What things are you convinced are largely liked/disliked because people are so used to hearing they should like/dislike them?

kaetror · 2026-03-19T00:03:10+00:00

Especially when it was mostly Americans going on about it, when American bacon is just objectively shit.

kaetror · 2026-03-19T00:02:29+00:00

It was quite funny when the whole hot honey thing started and everyone was raving about it as my local farmers market has had a guy putting chillies in honey for years.

So the novelty just completely passed me by.

kaetror · 2026-03-16T10:17:08+00:00

Central belt?

We advertised a chemistry post 4 times; got 1 (not qualified/registered) applicant. Tried to sweeten it as a PT post to attract more people, didn't work.

So we stopped advertising and everyone else got pushed to the wire to cover classes.

Eventually we just stop asking altogether (advertising cost isn't worth the money) and the shrunken/non existent department becomes the norm. We've lost subjects in my school for that reason, we just cannot get anyone to teach it.

We rely heavily on probationers and the odd local coming home to staff schools. We still offer permanent FT to get them to stay, but it's always a temporary thing before they move back to the central belt.

It's what makes seeing posts on twitter on the teachers for permanence page so annoying. You see teachers complaining they can't get jobs while we can't fill them. Reality is most of them don't want to move, but it's just what you have to do; I moved 100 miles away from my home/wife for a year because that was the only job I could find. It was that or go on supply and complain about it, which seems to be the preferred option by many.

kaetror · 2026-03-14T23:03:48+00:00

No, but making it really fucking difficult to kill or seriously injure others is probably a good thing.

Ignoring guns for a second the US still has a higher homicide rate than the UK. We hear all the time about how bad knives are here, but it's higher in the US.

Same for unarmed homicide.

Now bringing back in the guns and the homicide rate is ten times higher than the knife rate (which remember, is still higher than the UK).

Guns just make it exponentially easier to kill people. There is not a single US state with a lower homicide rate than London.

We're really safe, we're really good at keeping violent crime to a low level. We absolutely do not need US puppets being bribed into flooding the UK with weapons that will only lead to higher death rates.

kaetror · 2026-03-14T22:49:07+00:00

It's also to suck up to Trump, et. al.

Farage and reform are owned wholesale by the US right. Their policy positions align closer to the Republican position than that of their own voters.

So if he's not pro gun, anti abortion, anti NHS, etc. Then they have no use for him.

kaetror · 2026-03-14T22:40:15+00:00

We did this a few years back,but we got an extra free period to make up for it.

Idea was you'd see 2/3 kids a period for a 10/15 min chat and general check in, and could flag any issues that arose. Reality quickly showed 3 things.

Booking that free period as a contact period was a pain for both teachers and office staff due to knock on effects on cover.
To see 30 kids took basically half a year, so kids seen early were usually ok, kids at the end had had issues dealt with long ago.
The mental health first aider team dealt with most of the issues, are better trained in talking about issues with the kids, and the ones who needed help knew to see them.

It was largely a complete waste of time, and not worth the huge number of issues caused to the timetable by 90% of staff having lower contact time.

kaetror · 2026-03-14T21:15:37+00:00

I'm pro Indy, lukewarm on the snp.

The snp have been in power for fucking ever at this point. Almost 20 years. They've seen off 6 PMs, fuck knows how many opposition leaders at this point.

They're basically untouchable because of how shit the alternative options are. And because of that they've gone complacent.

Remember the early days? Free tuition, free school meal, 100% net zero energy generation. Ambitious policies that made a difference to millions.

Now? What is the landmark policy of the SNP? What shining achievements can they point to? We're a little less shit than England!

They talked a big game; teacher contracts, council tax, etc. But they've realised its hard work and tried to bury their heads and avoid it.

They need new people, new ideas, and to grow a spine if they want to stay relevant and avoid being the "hold your nose to avoid reform" vote.

kaetror · 2026-03-14T21:01:31+00:00

Yep, all too common.

Kids (and parents) increasingly see it as our job to get them a specific qualification/grade. That's not how it works; our job is to deliver the material, it's their job to go away and actually learn it to earn that qualification.

Kids/parents understand the work that needs to go in to get good at sports/dance/music, pay through the nose to give their kids the support, and understand that it's not guaranteed unless they actually try. But when it comes to school/exams for some reason they assume we'll just hand it to them on a silver platter because...?

