GCSE Results Week
The second half of results season came last week, with GCSE results released to students on Thursday. But how are students getting their results from school? Has the pandemic changed the classic newspaper front page of students jumping in the air?
Happily for newspaper editors, just 6% of secondary teachers say their school sends results remotely, with the majority sticking with on-site collection. Schools in affluent schools were more likely to offer remote collection of results.
Smiles and thank yous were the order of the day, with nearly all secondary teachers who were present saying this is what they got (although half of secondary teachers aren’t in school on results day).
Hopefully all of your students got the results they needed, but… only 27% of secondary teachers say that good exam grade(s) would be in the top three school outcomes they would choose for pupils, if they could.
By far more popular responses were respect for other, self confidence and the skills they need for life.
(In case you’re wondering, this was a question designed by Teacher Tappers during the 2019 Hackathon!)
Voting Intentions
The last time we asked about voting intentions was during a particular peak of uncertainty, just after Rishi Sunak became Prime Minister. At the time, Tappers gave the the highest ever support for the Labour Party, with 64% saying you’d vote for them.
Since then, support for Labour has slightly declined, by 5 percentage points. However, supporters aren’t going to the Conservatives (who have continued to lose support among teachers), but instead going to the Liberal Democrats and the Greens.
A Sankey diagram (see below) shows the changes in political support from one time point to another. It’s one of our favourite kinds of charts we get to wheel out once in a blue moon! It works by showing how people peel away from one group on the left (last year) and where they are now on the right (this year).
Labour’s lost support over the past 12 months mainly flows to the Liberal Democrats and Greens, as well as a significant portion going into “Don’t know”. “Don’t know” is also where most of the changing Conservative vote has gone as well. But, Labour does appear to be picking up some “Don’t know”s from last time too.
As we gear up for an election next year, we want to be ahead of the curve when it comes to your opinions and the manifesto pledges of parties! That starts this week, where we’ll be asking a range of questions on some policies that have already been announced…stay tuned for results!
Back to School
🤫 We won’t say it too loudly, but the start of the new school year is just around the corner. For some, it’s started already, but most of you are back on either the 4th, 5th or 6th September! Many of you have one or two INSET days before your students are back for good.
The good news, more than half of you are looking forward to going back!
The bad news is that it’s the lowest percentage we’ve seen since we started asking in summer 2018. You told us the last academic year was particularly tough, so perhaps it’s little wonder we’ve seen a fall in this number.
Now for your back-to-school wish! We asked what one additional member of staff you would like in your school – with a ‘floating teacher’ the most popular option (40%).
One-in-three of our primary colleagues would choose a SEND specialist teacher and 22% of secondary teachers wanted another ‘standard’ classroom teacher. This is similar to previous years’ results.
Unfortunately, as things stand in school, it’s unlikely that more staff will be on the way to help. However this is exactly one of the things we’ll be looking at with political manifestoes this week – so keep your eyes peeled for those questions.
Ups and Downs
On the rise
📈 Becoming an Ofsted inspector: 40% of you say you definitely wouldn’t become an Ofsted inspector, up from 35% in 2022.
Heading down
📉 Non-teaching time split up: If you could decide to split your PPA how you wish, only 36% of you would want an hour each day, down from 40%. Having it all grouped together has become a more popular option.
And finally…
The most read tip this week was on: Dear Mrs Keegan…
And here are the rest for your reference:
