Secondary School Teachers- how do you get to them.

[Barny of Blandford]

As a physical education and design and technology teacher of 33 years in 11-18 secondary schools a few things in life do amaze me.
I cannot believe that people work in such laid back jobs that they have the time to post on this forum while at work - I never have a minute to even consider doing this as I have to work through even my breaks and lunchtimes (its called part of the job). I also cannot believe that people work in regimes that consider such a thing acceptable.
I alrady average 50 hours a week on the five days doing extra activities either in sport or technology most nights (assuming we dont have extra long thrilling meetings) Then I take mountains of work home and often work until nine at night or later marking exam work
I then have Dorset Schools cross country and athletics events during the week and mainly Saturdays
I have about thirty sporting organisations who all think that I am only there to produce children for them - I also have about two hundred organisations that think that as a technology teacher I should be entering every competition under the sun and producing mathematicians, scientists and engineers
I could go on
Finally I also try to Orienteering
Then another problem starts - I take children to outdoor pursuits events - they only go when I take them - when it is suggested that parents do this nobody turns up
Mrs H has the right idea - unless you can persuade the families to be involved you are forever a cheap child minder
Organisations are being completely unrealistic and inundating schools with masses of information
I also for my sins run careers and work experience for 1200 students - I file about 95% of the mail I receive in school straight in the bin - it is unrealistic to even spend the time I do not have trying to read it.
I am now also trying to catch up on my school emails that I have not had time to read during the day and it is 20.43 on FRIDAY NIGHT
Spare a thought for us - I enjoy my sport - my orienteering is the only thing I do in life that I do not take piles of students to.

[awk]

Whilst I respect RJ's work - more power to your elbow - I have to say that my experience in teaching largely confirms Mrs H's prognosis, with the proviso that if you do get an enthusiastic orienteering teacher in a school, then they can work wonders, but they are a very rare breed.

Whilst I run a summer term after-school O club, I have no intention of taking it any further at present - my working week is already exhausting (if rewarding) enough without worsening the situation. My respect for those who manage it has increased many times over in the past 2-3 years!

[Barny of Blandford]

Many of the most successful orienteering teachers are not physical education teachers in scondary schools and hence do it as their one sporting activity - it is almost impossible to do more than one sport in depth because of the time commitment.

I also forgot to say that I retire this year and for the first time in my life will be able to go to events on Wednesdays (Alan events and so on) - go to things like the Oringen and Masters eents in other countries
We might supposedly have long holidays ( only have to go in for this and that results during half of them!!!) but it does limit your opportunities

[HOCOLITE]

Sean C. Your premise about safety etc doesn't hold up for our experience as the primary schools have flocked in. It's the secondary schools, it's how to get in touch with the right somebody. At one of the schools a year 7 told me she wanted to enter so I said I'd been in touch with this PE co-ord chap, she didn't know him, and said she'd try her PE teacher. It's jolly hard in year 7. Also all these primary school kids move on and if there is nothing for them at Secondary

[Harley]

Hi,
As a newly qualified teacher, who is coming under pressure to run an after school O club, I would just like to say that I have absolutely no intention of taking my kiddies to weekend orienteering events irrespective of how much I am encouraged by a local club.
Why not? Firstly, it will do sod all for my career prospects - I am not measured by how many of my pupils can get around a yellow course, I am measured by the academic progress of my 'pink spotted' children (don't ask) so I am not about to add to the 50-60 hours a week I already put in.
Secondly, from a few years experience of running SMILE events, I agree entirely with Mrs H; schools orienteering gives such an incredibly low return on investment that, apart from a few exceptions, it's a total waste of effort. In reality, it's only when you target the parents that you start to see results, and even then you have to get the formula just right - MADO seems to have hit the nail on the head for it's target audience and locality ... well done Mrs H!
We would do well to look at this and analyse it's critical sucess factors (she and Mr H put an auful lot of hard work in) and see how they apply in other circumstances.
However, back to the issue of schools orienteering. If someone wants to take schoolkids orienteering, and they get a kick out of it (which one can as I have in the past) then great, they should do it. But you have to do it yourself and with like-minded help, because you cannot expect overworked teachers to do it for you (where's the win-win?), and you must be prepared to put in a huge amount of effort for very little, if anything, back. In short, ask yourself why you are doing it!

