How has teaching changed in the last 10 years?

[Verycold]

On the Tes jobseekers forum the former headteacher who gives advice keeps saying that teaching has changed beyond all recignition in the last 10 years. As I am about to return to teaching after 12 years I'm trying to get my head round what these changes are. Far more use of computers? AfL? ASsessing pupil progress ( can anyone ex

[Verycold]

Explain to me in a sentence what that actually is?) What else?

[ChimeForChange]

A lot of schools have dropped APP now haven't they?
It was a way of levelling - in my experience schools would pick one child from each ability group, assess them against the APP levels and then apply that level to every child in that ability group.

The most recent school I was in (doing supply now) only used the individual APP target stickers for literacy and numeracy.
Would stick them in each child's book (the cover) and tick them off when consistently achieved

[ChimeForChange]

Yeah....interactive whiteboards.
I love all the interactive games and activities you can do with the children but remember.... DEATH BY POWERPOINT!

[Verycold]

Thank you. Any secondary teachers around?

[chosenone]

I think the push for lessons to be intense has changed. A real focus on ensuring you afl....e.g sharing lesson objectives, mini plenaries, children using post it notes t show what they have/havent learnt. Open ended questioning, peer assessment, ensuring differentiation for kinaesthetic, Visual, auditory learners along with eal, CIC, pupil premium. Monitoring and intervening to ensure progress. Target levels based on ks 2 sats.
I think schools are even more aware of ofsted than ten years ago as the goalposts have changed so much! Twice in the past year. Data and progress made are meaning that previously outstanding or good schools now 'need improvement' !
Gcse specs have changed a lot too. Coursework doesnt exist but controlled assessment s do and we have moved to a linear approach from a modular one. I still love it though. I work for a good head and we are not ana aacademy. Good luck

[orangeandemons]

Much much more closer observation and inspection.
Accountability, you have to justify every single mark and grade
Tracking, every term for every kid
Growth of It and much much wider use of interactive classrooms all of which have to be prepared
External learning environments where everything has to be uploaded
Ofsted and their sodding new criteria which changes every months rammed down your throat constantly
Starters, mini plenaries and plenaries
Assessment for learning

I could go on. And on.....and on

I used to like my job

[EvilTwins]

I started in 1997, teaching secondary English & Drama. Back then, I could tell the kids all about the background to "Of Mice & Men", say - give them some information about the Depression and then we could read a bit of the book and they could write an essay about how it fitted together. Now, I would have to give them the means to find out the background to "Of Mice & Men" by themselves, differentiated in about 29 ways (assuming 29 kids in the class) to ensure that their learning was personalised and independent.

I do enjoy my job - very much, in fact, but it peeves me that I spend time creating and sourcing resources so that the kids can "independently" discover stuff. V time consuming.

If you want to know about your specific subject, try the OFSTED website (really) It has subject specific information about what is expected in lessons for most subjects (not mine - I'm all Drama now, so I don't even know what they're looking for when they come and see me)

[lurcherlover]

When I started I could get away with marking a few books during independent work-time in lessons. Can't remember the last time I did that...seem to spend much more time on my feet now!

[deleted203]

Secondary here, and would pretty much echo everything orangesanddemons said! In addition, it seems to me, that behaviour is becoming more and more of an issue (although, TBF that might just be the school I'm in). But we are finding that our Y7 are coming into the school much more verbal and aggressive than they were 10 years ago, certainly.

I think teaching is a lot harder than it was ten years ago - the main thing seems to me that we are all being pushed to a 'uniform' method of teaching and there is less room for individuality and a lot less freedom in how you teach your subject.

[orangeandemons]

Yeah sowornout, totally agree. I remember being encouraged to develop my own teaching style. Now it seems as if we all have to teach in the same style, which is crap. I feel like a square peg...

