Pressure in the system
The growing crisis in the teaching profession in England is well-documented. A report from the House of Commons Education Committee (2017), published earlier this year, acknowledged the shortage of teachers in a number of subjects and geographical areas, the difficulty in recruiting new teachers and the problems caused by the continuing exodus both of older teachers taking early retirement and younger teachers. Around 30% of new teachers leave the profession within five years of qualifying. The government is consistently failing to meet its recruitment and retention targets and this is putting increasing pressure on schools.
Responding to a survey called Why Teach, 76% of teachers cited high workload as the most common reason for considering leaving the profession (Menzies, 2015).Also, in her submission to the House of Commons Education Committee, Alison Peacock, Chief Executive of the Chartered College of Teaching (op cit 2017), claimed that “workload is inextricably linked to the accountability agenda”.
This view is endorsed by numerous academics, school leaders and teachers across the country who have, for years, been claiming that the testing and accountability framework has put schools in a stranglehold, exerting too much pressure on staff and students alike. There are few signs however that the Government is listening to these voices. As recently as 2016, the Times Educational Supplement reported that changes to primary assessment were “chaotic” and causing upheaval within the sector and that these changes had not been endorsed by the profession (Ward, 2016).
Control versus freedom
The overarching problem is that education is so tightly managed and controlled by central government that teachers have limited freedom to act in what they believe to be the best interests of their students. The mantra from policy makers is that the academisation agenda has freed schools and given them greater autonomy. But with all maintained schools being subject to the strict inspection regime conducted by Ofsted, there is little room for manoeuvre. Not only does it create a heavy administrative burden for teachers, it also leaves school leaders and teachers powerless to introduce new approaches unless they are guaranteed to deliver the outcomes that Ofsted is looking for, namely the narrow academic achievements prioritised by the government. In spite of the best efforts of the vast majority of school staff, this overbearing control has, all too often, reduced learning and teaching to a joyless act of information delivery, undermining the role of the teacher in the process.
Narrow teacher training
The problems are not unconnected with the increasingly fractured teacher training framework in England. There are many routes into teaching nowadays, but most are too short to equip new teachers with the knowledge, skills and understanding of child development that are required for such a complex job. By contrast, teacher education in a number of other European countries such as Finland, Holland, Denmark and Germany – all of which outperformed England in the 2015 PISA tests (OECD, 2015) - is much lengthier and more comprehensive. In these countries, teacher education courses are generally four or five years long and cover important areas such as child development, educational theory and different pedagogical approaches as well as giving trainee teachers extensive practical experience with opportunities to reflect on what they have learned during their placements. Contrast this with the hurried ten months that many trainees experience in England.
The House of Commons Committee was also advised that practising teachers in England receive very little professional development compared to those in other European countries. Staff training is often of poor quality and is not personalised to meet individual teachers’ needs. The end result is that our teachers feel less well prepared than their counterparts elsewhere which in turn leads them to struggle more with their work.
