New Junior Cycle

joebloggs32

Lindy17 wrote: »

I agree with the comment above-the workload is changing vastly. Currently I have 66 students in my second and third year classes, the CBA2 (the collection of texts) ensures the students and I are always working on something for their collection of texts every few weeks. Students are drafting and redrafting the same pieces of work and they have stated that they feel a lack of progression. “Are we still doing this?” type comments. Also most students think redraft means correct spelling and grammar errors and it takes time to teach them otherwise. Being honest when I look at the body of work that has to be completed over the two years I feel worried about simultaneously trying to move forward and go back to redraft. I find the correcting becoming as demanding as senior cycle classes. Also the closing date in December for the collection of texts comes at the same time for a lot of schools as Christmas exams. For the last two weeks I’ve been like a headless chicken correcting Christmas exams every spare minute and also redrafts for the collection of texts!

You should not be doing Christmas exams with them if they are doing CBAs. The agreement with the unions clearly stated that house exams would be replaced by CBAs to prevent both teacher and student burnout

Jamfa

joebloggs32 wrote: »

You should not be doing Christmas exams with them if they are doing CBAs. The agreement with the unions clearly stated that house exams would be replaced by CBAs to prevent both teacher and student burnout

It’s all the other classes that’s the problem. I’m snowed under too with non 3rd year classes & feel there’s a lot of pressure to have students well prepared but little quality time to do it.

Bananaleaf

joebloggs32 wrote: »

You should not be doing Christmas exams with them if they are doing CBAs. The agreement with the unions clearly stated that house exams would be replaced by CBAs to prevent both teacher and student burnout

Yes, but the 3rd yrs are not the only groups we have. And English isn't our only subject for a lot of us.

I can't cope with the new system, there are simply not enough hours in the day, so it isn't being done correctly. I divide my time as best I can right now and that has meant giving sub-par feedback this year unfortunately.

I've never given sub-par feedback. Ever. The big irony. It's made me a worse teacher

acequion

@Lindy17 and @Bananaleaf, you guys need to accept one essential fact! You will never be able to cope with the workload. Even if you decided to cancel sleep and stayed at it 24/7 you still wouldn't be able to cope with the laughably excessive workload. So you just have to cut corners, probably a lot of corners.

Now some on these threads would probably see me as a union agitator and accuse me of being melodramatic. If only it could be dismissed so easily. I have said no and continue to say no to all these crazy reforms because in reality they are unworkable. And that's the truth. The workload is totally unrealistic and there is no way any one teacher can cope with the new demands and expectations through 7 groups of up to 30 teenagers in 2 or more subjects,marking, drafting,redrafting, swotting new materials, differentiating, crowd controlling, liaising with collegues and SNAs, providing high quality feedback, organising CBAs,attending SLARS, covering courses on time, covering revision, P/T meetings after a full day in the classroom, staff meetings and throw in a few extra curriculars for good measure. And probably more. And the buck will always stop with the teacher. The teacher will be bad if he /she doesn't differentiate enough, bad if the feedback isn't good, gives too much homework,doesn't give enough homework, has a set on little Johnny etc etc. In short it's become a job where teacher is the punching bag and not a hope of keeping everybody happy.

Therefore for the sake of your sanity cut the necessary corners. For the collection of texts only redraft two pieces and only redraft once. Stop taking up reams of stuff especially if you have LC English as well. You guys sound like excellent teachers, the kind Ireland needs, so don't burn yourselves out! We all want to do a great job, we're about quality and not quantity but as long as the employer won't provide decent conditions and a reasonable workload we can only do what we can.

And we must put ourselves first. If burnt out and exhausted we're no good to anybody else.

judeboy101

acequion wrote: »

@Lindy17 and @Bananaleaf, you guys need to accept one essential fact! You will never be able to cope with the workload. Even if you decided to cancel sleep and stayed at it 24/7 you still wouldn't be able to cope with the laughably excessive workload. So you just have to cut corners, probably a lot of corners.

Now some on these threads would probably see me as a union agitator and accuse me of being melodramatic. If only it could be dismissed so easily. I have said no and continue to say no to all these crazy reforms because in reality they are unworkable. And that's the truth. The workload is totally unrealistic and there is no way any one teacher can cope with the new demands and expectations through 7 groups of up to 30 teenagers in 2 or more subjects,marking, drafting,redrafting, swotting new materials, differentiating, crowd controlling, liaising with collegues and SNAs, providing high quality feedback, organising CBAs,attending SLARS, covering courses on time, covering revision, P/T meetings after a full day in the classroom, staff meetings and throw in a few extra curriculars for good measure. And probably more. And the buck will always stop with the teacher. The teacher will be bad if he /she doesn't differentiate enough, bad if the feedback isn't good, gives too much homework,doesn't give enough homework, has a set on little Johnny etc etc. In short it's become a job where teacher is the punching bag and not a hope of keeping everybody happy.

Therefore for the sake of your sanity cut the necessary corners. For the collection of texts only redraft two pieces and only redraft once. Stop taking up reams of stuff especially if you have LC English as well. You guys sound like excellent teachers, the kind Ireland needs, so don't burn yourselves out! We all want to do a great job, we're about quality and not quantity but as long as the employer won't provide decent conditions and a reasonable workload we can only do what we can.

And we must put ourselves first. If burnt out and exhausted we're no good to anybody else.

It's not designed for one full time teacher, but rather lots of part time transient teachers moving school as subject demand waxes and wakes.

Lindy17

Thanks very much everyone! I suppose it’s great to see others feel the same burden of the workload and the guilt no matter how hard you work. Solid advice given though, clearly need to be more pragmatic with my timing.

From my own experience, not all schools have embraced the cbas replacing house exams yet,although I would think it is coming down the line. Some offered a percentage of the summer exam for the second years oral presentation last year. My third years still did an xmas exam despite the cba2 being in December.

joebloggs32

Lindy17 wrote: »

Thanks very much everyone! I suppose it’s great to see others feel the same burden of the workload and the guilt no matter how hard you work. Solid advice given though, clearly need to be more pragmatic with my timing.

From my own experience, not all schools have embraced the cbas replacing house exams yet,although I would think it is coming down the line. Some offered a percentage of the summer exam for the second years oral presentation last year. My third years still did an xmas exam despite the cba2 being in December.

I think the unions should do a survey on this matter. The agreement we accepted explicitly stated that house exams should be replaced. If we don't do it we are fools.

Bananaleaf

Lindy17 wrote: »

Thanks very much everyone! I suppose it’s great to see others feel the same burden of the workload and the guilt no matter how hard you work. Solid advice given though, clearly need to be more pragmatic with my timing.

From my own experience, not all schools have embraced the cbas replacing house exams yet,although I would think it is coming down the line. Some offered a percentage of the summer exam for the second years oral presentation last year. My third years still did an xmas exam despite the cba2 being in December.

Ours were the same until one of our colleagues explained (although they already knew :rolleyes:) that it was a union directive.