If the RAF ran a school..
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If the RAF ran a school..
Some "ex-soldiers" are planning to run a school, but what would a school run by ex-RAF officers be like? 
New free school to be run by ex-soldiers - Telegraph
New free school to be run by ex-soldiers - Telegraph
- Wednesday off for "sports"
- Home by lunchtime on Fridays
- 2 year gaps between lessons
- Equipped with 1970s technology
- 1 teacher for 80 students
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Too many levels of management.
Not enough real teachers 'teaching' on the front line.
Focus would be primarily on teachers careers rather than the pupils or the good of the school.
Old and out of date technology.
Over emphasis on pointless KPI's.
Fail your PE Lesson and you're expelled.
Poor communication between departments.
A culture of fear and lack of personal integrity amongst staff to challenge the failings of the organisation and report failings to higher management for fear of a detrimental effect on their career.
Budget spent on pointless equipment.
Swap teachers and management around too frequently ensuring no-one sees the result of their actions and there is never a long term plan.
Have an appraisal system based on how an appraisal is written rather than what the individual is actually like.
Lots of pointless mission statements/ posters.
I could go on......
Not enough real teachers 'teaching' on the front line.
Focus would be primarily on teachers careers rather than the pupils or the good of the school.
Old and out of date technology.
Over emphasis on pointless KPI's.
Fail your PE Lesson and you're expelled.
Poor communication between departments.
A culture of fear and lack of personal integrity amongst staff to challenge the failings of the organisation and report failings to higher management for fear of a detrimental effect on their career.
Budget spent on pointless equipment.
Swap teachers and management around too frequently ensuring no-one sees the result of their actions and there is never a long term plan.
Have an appraisal system based on how an appraisal is written rather than what the individual is actually like.
Lots of pointless mission statements/ posters.
I could go on......
Last edited by sooms; 2nd Sep 2011 at 08:49.
Dunno about a school, but if the RAF ran a university you could cut the length of most degree courses in half.
Doing a language degree 15 years after I left the service I was amazed how little time was actually involved in teaching/seminars/tutorials etc. Students on my course moaned that we had around 15 contact hours a week for three ten week terms a year (eight weeks at Oxbridge I believe), as they thought this was excessive. I compared this to my one year going through nav school when even my suggestion that we might have an hour free once a month for "admin" was scornfully rejected as a waste of valuable time.
And yes I know we had to write essays, spend time in the library etc at uni, but I had loads of time for leisure activities and basically just lazing around and still managed a 2:1 in the days before that degree had become as devalued as it now has. How about all the recently redundant service types setting up their own uni? Maybe MOD will give them a disused site for the purpose - there are plenty of them
Doing a language degree 15 years after I left the service I was amazed how little time was actually involved in teaching/seminars/tutorials etc. Students on my course moaned that we had around 15 contact hours a week for three ten week terms a year (eight weeks at Oxbridge I believe), as they thought this was excessive. I compared this to my one year going through nav school when even my suggestion that we might have an hour free once a month for "admin" was scornfully rejected as a waste of valuable time.
And yes I know we had to write essays, spend time in the library etc at uni, but I had loads of time for leisure activities and basically just lazing around and still managed a 2:1 in the days before that degree had become as devalued as it now has. How about all the recently redundant service types setting up their own uni? Maybe MOD will give them a disused site for the purpose - there are plenty of them
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Each class would be taught by a head of year. Each head of year would be a headmaster, the headmaster would be SoS for Education.
The school secretary would hold similar influence to the headmasters' running each year.
There would be a caretaker for each room in the school.
The teaching staff would not socialise - or even talk, with the caretakers.
There would be more school bus drivers than students.
The there would be a similar number of school security guards. One would be an ex Met Police Commissioner, the remaining 200 would be pri**s.
The PE teacher would be despised by the remaining teaching staff (They didn't sign up to have to work alongside a PE teacher)
The school would place an order and spend most of its budget on ipad 1's, just as the ipad 2's come onto the shelves.
The school would have an electronic sign at the gate, telling arrivals how much electricity has been saved that month (used to put a smile on my face each time I arrived at Odiham!)
The school staff would happily sh*t on their colleagues at the school down the road, just to get that extra pack of A4 paper.
The other two schools down the road would snigger and laugh at the school for not being a real teaching establishment.
