Bloody teachers, or schools!

[Urbandreamer]

I have been recieving phone texts inviting me to attend a

Year 11 Post 16 Pathways Information event.

Ok anyone got a clue from those words?

Let me decompose them for you.
Year 11 is teacher speak for those who are probaly about 16 and hence leaving high school. So of course not 11 year olds!
Pathways?
Well possibly it might be about what your child might want to do in the future. What might have been called careers, or jobs.

Event, turn up to find out what we are talking about!

Then again it might be a criptic clue on some treasure hunt, take the path until you pass 11 turnings then turn and take the 16th turning after that to join the party!

BLOODY TEACHER SPEAK!!!!

My son finally found the letter, which contains words like "options, Careers, appenticeships" etc, half way down. Seriously, I didn't expect them to somehow put the entire letter in a phone text. However WHY make it that difficult to understand? How about "an event to talk about your childs options when leaving the school"?

I repeat.
BLOODY TEACHER SPEAK!!!!

[XFool]

I have been recieving phone texts inviting me to attend a

Year 11 Post 16 Pathways Information event.

Ok anyone got a clue from those words?

Let me decompose them for you.
Year 11 is teacher speak for those who are probaly about 16 and hence leaving high school. So of course not 11 year olds!
Pathways?
Well possibly it might be about what your child might want to do in the future. What might have been called careers, or jobs.

Event, turn up to find out what we are talking about!

Then again it might be a criptic clue on some treasure hunt, take the path until you pass 11 turnings then turn and take the 16th turning after that to join the party!

BLOODY TEACHER SPEAK!!!!

Isn't it simply an example of the more general, contemporary matter of 'management speak'?

[AsleepInYorkshire]

I have been recieving phone texts inviting me to attend a

Year 11 Post 16 Pathways Information event.

Ok anyone got a clue from those words?

Let me decompose them for you.
Year 11 is teacher speak for those who are probaly about 16 and hence leaving high school. So of course not 11 year olds!
Pathways?
Well possibly it might be about what your child might want to do in the future. What might have been called careers, or jobs.

Event, turn up to find out what we are talking about!

Then again it might be a criptic clue on some treasure hunt, take the path until you pass 11 turnings then turn and take the 16th turning after that to join the party!

BLOODY TEACHER SPEAK!!!!

Isn't it simply an example of the more general, contemporary matter of 'management speak'?

It's an efficient method of escalating a minority to the altitude they will never earn. Begrudgingly no amount of retort no matter how robust will compensate the outcome.

Ours is not to make a fuss
Ours is not to challenge thus
Ours is simply to obey
Ours is just to give them pay

AiY

[sg31]

It's a carrers night to explain the advantages and opportunities in the path laying materials and installation industry.

Simple.

[Bminusrob]

So, to be clear, you have received a short text message from your son's school. This has prompted you to chase up your son, who has a letter from the school explaining all about the event in a manner which seems to be clear and understandable. Your son failed to pass this letter on to you.

Before you moan about the school's terse reminder, I hope you beat your son to a paste for failing to pass on the letter from the school. If the school hand't sent you the terse text, you would have been none the wiser, and probably completely missed the event.

[UncleEbenezer]

Before you moan about the school's terse reminder, I hope you beat your son to a paste for failing to pass on the letter from the school.

Bah. That can't-be-arsed attitude is just regular teenager language. And preparation for adult life.

[stewamax]

But perhaps the teachers can spell, although these days they may well think it doesn't matter.

In passing, the posts in the preceding thread contain:

recieving =>receiving
childs options => child’s options
probaly => probably
criptic => cryptic
carrers => careers
hand't => hadn’t

Hmmm...

[ReformedCharacter]

I have been recieving phone texts inviting me to attend a

Year 11 Post 16 Pathways Information event.

It's obviously an invitation to go on a 'learning journey', well, maybe.

RC

[UncleEbenezer]

But perhaps the teachers can spell, although these days they may well think it doesn't matter.

If they can, it's an improvement on my day. Our English teacher in our O-level year certainly couldn't: even when she gave us a spelling test, she had the wrong answers for three of twenty words (and only looked them up and admitted it after three long arguments). Waste of time and space, like most schoolteachers.

