‘Snowf lake’ generation rely on teachers to bail them out with extra exam tuition
A MOLLYCODDLED ‘snowflake’ generation of children rely on teachers to bail them out ahead of exams by running free ‘booster’ classes.
Staff are being ‘bullied’ by headteachers into giving up their lunch hours, holidays and weekends to put on extra revision lessons and get pupils up to scratch, the NASUWT teaching union has warned. Leaders say the ‘unpaid tuition’ has resulted in a ‘de facto lengthening of the school day’.
This is making some ‘lazy’ pupils believe they do not have to work hard during class because teachers will routinely do their revision preparation for them. Delegates at the NASUWT annual conference in Manchester voted for the union to consider instructing teachers not to hold these sessions outside normal school hours.
Louis Kavanagh, president of the union’s Solihull branch, told the conference at the weekend that too many headteachers want ‘ interventions’ ahead of the crucial exam periods.
He said: ‘In some schools, the extra classes are born of desperation, frantic compensating for a poor learning culture, lazy students, pitiable parenting, ineffec- tual school discipline measures and structures putting all the burden for correction on the class teacher.’
Mr Kavanagh said the prevalence of free tuition had come about because parents, governors and inspectors ‘love to see’ this kind of learning culture. But he and other teaching leaders questioned whether it was really in youngsters’ best interests or simply ‘instilling them with a sense of entitlement that does not equip them for working life.’
Katherine Carlisle, a secondary school teacher from Birmingham, said: ‘Last year I got to the point where I was running intervention sessions on four days after school every week and during all five lunchtimes.’
Professor Alan Smithers, director of the Centre for Education and Employment Research at the University of Buckingham, said: ‘This is another sign of the snowflake generation, with young people becoming ever more dependent and sensitive and relying on others to look after them and do the work for them.’
Teachers needlessly set pupils assessed work because they fear parents will complain if they do not, NASUWT delegates claim. But school staff say extra marking is ineffective and causes excessive workloads.