Striking Teachers!!

OK unless you've been living under a rock you may have noticed that some teachers are going on strike tomorrow.  A lot of people seem to be very opinionated about the strikes but there seems to be a common thought among those who are not working within education.  They are

1. How can they justify having a day off when they've only been back at work for 2 weeks
2. How can they have a day off but then fine us £60 for taking a child out of school
3. Why shouldn't they contribute to their own pensions, everyone else has to.

Now I'm not in a teachers union, I never have been and to be honest I don't particularly have any desire to be.  However, I will defend teachers and the teaching profession when I feel necessary (despite not being in employment at the moment I am still a qualified teacher so it would be silly not to).

So lets get the pensions out of the way.   I have never agreed with striking over pensions.  I worked in the real world before I was a teacher.  I know there are thousands of people who don't have a pension that is paid by their employers and I also know that there are people who have never been offered a pension through work.  I remember seeing a leaflet when I worked at the college saying that some people would be expected to pay £88 a  month towards their pension and I did actually say "well boohoo some people have to pay that anyway".   Funnily enough I have read the NASUWT reasons for the strike and there is not one mention of pensions.  They mention pay and conditions but not pensions.  The joint poster with the NUT however does.  Either way I can understand people seeing that teachers only ever strike about pensions.  I  believe this is going to be an issue that will never go away. 

I read someone say today that teachers should have to work until they are 67 like everyone else.  Can you imagine a 67 year old PE teacher? Now I know some of my PE teachers were getting on a bit but I'm sure they weren't that old.  The retirement age increase in this country (and not just within teaching) is one of the contributing factors to the unemployment levels in the country.  While people are expected to work longer they are not freeing up the jobs for the younger generation.  Over the next few years you will see the unemployment figures drop slightly (I say slightly because there are no jobs being created and people are still being made redundant).  This is because 16 - 18 year olds now have to stay in education by law.  The government can fanny it up as much as they like but the sole purpose of this is to play with the unemployment figures. If people were still allowed to retire at 65 (or 60 for women) this would not happen.  They jobs would be there for them to take over and those 16-18 year olds who don't want to stay in school (and believe me there are a lot of them) would be able to earn a living.  Instead they have to stay in education and get bored and doss about because they don't want to be there.


Anyway I could get into a huge debate just about that but that's another matter.  Back to the strike.

So this thing about the £60 fine.  People need to realise that the government have introduced this.  Not the teachers.  The government.  When it was first announced many teachers were against it.  They think that it's unfair, it's hard to implement and that it is actually detrimental to a child's education.  However, the government have basically said that holidays during term time are to be treated the same as truancy.  Now, the ironic thing I have found about this one is that many of the people who have moaned about this (I'm guessing like us they have received a letter from the school regarding this) are the same people who moan when the school isn't closed when it's snowed because they can't be bothered to go out in the cold to take the child to school and give them the day off anyway.

Don't get me wrong, I think the idea of a fine is stupid.  I grew up in a family who had to have time off during term time for a holiday because it wasn't possible to get school holidays.  It never did me any harm.  Also as funding and, God forbid, health and safety is becoming an issue some children may never get to go on day trips because schools don't want to do the risk assessments and paperwork and can't get the funding, so a family holiday is actually helping their learning. 

The point is it's not the teachers who have brought it in so don't blame them. 

So onto the final point.  The holidays.  The urban myth that teachers spend  13 weeks out of 52 doing absolutely nothing whereas the rest of the country only have 4 weeks holiday.  For a start all workers by law are entitled to 28 days paid holiday (it's up to your boss if that includes bank holidays or not). But here's the thing, when an ordinary joe bloggs worker has his month off (because that's basically what you're getting) what does he do?  Does he make resources for when he goes back to work?  Does he plan what he's going to do when he returns?  Does he sort out paperwork? Does he refresh his knowledge on what his job is?  or does he sit, with his feet up, watching the telly and relaxing?

As I've said, I've worked in the real world.  I would go back to sitting in an office all day and leaving at 5 and not having to worry about work until the next morning.  Or having a a week off and not having to plan the following week.  I would, if I didn't find it so god damn degrading and boring but that's me. 

The point is a teacher doesn't go home and put their feet up.  A teacher, despite the urban myth, doesn't leave work at 3.30pm either.  A teacher will stay at school until 5.30 because of a curriculum meeting and then go home and stay up until midnight marking 30 books ready for the next day.  A teacher will spend their weekend planning the week's lessons and creating resources so that the children can learn and be inspired.  A teacher will spend two weeks of the christmas holidays writing schemes of work for the next term and marking and planning.   A teacher will spend the whole of june and most of july writing endless reports. 

