Classes disrupted as teachers stage strike

[Terpe]

Thousands of schoolchildren in England and Wales are suffering disruption as teachers strike over pay, pensions and conditions.


More here

[Dedworth]

A bunch of wasters who have little experience of the real world. No matter how incompetent they are only a handful are ever sacked.

[les_taxi]

Another example of a bloody union disrupting everyone's life member or not.
13 weeks holiday not enough!
To be fair the other 5 unions not supporting this strike

[Iani]

Mixed feelings about this.
I don't think the kids education would be disrupted too much, as if the teachers aren't in school, then they aren't going to be teaching - so they will just be a day behind......and frankly there's a lot of time at the end of term to catch up.
Then......who would be a teacher? It's so much about crowd control, with kids who are all too aware of their "rights", but not so aware of their responsibilities, with scumbag parents all too ready to storm into school if their little Chelsea or Harrison is told off for telling the teacher to off.

Having said that, I was at a high school in the 80's. We had strike after strike. I witnessed militant teachers having a right screaming strop at any kids who dared be on campus during their "strike", as it was undermining the revolution presumably.
I witnessed a really good biology teacher who locked himself in his storeroom to mark our mock exams in secret, because he knew if he followed his union and left them, it would damage our forthcoming final exams (I knew this as being a 6th former, I was treated as almost an adult and was trusted).

I knew a militant deputy head who locked a schoolfriend in his office with him, and challenged him to hit him, so that he could have this kid expelled. No witnesses, so we could never prove this happened.
The same militant little .... gave me a bad telling off because I didn't share his views on communism and dared write an essay on communist aggression. My results were marked down because of this. Sigh let's pretend I care shall we.

I saw that school go from a very well respected grammar school, into a sink comprehensive, where parents knew bullying was rife. It's ofsted report showed racial tension and general aggressive behaviour in the school buildings, but the school always denied this.

I knew a top teacher, who was admittedly a real left winger, but a pragmatic one. He believed in discipline, but he gave up trying to keep control because nobody would back him up.

Then we had STOPP - teachers opposed to the cane. Well they got their way didn't they - and they went back to their middle class leafy secondary schools, and rural village primaries - leaving teachers in tough inner city schools despairing.

The words as they sow, they reap come to mind.

Teachers used to use the advertisement to attract graduates "nobody forgets a good teacher". Very true, but also nobody forgets a bad teacher either. Whether it's the lady teacher who just couldn't keep control, leading to her screaming at us whilst pupils climbed out the windows and held a disco in the empty class next door, or the former nun teacher who preferred to preach about being an anarchist instead of teach.

The good thing I can say about the teachers unions, is that after many years, they now seem to have woken up and smelt the coffee - they now do try and fight for teachers, however the damage is done

[bigmarco]

I think any democratic vote that has a 92% vote in favour of action has to be taken seriously.

He admitted that he was "concerned" about the amount of hours teachers were working per week, and he said that he wanted to try to reduce this by cutting the amount of bureaucracy and red tape teachers had to face

This quote from the schools Minister clearly acknowledges that there is a problem. I think you'll find that a days strike action will concentrate the governments negotiators minds and hopefully bring about a peaceful settlement of this dispute.
I did express my solidarity with a rather large group from the NUT who came to pay their respects at Bob Crows funeral on Monday.
We entrust our children into these peoples hands for a large part of their early lives and it's only right that they should be adequately rewarded for the work they do.

[Dedworth]

We entrust our children into these peoples hands for a large part of their early lives and it's only right that they should be adequately rewarded for the work they do.

A mate of mine is a staff governor at a comprehensive school and he tells me plenty of interesting stories about inept teachers and the way public money is thrown down the drain. Just for starters last Sept they took on a 27 year old as Head of Chemistry she is so inexperienced and incapable that she cannot teach A Level Chemistry but that hasn't stopped the school ignoring external applicants and promoting her to Head of Science from Sept 2014.

Last night he told me that they disregarded 4 decent candidates for the Headteacher vacancy and picked a character with a somewhat murky recent past - he left his last headship 5 years ago and started a dubious "consultancy" that "raises" sponsorship money for schools from private companies, during the interview he told the panel he'd resigned from this operation and it had shut down. Funnily enough it's website is still up and he's shown as an active director at Companies House. They've hired him on £88000 a year

[les_taxi]

I chatted to a hard worked teacher who admitted it was best job ever.
She particularly liked the holiday aspect!

[bigmarco]

I don't doubt you for one minute Ded and there's cause for concern with both them stories.
Apart from an initial bad experience with the local primary when my oldest first went there I've had nothing but good experiences. We took her out and got her into a Catholic School in Wimbledon and then they both went on to all girl Catholic Secondary. I'm pleased with the job they've done with my help of course
My only concern about the teaching profession now is that it's relatively easy to get into. You don't need a degree now which I find ridiculous and I blame the politicians for that. As the saying goes if you pay peanuts you get monkeys. Degrees clearly have no desire to head into teaching now because there's better money elsewhere.