Hi,
It’s nearly time to throw your laptop into a cupboard and clock off for a glorious summer of rest. Soon the only problem solving you’ll need to focus on is how to get everything into your suitcase and the only time you’ll hear the words “Miss” or “Sir” will be when the waiter is bringing over your refreshing drinks.
But before you make your hasty exit out the school gates, here’s your monthly dose of teaching news, hacks and some fun bits that won’t supercharge your career but could give you a timely welcome break from the chaos.
This month we’re sharing some top discounts to use in the summer holidays, some teaching tips and some information on finding long-term positions that are tailored just for you. If you are looking for a change and to start the new academic year off in a role based around your terms, we can help.
Your Role, Your Terms
At PK Education, we work with schools all across the north of England and the Midlands to match great candidates to roles that are ideal for them. Whether you are looking for a long-term role after doing supply with us or you’ve not worked with us yet, we’d love to speak to you about your dreams and aspirations.
We put a huge amount of work into working with schools to understand their culture, their requirements and to gain an in-depth understanding of every role. We also spend equally as much time getting to know everyone who registers with PK Education to build a complete picture of what they want from their next role.
There are some very exciting vacancies with start dates in September, so if you are looking for a part time role, or a role in a specific area, just let us know. Whatever type of role and flexibility you are looking for, get in touch with the team at our nearest office to get started.
Recommend a Friend – £100 for Each Referral
If you know someone or several people who are looking for new roles, if you recommend them to us and they start a role, you’ll be given £100 on completion of 10 days. And there is no limit on how many people you can recommend, if you recommend 10, you’ll get £1,000 coming your way!
Teaching News
As always, there’s lots going on in the education landscape. Along with the news that the teacher’s pay increase has been approved, these are some of the other news highlights:
Teacher Retention Improving
Recently released workforce data from the Department of Education revealed that teacher retention is improving, with the lowest number of teachers leaving the profession since 2020.
The DoE also shared that support staff numbers are at the highest level on record.
Spending Review
In other news, the government’s Spending Review revealed that the core schools budget will increase by £2bn in real terms by 2029. £700m of the funding will be used for reforming the SEND support system.
AI Guidance for Schools
AI might not be able to tame a classroom of rowdy students or create an engaging learning environment but it definitely has some teaching shortcuts to offer.
The government wants to promote how AI can be used in education for a wide range of tasks and they have introduced a toolkit that has been created by the Chiltern Learning Trust and the Chartered College of Teaching.
These are some of the key areas that they are recommending that AI could be used for to help manage teacher workload:
Email writing – Reduce the time taken to respond to or construct emails by using AI tools like ChatGPT to structure emails and then tweak the content appropriately.
Creating quizzes – You’ll still need to check it over for accuracy but you can quickly generate quizzes on your specified topics.
Generate lesson plans – You can ask AI tools to plan lessons based around curriculum objectives and tailored to year groups.
Drafting report comments – Use AI to provide a summary based on a few key words for performance or behaviour.
These are just a few examples but the accuracy and capabilities of AI are improving all the time, so there’s a lot of scope for reducing workload even further in future.
Handling Difficult Conversations with Parents
Whether you are in a pastoral role, take Parents Evening meetings or you interact with parents at school drop offs/pickups, sometimes you’ll be faced with difficult conversations.
While many parents can see the bigger picture, there are others who think that their child can do no wrong. Oh he bit another child? He must have been hungry, you need to improve the school meals.
Then there’s the parents who think little Jonny’s potential is being held back by those naughty, disruptive kids in his class. He should be a qualified nuclear scientist by age 8 but instead he spends lessons trying to make his friends laugh by making rude noises. Obviously because he isn’t being stretched enough.
You can’t win everybody over but there are some techniques that can help:
Show empathy – Even if you completely disagree with the parent’s point of view, show that you acknowledge their concerns and explain that you want to work together to find a solution.
Keep calm – Try to keep a composed demeanor and if they raise their voice, don’t be tempted to do the same. Set boundaries and explain that you would be happy to arrange an appointment with a member of the senior leadership team if they would like to discuss the matter when they feel they can do so in a calmer manner.
Use facts and examples – If you need to, refer to behaviour logs or dates of incidents to provide factual data rather than providing a generic opinion.
Try to create a plan together – Emphasise that you want to team up to find the best outcome for the student and the class. Use “we” to put the onus on working together and help steer parents away from a “them vs us” mindset.
Handling parent conversations gets easier with more experience, so if you are just getting started in teaching, just remember that it will become easier with time. There’s a useful pre-recorded webinar that TES provides which you can watch here.
Teacher Discounts
Start your summer holiday off in VIP style with a 10% discount on airport lounges through Discounts for Teachers. It certainly beats the school canteen! You can also get discounts for airport parking.
If you haven’t already signed up at Discounts for Teachers – it is completely free.
Fancy a day out somewhere exciting or a weekend city break in the UK? Teachers can get a 20% discount on TransPennine Express tickets, which includes routes going to Liverpool, York and Edinburgh.
Planning on eating out or have kids to feed in the holidays? Grab some big discounts with a free Tastecard membership for 12 months, which will give you a 2-1 discount at a long list of restaurants. The Tastecard membership usually costs £79.99, so it’s not bad at all.
Trivia
This month’s trivia is especially for the sports fans and movie lovers:
Can you name the Hollywood actor who once worked as a PE teacher?
Clue: His teaching experience would have been very handy in the sport based movie franchise that he starred in.
Last month’s trivia question was:
My dad teaches chemistry and my mum teaches maths. My nickname is IRON59, what is my name?
FeLIX
Fe being the chemical symbol for Iron and LIX is 59 in Roman numerals. Was that one too easy?
Hopefully you’ll be spending the rest of the term in wind-down mode, with sports days, school trips and some of the less demanding work scheduled over the next few weeks. We can dream, right?
Don’t forget to take a look at our current vacancies and let us know if you or someone you know is looking for a new role from September.
Have a great month!
PK Education
