Has the High Court abolished school term time?

[Thunder Bolt]

So what? Novovirus is one of many causative agents of gastro-enteritis. Do you think that now we HAVE discovered the virus and DO know how contagious it is we should ignore that information just because we didn't know 30 years ago?

I know that. Don't be patronising. Get rid of your signature, it's very annoying.

 

[fork me]

Bereavement leave is allowed, so not sure why that would have happened.

Usually because the school isn't informed of the reason until after they've initiated action. I've seen this many times.

 

[fork me]

You should read the book "bad education" Which is quite a lot like Ben goldacre's book bad science. It disproves ten or twelve common myths in education. You covered most of them above which is impressive my favourite being small class sizes. You do know that to improve results class size in primary would need to drop to about 15 don't you? That would pretty much double the cost of primary education which would need twice the amount of teachers. Where are these teachers going to come from? Oh I know pay people more. Push up all the wages!

You should look at the education endowment foundation website. It lists different interventions and the impact and cost. Very interesting. It won't show what you expect.

Enjoy.

.and of course, because it says what you want to hear, it must be right and all the other research wrong.

The FACT is that smaller class sizes DO improve education, I agree it's impossible to make them small enough in the public system, but that's no reason to dismiss facts.

When I was teaching in the UK my largest chemistry GCSE class had 33 students. How much individual attention can I give each one as an individual in a 60 minute lesson to ensure they're not being left behind, go through the things they as an individual are struggling with etc etc etc? The maths isn't difficult.

There are strategies you can (and any good teacher) will use in those circumstances, but it doesn't alter the fact that the less students in the class the more you can tailor for individual needs.

 

[fork me]

To turn around your question - if as you suggest 14 weeks is plenty of time to take family holidays surely it's also plenty of time to have inset days inside school holidays as well ?

Do YOU do your work training during your holiday?

 

[fork me]

I used to work at schools during the holidays never saw many turning up to start work at nine

Do you think marking and lesson planning has to be done at school? Most teachers take huge amounts of work home.

 

[Albion Dan]

...and make it completely impossible for teachers to plan any sort of coherent curriculum.

It would lead to you regularly losing large numbers of the class with no, or little notice, and pupils constantly being behind.

Possible the single most stupid suggestion I've seen.

Oh behave. As if missing a couple of weeks of school work is really going to have any real impact on a child.

Sent from my HTC One_M8 using Tapatalk

 

[fork me]

My view is that only a few teachers do this. These arguments only tend to come out when other non-teachers criticise them for doing nothing and not doing a 'proper job in the real world'.

I have yet to meet anyone who went into teaching from another job, or gave up teaching to do another job say that teaching was the easy one.

To be fair, since emigrating and moving abroad I've realised just how much of that is the ludicrous amount of pointless paperwork that teachers have to do, along with the huge class sizes and masses of coursework marking.

I now teach in an international school abroad, with no coursework (everything exam assessed), small classes and no pointless paperwork and I now do lead the sort of life that ignorant people claim UK teachers lead. I do no work during holidays and when I finish my normal hours I take no work home. It wasn't like that teaching in the UK though. I rarely left school before 6 (3:30 was my supposed finish time) and I always took work home as well. I also regularly worked throughout holidays.

 

[fork me]

Why not tap into a plethora of pre designed planning rather than write up constant new ones and why is she consigned to literally rebuild her classroom during her holiday times rather than have something pre designed and delivered which would look just as effective, it all seems a little well unnecessary..

A lot of that IS unnecessary, but teacher's don;t do it by choice they do it because they HAVE to or their schools would fail inspections...

...all that pointless paperwork I was talking about.

 

[fork me]

I know that. Don't be patronising. Get rid of your signature, it's very annoying.

I'd forgotten it was there, until very recently it never worked.

I think I may keep it a bit longer though...

 

[fork me]

Oh behave. As if missing a couple of weeks of school work is really going to have any real impact on a child.

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It is, and the more kids that did it the worse it would get. How, for example, as a chemistry teacher would I possibly organise practical coursework sessions, that student HAVE to do in order to pass if I could have huge numbers of the class missing at regular intervals never knowing when that would be?

It would be impossible to organise anything.

 

[Bold Seagull]

Oh behave. As if missing a couple of weeks of school work is really going to have any real impact on a child.

Sent from my HTC One_M8 using Tapatalk

It is, and the more kids that did it the worse it would get. How, for example, as a chemistry teacher would I possibly organise practical coursework sessions, that student HAVE to do in order to pass if I could have huge numbers of the class missing at regular intervals never knowing when that would be?

It would be impossible to organise anything.

[MENTION=1334]fork me[/MENTION] is right here. The impact on a single child missing some time off school is probably not significant and they can catch up as you say [MENTION=316]Albion Dan[/MENTION], but the impact on the class will be greater the more times this happens. Teachers plan their lessons over a term, and a child could miss a crucial part that sets up the rest of that term. They would then need special attention from the teacher to ensure they know where they are to catch up. Multiply that by several children going away at different times, and rather than that teacher spending time with individuals that need help, they are spending their time catching the kids up who've missed a week or more. The class would suffer as a result. The brighter kids maybe okay, the ones that catch up might be fine, but there will be others missing out.

