Imperial Party forum

thomas davison

UK
TWICE AS MANY 'POOR' TEACHERS IN OUR SCHOOLS
There are still a number of 'poor' teachers

There are still a number of 'poor' teachers

Sunday January 6,2013
By Hilary Douglas and Matthew Davies

THE number of schoolchildren being taught by teachers whose �lessons are so bad inspectors have given them the lowest possible marks has doubled in the past year.

The shocking figures mean about 400,000 children in English �primary and secondary schools have �lessons inspectors branded �inadequate�.

Yet in the past four decades, fewer than 20 teachers have got the sack for incompetence.

Six per cent of �lessons observed by watchdog Ofsted during classroom inspections were so awful they were given the bottom grade and deemed unacceptable.

While overall, standards improved, the proportion classified as being in the very worst category has shot up.

Typical observations from Ofsted found that teachers failed to plan their lessons to cope with the range of abilities in the class and that the marking of pupils� work was considered erratic and unhelpful.

Inspectors also found behaviour in class was often bad because �students were not stimulated enough by the teachers during the lessons and the youngsters were left bored or with nothing to do.

Teachers were also criticised for talking for too long in some lessons so pupils stopped listening, while in others pupils were all too often left for ages doing nothing more than copying work out of textbooks.

In some schools there was such a high turnover of staff and so many supply teachers that pupils and teachers did not even know each others� names.

In schools with poor discipline, pupils often disrupted lessons by coming late or �without pens or pencils in an attempt to do little or �nothing. Teaching assistants were not employed usefully at some of the worst schools and teachers were often criticised for slow-paced �lessons that left students bored and prone to switch-off and start talking among themselves.

�
These �teachers� are still ruining the life chances of children
�

Chris McGovern

Chris McGovern, chairman of the Campaign for Real Education, said: �Back in the Nineties chief inspector for schools Chris Woodhead, pointed to a hard core of around 17,000 incompetent teachers. Sadly, these latest figures show that the incompetents are still with us.

�These �teachers� are still ruining the life chances of children. Between 1970 and 2010 fewer than 20 teachers were sacked for incompetence. Government claims it is now easier for heads to remove incompetent teachers. It is time for some action.�

The latest Ofsted annual report said: �Over two million children � 31 per cent of the school age range � attend schools that fall short of being good or outstanding. While some of these schools are inadequate, most are not. They are just not good enough.

�There are many reasons for this but in our experience inconsistency or too much prescription in teaching is almost always at the root. Although there is some good and outstanding teaching in many of these schools, practice is not �consistently good.�

The Department for Education said: �We are rooting out under-performance wherever we find it and driving up standards across the board. Academies have already turned around hundreds of �struggling schools.�

The best laugh is the same teachers are going on strike for more money, more money for less education sounds just like our government.