In the late 1950s, I was working in the sales office of a huge Rotherham steelworks. Straight out of National Service, already earning more than my dad. I enjoyed being at the heart of a world-beating operation, rooted in our industrial history, with a global customer network; we had two enormous melting shops, one of which, with 21 open-hearth furnaces, was the biggest in Europe.
But I was also deeply interested in social issues, and so it was that I came across a newspaper account of the new Kidbrooke School in South London, an early example of a non-selective secondary school, labelled “comprehensive”. I read the article and thought about my future.
Sitting next to me in the office was a 60-year-old man who seemed to spend most of each day on the phone to his bookmaker. Was that the future for me? Then I realised I was well-qualified for teacher training, and with a bit of luck I’d be able to join in the educational revolution that was clearly about to unfold across our country.
My story is far from unique. Last month I talked to a friend who left teaching to build a successful business yet still cherishes the idea of returning to the classroom one day. Then, in the news lately we’ve met Colin Hegarty, finalist in the Varkey Foundation global teacher awards, who dropped £40k a year to move from a City firm to be a London maths teacher. Surely the vast majority of entrants to teaching are drawn by the prospect of making a difference to individual lives and, perhaps, to society as a whole. The job has that magnetic irresistibility which, when it is allowed to work its magic, produces a life of commitment to the wellbeing and development of people who will go on to make the world a better place.
Yes, you say, that’s all wonderful, idealistic stuff. But how does it sit against the knowledge that 50,000 qualified teachers a year are leaving the state sector? The chilling truth seems to be that most, maybe all, of those leavers must have become terminally disillusioned; someone, at some level in the system, unwittingly or not, has taken a bludgeon to their dreams. And that, surely, is morally unacceptable as well as unsustainable in terms of a business model for Education UK.
So what’s to be done?
“Don’t ask me, I’m just a chalkface veteran,” is the sensible answer. But like most veterans I still feel I have something to say, and it seems to me that the first priority when it comes to hanging on to good teachers is to keep their dreams alive. Throwing money won’t do it. If the vision and expectations fade, then nothing else will do the trick. So here, for what they are worth, are my three essentials for building a stable, high-quality teaching force.
First, we should recognise that education is about ideas, and so teachers need to read, learn, feed on, and be galvanised by, the thoughts and writings of great visionaries past and present. That means from the outset and career-long, being in close contact with universities. An element of “learning on the job” is necessary but by no means sufficient; too much process-based training and CPD is a sure-fire way to kill off incipient enthusiasm.
Second, good teachers should be given responsibility early. Get them anchored, with a stake in the success of the institution. “Waiting till she’s ready,” is a bit like “We’re saving up to get married”. Please just get on with it, you school leaders. Mentor, watch, and, of course, learn.
Third, and most importantly, someone, in government, or in school leadership, or both, needs to get serious about the bureaucratic taraddidle that masquerades as “workload”.
Yes, teaching has always been more difficult than any new entrant thinks it will be. My own starry-eyed debut rapidly bumped up against city reality. What we didn’t have to endure, though, was the regime that holds sway today whereby documented preparation before class and nit-pickingly formulaic marking afterwards seem more important than the act of teaching itself.
Which pupil has been turned on to learning by a brilliant piece of marking? The classroom is where the teacher’s ideas and expectations come to life and inspiration happens.
So, dear leader, whether in government or in school, when your teachers are keen, anxious to do well, determined to show children something better, then, in the name of sanity, protect them, give them space and time to show their mettle, point them to the real priorities, listen and encourage. Please don’t tread on them, and drown them with anti-educational demands and meaningless tasks.
Incidentally, there was another reason, had I known it, why I was right to leave the steel industry. There’s a shot of the derelict backside of a steelworks in the opening sequence of The Full Monty, and what remains of my own workplace is now a heritage centre, a heavily ironic symbol of the new world I was keen to build.
- Gerald Haigh was a teacher in primary, secondary and special schools for 30 years, 11 of them in headship. You can find him on Twitter @geraldhaigh1