(no subject)

I have approximately twelve weeks to decide what I want to do next with my life. Unimaginable luxury, genuinely; I'm so used to taking whatever will come along because I haven't the money to do any different, it's kind of lovely. I'm making a priority list of job elements and looking at interesting charity job websites; I really have been so very narrow up until now.

(no subject)

Turning to workload, Mr Gove was asked how many hours a teacher should work.

He said: “At the moment they are required to work 32.5 hours of which 10% of time is planning, preparation and assessment time, ie not in the classroom. I think the question is that teachers should work as long as is required to do the job.

“I think there is a cultural thing here, I don’t want anymore than anyone does to have teachers who are de-motivated, exhausted, strung-out or burnt-out.


“I recognise that standing in front of the class, particularly if you are a primary school teacher throughout the day, takes a lot out of you. Absolutely.

“But at the same time I think it is important that we don’t have a culture of clock watching, I think it is important that we have a culture of collaborative engagement and team working, where for example if you need to cover for an absent colleague who is dealing with family crises, that you have a greater degree of flexibility.”

And asked if he had a view on how big class sizes should be he said: “It depends. The critical thing is the quality of the teacher…The critical test for me is are children in a class with a superb teacher.

“I would rather, for the sake of argument that you had one teacher who was brilliant teaching 16 children than two groups of eight with indifferent teaching for those two groups.

“So the critical question is the quality of teaching.”


I - the man has no idea.

Every week I am in school for at the very least 40 hours and often more like 45; I do at least two hours work at home every night and often more like four or five; I mark and plan at least ten hours and often more over the weekend.

And 16? 16? I have classes twice as big!

THIS MAN IS NOT QUALIFIED TO SAY ANYTHING RELATED TO MY PROFESSION. And he's supposed to be in charge.

You've got to laugh, really. Due to the lack of readily available flame throwers.

ETA:/b>

the head of OFSTED, Michael Wilshire, is on record as saying "If anyone says to you that 'staff morale is at an all-time low' you know you are doing something right."