[guest]

Hear, hear

[Copepod]

It's right that physical education teachers are not always the ones to approach for orienteering - and agree that teachers have enough to do without yet more out of school activities. When I was involved with the Duke of Edinburgh's Award Scheme in Tyneside a few years ago, one school's scheme was run by a French teacher, and at another in the West Midlands, an important contact was the airport meteorologist husband of another modern languages teaches. My cousins in Preston were introduced to orienteering by the caretaker who ran the school O club. BSES expeditions also has difficulties getting information to 16.5 to 20 year olds, and asks memebrs each year to forward material to a named person at a school where they have contacts.

It seems unreasonable to ask teachers to arrange transport etc for pupils to get to events, but perhaps a teacher might be willing to put up posters about forthcoming events and to leave leaflets somewhere suitable in their school?

[RJ]

There is little point in getting involved in a slanging match, with ill-mannered and ill-tempered postings!

So.... to return to HOCOLITE'S original post.... how to get secondary school teachers interested. It is obvious from the postings made here (assuming that they are representative... and I would say not far from being right.) that it is a real challenge. However we try to make the contact, and with the expectation of having orienteering taken on board, we need to approach the schools and the teachers ON THEIR TERMS.

Just as with all other minority sports we have a major set of obstacles to overcome. Whether or not we should go down this route.... if we do, then we must understand the hurdles to overcome. In my experience PE teachers are very supportive of our efforts, arranging for toilets to be available, and being aware of the fact we are using the playing fields etc. It is usually non PE staff who organise the teams etc.

Whether the effort is worth it.... you make up your own mind. There are many ways to skin a cat. Volunteers will make up their own minds, and put the effort into what they want to do.

[awk]

Also all these primary school kids move on and if there is nothing for them at Secondary

My experience is that if you are going down the route of primary school development (and I think that is likely to be the most productive schools route), you really need to have got the children into club orienteering before they hit secondary.

We've certainly found that works in other sports. I started an after-school hockey club last year, and about 50% of the children are now attending the local club's training sessions. Quite a few of my cross-country runners have joined the local harriers, and the same happens with a colleague's football club.

I would say that this is a key element in the jigsaw for real success: there has got to be a regular and local club coaching/training structure for the children to slot into as soon as possible. Even with the MADO parental route, if there is not that regularity, other activities which do have that will start to take priority ("I can't go orienteering as I've got football every Sunday/Saturday morning"). The best time to do that is at primary - by secondary it's all bedded in (if they are doing anything at all!).

I'm sure you already know some or all of that!

Interesting to see that other orienteering teachers are in the same boat! Sorry RJ if we appear ill-mannered/ill-tempered. I didn't read them like that (unless you're just referring to Mrs H, who in my experience really isn't either in real life!). I for one am certainly intensely frustrated that I feel unable to do things that I want to do which I know will be better for a child's education than many of the things I do have to do!

[Oldman]

I do wish that people posting wouldn't use the forum for parading how hard their jobs are and how terribly overworked they are! If you don't like them, change!

Of course, whatever their perspective, they are entirely within their rights to refuse to get invoved in orienteering if they don't wish to and are not paid to.

Can we keep the forum on its topic please (as RJ suggests)?

[Harley]

Er... re-reading HOCOLITE's original post, I rather thought posts are still on topic and that teacher workload is very pertinent to why it's difficult to get schools involved in orienteering. Ignore the fact at your peril.

By the way OLDMAN our jobs are the most rewarding jobs around, that's why we do them. We just want some of the weekend off for ourselves.

