Remain or Leave us teachers are shat upon by everyone - politicians, the working class, the upper class, the middle class, and so on! I believe we will be blamed if we Remain and be blamed if we Leave.
Personally I don't think enough blame has been given to the teachers. I would add that even if it's a tie then it's still the teachers fault.
At risk of going off on too much of a tangent I particularly despair that when changes were being made a few years ago everyone said "fewer people will want to go into teaching" and "more people will leave the profession" and the government and Ofsted said it was just scaremongering. A year ago everyone in and around the profession pointed out the percentage of people leaving within 2 years had grown from 38% to 53% and is still rising (56%ish now) and universities are no longer filling up their places for trainee teachers and the government and Ofsted said "there are more teacher in the country now than there has ever been" - technically probably untrue though hard to show either way, fact was the number of children to teach has increased so it's a pointless comment. Now they suddenly admitted there is a problem (way after the horse has bolted) and have responded by a) saying that teachers should be forced to work in the country for a certain number of years after they have trained (even though only a minority get bursaries, most have got into debt through University and then have to pay for their teaching training as well) b) if a teacher goes and works abroad there should be a time-limit imposed or they will lose their ability to work in this country (also pushed by Ofsted). So instead of asking 'why' people would want to leave the profession or the country the solution is to punish people for realising it isn't what they signed up for. Total farce - I hope people realise that cuts to funding mean that more lessons are being trained by unqualified teachers. The standard of education in this country is in serious jeopardy but don't worry it's all the fault of teachers - we'll just tell them to do their job better and monitor it in tables in newspapers, that'll totally work.
I can't believe those same teachers were also at fault for letting Newcastle be relegated, were to blame for the extinction of the dinosaurs, caused the Great Fire of London, were to blame for the Black Death and, worst of all, are to blame for allowing Fredor to post on our forum.
Staying off topic I think the beginning of the current problems can be traced back to SATS and "league tables". It meant that Schools/teachers were now being pushed in the direction of "exam success" as opposed to teaching children. Children suffered and teachers suffered as a consequence. As I'm sure most in the teaching profession would agree it is totally the wrong way to get each child to fulfill his/her potential. Sorry to digress but whilst not a teacher and not working in a school I have in my past been a Governor and Chair of Governors at two different schools and have always had a bee in my bonnet about kids and education.
I am pleased the subject of teachers in Newcastle has been brought up, it certainly has been a Eureka moment for me
What bugs me is the way ministers (and often people generally) treat education like it's a public body when it suits them (teachers should put in lots of extra unpaid hours as it's a vocation, everything needs to be pupil focused and the staff can go **** themselves) but a private body when it suits them (they need to be competitive with each other - as opposed to sharing best practice which is also encouraged - justify every penny and follow exact rules of what to do and when). You can't do both effectively, with the cut-backs made it has already resulted in a higher percentage of teaching time being carried out by TA's (unqualified people often on close to minimum wage). Education in this country gets compared to well achieving state schools in China, where the teachers have 2-3 hours of teaching a day and much less paperwork so they can prepare and follow-up tasks effectively. In this country there's twice the amount of hours teaching and much more than twice the administration to carry out - oh and a much more complacent culture towards education which undermines everything else.
I've voted in. Judging by social media though, I am expecting to be on the losing side. Hoping for a large silent majority to appear out of nowhere. I think it will be a massive mistake if the country has voted out, but whatever the result we'll all need to accept the decision and get on with trying to make whatever we have voted for work.
It's said that if we leave the EU it will be years before we are really free from it. Until that time we are still bound by the current rules, laws etc. The big difference is that once we vote out, we have no say with regards to decisions and no vote. That's like being a member of a club that still wants your subs, but won't let you use the facilities. Those who remain undecided ought to vote remain, we can leave the EU at anytime by Act of Parliament, but once out, there is no going back. Just saying, you can vote undecided by voting in.
8 - 12 percent Remain victory I would say. That makes it a bit nervous as I have 10 pounds on Remain by 10 - 15 percent
I wish I shared your confidence. It might just be an anomaly of who's posts appear on my facebook timeline, but the posts I have seen are probably about 2/3 leave. I must admit the people I actually speak to about it offline are probably 2/3 remain, but the amount of leave stuff online has me feeling very nervous about the result.
