Secondary Thinking about becoming a teacher

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superfraser said:
You're Primary right? I actually think the Grade 3, and particularly the Grade 4 teacher are more responsible for the Grade 5 NAPLAN result than the Grade 5 teacher.
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What about the grade 3 teacher doing NAPLAN? Is it the Prep, Grade 1 and Grade 2 teacher that are more responsible?

When a year 3 or 5 teacher has roughly 14 weeks with the students to get them ready you cant lay blame on them for results. Yes it might be great to compare each child's progress between the two tests but there are many factors that impact on a child's progress year to year.
 
superfraser said:
But that doesn't give us a solution to a good system for assessing teacher effectiveness. What system can be used?
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There is really not an easy answer to it because of the different profiles and locations of schools. Teaching in the East Kimberley where absenteeism is high, a teacher may be deemed effective if students appear engaged and a teacher has a full class present that is arriving at school on time. Teachers are observed by a consultant who may visit visit the school twice a term and write an appraisal on the lesson. The AP or Principal themselves will also observe the teacher a couple of times a term and write a formal assessment of the teacher. But
that is a different world to the schools in Victoria that may have 700-800 students in them. I have only worked in Victoria as a CRT and only recently. For a teacher to be effective, it relies heavily on planning and I would think all teachers should be presenting planning documents that are consistent across the board. I have been to a school in Country Vic, where the teachers did not hand any planning in. Whereas in other schools you need to have planning documents in early in the term, and they need to be good. Why cannot these AP's or Principals make it a priority to visit classrooms and observe teachers? If not, why cant professionals be appointed in a full time role to observe schools and provide feedback? I have seen teachers in Victoria that are pretty much unsatisfactory, but they think they are good and stay at the same school year after year, because they can get away with it. Whereas in another location they will get weeded out straight away. Consistent observations, a couple of times a term is needed for all teachers. Not just young teachers, many of the older ones are stuck in the same school for years and think they are good when they are crap.
 
Angus Young said:
What about relief teaching...

no meetings
no planning
no preparation
hardly any marking if any
no parents
no bullshit to deal with

350/400 a day
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2 years ago I moved over to London to teach and started with relief teaching. Was great to arrive 10 minutes before lessons started and leave as soon as the bell goes, plus only have to worry about getting through the lesson and none of the extra bullsh*t.

But not being able to make any connection with the students sucks. I don't care how good of a teacher you are or how good your behavior management is, they just don't respect you enough as you are always labelled as a "supply".
 

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Does anyone know anything about teaching in remote places, on the lands etc

Heard its big $$... true or false
 
Breustiful said:
Brave choice. Heard of horror stories that I can't even imagine happening here.
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A girl I went to school with is over there at the moment with her sister teaching and from what I can tell they are loving it.
 
gaskin said:
A girl I went to school with is over there at the moment with her sister teaching and from what I can tell they are loving it.
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Depends on the school you land in. From experience 3/4 of the schools I went to were very tough. I ended up working on a PRU where there were 20 kids with class sizes of 5.
 
footy75 said:
Does anyone know anything about teaching in remote places, on the lands etc

Heard its big $$... true or false
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The pay is not much different but it is rent free. There's also not a whole lot to do so you can save a lot. I saved 80 grand in 2 years in the territory.
 
gaskin said:
A girl I went to school with is over there at the moment with her sister teaching and from what I can tell they are loving it.
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Maybe a private school? Mate and his partner over there. He's in the public system. That's were the horror stories come from.
His missus is at a private all-girls, no big issues there!
 
Breustiful said:
Brave choice. Heard of horror stories that I can't even imagine happening here.
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Yeah the schools are ridiculous in central london, I thought my behavior management was fairly strong coming out of uni, but gee I was in for a rude shock once I started here. The school I work at is extremely rough, renowned for stabbings because of the gang rivalries from the surrounding estates, I have had to confiscate two knives in the past 4 months just from classes I teach. Luckily for me I teach PE, and the challenging kids seem to really take to it, only reason I've survived at the school.