[HOCOLITE]

At the MADO event today I spotted at female PE teacher from a local secondary(she was wearing a jacket advertising the school PE Dept). I took the opportunity to discuss the issue. She said. 1) She thought a letter would be preferabl to email 2) PE depts get lots of requests from minority sports it really needs an interested teacher within the school for them to pass the info onto. 3) She said it might be best to take the event to a meeting of PDM's or whatever they are, as they'd all be there and you'd make contact. 4) I mentioned Duke of Edinburgh as a possible route she said we don't do that, but agreed. 5) She told me that each year she takes 40 kids on outdoor activity week to North Wales where they get one afternoon of O.

[Lumpy Lycra]

Where Sports Clubs work successfully with schools there are advantages for both. Clubs are usually (always?) after increased membership, although individuals may well gain tremendous personal satisfaction through seeing children develop. But what is in it for schools? Remember the torrent of "stuff" that gets thrown at them - everything from the constantly evolving National Curriculum (we're into Excellence and Enjoyment this year) and League tables (Contextual Value Added scores anyone?) to Jamie Oliver's turkey twizzler crusade, Extended Schools initiatives, SureStart Children's Centres, the Every Child Matters agenda, CRB checking everyone from the Postman to the Caretaker's cat....

Schools have to pick and choose those bits that fit with the needs of their pupils. I could waffle for hours about what that means for our Primary, but the original question was about Secondary. Has anyone tried targetting PE GCSE pupils, advertising their club's existing programme of events as providing an opportunity of progression through the colour coded courses to a possible A* grade? All the PE co-ordinator has to do is send the flyers home - parents may well be more willing to provide transport in the cause of GCSE results.

and for anyone still reading, some practical advice on getting information / requests to teachers from someone who works in a Primary School Office.

- Letters: if you know the name of the teacher, use it on the envelope and it will probably get to their pigeon hole (unopened) on the day it arrives in school. When it will be read is variable, and it is highly likely to go straight in the bin if it asks the teacher to do anything that doesn't tick a few of that school's / teacher's "boxes", for all the reasons given in earlier posts. If you address it to a role (eg PE co-ordinator or Outdoor Activites co-ordinator) it will go to the appropriate teacher, but may be opened first to both identify that person and weed out junk. If what you are asking for is an admin task, consider addressing it to the "School Administration Team" or "Office Manager" and they may complete your form, extract any approriate signatures and return it to you.

- E-mails: most schools have a generic contact account that goes to an admin person. This works in much the same way as snail mail - put "fao Mrs x" / "fao PE Co-ordinator" and it will either be forwarded to the appropriate e-mail address or printed out & added to the mountains of paper in pigeon holes. Unless you've been given a teacher's contact details directly, I'd always use the generic account as that is monitored much more regularly.

- Phone: if you ring during the school day, and you're after a class based teacher - guess what - they'll be in class and yes, you won't get past reception. Either ask for a message to be given (which will probably end up in the dreaded pigeon hole) or ask when a good time to speak to Mrs x / the PE co-ordinator is. After the school day is the only realistic option - "breaks" & "lunchtimes" are actually busy times for teachers and any spare seconds will be spent going to the loo! Even after school there are the staff meetings, phase meetings, curriculum meetings.....

[ifititches]

I replied to a SCUK (sports coach UK) on-line questionnaire the other day, BOF had circulated link & asked us to complete. I had to scroll through list of at least 150 sports to find orienteering to fill in the "my sport" box.

If the NGBs of all those sports are asking clubs to do schools' development work, and even a fraction of those clubs are e mailing schools, it's not difficult to see where the overflowing pigeon holes and full litter bins come from!

In answer to Lumpy's query about GCSE PE. One of the local schools here (very local to her too) would have been delighted to have me in to work with GCSE PE students, but it was impossible to align their timetable to when I was available. May have another go at it this autumn. i would not expect that to knock on into increased club membership, but I know I would enjoy doing it...

[Lumpy Lycra]

...and I forgot to say...the "PGM" is probably a PDM (Partnership Development Manager) who is based in Specialist Sports College and will have links to PLTs in Primaries - don't know what it stands for but they are usually the PE co-ordinators. And then you get SSSCo's (Specilalist Sport Somethin co-ordinators???) who work in non-Sports College secondaries that are attached to the PDM. It was once explained to me in terms of satellites & mother ships and it didn't make sense then either.