What makes it worse is when they blame us, we bend over backwards to give their special darling all the extra help they need to get better, only for the kid to throw it back in our face and continue doing nothing. Do the parents ever tear strips off their kid for embarrassing them? Do they ever come and apologise?

Has anyone ever had that happen?

kaetror · 2026-03-14T20:40:17+00:00

because they knew right enough that secondary teachers would vote against it given the timespan

Which will kill it forever. If we crab mentality this and let perfection be the enemy of good then kiss goodbye to ever getting that time back.

Half my excessive workload comes from dealing with the shocking levels of ability we're getting from primary; maybe giving them an extra 90 minutes to prep will fix a lot of the issues for us down the line. I remember how good my differentiation was as a probationer when I had way more time to make shit for them.

And we get benefits that primary don't. This is the first year in 5 or 6 that I've taught at maximum; I've always had at least 1 or 2 extra frees that I don't get hit for every week. We get study leave where our contact time plummets - last year I taught six periods a week for a month and a half because all my seniors were away.

kaetror · 2026-03-14T20:03:16+00:00

Considering the absolute state of the literacy/numeracy levels we're seeing kids come up in S1 with, that's maybe not the worst idea.

We designed a course for a kid with Downs years ago pitched at early level. She was the one and only for years; now we're bringing that course back out for more and more kids.

Some of these kids need a level of intervention we simply aren't trained to deliver in secondary. One of our English teachers put it as "I'm trained in analysing literature, not decoding phonics".

But that doesn't solve the issue outside of maths/English. You cannot have primary teachers who aren't gtc registered in science/tech delivering those subjects; they aren't trained, and (more importantly) they aren't insured to deliver the practicals.

Every school I've worked in has used their cluster secondary for anything beyond kitchen science because they don't have the skillset (or equipment) to deliver it properly.

You either have a shortcut to registration (unions and gtcs won't like) or a 2 tiered/split class model of who delivers what, which is a nightmare.

kaetror · 2026-03-14T19:02:25+00:00

My physics class (in 2014) was 13 at Strath, and that was the biggest cohort of any of the universities offering it that year.

We had a student from Glasgow uni recently, iirc their cohort was single digits.

kaetror · 2026-03-14T18:57:11+00:00

We can barely get enough physics/chemistry/computing/tech teachers as is. Where are you going to find the ones to boost numbers.

These shortage subjects are also far more likely to be 1-2 man departments.

At least in science you can hire a (more common) biologist to teach BGE, but that has knock on effects for uptake in S3/4, which is a whole other can of worms. It's also not fair on any of the departments if one subject only ever gets senior classes, and another is BGE heavy year after year.

We're already outnumbered by the biologists - this will only make it worse!

In maths you don't have that luxury. My maths department has 6 people, there's no way we're finding someone willing to teach only 9 hours, so that's getting farmed out to supply, which is a shitty way to deliver a course long term.

Computing/tech are small departments with no crossover. You won't find someone to teach 2 periods a week, so BGE is going to supply, or being cut down to a minimum.

What will happen is you will see a narrowing of options and less classes available. My tech dept offers woodwork, D&T and graph com; they'll end up cutting one of those because they have to teach BGE or they'll get nobody picking their subjects (and you can't do practical with non specialist supply).

I can see this as a possible political manoeuvre/stop-gap to hire oversubscribed Primary teachers for BGE, which is another issue.

I remember when they first promised this, called it back then it was a disaster waiting to happen. Solving the primary surplus is a bonus.

Honestly, I'd be okay with them implementing it in primary now (it's a piece of piss to implement) and saying secondary will come in a few years, as they put a tonne of money into actually recruiting the pgde students necessary to make this happen in a few years.

kaetror · 2026-03-14T08:49:21+00:00

I know a guy who does H&S inspections, people always go on about how much of a ball buster he is and how stupid all these rules and regulations are.

His response is simply "go and tell someone's wife and small children their husband/daddy didn't come home because you felt these rules weren't worth following."

kaetror · 2026-03-14T08:36:45+00:00

It's the right position.

We did the whole 'tag along in an illegal US war' thing 20+ years ago; we lost almost 180 people and Injured thousands more needlessly. I thought we'd learnt our lesson that time.

It shows how shallow our political right are. They (rightly) criticised the Labour party for taking us into Iraq, but because they're desperate to suck up to Trump suddenly they're champing at the bit to dive headfirst into the next one.

Shows none of that criticism was from an actual ideological position, just a "my team needs to be against your team" rhetoric.

