Today is the first day of my life as a non teacher. woop woop!

[vernon]

Good teachers do have this knowledge at their fingertips. They do know the kids through conversation. They know the data as well. When I was at school you sank or swam. No-one intervened whether you were under performing through home circumstances or because you were plain lazy.
I am a teacher. I love my job.

Good luck to you!

I wonder if you'll have the same sentiments after thirty years of watching teaching degenerate from holistic practices to a data driven treadmill.

You might be fortunate enough to work in a school that genuinely believes in nurturing childrens' curiosity without adding a bureaucratic payload with unrealistic performance targets based upon data of dubious provenance that mitigates against the trustworthiness of the academic qualifications generated by a system which generates knowledge without understanding.

I was a teacher. I loved my job.

 

[vernon]

You could always get a proper job!

Painting the dots on double blanks in a domino factory has its appeal.

 

[Piemaster]

I hope this new found non-teaching does not mean you will stop passing on your wealth of knowledge to CCers.

I'm thinking mainly about pie based lessons of course

 

[vernon]

I hope this new found non-teaching does not mean you will stop passing on your wealth of knowledge to CCers.

I'm thinking mainly about pie based lessons of course

Funnily enough I was bought a le Creuset pie dish as a token leaving present seeing that I'm not actually leaving the school and was presented with it on Thursday. It seemed rude not to christen it so I baked a steak pie for my colleagues who bought it for me. We had pie and doughnuts for breakfast.

It was voted as my best pie yet. not bad for a first attempt at a steak pie. It was my own pie filling recipe too!

 

[Julia9054]

Good luck to you too in your future career and I am sorry that your experience of the education system has made you so cynical.
Thirty years ago I was a pupil. There was no data on me so no-one knew whether I was under performing or not least of all cared. I was a product of a grammar school system where if you didn't fit you were ignored. I hated school and succeeded despite not because of the system. I certainly do not remember anything that could be described as holistic in any way.
I would have loved to be a pupil at the school at which I now teach. Individuality is celebrated, under performing pupils are identified early and intervention is individually tailored. There is a balance between nurturing children's curiosity in science and gaining qualifications which enable pupils to access the next stage and widen their choices in life.
I am not some shiny eyed NQT. I have been teaching for 10 years and before that have 14 years experience of working in the NHS and in the private sector.
The system is not perfect but I genuinely believe that despite the efforts of successive governments to interfere, that the experience is better for the vast majority of pupils than it was 30 years ago.

 

[vernon]

And I spent today spreading love and pies in Darlington.

A delivery of Appleton's of Ripon's finest pies to my friends at Guru boutique in Darlington.

 

[araapatlio]

Yesterday was the last day of my career as a GCSE grade delivery unit optimiser/manager and I can't say that I am sorry.

I return to school as a one to one science tutor in September where I have the freedom to do real science teaching with small groups of kids and individual pupils who fell off the 'assembly line' and became 'damaged goods'.

Congratulations, I am sure your new role will be very rewarding

 

[T.M.H.N.E.T]

Do you teach this?


View: http://youtu.be/jjmHCghQ-kk

 

[vernon]

Do you teach this?

That's for beginners.

I do industrial scale pyrotechnics. No videos - no evidence - no disciplinary action.

I'm also smart enough not to perform large scale exothermic reactions directly underneath the heat detector of a laboratory's sprinkler system triggering it and taking out three labs and three technology rooms underneath them with waterlogged electrics unlike my hapless colleague last week. I've never had to sandbag a classroom to prevent the egress of water before.

I might have have video evidence but it's being retained for personal entertainment and blackmail purposes.