“In order to be successful, one must project an image of success at all times” quotes the property tycoon to his fawning mistress, and business rival, in the feature film American Beauty. Wise words indeed but the emptiness underneath the veneer is exposed in the subsequent personal disasters that ensue in the story. Many teachers will recognise the phenomenon of schools proudly evaluating themselves as ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ with reams of paperwork to prove it but underneath, the working realities bear no resemblance at all to high standards. In such settings, the management of the mirage often extends to policing every classroom and corridor. Teachers are expected not to bring too much attention on to themselves or to allow any poor practice to be exposed in case they fall victim to what is often euphemistically called ‘support’. They must look professional, project an image of success and keep a lid on those difficult classes. Expensive and lumbering inspectorates, like Ofsted, like to pretend that they can uncover these mirages but they often do not, as the recent failure to identify the major problems with the Helsey Group children’s care homes in Doncaster shows (see Children punched and hit over the head in care homes rated ‘good’ – BBC News).
When politicians trot out platitudes about there being more good and outstanding schools now than there used to be, it is often greeted with cynicism or incredulity. Such statistics are part of the façade. They conceal enormous challenges for the teaching profession and very little in the way of any plan for dealing with them. The demand for a pay rise is only one of the many grievances that embitter many teachers and have led them to take industrial action. Enormous workloads, a mental health crisis in young people, hyper-accountability, the use of non-specialist teachers, poor training, huge financial pressures, and a frightening teacher recruitment crisis.
I am greatly saddened by the recent statistics published by the NFER (2022) documenting the teacher retention and recruitment crisis in England. The target for recruitment of new secondary teachers was missed by a whopping 41%. According to the most recent data, published for 2020, 15% of MFL, and Computer Science teachers leave after the first 5 years, with Science not far behind at 13.6%. Similarly, Pendle, Rushcliffe, Eden, Scarborough, Rother, Mendip, Torridge, and many other areas had over 10% of their teachers leave within 5 years of teaching (Pendle was nearly 25%!). If you would like to read more about these disturbing findings there is a useful article from Schoolsweek.
What is the plan for dealing with all this? I am not a fan of going on strike but what is the alternative? Perhaps we should produce copious paper-based evidence of standards and improvement to give the impression that things are in hand and then spend hours in meetings reviewing and updating it all?