The school secretary would hold similar influence to the headmasters' running each year.
There would be a caretaker for each room in the school.
The teaching staff would not socialise - or even talk, with the caretakers.
There would be more school bus drivers than students.
The there would be a similar number of school security guards. One would be an ex Met Police Commissioner, the remaining 200 would be pri**s.
The PE teacher would be despised by the remaining teaching staff (They didn't sign up to have to work alongside a PE teacher)
The school would place an order and spend most of its budget on ipad 1's, just as the ipad 2's come onto the shelves.
The school would have an electronic sign at the gate, telling arrivals how much electricity has been saved that month (used to put a smile on my face each time I arrived at Odiham!)
The school staff would happily sh*t on their colleagues at the school down the road, just to get that extra pack of A4 paper.
The other two schools down the road would snigger and laugh at the school for not being a real teaching establishment.
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The small, efficient school would be closed by the S of S for Education because he went to the larger, more inefficient school in the next county.
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RAF Schools
All the staff, apart from the manual workers, would be trained teachers.
Most of them would go through the RAF teacher training courses at massive expense, teach for one tour and then, just as they become productive, do a tour of three years in a non teaching post, such as pupil admin or management of the teachers who are actually teaching.
There would be cultural exchange visits to other schools and exchange postings to schools in other countries so that some teachers could learn how to teach subjects in other languages, and on returning from this tour, the teacher would do a staff tour in which they would forget all they had learned about teaching, and need a refresher course before being allowed into a classroom again. Every tour of teaching would be followed by a non teaching tour of such delights as media manager or working on recruiting students for the schools.
The vast majority of teachers in a school would not teach. Teachers would train to teach Nautical Studies, despite not having any boats. All classrooms would be equipped with state of the art electronic whiteboards that only the pupils know how to work. This technology drive will consume all of the money to the point where there is no budget left to heat and light the classrooms so some have to be mothballed.
Every now and then, visiting royalty would pop in and ask to be able to teach the kids for an afternoon. The headmaster would feel too intimidated to refuse this permission, so he tells the teacher to step outside. Teacher knopws if he refuses he will become a school secretary and never stand in front of a class of children again. The VIP would then tell the children that 2+2 equals 5, because as we all know, the whole is greater than the sum of all its parts. The kids all fail their maths GCSE. The press get a hold of this and so the Teacher, and the Janitor get a kipper in their file for piss poor judgement. VIP is allowed to walk away blameless, Headmaster gets a Knighthood.
At some point the new schools would place a huge contract for new classrooms, based on refurbished wooden cabins that were built for school overflow classrooms in the early 1970s. Baron Waste o'Space would submit a quote for refurbishing them, with a caveat that if the RAF don't take them and use them, they still need to pay for ten years of maintenance from day of delivery.
The RAF send a bunch of teachers to supervise the building refurbishment and lots of the teachers on this project soon leave the RAF to become builders. After some years of making doors, they discover that not all the doorframes are the same size, and the windows let the rain in. Cabins are delivered with bits of paper in the doorframe saying “Door to be fitted here shortly” in place of actual doors. The cabins are fantastic inside, leather seats, state of the art electronic teaching aids and apart from letting the wind and rain in, a joy to work in.
Senior management then decide to abandon the additional classrooms and pay the Baron to destroy the cabins. Most of the teachers who are current at actually teaching children to learn something, along with janitors and dinner ladies, are then made redundant.
Massive numbers of staff would be trained as teachers but then, as they arrive at the OCU for their second stage of training to learn how to teach specific subjects, the admin branch would realise they had no room for any more courses at the OCU and make the newly (almost) trained teachers redundant. The OCUs also ditch people within weeks of completing their specialist training as there are no classrooms for them to teach in.
Most importantly, the upper levels of the teaching staff would all be based in a "Command" building on a site with no classrooms.
Most of them would go through the RAF teacher training courses at massive expense, teach for one tour and then, just as they become productive, do a tour of three years in a non teaching post, such as pupil admin or management of the teachers who are actually teaching.
There would be cultural exchange visits to other schools and exchange postings to schools in other countries so that some teachers could learn how to teach subjects in other languages, and on returning from this tour, the teacher would do a staff tour in which they would forget all they had learned about teaching, and need a refresher course before being allowed into a classroom again. Every tour of teaching would be followed by a non teaching tour of such delights as media manager or working on recruiting students for the schools.