Just to paint a picture, I've now been at this school for 3 school years, and EACH year over 35 staff members have left. Just this Easter 4 head of years are leaving.
 

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So I've been following this thread for awhile now, and I've been wondering what you might do in the classroom that either works for the students or makes your life easier? May as well share tips and resources.

I'll get the ball rolling.. I'm sure a lot of you do this already, or some version of this, but a team point scoring system. I picked it up from a teacher a few years back but only put it into place the last year and it has literally changed the way I teach and increased both the students and my own enjoyment.

From experience, this seems to be most effective if you implement it at the start of the year, or at least after any of the school breaks.

Start by splitting the class into either 5 or 6 table groups with at least 5 students in each group. Give each group 3 minutes to discuss a team name that will represent them for the coming weeks. Or you can also give each team the name of a sporting team (E.g. Chicago Bulls, Boston Celtics...) Just don't give them AFL team names as the arguments caused from the Carlton supporting students who are now in the "Collingwood Magpies" team will ruin everything!

Once you have the teams and their names, you can quickly put them into a table online or in the classroom that you can updated each lesson with the scores. The team with the most points after a two week block wins and every member of the team receives a prize. For example, I give each winning student 5 merits on the school system and then a packet of lollies or chocolate. Once the two week block is over, the scores all reset and the next block begins.

In terms of how you allocate points, that is completely up to you, as you know your class best. In my situation, I teach in an inner-city London school, so behavior is the problem majority of the time, therefore most of my points are awarded good behavior. My students now know that if their whole team is the first sitting down silently, books open with the title and date copied down and completing the do-now-task they will receive 3 points. Also every time I count down from 5 to 1 waiting for their attention, the first team silent and tracking me receives a point. Points can also be taken away because of poor behavior.

We have a class quiz every two weeks on whatever topic we have been studying, and the highest average score between the groups receives 5 points, 2nd highest gets 4 points, 3rd gets 3 points and you get the picture.

The best part about it is you can honestly give points for anything, meaning you can keep the scores close, but probably my favorite part is the opportunity you get to build the confidence of the students who are shy or reserved at school. All you have to do is ask them a question (which you know they know the answer to) then award a point if they get it right, which results in the whole table automatically pleased with that person.

I've probably rambled on a bit, but this has worked so well for me! I've used it with Year 7-10 classes and majority of them react well to competition being introduced in the classroom. Behavior and effort from nearly all of my pupils has increased as a result and made my job a hell of a lot easier!

But yeah, if you have anything to share that has made teaching easier or more enjoyable, please share! Even if you think it is incredibly obvious!
 
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I use raffle tickets. Reward good work or behaviour with tickets which go in a box and get drawn out every Friday. I have a prize box that the winning student is able to choose from.
 
The abolition of the Dip Ed has made secondary teaching a bridge too far now.

My Psychology/Crim degree does not count toward any teaching major and minor, which would mean in addition to studying an expensive 2 years Masters, I’d also have to fork out cash up front for another 2 years worth of non-award units in English/Humanities subjects - ether that or study a 4 year undergraduate from scratch.

There’s already been a 40% drop in graduates moving into teaching and I expect that number to rise - it’s just unattainable for anyone 30+ with several financial and family commitments.
 
Think I've said this before but applying for new jobs for 3-5 years every year or six months or even term is draining, disheartening, ridiculous (I know some people get lucky or are genuine star teachers and get locked in). I still don't recommend entering this vocation, I hate having to do work at home such as marking and making powerpoints/worksheets etc only for no one concentrating, staying in seats or shutting up (basically every year 7 8 and 9 class at a middle or lower socioeconomic area except for the academic extensions). I have to say middle management is quite dominated by females, and they always hand the keys to the worst classes to the males lol

Relief teaching is awesome though. Of course, you're a bit screwed come summer
 
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The_Eagles said:
Think I've said this before but applying for new jobs for 3-5 years every year or six months or even term is draining, disheartening, ridiculous (I know some people get lucky or are genuine star teachers and get locked in). I still don't recommend entering this vocation, I hate having to do work at home such as marking and making powerpoints/worksheets etc only for no one concentrating, staying in seats or shutting up (basically every year 7 8 and 9 class at a middle or lower socioeconomic area except for the academic extensions). I have to say middle management is quite dominated by females, and they always hand the keys to the worst classes to the males lol

Relief teaching is awesome though. Of course, you're a bit screwed come summer
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Are you in WA?
 