[UncleEbenezer]

It's obviously an invitation to go on a 'learning journey', well, maybe.

RC

Don't "pathways" have just a hint of mystical aura?

Post-sixteen pathways could be wandering through the woods alone at night, thinking about sex and poetry. Though come to think of it, that would be more like post-twelve.

[vrdiver]

It's obviously an invitation to go on a 'learning journey', well, maybe.

RC

Don't "pathways" have just a hint of mystical aura?

Post-sixteen pathways could be wandering through the woods alone at night, thinking about sex and poetry.

Poetry? One thing at a time....

[Urbandreamer]

But perhaps the teachers can spell, although these days they may well think it doesn't matter.

In passing, the posts in the preceding thread contain:

recieving =>receiving
childs options => child’s options
probaly => probably
criptic => cryptic
carrers => careers
hand't => hadn’t

Hmmm...

What can I say. I didn't go to the grammar school. The school that I went to gave O levels in woodwork, metal work and digging. Though they did attempt to teach maths and English too. It was an eduction system that sorted children at 11 and taught academic subject to those thought to be equipped to learn them and manual subjects to those destined to labour for such people.

Strangely however they did attempt to communicate with some clarity.

As for the criticism that my son did not pass the information on, well possibly he was just acting as he had been taught! I should also note that the school has in the past remarked that they don't rely upon pupil post, hence the text message.

The text message was not terse. In full it reads:

Dear Parent/Carer. This is a reminder about the Year 11 Post-16 Pathways Information evening on … at ...pm. We look forward to seeing you.

To be fair, A previous text had a link to the letter sent with my son.

PS, for those more interested in spelling than content, this post was spell checked by LibreOffice’s spelling checker as clearly my Dyslexia is a distraction from my point about jargon.

[Alaric]

Pathways?
Well possibly it might be about what your child might want to do in the future. What might have been called careers, or jobs.

It's not necessarily about careers since further education decisions may need to be taken. The immediate one being whether to enter what used to called "the sixth form" or to leave school and attend an external college for additional education. (Some form of education is now compulsory to age 18 I believe).

[didds]

(Some form of education is now compulsory to age 18 I believe).

well it is and it isnt. I realiuty leaving school at 16 (post GCSE) is totally possible, but the only typical jobs it seems (garanered from a very alzy view of the world and one offspring effectively in this position) are NMW jobs requiring little skill or knowledge of much at all. ISTR there being something about requiring "education" on the job but quite what the average supermarket offers a 16 year old sgelf stacker in this regard I really am not sure.

didds

[UncleEbenezer]

(Some form of education is now compulsory to age 18 I believe).

Tom Sharpe may have been writing in the 1970s, but he was drawing on his background lecturing to reluctant teenagers who thought they'd left school when he gave us Wilt.

[stevensfo]

But perhaps the teachers can spell, although these days they may well think it doesn't matter.

If they can, it's an improvement on my day. Our English teacher in our O-level year certainly couldn't: even when she gave us a spelling test, she had the wrong answers for three of twenty words (and only looked them up and admitted it after three long arguments). Waste of time and space, like most schoolteachers.

I have the opposite impression and am horrified how literacy standards have fallen among teachers. Thankfully, most communications to parents tend to be checked by a few people before they go out, but I've seen real corkers in my time.

My other rant is why on earth did they have to introduce this 'Year 1..Year 11' system? What was wrong with just saying 'Secondary 2nd year'? The new system gives me a horrible image of a conveyor belt similar to the Pink Floyd 'The Wall' cartoon, ignoring the distinction between Primary and Secondary school education.

Oh, and don't even get me started on uniform policy, a way for those going into teaching with low self-esteem to indulge their uniform fetish on little kids, giving the impression they're doing something while being cr*p at actually teaching.

Here endeth the morning rant.

Steve

[Sobraon]

Mt first rant.

I am not, nor have I ever been, a school teacher although I once seriously considered it.

So just my ‘take’ on where we are. Contemporary UK society holds school teachers in very low regard and often in derision (see above).

