Monday, July 05, 2010

Panorama- Can I sack Teacher?

The inability to get rid of poor teachers has been a problem for decades. It's partly down to poor recruitment and poor training, combined with a lack of leadership within schools. The absence of any emphasis on discipline combined with an obsession with every new 'teaching method' no matter how bonkers, does not really help matters.

Mix in a culture of political correctness which allows no criticism, along with unions who enthusiastically support those who cannot do their job and you have the perfect recipe for a profession in crisis. That's what attracted me to it anyway...

Panorama discusses this at half eight tonight. Watch it if you like.


9 comments:

kjr said...

Page for the episode:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00s8kpv

Fee said...

From what I remember of school, the worst teacher in the building was also the union rep. Not much chance of getting rid of him, then.

Anonymous said...

I am all for getting rid of incompetent teachers, however I have concerns of ow its done. My ex is currently under a trumped up charge as the the head wants the same job she has been asked to apply for when the school is closed down.

Who watches the watchers

Dack said...

Ah well - nothing we didn't know already... some teachers are shite and they shouldn't be teaching.

Encouraging kids to kick each other to 'Kung Fu Fighting' though... wtf? (I was once at a school where a supply teacher was binned for allowing a pupe to try to fix a plug fuse with a paper clip).

Don't see why the supply teacher argument came into it. Who would argue that's ideal? We've got classes who've had a stream of 'em over the past year and why? Because we've interviewed - twice in some cases - and we can't find anyone worth appointing.

Plus you don't teach in isolation. If you don't have good management who set an appropriate ethos you give up bothering trying to stem the tide even if you're good as it's exhausting.

Anyway, I liked that bloke's graph. How many years of research went into that?

Matt said...

What a big bag of bollox that program was...
Yeah there are shite teachers. But i've never seen an interviewer with such a none program before - clutching at straws left right and centre.

One minute you're slagging off a struck off shite teacher then the next minute you're in her house claiming she was planning well had loads of good stuff and implying she was struck off for no reason (presumably the only way she would agree to be interviewed).. Panorama needs to employ a better research team.

Anonymous said...

can i sake my university lecturer

incompetent Huddersfield Architectural Department

Anonymous said...

When I was at school in a Secondary Modern, showing my age there I'm afraid, if they had sacked the incompetent teachers we would have been left with the caretaker. Nothing changes nor will it.

jim said...

why are you so obsessed with 'political correctness'? I've taught in an inner city comp for years and no one i know has ever had to worry about it. would you care to actually define the term?

Anonymous said...

I liked that bloke's graph. The worst teacher in the building was also the union rep. Thanks for your info.

headmistress