Joanne Doris is an experienced teacher at a special school, but she’s had enough. It would be funny if it weren’t so serious.
It’s Sunday evening, but this particular Sunday has none of the usual sense of impending doom, because it’s half term, so I get to pause and take a breath. I’m still working this week (of course I am), but the pace is different. I am not expected to perform, to a particular set of standards, using a particular type of script, to an ever-changing group of people, under intense scrutiny. That alone is enough to provide a palpable sense of relief and renewed well-being. It’s like a breath I didn’t know I was holding, and can suddenly exhale.
There is a reason that teachers are leaving the profession in droves. That reason, as far as I can tell, is not just the workload. One look at the list of tasks I might need to perform at any moment would enable anybody with a basic grasp of mathematics to realise that the role of a teacher cannot even nearly be fulfilled in the paid time allocated to the role. I am contractually obligated to work for 1265 hours per academic year. Let’s make that clear: I am paid for 1265 hours, which is 32.5 hours a week, or 6.5 hours a day. It sounds almost part time, doesn’t it? Except that the reality is all-consuming, never-ending, and causes sleepless nights and irritable mornings.
Ah, the joy of teaching, the nine 9 o’clock start and 3.30pm finish. The day is still young at that point, is it not? But I liken my working week to stepping on to a treadmill, where someone keeps upping the pace and you can’t climb off. Not only do you have to keep running, you have to conform to a particular style of movement. And what about those lovely long holidays? There’s no use denying that the summer holiday is long, beneficial, and frankly, needed. It is just about the only thing that keeps many people like me in the role, especially if they have young families where child care would otherwise be a serious issue. My salary is paid equally over twelve months, but let me be clear: I am not paid for those lovely long holidays. And yet somehow I find myself working throughout most of them. That’s right, October half term? Working. Christmas holidays? Also working. February half term? You guessed it. It goes on and on. The only time I truly take a break is during the summer, and even then it is certainly not for the full duration. Sadly, many good teachers have simply come to the conclusion that they would rather forgo the long holidays.
Let’s have a look at what we’re expected to do during the 6.5 hour working day. Teaching, obviously, is a given, and being ‘customer facing’ takes up a large proportion of each school day. Writing lesson plans: there’s a difference between a long term plan, a medium term plan, or a short term plan, a knowledge organiser and the requirement to publish up-to-date versions of some of these on the school website. Emails: this will be familiar to all, regardless of their profession, reading and responding to emails, which of course is expected to be completed speedily. I am sometimes even asked if I have read a particular email when the children have just departed, and I’ve been met with a look of incredulity when I reply that I was busy teaching. Apparently I ought to be able to do both simultaneously. Writing reports: not just the onerous end-of-year reports, but reports on progress for children with additional needs, or children who are looked after by foster carers. Or referrals for an assessment for a child that may have an as-yet undiagnosed additional learning need. Meetings: there are staff meetings, and there’s also the preparation for multi-agency meetings where you will be expected to agree objectives to support a vulnerable young person. Those agencies present might include social workers, local authority representatives, educational psychologists and health professionals. Each attendee has their own agenda, their own priorities and targets to meet. Such meetings have follow-up actions that you will be expected to carry out before the next meeting.
Then there’s the termly article for the school magazine, the review of school policies, the start of term target setting, and end of term assessment against those targets. Where I work, I’m expected to create regular evidence pages to show pupil progress, using photographs taken during lessons. And there is an additional expectation to compile frequent photo-montages to be posted on our school ‘Dojo’ website, so that families can see and comment upon activities their child has been involved in. I have undoubtedly missed many other tasks, and I expect teachers reading this can fill in the gaps.
The school improvement plan will have its own priorities for the new year ahead. You might be tasked with learning to teach children to read in an entirely new way, attending training sessions, or viewing videos (which you must watch because the leadership team will check to see who has logged in to access them).
Put simply, it is not possible to perform even a fraction of these tasks adequately, within the confines of a 6.5 hour working day and surely the word adequately is in itself problematic. Who wants their child to be taught adequately? People want brilliance, they want performance, they want engagement, excitement, caring, and expertise; they want people who have perfected their pedagogical craft. All in all, I estimate that I work over 2000 hours annually, and I know there will be others who do far more.
The problem with teaching, I believe, is that the workload is simply impossible to achieve, at the pace I am expected to execute the role, and with the high quality performance that is consistently required. Burnout is not a threat, it is real, and it is constant. Teachers become shells of their former selves, and the desire to support young people becomes subsumed in despair and helplessness. I personally find the demands of the job physically and emotionally exhausting. I get home to a family and am unable to give them what they need because your job means you have nothing left to give. Relationships hang by a thread or are destroyed.
No, a real problem within education is the culture of fear that pervades almost all schools that I know. It has crept up on us. When I embarked upon this career over twenty years ago, I do not recall experiencing such levels of fear in my role. This could be attributed to naivety, or enthusiasm perhaps, but I don’t think so. Anecdotally, conversations with colleagues in schools across the country attest to feelings of anxiety related to their role. There’s the fear of inspection and judgement, fear of colleagues, fear of particular families, and significantly, fear of senior leadership. With multi-academy trusts taking over ‘struggling’ schools, executive heads masquerading as supportive colleagues seek to bring about swift improvement and strike fear into the hearts of teaching professionals who have been managing their roles for years. There are schools with truly supportive leadership, where staff feel valued and empowered, but I do not know of many. I can’t think of another profession where one can work so hard, for so long, and yet still be found wanting and lacking in expertise when colleagues know them to be caring and effective educators, putting the children at the centre of everything they do.
The system is failing teachers, and it’s failing children. If no one has noticed that the issue of persistent absence amongst children is rising hand-in-hand with the frenetic rate at which teachers are handing in their notice, or going off with long-term sickness, then policy makers are missing the big picture. There is little point in attempting to recruit people to the profession if there isn’t enough to keep them there once they arrive. The solution is more time; teachers either need to perform fewer tasks, or be given more time in which to complete them. Planning, preparation and assessment (PPA) time is 10% of a teacher’s timetabled class-facing time, but it’s nowhere near enough. To facilitate this requires bold moves by policy makers, governors and school leaders. Achieving this would not be easy, but it is necessary.For those of you suggesting that the pension makes it worthwhile, I simply respond that there will be nothing left of me to receive and enjoy a retirement at this rate. My physical and mental health are under unsustainable strain. Something has to give. This is why, although I love the children and colleagues with whom I work, I simply have to get out of the classroom. For my sake, and for that of my family.
Joanne Doris
Joanne Doris has taught for many years in mainstream and special schools.
