New Teachers Are Being Pushed Into Leadership Roles They’re Not Ready For – With No Guidance Or Training
"Less than half our teachers have more than ten years experience"
I am in my third year of teaching. I lead English across the school and chair the local cluster school’s English leaders consortium. I have heaps of responsibility beyond my classroom and I love it. Crucially however, I have done this with training and guidance from colleagues, friends and my union, all of which have been a massive support.
I enjoy my role because I have had sufficient training and wanted and welcomed the extra responsibility, but I too frequently hear of new teachers who feel pushed into roles they don’t feel ready for, or who are trying their best to fulfil roles they are just not equipped for.
One colleague told me how she had been expected to take responsibility for maths in her school – with no extra training or pay. She didn’t want or request the role but did such a good job that the following year she was required to mentor another teacher from a local school.
This teacher was herself only in her second year of training and had found herself leading maths. Shockingly, this was simply because she was the most experienced member of staff in the department. Unfortunately this is not unusual. As excessive teacher workload impacts teacher retention, less than half our teachers have more than 10 years experience. More and more frequently, teachers with little classroom experience are not only leading subjects or departments, but are supporting others to do so.
At a time in their career when new teachers should be full of excitement for the job, they find themselves drowning in increased leadership responsibilities. Whether it is a subject leadership role they don’t feel adequately trained for or a key stage role they don’t feel they have the people management skills for, some new professionals need more support than they currently receive.
I’ve heard many accounts of excellent teachers being encouraged, pushed or even forced into leadership positions. At best this is done in the genuine hope that they will be able to lead others to good teaching, at worst because they are the most experienced staff in the school. Recently qualified teachers are too frequently finding themselves having to manage and lead others with little or no guidance. The pressure this puts on them is often too much, causing them to leave the profession entirely, resulting in learners losing wonderful teachers who may have one day made great leaders.
The combined recruitment and retention crisis is forcing schools to place responsibility on anyone willing to take it. We need to acknowledge this and prepare trainee teachers for it. The impending school funding crisis will only exacerbate this issue, as heads struggle to save money by promoting cheaper early career teachers. Schools are already replacing deputy head positions with roles such as senior teacher on a far cheaper pay scale and with less training, but with the responsibility and workload equal to that of a deputy.
A recent NAHT survey found that 66% of headteachers and school managers said they planned on reducing their budget for CPD in order to manage squeezed budgets. This will only result in our new school leaders finding it more difficult to access good quality training.
For the last four years I have worked with ATL Future; the trainee and NQT section of the education union. In a motion to ATL’s national conference, we asked the executive committee to work with ATL’s leadership section and other headteacher unions to create a framework around ethical progression into leadership and protect new professionals from being made to take leadership roles too quickly. In her foreword to recent document Leading in Tough Times, Dr Mary Bousted said, ‘Being an education leader has arguably never been tougher. The expectation for success is great, but so, too, is the potential to fail. The stakes are high.’
I believe that we owe it to new professionals to sufficiently guide, support and train them to take on tough roles at tough times. A good early career teacher can make a good school leader, but only when provided with the correct support. This needs to be available to all teachers, not just the lucky few.
Louise Atkinson worked as a senior teaching assistant before gaining QTS. She teaches Y4 in a school in Cumbria. Follow her on Twitter at @louiseatkinso14.
Get involved with ATL Future campaigns and debates on Twitter and through local events. Find out more at atl.org.uk and @atlfutureuk.