[deleted203]

My HoD produces PowerPoint lessons for the dept which you are 'encouraged' to teach from. And everyone should be doing the same lesson, whatever the group they have - but what might be fine for top set is frequently not suitable for bottom set. And all the lessons are the bloody same, in my view. You begin with a slide setting out LO, then one on target levels and what you need to do to achieve these, followed by starter, then a mini plenary slide, followed by main task, then reminder of targets, then some sort of sodding plenary, generally either self or peer assessment, then a fucking tree to draw in their books and perch themselves on whatever branch they think they've got to...

It's depressing and boring and the kids loathe it. If I dutifully teach from these I'm sure they tick every bloody Ofsted criteria - but I feel like a cover supervisor, and it's a shit way to teach, IMO, making every lesson the same and constantly tracking and demonstrating AFL. I don't want to teach in this way! Kids have complained to me that they are not learning anything, because they are constantly having to stop and assess how they are doing. And I think my Y10 might rebel if they have to do any more '2 stars and a wish' . One of them said a couple of weeks ago 'Can I put down as my wish 'I wish we didn't have to do this kind of shit any more, Miss?'...

[orangeandemons]

Oh yes, interrupting my lovely quiet class who were all on task to do some afl.
They moaned on stop and wanted to carry on with what they were doing. I let them, it sends me dizzy all this 10 minute stuff. How can anyone retain information like that?

[KareninsGirl]

Hmm. One word overrides everything else: data.

Data is now king. It defines every student and their potential to succeed and it overrules individual strengths and weaknesses.

I'm in secondary, by the way.

Good luck!

[Maria33]

Sowornout

I recognise that template

[Maria33]

So much bollox.

I love my job though. I think it's about the school you end up in. There are A LOTof control freaks working in education

[colander]

I started secondary teaching in 1996, had about 9 years out at home then went back in 2009. I went back to the same school and found that the behaviour standards were now absolutely appalling. Kids didn't seem to manage to sit still and listen for more than about 30 seconds. Call me old-fashioned, but I expect to spend a couple of minutes explaining what they have to do before they start! Can't stand the latest fashion of bunging a starter at them without a proper beginning to the lesson (again, old-fashioned me!).

I do quite like the new stuff - interactive whiteboards, laptops, individual mini white boards so you can see whole class learning etc.

However, I decided to move to the independent sector and have been there for a couple of years and LOVE it! Never going back to state!

Good luck

[GoblinGranny]

Been teaching since 1984.
Buggerit Buggerit Buggerit
Used to be fun and enriching and focused on holistic learning and knowledge.

WhatSowornout said, but in primary.
That's what my SLT expect in every lesson.
Buggerit.

[deleted203]

Oh God...so many of us with the same depressing experiences. Data is king as KareninsGirl said.

We are expecting Ofsted (with increasing amounts of SMT hysteria). As we have been all year. And I am past giving a toss, personally. I am old, experienced and consider myself a pretty good teacher, in a pretty challenging school.

But I will no doubt RI - I will not have every pupil's IEP attached to my lesson plan. Or I will not have the Pupil Premiums at my fingertips. Or I will not have every pupils KS3/4 target in my head, on a sticker on the front of their books, up on the wall, clearly marked, identified, followed, achieved. I will not have every piece of work in every book marked with the correct level, spellings, key terms, target for improvement, proof that I have discussed it with the pupil, proof that they have read it and followed up the AFL comment. There will not be enough evidence of Peer/Self Assessment. I will not have every ADHD, EBS, ODD, Autistic, Epileptic, LAC, child marked on a seating plan with differentiation showing why they are placed there. I will not have a Venn diagram showing where every pupil falls for their 5 A*-C grade targets and who is missing one, and in which subject...

At some point in the damn data I will have cocked up. And missed something. Probably something I had no fucking idea I was supposed to be demonstrating knowledge of. And I am resigned to this, pretty much. Because Ofsted are petty bureaucrats too far removed from the chalk face to know anything other than box ticking. I've seen teachers I think are not much good graded as 'Outstanding' (when I'd have given them 'Dull as Shit' for a mark) because all their data looks wonderful. But the kids don't like them and they can't teach...