We’ll meet again, don’t know where, do know when
The most popular (?) day for meetings is… Wednesdays! Forty-four percent of classroom teachers have a meeting on a Wednesday; the next highest is Monday, with 31%. Similarly, 61% of heads have a meeting on a Wednesday; 41% on a Monday. Teacher Tapp extends its sympathies to the 4% of heads, and 3% of classroom teachers with a regular, scheduled meeting on a Friday (hopefully the kids are sent home early?) And offers an envious salute to the 9% of classroom teachers and 1% of heads who say they don’t have a regular scheduled after-school meeting *any day of the week*!
A higher Ofsted rating brings many advantages – not least, attending fewer meetings. For example, in outstanding schools, *13%* of staff have no regular after-school meeting – but this drops to just *3%* in schools rated requires improvement or inadequate. We’re now busy speculating about causality: do RI/inadequate schools have more meetings in an effort to make improvements? Or do meetings reduce teachers’ productivity so much that they drag down the Ofsted rating? Answers on a postcard please.
I can see clearly now…
Just under 2/3 of teachers wear glasses or contact lenses at some point during the school day. We couldn’t find nationally-comparable date for the same age group (only for all adults). But we could break things down by subject.
- The worst-sighted (?) teachers are language teachers (71% wear glasses/contacts)
- The best-sighted (?) teachers are Early Years/Key Stage 1 teachers (60% glasses/contacts)
Money, money, money
We asked whether you would feel uncomfortable arguing for a higher salary. Most teachers (80%) said they would. The gender split proved interesting: 83% of women agreed they would feel uncomfortable – only 67% of men agreed. And seniority brings greater comfort in arguing for your worth: 23% of heads would feel comfortable arguing for a higher salary, against 17% of classroom teachers.
All good?
The vast majority of teachers (83%) definitely agree that some teachers are better at their job than others, while 17% agree somewhat, and almost no one (just 27 of our 10,000 or so respondents, rounding to 0%, said no). But leaders come to see starker differences: 90% of senior leaders and heads definitely agree, as opposed to 78% of classroom teachers.
Summer holiday
This time in 2021, just 8% of you had booked a foreign holiday. Last year, it was back up to 35%, and this year, it’s up to 38%. Enjoy!
What a wonderful world
We asked about your confidence in your subject knowledge this week. Unsurprisingly, confidence increased with experience: 67% of teachers with less than five years’ experience felt very confident, but among teachers with 20+ years experience this rose to 85%. Something to look forward to for newer colleagues!
Confidence varies by subject too. For example, 89% of mathematicians and 90% of linguists felt very confident in their subject knowledge – compared to only 66% of humanities teachers.
Confession time!
This week we asked you to make some confessions. We were not disappointed:
- 41% of you have lied to pupils about why their work isn’t yet marked
- 37% of you have sworn in front of pupils
- 24% of you have spoken to a parent at parent’s evening without having a clue who their child is
- 14% of you have lost a pupil for a time during a trip
- At least one of you confessed on Twitter to having done all four!
Congratulations to the 31% of teachers who didn’t confess to any of these sins… but the longer you’ve been in teaching, the more likely you were to have done one of them, so your time may well come!
And finally…
The most read tip this week was: Being upset at the SATs comprehension!
And here are the rest for your reference:
