The TES online forums are a hotbed of debate. Here is just a taste of what users are saying this week. Join the discussion at: www.tes.co.ukstaffroom ARE Parents responsible for pupils’ misbehaviour?
Nomad: A survey of 500 primary and secondary teachers for the Teachers’ TV channel found 80 per cent blamed discipline problems at school on a lack of parental control. Damn right Cazann: Damn you, sir, for daring to suggest that I must take responsibility for child’s behaviour just because I’ve been the single, most influential factor in his life!
ARE WE TEACHERS OR SOCIAL WORKERS?
JW: What with the child protection legislation emerging from Every Child Matters and the extended schools initiatives, it seems like the time we have for teaching is pushed out by all the other things we must worry about first.
Moroba: After my first three years now in the UK, I think this place is smashing in terms of being a parent. All you have to do is breed. Everyone else takes care of having to raise the offspring, especially the teachers, and you get all the credit as a parent when things go well while everyone else - especially the teachers - gets blamed when things go wrong.
Apple_a_day: The Government believes us all to be incompetent. They get involved at every opportunity and when things go wrong blame it on the easiest targets - teachers, parents, nurses, police.
364-DAY SCHOOL YEAR PlymouthMaid: It could halve the class sizes and sort out all the unemployed teachers in one fell swoop.
Grouch: I can see the benefit in having two shifts, for primary schools at any rate: 8.30am to 1pm and 1pm to 5.30pm, taught by two teams of teachers.
There’d be no need for planning preparation and assessment time as teachers could plan in the 45 minutes a day they work less.
GreatGrandDad: It was around 1965 that the idea of the extended college year was floated - that much increased utilisation of FE college buildings could be gained by a four-term structure that kept the college open for 50 weeks of the year. Each member of staff would work three of the four terms.
Or six of the eight half terms. Some principals waxed loud and long about it. But, of course, it died the death, as this present daftness will.
These comments are the personal opinions of individual contributors
