Secondary education seems to be going through a change that mirrors much of what happened in post-16 education some years ago. Rigorous targets and an over-reliance on data whilst being justifiable in some abstract sense, fail to ask the question of the value of any data where the data is arrived at by teachers whose continued employment depends on the data. Have we really reached that Orwellian world where pupils and staff are no longer people with personalities but merely numbers or figures in a graph?
We are in an age where graduates are encouraged, even bribed by a hefty bursary, to enter teaching but then face a job with little support from the tier of middle management above who have been ripped out and discarded in order to meet budgetary targets. Not surprisingly many of the new recruits are leaving the profession as soon as they have completed the minimum term necessary to keep the bursary.
I’m leaving. Not education as a whole but the school in which I currently work. When I first started this blog I had no idea what lay ahead. I suppose what prompted me to begin putting my thoughts into words was a change of management in the school. The previous head/deputy combination had been a mix of bully (and he knew it) and ineffective and overworked assistant. As one of the union reps in the school this resulted in frequent issues and challenges to be met. I gave up being rep 2 years ago, being exhausted by the previous 8 years of battles. The head of the school was, I suspect, engineered or manoeuvred out of post. The Deputy Head retired a couple of terms later. They were replaced by a young ‘dynamic’ team promising that things would be different. How different was revealed in a short email exchange I had with the headteacher in the Autumn Term of 2017. I was on duty during break. I was the only teacher outside and was supervising between 150-200 pupils on my own. On the bell I had to encourage the pupils to go to lessons. As I tried to round up the pupils on the all-weather football pitch 2 of the girls became verbally abusive and physically threatening. I felt quite exposed and vulnerable being on my own with such a large number of pupils. After break I emailed the headteacher to point this out in a supportive way, highlighting the failure in the duty system so it could be avoided in future. His response was to say he was surprised at my comments as he was ‘always on duty in that location at break’ – he wasn’t on this occasion despite his implication! This told me everything I needed to know about the new leadership.
Tales of bullying and un-minuted meetings at which outlandish and illegal things had been said to good and conscientious staff started to feed down to the staffroom early on in the Autumn Term. I knew enough then to make my decision. In early October I made to decision that I would leave at the end of the school year, reasoning that at least it would give me nearly a year to plan the next step.
There are now at least 10 staff leaving this Summer. Some have no jobs to go to. The perverse thing is that whilst the leadership have been victimising and pursuing older, more expensive staff in order to get them to leave so as to balance the budget, when people have decided to leave of their own accord, they too are picked on and victimised, references often being delayed and visits to their new schools being made difficult.
In the midst of this, the staff morale has hit rock bottom. Valued colleagues who worked together as a pretty impressive team in the face of significant challenge have been turned on each other by a re-organisation which was announced, jobs applied for and people appointed within a week. Many experienced and talented staff have either now got a reduced role or no role in the new structure. Even the staff who have gained the roles in the new structure will know by the way it was conducted that they will be seen as expendable commodities rather than professionals by the leadership, to be dispensed with when they no longer serve a purpose. Loyalty and continuity will be a thing of the past. The pupils will be faced with significant numbers of new staff, each having to establish their credentials and reputations. I worry for them, their education and the future of the school.
However, I am leaving. It is with sadness that I will leave after more than 10 years service. I have tried my best, as have many of the pupils I have taught and many of the staff I have worked with. I have worked with some amazing colleagues, both teaching and non-teaching. Much of that talent will now find work elsewhere in education. As for me, my plans are still fluid. There are possibilities to explore both in and out of education, perhaps both…. I will keep you posted!