Don't you just love how statistics are used to say anything that you want them to?
Take the figures recently released from Ofsted about schools that have gone into special measures for whatever reason;
"The statistics show that the number of schools in special measures increased from 208 (on 31 August 2006) to 243 (on 31 December 2006). 82 schools were placed in special measures in the autumn term 2006, and 45 were removed"
Now imagine that these schools in special measures are secondary schools. Imagine as well that in those schools there are around 70 teachers. 243 x 70= 17010. Now round that figure to the nearest thousand and HEY PRESTO what do you get - that magical figure that Sir Cyril Tailor is banding about as the number of poor teachers who should be sacked.
So, let me see if I understand this correctly. If a school is failing, then by default all the teachers within it are poor teachers? I think not, Sir Squirrel. Those teachers are working their socks off to do the best that they can, in often awful conditions, with kids who quite often don't want to be at school and will do everything possible not to learn.
Yet again, someone who has not set foot into a classroom is throwing around pie in the sky ideas about how to improve education. Well, either put yourself in the classroom Sir Tufty and see what it's like, or shut up.
What teachers need is simple;
- A curriculum that does not constantly move the goalposts
- Decent pay for the hard work we do
- Respect and admiration (if NHS staff, railway staff and everyone is entitled to work in a safe environment where abuse is not tolerated, why should teachers have to put up with abusive children and parents)