Honestly, how many jobs can you name where you have to take your work home with you?  Being self employed doesn't count.  I'm embarking on going self employed at the moment but I know that I won't be up for hours marking books or writing lectures. 

This year was the first year in 5 years I had a summer holiday.  I don't mean going away for a week.  I do that every year.  I mean actually having time to myself to do what I want.  Not having to worry about planning etc.  But that brings me onto my final point....... why I support this strike!!

As I have said, I'm not in any of the unions.  I am an unemployed qualified music teacher.  I am unemployed because the government changed the funding for further education (which is what I'm trained to teach) meaning that my old employers could no longer afford to fund my position.  Now my teaching qualification according to the government means that I can teach in secondary schools.  However, I teach music.  It's not a subject that is crying out for teachers partly because it's up in limbo as to what is happening with the subject in the future (as with all the arts).  Also because I've not trained in secondary schools someone who has more experience in secondary schools is always going to be ahead of me when applying for jobs.

Now my other issue with this is, someone said earlier today about university fees and how it was my choice to go to university.  Yes it was my choice, however, I didn't expect that 5 years after graduating and 2 years after qualifying I would be out of a job.  Me being out of a job means I am not paying those fees back thus costing the government money.  But hey if the government wants to pay for my university costs then that's up to them I guess.

I won't go into the subject of paperwork etc.  It's a bit dull.  Everyone knows it and everyone likes to deny it.  What I will say is this though........ anyone who has seen or read an interview will Michael Gove should support this strike.  The bloke is inept, has made the teaching profession completely unbearable and is completely clueless of anything in the real world. 

The government are messing with your children's education.  That's why teachers are taking a stand and that's why you should support it.

National Curriculum in England: Music

I printed out the new National Curriculum Programme of Study for Music.......

..... it covers 2 pages....

In actual fact because of my printer settings it covers one page and the other page is just blank apart from the web link and the date.

In some ways this might not be a bad thing.  There's not a pages and pages of items that pupils should be taught that to many may not be accessible.  In fact they are quite the opposite.  Just a few statements for key stage 1 - 3 (is there any guidelines for EYFS?) which are actually quite vague.  I'm going to look at each key stage in turn and pick out my "favourite" parts

Key Stage 1

Pupils should be taught to:
play tuned and untuned instruments musically

I love this statement.  For the past 4 years I've taught post 16 which has involved listening to 16-18 year olds who want to crank up the volume of their guitars, use a shed load of distortion and just make a noise.  Are they playing musically?  Possibly but it's not my choice.   What on earth does it mean by musically?  Does it mean that they should be playing a specific tune or just randomly. What is it measured against?

Key Stage 2

To be honest I don't like any of the statements for Key Stage 2.  I think they can be quite limited and actually put off non-music specialists. 

Pupils should be taught to:
Use and understand staff and other musical notations. 
 
Now don't get me wrong, I have nothing against all pupils learning any form of notation (I could read the treble clef fluently when I was 4) but the way it reads in the programme of study is as if it is the easiest thing in the world. They've tried to make it open by wording it to incorporate other notation but still it makes it a huge task to get a class of 30 kids to use and understand notation in any form.  Plus allowing for different forms of notation to be taught means that pupils going into key stage 3 potentially could be coming with varying knowledge of notation.  This isn't ideal for the pupils or teachers. 

Personally I feel that Key Stage 2 actually reads like a GCSE programme of study and is quite a jump from that at Key stage 1.  Also without the correct guidance and training it may be daunting for those who are not specialists in music. 


Key Stage 3 

I don't have a lot to say about key stage 3 as it is just an extension of key stage 2 which makes sense.  However,  I think the key issue here is that key stage 2 is probably more appropriate for key stage 3.  I do like how they have mentioned technologies and this is a step forward  but again it is very vague.   I think it is important that notation is taught at key stage 3 because at GCSE I think it's highly relevant.  I know there have been debates about how you can get through GCSE without being about to read music and I'm certain that there were many in my class all those years ago that couldn't. 

Again what level that should be at I have no idea and it isn't clear from the programme of study.  


Overall, I feel that they seem to be trying to formalise learning about music by moving towards more emphasis on notation and listening skills but the vagueness of the programme of study doesn't really cover elements of music.  Whilst I applaud the vagueness being open to creativity it could also cause issues in terms of whether it is being taught by a music specialist or not particularly in primary schools.  That's not to say that someone who's specialism isn't music couldn't teach it at all.  With the creativity allowed for such a vague study programme it should encourage more teachers to be able to teach music in the class room.  I just think that at key stage two it is asking for a lot more of the teacher.  

