In Defence of Teachers

I am so bloody sick of seeing people insulting teachers on social media. Saying that they only wanted schools to close so they can have some ‘time off’ and a longer holiday.

It’s made me so angry on teachers’ behalves. I think teachers are brilliant anyway and work much harder than people realise even at the best of times, but over the last year they have had to do so much more than usual and put themselves and their families at risk whilst doing it.

No, they absolutely haven’t just had a paid year off. During the two lockdowns that the schools have been closed the majority of teachers have been organising and providing work for our children to do at home, often whilst still being in school teaching the children of key workers, without PPE and further putting themselves and their families at increased risk.

They’ve also – at least at our school – had regular communication with all of their pupils online, marked work online, phoned children to check all is OK and to tell them how well they are doing and encouraging them, do house calls to check on the vulnerable and those who haven’t been communicating with them online. And I’m sure this is just the tip of the iceberg of how much they have had to do.

Those with children have often had to leave their child at home with someone else or else send their child to their own school as a child of a key worker, whilst going to teach children of key workers at the school they teach at, which must be so hard when they probably just want to keep their kids as safe as possible at home.

I know not all schools and teachers are as good as ours are – many won’t have the resources and money to be brilliant at providing high quality, regular work for children to do at home during lockdown whilst maintaining high standards in school to those still attending. And especially when schools closing has been sprung on them as it has this week. I think we can all give them a bit of time for them to get organised and get some work sent home for our children to do, and if that doesn’t happen then there is plenty online that we can use such as Twinkl and BBC Bitesize.

This is hard for us all. I’m struggling this week having to work, and get my daughter to do some work and organise that, whilst maintaining a house and all of us being in the same place together. It’s hard and I’ve not done very well at it all so far. But teachers are working their arses off for us and our children right now and I am hating seeing people criticising them and whinging about them not being good enough right now (and anytime to be honest, but especially now).

They found out that schools were closing from Tuesday at the same time we did – around 13 hours before school started the next day. So they had to suddenly provide work for their classes to do at home, set up any Zoom meetings, make sure the children who are still attending were supposed to be there, and then teach their class whilst being in contact with parents and children at home throughout the entire day and evening.

Gavin Bloody Williamson telling people to complain to Ofsted if the remote lessons provided by teachers at their school are poor is really shitty in my opinion. He said they should be named and shamed. Yes, fair enough, speak to the school if they aren’t providing regular work for your children to do, BUT after they have had a decent amount of time to get it all organised, and less than 72 hours isn’t a decent enough time.

We’re lucky that our school and teachers have been absolutely brilliant during both lockdowns, providing work for each day, marking regularly and communicating with children and being available for us to talk to if we need them. And I couldn’t believe how quickly they were ready and providing home learning on Tuesday morning – in fact I was hoping they’d take a bit longer so I could have more time before we had to start!

I couldn’t speak more highly of our school and the teachers and the headteacher too. But those schools that haven’t been as quick as ours or provided enough work are most likely trying their best – it’s not that they can’t be arsed. They are likely to have fewer teachers available, less budget available to be able to provide children with technology to work from home (our school are rolling out iPads for all children right now) and less support available to them.

People who choose to be teachers care about their pupils and their school and they want them to do well. We are all just trying our best right now and teachers have it really tough so it’s awful to see people online criticising them so much. I can’t imagine how shitty it feels to be a teacher working your arse off and going above and beyond your role and then reading how crap teachers are.

We shouldn’t be reporting schools to Ofsted right now and trying to get them in trouble during these difficult circumstances. Everyone needs some time to adjust after being given no notice and calling for more negativity towards teachers and schools really isn’t helpful.