HEROIC SERVICE

There can’t be many teachers these days who complete a full forty years service and there can only be very few who stay in the same school for this length of time. I know someone who has done just that.

Which means that for forty years he has opened the same classroom doors, looked out of the same windows and occupied the same spaces. He has prepared lessons in the same place for forty years, and marked books, set homework, kept his pupils in order, primed them for exams, spoken to parents, attended meetings, filled in records, written reports and dealt with endless memos and emails. We know the pressures. We know the everyday hassles.

On the up side, however, for forty years he has been able to share his interests and passions with young people. He has been able to inspire and motivate them across a wide range of subjects and extra-curricular activities – history, English, French, PE, rugby, mountaineering and the cadet force, with all the responsibilities that this involved. For forty years he has been able to commit himself to his pupils’ progress and achievements and to influence  their values and attitudes – the more so since his workplace has been an independent school with boarders.

His reward has been the satisfaction, fulfilment and pleasure of working with young people, engaging with them and helping them on their way. On a daily basis he will have enjoyed interacting with them – chatting about this and that, or having serious discussions about the causes of the Second World War or the precautions you take when heading off into the mountains.

If you’ve been a teacher for forty years you’ve shaped a lot of young lives. You’ve made a difference. This person certainly has. It’s been a fantastic achievement. Heroic. I salute my brother. We all should.

Note:  Anyone who teaches for forty years deserves a medal. My brother has actually been given one having been awarded the OBE for his services to the cadet force. 

See Edition 76 for Ian Kerr O.B.E.

TEACHING HEADS

I’ve never been persuaded that headteachers should be paid much more than classroom teachers. It is what goes on in the classroom that matters most in schools and fortunately there is now a salary structure which goes some way towards recognising this. Disappointingly, though, there is still too wide a gulf between the salaries of headteachers and those of the majority of the profession. The business of teaching is by far the most important task in schools, and the most difficult, and it therefore seems silly that people who don’t teach are remunerated more generously than those who do.

The present budgetary constraints provide an ideal opportunity to reconsider headteachers’ salaries and, indeed, the role of headteachers. If they really are heads amongst teachers they should be leading their schools from the classroom not from their newly refurbished office. Whatever the size of their school they should have at least a 40\% teaching timetable which would include a fair share of the more challenging pupils.

Phasing in a reduction in headteachers’ salaries and requiring heads to teach wouldn’t save a huge amount of money but, as the saying goes, every little helps. More significant, however, would be the unequivocal message coming from such measures that teaching must always be the number one priority in education.

MORE TEACHING, LESS TRAINING

Getting  rid of the ridiculous number of training days that teachers are obliged to attend is another way to save money and at the same time vastly improve efficiency. Far better for teachers to stick to a few tried and tested methods than constantly to chop and change what they do on the basis of  ideas they pick up on Inset days. It’s time to abolish the five compulsory in-service training days that schools are required to organise and make them normal teaching days. There is no reason why this should prevent ideas being exchanged on other occasions and introduced in the classroom when appropriate.    

LOWER THE SCHOOL-LEAVING AGE

I hope Michael Gove will soon be repealing the legislation which recently raised the school-leaving age to eighteen. Both he and David Laws argued strongly against the element of compulsion when the bill was debated and it would be perfectly reasonable, therefore, for the coalition government to return the school-leaving age to sixteen.

See Edition 68 for more comment on this subject.