While the rest of the world, including a lot of teachers I know, lounge about and wander in the sunshine I find myself with the prospect of seemingly endless meetings and talks. Welcome to a staff day. Yesterday as everyone was helpfully reminding me that I was in school today and they were all off, my niece posed an interesting question. She is in primary school and her teachers are also in a staff day today. She did not understand why they needed training. Surely they already know how to teach and have been at university to learn this. Why do they need to go to a staff training day? If they really need training then why were they allowed to teach her? I suppose I could list a lot of things that teachers need to be kept informed about. However, when I actually think about it I have a measure of the worth of staff days. I think to myself; could I have read this information on an A4 page and could I have been more productive with my time in school today. On reflection the answers to most of these days are depressing and frustratingly similar. Will today be the same or different?
Edit – I have definatly come to the conclusion that it is not so much the content of a staff day that is the problem, more the posture. Sitting down for long periods of time seems to really annoy me and literally it is a pain in the neck. I need to be in a state of motion.
May 31, 2010 at 7:16 pm
I didn’t really understand. If the staff training days are about keeping informed then why don’t they just read the newsletter. Teachers in our school are always bugging us to make sure that the newsletters get to our parents!
May 31, 2010 at 9:28 pm
In the end I would have given the informative aspect of the day a 6 out of 10. Not bad. But I have now realised that it is the sitting down and not really moving for vast periods of time that gets to me the most. I need to be moving.
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Oh yes and; read you newsletter 😛