The vast majority of teachers in a school would not teach. Teachers would train to teach Nautical Studies, despite not having any boats. All classrooms would be equipped with state of the art electronic whiteboards that only the pupils know how to work. This technology drive will consume all of the money to the point where there is no budget left to heat and light the classrooms so some have to be mothballed.
Every now and then, visiting royalty would pop in and ask to be able to teach the kids for an afternoon. The headmaster would feel too intimidated to refuse this permission, so he tells the teacher to step outside. Teacher knopws if he refuses he will become a school secretary and never stand in front of a class of children again. The VIP would then tell the children that 2+2 equals 5, because as we all know, the whole is greater than the sum of all its parts. The kids all fail their maths GCSE. The press get a hold of this and so the Teacher, and the Janitor get a kipper in their file for piss poor judgement. VIP is allowed to walk away blameless, Headmaster gets a Knighthood.
At some point the new schools would place a huge contract for new classrooms, based on refurbished wooden cabins that were built for school overflow classrooms in the early 1970s. Baron Waste o'Space would submit a quote for refurbishing them, with a caveat that if the RAF don't take them and use them, they still need to pay for ten years of maintenance from day of delivery.
The RAF send a bunch of teachers to supervise the building refurbishment and lots of the teachers on this project soon leave the RAF to become builders. After some years of making doors, they discover that not all the doorframes are the same size, and the windows let the rain in. Cabins are delivered with bits of paper in the doorframe saying “Door to be fitted here shortly” in place of actual doors. The cabins are fantastic inside, leather seats, state of the art electronic teaching aids and apart from letting the wind and rain in, a joy to work in.
Senior management then decide to abandon the additional classrooms and pay the Baron to destroy the cabins. Most of the teachers who are current at actually teaching children to learn something, along with janitors and dinner ladies, are then made redundant.
Massive numbers of staff would be trained as teachers but then, as they arrive at the OCU for their second stage of training to learn how to teach specific subjects, the admin branch would realise they had no room for any more courses at the OCU and make the newly (almost) trained teachers redundant. The OCUs also ditch people within weeks of completing their specialist training as there are no classrooms for them to teach in.
Most importantly, the upper levels of the teaching staff would all be based in a "Command" building on a site with no classrooms.
Sadly, all of the above would still be better than the current education system.
I speak from experience of both.
p.s. Wyler, one of my school senior staff did actually fail to organise a piss-up in a brewery.
I speak from experience of both.
p.s. Wyler, one of my school senior staff did actually fail to organise a piss-up in a brewery.
Last edited by Fox3WheresMyBanana; 2nd Sep 2011 at 11:07.
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The pupils will have many different uniforms. One will be for classroom work, but will have so many variations that no pupils in the same class will wear the same.
There will be uniforms for field trips, one for winter trips, and one for summer. These will be replaced by a single uniform, but the pupils must keep the old uniforms, as the new multi-purpose uniform will be replaced in a year.
Staff will have similar uniforms to the pupils' classroom dress, but will be adorned with ridiculous belts. Teachers will have overalls to protect themselves from the pupils, but when not teaching (most of the time), will insist on wearing their overalls, so as to display their teaching badges.
There will be uniforms for field trips, one for winter trips, and one for summer. These will be replaced by a single uniform, but the pupils must keep the old uniforms, as the new multi-purpose uniform will be replaced in a year.
Staff will have similar uniforms to the pupils' classroom dress, but will be adorned with ridiculous belts. Teachers will have overalls to protect themselves from the pupils, but when not teaching (most of the time), will insist on wearing their overalls, so as to display their teaching badges.
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The school would of course, be a Comprehensive, as opposed to the Army's Grammar Schools and the Navy's Public Schools, as befits the Service's relative position in the grand scheme of things.
All the uniforms would be polyester, with a black tie.
The promotion prospects for the staff are terrible. Some of the staff wear chevrons on their arm, and it's not unusual for them to take until they're 40 to get just two of them. Had they joined a Grammar School, they'd have had those two by the time they were 25. For the ones that wear the stripes on their shoulders, most of them stop at two. Again, the Grammar Schools have their "average Joes" stopping at the equivalent of two AND a little thin one in between.