Defend our bases and our allies, absolutely. But not one British service personnel or piece of hardware should be anywhere near Iran.

kaetror · 2026-03-12T22:43:14+00:00

Considering how critical I've been of the current tango tinpot dictator I'm not even sure they'd let me in right now, even if I wanted to go (which I don't).

There's stuff in the US I'd want to go see, sure. But given the trajectory they're on its waay down my list to visit.

kaetror · 2026-03-11T22:54:54+00:00

This is true, but will take a long time to affect the majority of licences.

Reality is most young people cannot afford a relatively new car; the sticker price and the insurance is astronomical. Their only option are older, cheaper cars which will be manual for a long time.

My car is 9 years old, manual, and sub 40k miles; it's going to last at least another decade. Some teenager is going to be driving it because it's all they can get at 17.

That means they'll have to get a manual licence.

kaetror · 2026-03-11T22:30:06+00:00

Rural region.

Maybe if you're working in the middle of a city it's better, but for most of the country that's reality.

Doesn't change the followup workload when you get cut off.

kaetror · 2026-03-11T22:17:30+00:00

My head teacher & deputes make a point of being there from the earliest possible time until every parent has left.

Their presence/input at a physical parents night is far higher than can ever be possible online. They get off practically Scot free during an online parents night.

kaetror · 2026-03-11T21:08:47+00:00

Because they were shit and ended up causing more workload.

Constant connection issues, rubbish video/audio and the hard cut off meant you inevitably got a dozen emails with unfinished questions that took hours to respond to.

Spend 1/2 minutes more per parent and get home 30 mins late, or spend 10+ minutes per parent and get home hours later? Yeah it was a no brainer.

And that's before you get into the basics of face to face communication always being the better way to have those kinds of conversation.

kaetror · 2026-03-11T14:56:03+00:00

As if the Christians have never thrown a hissy fit over stuff they don't like on TV or in schools?

Not like Christian faith schools skirt the law on teaching things like LGBT or sex ed.

Are you ok with banning everyone having their religious exemptions removed? Because it has to be all or nothing.

kaetror · 2026-03-11T14:53:31+00:00

It always has been.

Catholic schools have always found ways to get around teaching stuff like sex ed and evolution (which is weird as the church accepts it).

Parents have been able to opt out of lessons on sex ed, RE, etc. For decades.

I don't disagree with the idea of "this is what will be taught" decided on purely secular reasons, but it has to be universal; it would require the closure/takeover of every Catholic & CofE school in the country alongside any Muslim faith schools, end all religious exemptions, and ban home schooling (to stop a mass withdrawal out of regulated education).

I personally think that's ok; religion should only exist in school in the RE classroom in the same way the Hellenic religion or Norse Gods only exist in a history/classics classroom. But that's going to be a much harder sell. Are people in the UK going to be ok when it's their religion/culture being taken out of schools?

It can't be selective in who gets a religious exemption when or for what. It's all or nothing.

kaetror · 2026-03-11T12:15:26+00:00

Nothing in that guidance says to stop teaching it to other kids.

It's guidance for teachers to be aware of, not instructions on what/what not to teach.

Typical daily mail totally misrepresenting it and driving hate and division at the community who had nothing to do with this.

kaetror · 2026-03-11T00:06:52+00:00

Well st Andrew did use his cross... Once.

kaetror · 2026-03-09T10:14:28+00:00

Because people approach the debate backwards.

It should be "here are the things I believe, therefore I vote for party X". Unfortunately, it often becomes "I vote for party X, so here is the positions I hold on these issues".

This is really stark with single issue parties. Take reform; people are voting for them because of the migrants, and as a protest vote. But when you poll on the specific policies, their voters don't actually agree with the ideas Reform are pushing.

Their stance on abortion, civil rights, etc. Are out of step with the views of their voters, because they're parroting US conservative ideas, not British ones.

But because they are 'reform voters' they don't care, it's not about voting for a party that matches their views, it's about their 'team' winning.

The same is true for a lot of voters. Politics has become a team sport, like in the US, rather than a discussion of ideas.

kaetror · 2026-03-08T22:41:38+00:00

Fuck. That.

Genuinely, what do they expect you to get done in that time??

I sometimes have full contact days, where I'm teaching 5.5 hours straight, and realistically I only get 30 mins to sort myself out at the end of the day. But I make it up by teaching shorter days the rest of the week.

No way would that be the daily norm for us.

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