sixth form open evenings, why do teachers now do the 'hard sell'

[southeastastra]

for their course. there was none of that when i was in the sixth form. (though that was a long long time ago).

do they get commission?

[TheFallenMadonna]

Because if you don't get enough students you can't run your course and then you can't get lovely A level teaching.

[phobiccauliflower]

If they don't get the pupils the course may not be run. Then the teacher will be forced to cover year 7 ICT

[southeastastra]

oh really? i remember my mate was the only one who did economics. just her and the teacher for two years. they wouldn't do that now madonna?

[donnie]

I never hard sell and I have 21 and 18 in my two groups!!!!

the marking is a bitch I tell thee.

[Fivesetsofschoolfees]

I was on one of these last week for my DS2.

They do the hard sell because they need to populate their classes. If they don't, there is a chance their course won't run. If it doesn't run, they miss a year of A-level teaching and may even be at risk of having their hours cut or redundancy.

[TheFallenMadonna]

Not in year 12. They'd probably keep running it in year 13 if every student but one dropped out though. I have 12 in one group and 25 in one another at AS. I am in fact looking to purge mine...

[southeastastra]

oh that's quite depressing. what courses are you running that have so many? i imagine it's a maths, english or science course?

[TheFallenMadonna]

Psychology and Biology.

We have a total of 36 doing psychology, but that number will certainly go down after the first lot of exams.

Biology is fairly easy to recruit for, but chemistry and physics do struggle much more.

[donnie]

I teach English Lit and have done for a Very Very Long Time! When I started in 1993 I there was an average of 10 - 12 in the groups. Now the groups average 19. Really the school should either allow fewer students to take the courses or employ another teacher but of course why would they?!!

That's life me old china.

[southeastastra]

i was suprised my ds's teacher said he would have already covered alot of the biology course if he took it at a level.

i wonder what will happen when children have to stay on until 18.

[chocolateshoes]

its not just about the individual teacher - in our school each dept is given a target number of students to aim for in yr12 & then carrying on to yr 13. If the target is not met the Head wants to know why...

[kritur]

If we don't then our A-level courses might not run. This is especially difficult for those of us trying to recruit onto courses like chemistry and physics where the GCSE doesn't really discriminate between abilities and the kids think the subject is hard (which it is!). I teach chemistry and last year I had no A2 course. Previously my largest class has been 6 but this year I have 13 which will keep the Head off my back for a while. We're all chasing the same kids as well. WIth GCSEs being less challenging then kids often come out with either all A, A*s or all Bs, all Cs etc. There doesn't seem to be the kids who are good at maths and science rather than arts, they get As in all subjects and find it hard to pick their true talent. I don't take anyone with less than a B because if I do then they just fail AS anyway, same goes for most other A-levels apart from the more 'accessible' ones. Makes finding the right kids very difficult.

[piscesmoon]

They need to keep the pupils that they have, many change at that stage-a lot want to do them away from school-and they also want to attract high achieving pupils from other schools. Funding comes from the number of pupils. They need to show why a DC is better off at their establishmnet-therefore there needs to be the 'hard sell'.

[Morosky]

There is no chance of me being made reundant or having hours cut as there are more hours for me to teach than I can do.

I don't hard sell but I love my subject so if someone asks me about it, I am going to wax lyrical.

I would never ever try to pursuade someone to do my subject if I thought they should not be doing it.

Donnie I am currently trying to ignore a pile of philosophy essays that are winking at me. I am thinking of putting them in the boot of my car.

[Morosky]

I can remember being a sxith former in 1991 and having a similar promotion that we do now, wouldn't call it hard well, but I wouldn't call what we do hard sell

[mumblecrumble]

It really is a hard sell....

Pressure from boss
Pressure from parents [why do you have so few people in that group]
Pressure from students

Presssure from payroll - " will only pay you 3/4 of your pay if you're deemed to have less than full capacity.

We don;t like it

How wever... I didn;t 'sell' at all last yar \and got loads!! Yippeee!

[mumblecrumble]

I hate the whole selling thing by the way and always lower my voice and tell parens to look at lots of colleges and lots of course...

I thinkg thats why they came to my class this year....

[Morosky]

Do you really get pressure from payroll, are you in a college rather than school?

[mumblecrumble]

college yep - love it.

[EllieHenderson]

Hello, just spotted this post and wanted to add. I completely agree with you donnie. School Marketing can be so confusing with the burden passed onto teachers who already have enough on their plates and just want to teach!

I just went on a course with a company called the Mustard Agency and felt like it really took the pressue off being expected to know everything about marketing our school, I thought it was the best thing I'd been on.

We have just been through a school re-brand and it has made me question if those who we hired knew what they were doing. I felt the people running the course really understood the issues our school faced as though our results have been really positive over the last few years we suffer from a poor historical reputation.

I would definitely go to Mustard if we needed anything in the future as I trust their take on things.

It's so nice to see that others are filling courses easily but I must admit I've been struggling.

[amothersplaceisinthewrong]

Don't schools get awarded a fair bit of money per capita for pupils in the 6 form.....

[Lucycat]

Yep Sixth Form students = money.

although we don't have to hard sell our course either - more like putting off the ones who we know won't work hard enough!!

[SleepySheep]

I teach history and critical thinking and have to do the hard sell as if your numbers are a bit low the head of sixth form adds on any students with gaps in their timetables - and then if your results are low you have a 'meeting' with the head!