If the school ran out of a certain colour of exercise book, a UOR would be issued for its replacement at huge cost, and emergency supplies would be procured on Govt credit card. As opposed to simply issuing blue ones instead of the green ones that had been exhausted.
One of the primary metrics of a school is the number of exam passes the pupils obtain. Unfortunately, the school hasn't achieved a single exam pass since World War Two.
The school buses are 40 years old on average, and are incredibly noisy and expensive to maintain. There are two types, the school is the only operator in the world and has been for many years of one of them. The other one is dying a death with other operators, and is likely to be retired by the end of the year. Despite needing a fleet of 40 or more, the RAF has entered into a deal with devil so that they can get a handful of modern 'buses. If not required for school purposes, the buses will be made available to their owner for other purposes. The bus drivers for the new fleet will only be part time, and paid substantially less than drivers of other similar buses.
The school also has a number of vans. These are of two types. One is the older model, they've been thrashed to death, but still do the job. They are literally dying on their feet, there's only a few left of these, but only those models can do certain jobs. The newer ones are still more than 10 years old and have also been thrashed to death. The van drivers have pissing contests on a weekly basis. New larger vans have been ordered, but that was 10 years ago and they still haven't been delivered.
The vans and buses all got moved into the same garage, and it's just been a clusterf*** (see piss up/brewery comment).
Coincidentally, the garage with the vans and buses also houses 6 trucks, which are perfect, but expensive and can only be ordered one at a time.
The Board of Governors are utterly out of their depth when competing with the Grammar Schools and Public Schools for funding. They get outflanked left, right and centre every time. They did manage to get funding for some new logos and a clothing range however. In order to pay for this though, they had to hand over lots of the playing fields and the old van garage to the Grammar Schools, and lose a lot of the sporting equipment (whole fleets) that they used to have on the playing fields.
All the uniforms would be polyester, with a black tie.
The promotion prospects for the staff are terrible. Some of the staff wear chevrons on their arm, and it's not unusual for them to take until they're 40 to get just two of them. Had they joined a Grammar School, they'd have had those two by the time they were 25. For the ones that wear the stripes on their shoulders, most of them stop at two. Again, the Grammar Schools have their "average Joes" stopping at the equivalent of two AND a little thin one in between.
If the school ran out of a certain colour of exercise book, a UOR would be issued for its replacement at huge cost, and emergency supplies would be procured on Govt credit card. As opposed to simply issuing blue ones instead of the green ones that had been exhausted.
One of the primary metrics of a school is the number of exam passes the pupils obtain. Unfortunately, the school hasn't achieved a single exam pass since World War Two.
The school buses are 40 years old on average, and are incredibly noisy and expensive to maintain. There are two types, the school is the only operator in the world and has been for many years of one of them. The other one is dying a death with other operators, and is likely to be retired by the end of the year. Despite needing a fleet of 40 or more, the RAF has entered into a deal with devil so that they can get a handful of modern 'buses. If not required for school purposes, the buses will be made available to their owner for other purposes. The bus drivers for the new fleet will only be part time, and paid substantially less than drivers of other similar buses.
The school also has a number of vans. These are of two types. One is the older model, they've been thrashed to death, but still do the job. They are literally dying on their feet, there's only a few left of these, but only those models can do certain jobs. The newer ones are still more than 10 years old and have also been thrashed to death. The van drivers have pissing contests on a weekly basis. New larger vans have been ordered, but that was 10 years ago and they still haven't been delivered.
The vans and buses all got moved into the same garage, and it's just been a clusterf*** (see piss up/brewery comment).
Coincidentally, the garage with the vans and buses also houses 6 trucks, which are perfect, but expensive and can only be ordered one at a time.
The Board of Governors are utterly out of their depth when competing with the Grammar Schools and Public Schools for funding. They get outflanked left, right and centre every time. They did manage to get funding for some new logos and a clothing range however. In order to pay for this though, they had to hand over lots of the playing fields and the old van garage to the Grammar Schools, and lose a lot of the sporting equipment (whole fleets) that they used to have on the playing fields.
Bells will ring and announcements made at 04:00 advising those pupils due to start class at 08:00 to get up, while those who are not due to start until mid-day are advised that they can go back to sleep.