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Why schools need to put staff first

School improvement Whole-school issues Staff wellbeing
A new education book offers a ‘2030 blueprint’ to revitalise our schools by unashamedly putting our staff first. Co-author John Tomsett – a school leader and the co-founder of the Headteachers' Roundtable – explains why it is staff, and not students, who must come first…

In 2014, I began writing my first book called Love Over Fear: Creating a culture for truly great teaching. It was a book which swam against the cultural tide.

It was published some five years after Michael Gove’s academies legislation was brought into force, and a year after performance-related pay (PRP) was made mandatory in schools.

My attitude then was distinctly anti-academisation; our approach to PRP was that our teachers had to “unearn” their right to a pay rise. More recently, those people running schools have largely accepted that changing school structures has little impact upon improving student performance. Great teaching by great teachers is what makes the real difference to young people’s lives.

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