I saw my sister today, she is a teacher in a Secondary School, teaching Science to 11-16 year olds. She is good at her job, really good! Im not just saying that, the progress her students make is the best in the school in science - and she only works 3 days a week. She's been asked many time to be Head of her Department, but having three children of her own has always stopped her from committing to that and going full time - she would be amazing though and has acted as Head of Science many times.
However, after twenty years of teaching next week she has a job interview, which is not a teaching job. She has finally had enough. Over the last few years she has been repeatedly bullied by management for daring to speak out against some of the decisions she disagreed with - she set up a staff forum so others could have the chance to express their concerns without fear of reprisals from the senior managers. She was offered the role of Head of Science but asked if it could possibly be done on 4 days a week, (until her youngest is at Secondary school), so she could still have time for her children, she was told absolutely not - and instead no-one was appointed. She works every single evening until at least midnight, marking and planning. Her two days off are spent compiling lessons plans and more marking. Her weekends are the same. Recently she added up how many hours she works and compared it with her friend, who is a GP and works full time. She did far more hours than him, for far less pay.
A new Headteacher has recently been appointed at her school. She is a Governor and helped interview him and was really pleased he got the job, he seemed like the fresh start they all needed. As expected he wanted to observe with his management team and they did. The science department didn't do too well - with the exception of my sister who had excellent observations. So the management team came back and observed them all again and again. This is fair enough - they want to school to be at its best. For the last observation my sister had planned a lesson which was outstanding, she was so pleased with it and how the children made progress. However, the senior manager who should have been observing forgot. When my sister approached her and asked what had happened, the senior manager immediately became aggressive and rude and told my sister that 'all lessons should be outstanding, you shouldn't be putting on special lessons just for an observation. If you dont like it then you should get out of teaching altogether.' This to my sister - who works 7 days a week, who works every night until the early hours, who is one of the few who actually cares about the children she teaches and is determined to give them the best education possible, who has the best achievement record for her pupils in science in the school. This is also my sister who can no longer sleep, who is making herself ill by working so hard, who is constantly worried and stressed and miserable because of the pressure on her. She didn't put on a 'special' lesson, just one she was proud of, and one in which she had been told would be observed, but that didn't matter to the management.
The trouble is the good teachers are leaving the profession in drones - my sister knows of ten more at her school who are actively looking to get out. The good teachers care about the kids and take pride in their work, they dont want to let anyone down and so work themselves so hard, until they break and can't do it anymore. The mediocre teachers who will never be inspiring or outstanding chug along, not caring enough to make a real difference or get stressed by the workload.
So next week she has an interview - for a full time job, which isnt teaching. I hope she gets it, she needs to escape the stress and pressure. Teaching has the highest mortality rate out of all of the professions? For those that survive to retirement age they are the most likely to die within a year of retiring (according to a Unison meeting my sister attended last week) - something to look forward to then!
I was good at teaching - an 'outstanding' teacher according to Ofsted - like my sister, but I wont return to it. The Government puts the pressure on Ofsted, which put pressure on the Headteachers which put pressure on the Managers, which put pressure on the teachers...its a ridiculous system, with no-one at the top really understanding the reality of life in a school.
Today my children's school have Ofsted. My eldest was lectured by her teachers to be exceptionally well behaved or be in trouble with the Headteacher and that if an Ofsted Inspector asks her about the work she has to say 'it's challenging and really interesting', when in fact she says it's often too easy and boring. The whole Ofsted inspection is flawed - even with only 24 hours notice it doesn't give a real picture of a school. In my previous job our Headteacher bamboozled Ofsted with paperwork and talked at them, with an excuse for everything, until our school - which should only ever have been satisfactory got given a 'good' rating. It was fake, but everyone was happy, but there was a real sense of unease amongst the teachers. I have told my daughter to tell the truth, so Ofsted can judge for themselves and so future pupils can have the opportunity for it to be a better school.
Someone, somewhere needs to realise that this system cannot carry on. The people at the top are crushing the people at the bottom, they deserve better and our children deserve better. We need to look at other countries and see how they do it. Finland has the highest academic achievement in the world and yet there are not inspections, no Ofsted, no private schools, teachers are well-paid and respected...its a million miles away from our failing system.
So, I hope my sister escapes and gets her life back. But the children in her school will miss her, the parents will miss her and eventually the bullying management who have driven her out will miss her, but by then it will be far too late.
No comments:
Post a Comment