Plenty of people saying it never did their kid any harm, or doesn't impact on the kid missing a week or so, but there is a bigger picture to consider.

 

[fork me]

I'd forgotten it was there, until very recently it never worked.

I think I may keep it a bit longer though...

OK, I've managed to change the settings and shrink it.

When I first used it there were only about 6 or 7 flags on there, it stopped working on here years ago and I never got round to removing it. It's very recently started showing again on here, but because I also use it on my homepage on a couple of bigger intenational sites the full thing got much bigger in the meantime.

 

[Berty23]

.and of course, because it says what you want to hear, it must be right and all the other research wrong.

The FACT is that smaller class sizes DO improve education, I agree it's impossible to make them small enough in the public system, but that's no reason to dismiss facts.

When I was teaching in the UK my largest chemistry GCSE class had 33 students. How much individual attention can I give each one as an individual in a 60 minute lesson to ensure they're not being left behind, go through the things they as an individual are struggling with etc etc etc? The maths isn't difficult.

There are strategies you can (and any good teacher) will use in those circumstances, but it doesn't alter the fact that the less students in the class the more you can tailor for individual needs.

If this is a FACT then why does class size not have a relationship with achievement rates once other factors are controlled? Things such as prior quals, fsm, ethnicity etc. So while you might like to quite your class, I am actually talking about national analysis of massive datasets.

Good rant though.

 

[Berty23]

Although I would add that most research re class size looks at primary (where statutory limits exist). The way secondary school is structured makes this much harder. The argument falls apart at A level though here some of the highest performing providers have huge classes. Obviously chemistry is different due to practicals etc. But your statement of FACT is still wrong.

 

[fork me]

If this is a FACT then why does class size not have a relationship with achievement rates once other factors are controlled? Things such as prior quals, fsm, ethnicity etc. So while you might like to quite your class, I am actually talking about national analysis of massive datasets.

Good rant though.

Are you? I doubt that very much, and if you are, I'd like to see a link to the study, because I;m speaking from a position of 20 years of teaching and experience of both very small and very large classes.

 

[Berty23]

Are you? I doubt that very much, and if you are, I'd like to see a link to the study, because I;m speaking from a position of 20 years of teaching and experience of both very small and very large classes.

It is not just one study. It is an analysis of many studies. That is why the book is excellent. It presents both sides and then says "so on balance..."

 

[fork me]

It is not just one study. It is an analysis of many studies. That is why the book is excellent. It presents both sides and then says "so on balance..."

So you tell me, however, your analysis of it runs contrary to my 20 years experience actually doing the job. I'm not going to just take the book's word for it, I want to see the actual studies. All we have in that book is one person's analysis of them. Who's thew author? What qualifications does he have to make the analysis? What analyses of the data have been done by others?

Without all this information what you say means nothing.

 

[fork me]

By the way, here's a genuine peer assessed and published study that suggests class size DOES matter.

Again, it's an analysis of all the research done to date, rather than just one piece of research.

http://www.centerforpubliceducation...-and-student-achievement-Research-review.html

 

[Berty23]

By the way, here's a genuine peer assessed and published study that suggests class size DOES matter.

Again, it's an analysis of all the research done to date, rather than just one piece of research.

http://www.centerforpubliceducation...-and-student-achievement-Research-review.html

The book is not just one study. Didn't I say earlier that you need to get down to about 15 to get a benefit? This research says 18. But benefit goes once gets get to year 3. What happens then? Kids stay in expensive small classes for no benefit or they suddenly go to larger classes which might change their attitude to learning? Halving class siZe requires twice as many teachers etc. It is such an expensive change to make for very little benefit. Take a look at the education endowment website.

This exchange has struck me why some people are really trying to get teaching as a profession more engaged with research. It is too easy to say "I know X based on 20 years experience" when it might be that you are missing something that works better. The teach first programme focuses on learning from research and this is a good development imho.

 

[fork me]

The book is not just one study. Didn't I say earlier that you need to get down to about 15 to get a benefit? This research says 18. But benefit goes once gets get to year 3. What happens then? Kids stay in expensive small classes for no benefit or they suddenly go to larger classes which might change their attitude to learning? Halving class siZe requires twice as many teachers etc. It is such an expensive change to make for very little benefit. Take a look at the education endowment website.

This exchange has struck me why some people are really trying to get teaching as a profession more engaged with research. It is too easy to say "I know X based on 20 years experience" when it might be that you are missing something that works better. The teach first programme focuses on learning from research and this is a good development imho.

There's a few points here. Firstly, I'll take a peer reviewed paper over a book any day. What exactly are YOUR qualifications to say the book is definitely right and everyone else is wrong?

Secondly, why discount actual experience? The smallest class I have ever taught is 2, the largest 32, and I've taught about every class size in between. 32 was way too big, 24 is managable, and yes, no matter what your book says, there will be a difference in results between those two.