Your editorial (19 September) begins to unpick some of the reasons why retention and, in some areas, recruitment are such a problem in this beleaguered and overwhelmed profession. Successive attempts to address this problem have failed to grasp the true causes which are, depressingly, characterised by the report of the leaked government document advocating swapping “workload-inducing practices for evidence-based approaches”.
This, like all the other initiatives, is an attempt to shift the responsibility for this matter on to schools, thereby exacerbating the problem it was designed to solve. Headteachers have a good deal of autonomy and high levels of accountability. While schools face the challenges of high-stakes assessments of a curriculum which is, in part, unsuitable for many children, headteachers, who can, and do, lose their jobs over this, will not countenance a drop in workload for their staff. All of this dates from the time spent at the Department for Education by Michael Gove and the ubiquitous Dominic Cummings.
The government must take the lead through a loosening of this draconian, inappropriate, formulaic, stress-inducing curriculum and its “do or die” assessment regime in primary and secondary schools, and find some vision. It must also rationalise the impact of the government’s kneejerk requirements for schools to mend society every time there is a negative report or event. We want our children to be educated, but we also want them to be happy, safe, fulfilled and valued – and we don’t want exhausted, anxious teachers struggling to tick the boxes every day.
Unfortunately we have a poor excuse for a government that can’t even respect democracy. Solving this problem is beyond them.
David Lowndes
Soberton, Hampshire
• Unlike many other occupations, teaching is never-ending. There is always more to do and higher expectations to meet. The fact that many teachers are perfectionists doesn’t help either. Most teachers have always worked hard, and willingly, but until fairly recently it’s been on matters they considered important to their sense of professionalism. They see the current raft of accountability demands as not only unrealistic and bureaucratic but as demeaning, demoralising and stress-inducing.
Small wonder that too many are seriously considering leaving the profession because of excessive, anti-educative workloads. Recent governments, the Department for Education and Ofsted have much to answer for, and much to do, to restore teacher morale and wellbeing and to staunch a near-fatal professional haemorrhaging.
Prof Colin Richards
Spark Bridge, Cumbria
• Why is it that, while Finnish teenagers have for over two decades outstripped English students in international literacy, numeracy and science assessments, on average teachers in Finland work almost a third fewer hours than their counterparts in England (Quarter of teachers in England work 60 hours a week, 18 September)?
Perhaps our government needs to better understand why, despite far greater teacher input, English students consistently lag behind those from Finland and other nations, before launching yet more initiatives aimed at reducing teacher workload. One possible explanation might be that the “high-stakes” accountability of schools in this country, with its incessant testing of children and “do or die” inspections, places such a burden on teachers that a fifth leave within five years of starting.
This mass exodus creates one of the youngest and least experienced teaching workforces in the developed world. Nevertheless, the government’s cascade of initiatives have wrongly put the responsibility for solving the workload problem on schools and teachers, rather than on doing something about the corrosive testing and inspection regime, which adds little to children’s learning, and is not part of school life in Finland and many other high-performing countries.
Chris Pratt
Author, Building a Learning Nation
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