I must be middle aged. I’ve started saying things like, “I’d really like a shed.” I joked in the run up to the election that if David Cameron can only handle two terms in office he won’t pass his NQT year, which seemed amusing until yesterday. I’ve also recently begun to read my annual pension statement. It tells me that I’ve been teaching for 23 years and 276 days.
I started teaching in 1990 as Margaret Thatcher resigned – the school rang the bell to celebrate the news of her departure. When I left school as a pupilthere was no national curriculum or assessment levels, no training days, and not even GCSEs. But three short years later, when I came back as a teacher, all of these things existed. First formers had become year 7s who now moved through something called key stages.
The change continued apace. By 1993 we had Ofsted (I survived one of the first ever inspections), appraisals, league tables and Sats. If the national curriculum told us what to teach, by 1997 the national strategies told us how. Starters, mains and plenaries became the new language of pedagogy. Children cited learning objectives and levels of progress to a backdrop of rising floor targets, academisation and the ever more powerful Ofsted.
By 2010, the education landscape had fragmented. The pressure for an English baccalaureate-type curriculum became stronger, and the “satisfactory” Ofsted grading changed into “requires improvement”. Our chief inspector said that if staff morale was low then heads were doing something right.
But low staff morale has its consequences. Some students approaching this summer’s exams are anxious. One said to me: “My teachers are saying they can’t predict my grades with any confidence anymore. They’re stressed about me meeting my value-added targets but don’t really know if I am on track or not because of all the changes.” It’s a stark reminder that our system with its stress and its jargon is becoming disheartening for the very people it is meant to encourage.
I want to be proud of the education system from which I will retire in 2038. I want to look back on a philosophy and approach which transformed our children’s experience and opportunities through an intelligent and people-centred model. I want to have worked in a system whose needs and aspirations were in absolute alignment with those who served within it and with those for whom it was created. I want to feel pride in a system where great outcomes have become the by-product of a great education rather than its sole focus. I want to point to a generation of aspirational school leaders who were inspired – not intimidated – by external accountability.
I would like to look back to 2015 and see it as the turning point when an agreed long-term vision for the education of our children was finally established – and I’d like to think that in 2038 we will celebrate how we raised standards through developmental dialogue rather than adversarial judgement. I hope that we will be astonished at how the attitudes of children and aspirations of parents were transformed once we began to measure what we valued rather than just valuing what could be measured. We will be heartened by what employers and universities say about our young people, and we’ll be glad we did not walk away in 2015. The trusted and empowered teaching profession will have the respect of the public. It will provide the evidence-base for policy, for the credibility of qualifications and for the quality and confidence of an ever-growing workforce, as well as having the recognised expertise to shape the next stage of educational improvement beyond 2050.
But after 23 years and 276 days what do I know? I know that I still love teaching. I know I am worried. I worry that the current climate is the most backward looking, reactionary and punitive one in which I have ever worked. And today I worry all the more that this may mean in five years’ time that the so-called best schools in our country will have cultures which are backward looking, reactionary and punitive. And I worry because our children deserve better. They should have every opportunity to develop the qualities, skills and knowledge which will prepare them not just for the tests of school but for the trials of life. In the light of the election result I could easily say I’ve had enough. But I’ve not, I just want more.