Now it could be argued that this will encourage more schools to have music specialists as their staff but with limited funds within education and a shift to steer away from the arts the cynic in me feels there is another agenda in this shift. 










If you have anything that you would like to add or comment on please feel free.


 

My life at present

I'm me. Nothing more, nothing less.  Nothing special.  Grew up on a council estate. Went to school, went to college, went to university, went to work (not necessarily in the order). I wasn't bad at school. Got reasonable GCSEs, scraped through A levels (literally), got an ok degree (2:2 in music isn't to be sniffed at).  Didn't have a difficult childhood but didn't have it easy either (I'm sure I'll talk about that at some point but not today)

So what makes me think that I deserve your readership.

Well, I'm passionate. I'm passionate about music. I'm passionate about helping people. I'm passionate about football. I'm passionate about education and educating others. 

I have quite strong values and try to avoid those who go against those values. (Not always easy but these things were meant to try us).

So that's me in a nutshell.

One thing I failed to mention......... I am currently unemployed.

This isn't a desperate attempt to get a job.  I have some plans that I'm currently working on and hopefully will have some news on that soon. 

The reason I mention I'm unemployed is simple........ Society's opinion of me.

Here's the first of my strong values.......

If you're capable of working you should work, unless you can afford not to.  

I grew up in a family where both my parents worked from 15 years old.  When my mum had me and my brother she went straight back to work (although when she had me she worked for home). When she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1987 she had 3 weeks off work.  Yes, 3 weeks!!!! 

My dad started working for United Counties in April 1966. He worked for them until the day he died in February 2012. 

My brother has also worked since he was 16. 

So what about me? Well I worked whilst in the 6th form, left school and got a job whilst completely my NVQs. I have had a lot of jobs but then I did work for agencies for a while.  However, I was rarely out of work.  I went to university when I was 26 but continued working on my days off and throughout the holidays.  When I left uni I signed on for about a week and then got my last job at the local FE college.  

So as you can see we're workers not shirkers.  

As I have said I'm currently unemployed.  I make my fortnightly trip to the job centre to sign on.  When I signed on when I left university I was ashamed.  This time I'm not.  I'm older, wiser and also very cynical (you'll notice that a lot during the blogs).  You see, it's like this, ultimately I aim to go selfs played and the job centre have put me on a scheme to help with this.  This is great because it means I no longer have to fill in 18 job searches a fortnight to show that I'm looking for a job.  Believe me, I'm pretty certain nobody whilst looking for a job thinks "oh I've sent my cv off, I must fill in my form". 

Anyway before I get on a big rant about the processes of the job centre (and believe me as an unemployed qualified teacher I have lots of opinions on the subject) I want to say this.  The reason I'm not ashamed is because this is my time not to work.

As I mentioned I have worked since I was 16. I have paid national insurance and income tax since 18 at least.  That's at least 14 years.  When you consider that you only have to work 30 years to be entitled to your state pension at the good rate (and let's be honest that's pretty much the only reason we go to work) I've worked almost half that time already.  Then throw into the pot that as it stands I won't retire until I'm 67 (I say as it stands because I'm sure by the time I get there you'll have to work until your 150) I've got another 34 years to make up the rest. 

  I don't plan to have children.  I'm not saying I won't. Who knows what Mother Nature has in store for us.  I just don't plan to have any,  therefore I don't plan to have time off looking after the children.

So bearing all that in mind, I think I'm entitled to a bit of time off.  

I know there are people out there who have never worked a day in their life, expect everything to be given to them and have no intention of working.  I also know that because I've paid my national insurance contributions that they will still get a state pension because actually everyone gets one (at the moment). They might not get as much as me but they haven't paid towards it.  They get access to the same medical care as I do, they also get access to nhs dentists and opticians (and probably don't pay depending on their benefits) but haven't paid into the system.

For the past 4 years I've been on a fairly good salary so I've paid a lot in tax and national insurance.  Is my state pension going to be determined by this.... No it isn't.   Do I get better healthcare because I ay more in.... No I do not.

So before you all label me as a Jeremy Kyle watching shirker, think about how much I've paid into the pot and what I actually get out of it at the end.  

This is my time for some leave (but without the children)

Welcome

Ok so I have started a number of blogs previously and each time I get bored after about a week.  So I was thinking why that happens and realised that it's because I create them for a specific purpose and if I don't have an opinion on the purpose I don't post.  

So this me isn't going to be like that.  This is going to be for general ramblings! They'll be music, football, politics. I have a lot of opinions so I'm sure they will be something for everyone. 

Hopefully I won't bore people to death but if I do I can only apologise. 

Hope you like it

Kathrina x :-)