Rude and disrespectful students, riotous classrooms, poor standards and low expectations, students without direction or motivation, courses without resources, little discipline and teachers drowning in an avalanche of paperwork - the actual face of teaching in the UK in 2016.
On January 4th 2016, I started a new job as a Sports Tutor at an outer London College catering essentially for students aged 16-18. I was extremely excited at the prospect of applying my teaching skills of over 20 years to the area of Sport and Exercise. With a Sports Science degree from Loughborough University, and as a PE Teacher, a Personal Trainer and a Level 3 Cycle Coach and Cycle Instructor, this seemed a perfect career move. Within three weeks', I had handed my notice in, shocked by the state of mainstream teaching.
No Schemes of Work & Minimal Resources
I was given 6 different classes, a mixture of Sport and Public Services of varying levels, ranging from BTEC to YMCA awards. Without any explanation of what each course required, what had been taught and what needed to be covered, I was plunged head first into trying to teach each group. After searching the college moodle and various hard drives held by individual teachers, I was to discover that many courses had no syllabus of work and sparse or zero resources. When I questioned the current teachers, I was told that I would have to build resources 'on the fly', to google the area and use material from the internet. Not satisfied with this answer, I spoke to my senior management and was told that I couldn't expect to be given my lessons and that all teachers had to build their own resources from whatever they could find.
Level of Students & the Lack of Discipline
One of the most upsetting aspects of my experience is seeing how the more motivated students are being held back by the rude and disrespectful students. The range of abilities in the class can be unmanageable, even for the most experienced teacher, and capable students are required to wait for the others to pass their assignments and workbook tasks. Some are even paying the course fees of around 6-7 thousand and are certainly not getting value for money. As for the students who constantly break the 'school rules' of no phone use, wearing hats and hoodies, no swearing, no eating or drinking in class, with no apparent interest in learning, then they are just wasting taxpayers' money. The disciplinary procedure is not nearly strong enough and students run rough shod over the whole system. In fact, once a student reaches a Level 3 disciplinary, which involves a meeting with the student's parents, the school is powerless to remove the offender, no matter how outrageous the behaviour is that follows.
Devalued Qualifications
The expectation is to pass all the students, in order for the college to secure further government funding and, as a consequence, the qualifications achieved become devalued and meaningless. Students who fail, hold the rest of the class back, create more paperwork and more work for the teacher. It becomes easier to merely pass the student. I was told by management to basically spoon feed the answers, so the class could move on to the next module. For example, in order to save time, a colleague told the students the required answers in class, asked them to record these answers on their smartphone and then submit this as evidence. One student told me he passed Anatomy and Physiology in this way but admitted he had absolutely no understanding of the subject. In my short time at the college, I have regularly seen students print off their friends' successful assignments and copy the answers. This is meant to be okay if they use their own words, but even if they did, they obviously don't know the answers or they wouldn't be copying in the first place. During my induction, I was told the college used the Harvard Referencing system, which I know very well, but the Sports Department clearly didn't know what this actually was, describing mere paraphrasing as satisfactory. Interestingly, the college moodle had APA6, not Harvard, as its example referencing system.
No Real Teaching and Low Level of English accepted
The courses are assignment or workbook focussed and very little teaching takes place. When I have tried to teach the students, mixing interactive tasks in groups and pairs, students lose focus fairly quickly and indiscipline invariably follows. When students are given their assignments to work on, they are far more focussed. Undoubtedly, this is why so few teaching resources existed. Tutors are supposed to highlight grammar and spelling errors in assignments, to satisfy OFSTED, but students are not required to correct these errors and are only passed or failed on content alone.
Paperwork Mountain & Unrealistic Expectations
It is virtually impossible to create effective lessons when, as a teacher, you are required to do mountains of marking, attend several weekly meetings, regular training and track and phone students and their parents. Of course, some of this is vitally important, but there is very little opportunity to do all of this and prepare lessons on such a busy timetable. What is more, we were expected to internally verify (IV) our fellow team members even though we were not familiar with their course content and, more importantly, not qualified to do so. We were then told to backdate the process to several months before, so that OFSTED would be satisfied. It was admitted that this was an illegal process but was necessary as the department had neglected to IV for the whole of that academic year.
From Day one, I was told by Senior Management that this job was not a 9-5 position and I would have to work weekends and evenings. Again, this is fine to a point and as a teacher, I have always worked longer hours than I am paid. But it is the expectation that is not right and it places incredible pressure on teachers. Colleges have reduced staffing to a bare minimum and teachers are then asked to the jobs of others. It's all about cost cutting and saving money at the expense of teachers and, ultimately, students will suffer by not being provided with the education they deserve.
From Day one, I was told by Senior Management that this job was not a 9-5 position and I would have to work weekends and evenings. Again, this is fine to a point and as a teacher, I have always worked longer hours than I am paid. But it is the expectation that is not right and it places incredible pressure on teachers. Colleges have reduced staffing to a bare minimum and teachers are then asked to the jobs of others. It's all about cost cutting and saving money at the expense of teachers and, ultimately, students will suffer by not being provided with the education they deserve.
Level of Teachers
To my surprise, many members of the Sports Department, including Senior Managers, did not have a teaching degree. Many were teaching with a qualification called PTLLS (Preparing to Teach in the Lifelong Learning Sectors), the lowest of all the teaching qualifications. Furthermore, the grammar of the teachers was extremely poor. One Sports Tutor had written on a worksheet 'What was you pleased about?' while, in a meeting, another staff member said 'he took the ipad but he never give it back'. It became commonplace to hear poor grammar within the staffroom.
And what about OFSTED?
OFSTED are meant to uphold standards and will make regular inspections to see that these standards are being upheld. However, in my last week, OFSTED visited the college, but because it was known that they were coming, and which teachers and classes would be observed, a special concerted effort was made to show OFSTED we were meeting their expectations. Perhaps a spot check would have revealed the stark reality - poorly resourced lessons, virtually no discipline, rude and disrespectful students, meaningless qualifications, little proper teaching, and teachers drowning in a sea of paperwork and marking.
But is this the picture the government wants to send to the public? Some areas of the school system are a disgrace and perhaps the government would prefer this to be kept under wraps. Until something changes, teachers will continue to leave the profession in droves - I, for one, will not be going back.
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