The_Eagles said:
Think I've said this before but applying for new jobs for 3-5 years every year or six months or even term is draining, disheartening, ridiculous (I know some people get lucky or are genuine star teachers and get locked in). I still don't recommend entering this vocation, I hate having to do work at home such as marking and making powerpoints/worksheets etc only for no one concentrating, staying in seats or shutting up (basically every year 7 8 and 9 class at a middle or lower socioeconomic area except for the academic extensions). I have to say middle management is quite dominated by females, and they always hand the keys to the worst classes to the males lol

Relief teaching is awesome though. Of course, you're a bit screwed come summer
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Almost word for word why I'm planning to get out of the profession at the end of this year. The trade off of effort is just non-existent
 
Having my first brush with the school politics and pecking order ive heard about. Sorry for the long winded story.

Am doing a .6 contract for the term doing literacy intervention with primary kids, lots of them EALD etc and in the process got given a nice kitted out classroom to myself. Or so i thought. Got trained up for three days by the lady I'm temporarily replacing, old school teacher, strict but knows her s**t and not the type of operator to take it from anyone (this will be sort of relevant in a minute) before being left to my own devices.

Anyway, Monday Week 2, first day I'm on my own, one of the other ladies doing the literacy intervention comes up and announces that due to the fact that she takes nine students at a time (I take two at a time in 20 minute blocks) and is having trouble containing them to the lobby/wet area thing she has been using, she will now be sharing my classroom with me and "do i mind".

No idea where this has come from but being new and not wanting to rock the boat etc im like yeah sure, all the while thinking in my head this sucks and aint gonna work. First morning she's in there she asks for the whiteboards and absolutely cleans me out, leaving me to scrounge around for some leftover shitty ones buried in a cupboard. Fair enough I found some others, no dramas. Then the lessons start. I'm over in my half doing my thing and I cant even hear myself think. Been going on for a week now. Worst part is im trying to work closely with kids who cant aurally differentiate between vowel sounds at the best of times and here i am competing for attention with a teacher across the other side of the room chanting /i/ and /o/ sounds at the same time im trying to get the kids to pick out an /a/ or /e/ etc.

This morning lady asks where the jollyphonics books are. Point them out and think nothing of it. Go to get one this arvo and its missing. I dont take them home or anything, only place it could be is the photocopier where perhaps i left it on monday, or in the classroom. No dice. Ask the lady and she tells me she has her own but was wondering the same thing before giving me the filthiest 'get your s**t together' stankeye. Im now thinking this is bullshit, why did she ask where they were in the first place? Am now dreading having to go in on monday with my tail between my legs and telling them i seem to have misplaced the $300 book when i have my own sneaking suspicions about its possible whereabouts. Surely not.

Anyway, regardless of whether this woman is ******* with me or not, situation sucks and im not sure what to do. Kids are starting to suffer now to the point where ive been abandoning my own supposed classroom to go and find a quiet non-distracting wet area of my own. Lady is an opportunist, no freaking way she would have pulled this classroom takeover stunt while my hardarse of a predecessor was around. Honestly just think she's got the shits up because some rookie (me) has come in and been given a classroom straight up (not my fault) while she's been left in the wet area shes probably been occupying since 1979. Really dont want to go dibber dobbing to leadership about the situation (i dont think they've even realised whats happening) but am thinking about going in and asking for my planned observation by leadership to happen sooner rather than later. Am counting on them taking one look at gameday and being like what the frick is going on here.

Hard times. Sorry again about the rant, being a new teacher mostly rules and I really do love my job apart from this stuff.

Oh and best part. Theres a completely empty 'meeting room' right next door but apparently lady cant use it because the school 'doesnt have the funding to use it as a classroom'.

FMD.


Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk
 
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