Training Days

Teachers get sent on various courses during their career. Long ones, short ones, week long lectures, year long clusters. A whole range of opportunities to get out of the classroom and sit watching the clock, waiting for the free lunch or the next coffee break in some converted office block or dingy old training centre. 

As you may have guessed from that opening, I think training is a massive waste of time and money. Don't get me wrong teachers obviously have to be trained to do their job, it is training courses or training days that I dislike. 


Schools spend massive chunks on CPD (continual professional development) each year. Sending teachers out of their class for long periods of time to go to training days seems pointless to me. In my experience the best training I have received since qualifying has been in-school training where a professional has been brought in and has worked with the staff as a whole. First Aid training and Child Protection training are often done this way and I think it is effective. In my brief career I have also been sent off to a range of courses to 'develop my understanding' or 'continue to grow as a professional' blah blah blah. 

In my experience what these events tend to consist of is walking into a room full of strangers, most only at the course as it gets them out their classroom for the day, spending an hour doing excruciating 'ice breaker' activities which nobody gives a shit about. Oooh Heather from Devon likes ice cream. Brilliant, that is going to help me in my next observed lesson. Diana from Rotherham has been to see Billy Elliot the musical. Amazing, cant wait to feedback that at the next staff meeting. 


After this tedious activity we sit down in our random groups to write on a massive piece of sugar paper (Diana is writing - she foolishly sat nearest the pens) with large Berol marker pens. These sheets are then displayed on the wall and we break for coffee while the course leader reads our answers and steals all the complimentary fruit tea bags (the menopausal hot flushes are eased by a nice caffeine free beverage apparently).

After this we stare blankly at an uninspiring PowerPoint presentation barely visible on the shoddy over head projector for what feels like 6 days. The person next to you whispers "if I was at school now... and you drift off into a boredom induced coma.  Next up is a Q & A session where nobody has any questions and we squirm our way through the silence until somebody makes the move everyone has been waiting for - the dart towards the dining room.  


What ensues next is a wacky races style sprint to the buffet. There isn't enough food to go round but that doesn't stop Heather creating a realistic looking reproduction of the leaning tower of Piza out of voluvants and mini quiches. By the time you get to the front all that is left is a plate of wet lettuce that was the garnish on the sandwich platter and some crisps, which, if you believe the research into bar snacks, are probably now seasoned with piss after the world and his wife have stuck their fingers in the bowl. 


After lunch its time to return to the training room. You return to your seat and flick through some mass produced crap that has been copy and pasted from the Internet. Another coffee break and then it is time to fill in a course evaluation. You tick 'good' and 'very good' in fear of being spotted as the one who actually answers honestly.

You head home, knowing that your classroom will be a mess because the cover teacher wont have bothered to tidy up properly, you will have to re teach everything you left for them and worst of all, your school has shelled out £500 for this experience, when apparently there isn't enough money for you to order new laminating pouches.