How do you deal with the parent in the playground that is undermining you to others? What about the parent who believes you are not stretching their child? Are you the type of teacher who becomes very defensive or do you actively go out and recruit them into your classroom?

There are two distinct camps when it comes to the role of parents in primary schools. Those who believe they should drop their children off at the gates and collect them at the end of the day and the other that actively encourage parents to be involved in school life.

Personally I have always believed the better you know your parents, their skills and concerns, the more it benefits you and the children. Getting fathers and grandfathers in to work with children is an excellent way to have positive role models especially for boys. It can open up areas of the curriculum that you are not a specialist in such as IT and DT. Additional hands are always great for offering cooking, gardening, sewing and activities outside. In my sons school they give reading training to parents who then listen to the children, so increasing the number of times they are heard in a week.

Many of these forays into school can lead to parents becoming fully fledged members of the school community with them moving across into the PTA and school governors.
So tell me what’s not to gain by having parents in? Tell me are there ways secondary’s can also benefit?

Happy New Year to you!

I wonder how many of you started 2009 knowing that in the current economic climate, you are regarded with envy as having one of the few ‘recession proof’ jobs ?

It seems that professionals in many areas of the job market are now considering teaching as a possible career option, especially those in finance, banking and economics. The TDA are visiting Canary Wharf and targeting these professionals to lure them into teaching.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7624953.stm

The public are lead to believe these are the people who will save the day and fill those hard to fill vacancies, in typically difficult subject areas such as Mathematics and Economics. As marvellous as it sounds, I was wondering how these people would fair in the world of education after years in banking. Why is it assumed that just because you have a degree and a professional career it automatically makes you the right person to be a teacher?

I believe a good teacher has a sense of vocation as well as the right skills, and knowledge. Teaching is not just a job it should be in your blood. It’s a career that your eat, sleep and breathe! It’s about children and their individual needs. People argue about short days and long holidays but those of us who have been there know that most teachers work long days and use holidays to catch up on the never ending paperwork. They run after school clubs, go to governors meetings until 10pm, give weekends up for fund raising events and take groups of students away for weeks at a time on residential trips. And that’s on top of the never ending planning preparation, marking, assessment, curriculum area co-ordination and classroom/wallboard displays of children’s work. Are they told about this? Recession proof as teaching is it’s NOT the easy option.

What are your thoughts and views on the matter?