.
OP says that children will glean a better understanding of the essentials like maths, science by staying in school longer and applying them practically. I'm not sure I agree. My 3yo son has an understanding of physics and engineering and he's never been near a school. He learns by playing, and going outside and making stuff. He has a varied active lifestyle. He comes running with me, and asks questions, he helps out at the horse yard and asks questions, he goes to nursey 2 half days a week. Your childs education and understanding is based on structure learning, it's based on investing time with your child varying activities. Not hoping someone can look after them for you longer in the day so you can just feed them and put them to bed at night time.