We’re Facing The Biggest Ever Teacher Recruitment Crisis – So Let’s Reduce The Stress
If you can’t get your work done in 45 hours a week then there's something wrong with the system, not you, says Debra Kidd…
- by Debra Kidd
It was reported last year that for the first time ever, the number of teachers leaving the country to teach abroad exceeded those training to be teachers.
It’s no secret that there’s a combination of factors developing at the moment which mean we’re about to face the biggest recruitment crisis we’ve ever had.
One of the greatest jobs in the world
It’s not just the growing population – we’ve seen demographic swells before. It’s not just the fact that the economy is no longer in recession – these things move in cycles. The new development in this disturbing picture relates to the retention of teachers currently in post, and the rising number of NQTs who not completing their qualifying year. It seems every time I open a newspaper or social media page, I see another blog or article about a teacher who has had enough.
I have an old friend who, when I first went into teaching, went into marketing. Before long she was earning way more than me, attending glamorous parties and events and enjoying exotic holidays. Managing teams and multi-million pound budgets seemed effortless to her. But she was missing something in her life. Her job, she decided, was meaningless.
One day, she called me to say she was going to quit and retrain as a primary school teacher. My jaw hit the floor. She mentioned something about being tired of not being around for her kids, and I gently pointed out that teachers are no more available for their children than other workers, despite the public perceptions of short days and long holidays.
Tired beyond belief
Her mind was made up though – she wanted to do something worthwhile. And she was right. Can there be anything more worthwhile than educating the next generation of young people? Well, okay, maybe saving people’s lives. But after that, teaching has to be one of the most worthy occupations you can undertake. It’s one of the greatest jobs in the world. Or it should be.
My friend flew through her training, but she’s yet to complete her NQT year. Tired beyond belief after 80-hour working weeks and incredulous at the lack of support offered to new employees, she floundered. £15,000 in debt and on the edge of a nervous breakdown, she is now walking away.
And I ask myself what on earth has happened, when an NQT is expected to be perfect straight away? When it’s considered ‘part of the job’, as she was told, to mark 60 books every single night, plus another 30 topic books once a week? When, struggling to understand the changes to KS1 assessment (I mean, who does understand them)? she is told that it doesn’t matter, as long as she ‘shows progress’? She daren’t say “But it’s all a lie…”
Pressure passed down
We are berating our teachers – and ourselves – for being human. Those of us with more experience are pushing our stress and anxiety down on those with less, because that’s what stress makes us do. It removes our empathy and our capacity to see the bigger picture. Pressure is passed down from heads to middle managers, from middle managers to teachers and from teachers to pupils. It’s no wonder we’re seeing a mental health epidemic.
Stop. If you can’t get your work done in 45 hours a week, then there’s something wrong with the system, not with you. I wish that the unions would impose work to rule rather than strikes, in order to highlight just how many extra hours people put in. If people working under you can’t get their work done in 45 hours a week, then you need to remove some of their responsibilities.
That might mean reviewing the marking policy and relinquishing some planning expectations. Standards won’t fall, because there is nothing more damaging to a child’s education than being in the care of a human being who is too tired to properly function.
Stress produces cortisol. Cortisol produces memory loss, reduces the capacity of the immune system to ward off infection and reduces our capacity to care for others. It is completely self defeating to work in a highly stressful environment. So let’s find ways of reducing that stress – or there will be no teachers left at all.
Why don’t we…
• Only do things that we know make an impact on children, instead of gathering ‘evidence’ for Ofsted
• Allow staff to use CPD time to co-plan and team teach, and tailor CPD to individual needs so that staff don’t feel their time is wasted by learning things they already know
• Reduce our expectations that all pieces of work should be marked or that homework should be set weekly; there is no evidence that either impacts on standards
• Stop sending emails to work colleagues after 5.30pm, and cease answering them (or expecting a response) between then and 8am each day
• Find ways to remind ourselves, as often as possible, what a wonderful job this can be when it brings joy into our lives and the lives of others.
Sing, play and talk with children – they remind you why you do it.
Debra Kidd has worked in education for over 20 years, teaching children from the ages of four right through to post-graduate students. She currently delivers CPD both nationally and internationally – for more information, visit www.debra-kidd.com or follow @debrakidd