Since 2014 all three of my children have graduated from ‘good’ universities with ‘good’ degrees and would have made excellent teachers. Suggesting teaching as a career evoked similar responses from each. How can I describe it … like I had suggested they remove they Greenwich fatberg by hand.

This feeling is common among graduates. Producing new teachers is now a recruitment exercise and not a selection exercise.

Even worse, in a car main dealership recently the salesman ( about 30) had given up on primary school teaching to work in car sales and in a club in the evenings. He admitted (unprovoked) that he really missed the children and the teaching but not the workload, the pay and the parents.

Closer to home my SIL (Maths Liverpool/Cambridge) was driven out of school teaching after 3 years by the conditions and went into sales of financial ‘products’ on a much better package.

The Spanish know that the institutions rely on society for support. But in the UK (or just England?) we have lost this idea. Who would be a public servant?

Thanks for reading, back to normal now.

[bungeejumper]

Contemporary UK society holds school teachers in very low regard and often in derision (see above).

Since 2014 all three of my children have graduated from ‘good’ universities with ‘good’ degrees and would have made excellent teachers. Suggesting teaching as a career evoked similar responses from each. How can I describe it … like I had suggested they remove they Greenwich fatberg by hand.

I lasted five years, although admittedly it was in a very challenging inner-city secondary. And that was in the 1970s! I loved the kids and the thrill of teaching, but the stress was killing me by inches. Even in those days. No drugs in our school, but plenty of violence. About one in three of our staff had been physically assaulted, me included.

Parents who shut their kids out of the flat till midnight because they had (ahem) faster and easier ways of earning money in the evenings. Parents who came into the school and attacked the teachers (sometimes literally) in full view of their classes. Parents who just couldn't give a damn. Parents who told us that it was our job to socialise their kids, and not theirs.

Not forgetting the thieving little bastard who said to me, "You've got to be soft on me, sir. I come from a broken home."

I took a pay cut to get out of basic-grade teaching - not that there were many jobs that paid less in those days. At least that issue's been addressed these days. In return, I got my evenings back, and my weekends, and I didn't have strangers phoning my home and frightening my wife. Would I encourage my grandchildren to go into the profession? Would I hell.

BJ

[didds]

Oh, and don't even get me started on uniform policy, a way for those going into teaching with low self-esteem to indulge their uniform fetish on little kids, giving the impression they're doing something while being cr*p at actually teaching.

My limited exposure to school uniform "changes" in the last decade (both primary and secondary) is that all such uniform changes I am aware of have been PARENT driven - away from jumper and trouser/skirt combos to blazers and caps (!! in some cases), and tartan designs on skirts etc. CF quasi public school approach (perceived maybe in the minds of some wannabe parents).

didds

[Rhyd6]

My grandson is a teacher currently teaching at "The Last Chance Saloon", or a school for evil little barstewards as he sometimes puts it. He loves it, he says compared to teaching in a comprehensive it's a doddle. In the main the kids realise that this really is their last chance of a normal life, he described to me their reaction when a reformed ex con came to give them a talk and described in very graphic detail exactly what happens to young men when they enter the prison system, especially in relation to sex. It had a profound effect on several pupils who were well on their way to ending up in clink with all of them wanting extra coaching forGCSEs in order to try and get their lives on track. They've had one ex pupil come back to describe his life in uni and to thank all the teachers for being there for him.
A lot of the boys are from disadvantaged backgrounds and with a lot of hard work their lives can be turned around but the ones they have least success with are those whose parents have never said "no" to them. They have terrible attitudes and are quite certain that money will buy them out of any situation. He doesn't hold out much hope for these. The ones who cause him to weep are those like X whose mother always wanted a daughter, when a daughter finally arrived he was cast aside as though he didn't exist. His parents have virtually abandoned him to the system. If it wasn't for the teachers buying clothes, toiletries etc. out of their own pockets he wouldn't have anything. He's a lovely lad, he often comes for tea and though he does have temper issues when it's time for him to go back to school (he boards) he's getting better and is beginning to realise that we're not going to give up on him and that if he abides by our rules then he's more then welcome.

R6