A succession of governments and education ministers have imposed countless initiatives and policy changes on the teaching profession. For many years teachers appear to have automatically responded with ‘I will work harder’ to ensure that the students do not suffer because of these changes. Nevertheless, there is increasing evidence that this is changing and both newly qualified, as well as experienced teachers, want to leave the profession. With the academisation of some schools it has emerged that there are a few people at the very top who are making huge financial gains, while the arguably most important staff in terms of student learning, the teachers themselves, are having an increasingly difficult time. There are some definite parallels with ‘Animal Farm’. Have teachers become a profession of Boxers? Constantly repeating the mantra ‘I will work harder’ while the people who are paid to be at the very top ‘manage’. We need to attract decent people into the profession. In addition, we also need to encourage the excellent practitioners who are currently in teaching, into get actually staying.
Orwell’s Warning to the Workers
In the novella ‘Animal Farm’ by George Orwell, Boxer is a big, strong horse. Boxer is a dedicated worker, no matter what is thrown at him, he promises to work harder. He compensates for each new problem by working longer hours, and he answers every problem with ‘I will work harder’. When he can no longer work due to ill health, instead of enjoying the promised happy retirement, the pigs sell him to the knacker’s yard and they use the money to buy themselves whiskey. The profession had a great pension and this was an incentive to stay long term. As the pension has deteriorated, and the wages have stalled, many teachers face the problem that cannot afford to live and enjoy the most basic of luxuries. They are so overworked they have too little time to enjoy their lives, even if they had the money.
At her seminar Building a Resilient Teaching Profession at the Schools North East Conference 2016, Rebecca Allen from Datalab presented the following statistics:
- For every teacher 1 in 4 are thinking of leaving the profession at any one time
- 1 in 10 have a particular thing in mind that they are going to do as soon as they can leave
- Over 50% are not feeling engaged in their job
PGCE students claim the impact of the stress includes:
- lack of sleep
- constantly feel under strain
- issues with behaviour management
After the first year of teaching many teachers are choosing to leave. We urgently need to do something to encourage staff to stay. Ultimately, some teaching leaders need to change their attitudes. An unfortunately real example of this mentality is when one of my old students recently trained as a teacher through Schools Direct. The Head at her teaching practice school announced to the trainees that he followed the ‘… School model of teaching. We get a batch of NQTs, burn them out and then get a new batch’. Astoundingly, this is something they seemed proud of. When a position became available, and the trainee teacher did not apply, they actually asked her why she had not applied to work in there! It seemingly had not crossed their mind that such a boast is not conducive to staff recruitment. It is also a frightening expose of the attitude of some leaders towards their new staff.
Allen also told us that based on her research, more experienced teachers want to leave because of:
- Workload
- Quality of leadership and management (Secondary)
“‘files’, ‘reports’, ‘minutes’, and memoranda”
The issue of workload and quality of leadership is also exemplified in ‘Animal farm’. “Squealer told them that the pigs has to expend enormous labours every day upon mysterious things called ‘files’, ‘reports’, ‘minutes’, and memoranda”. All teachers can relate to this! Senior management’s obsession with the collection and collation of data. The reports, the accountability, the scrutiny… They all have a place in teaching, but they should never be at the expense at the actual quality of the teaching for the students. Too many teachers feel that they have too much repetitive and unnecessary administrative work to do. As school leaders require ‘evidence’ and have to quantify everything, there are countless paper and data exercises for teachers to complete. This is as well as a major marking load and the need to prepare lessons. Such demands from senior leaders are based on what they believe the government and Ofsted require. Ironically, we are all too busy constantly providing ‘evidence’, to actually question and stand up to the demands of Ofsted. Teachers are expected to battle on and follow Boxer’s maxim ‘I will work harder’.
Providing Support
Allen’s research states that it is secondary school teachers in particular who are not feeling supported from their managers. This is something that does have to change. In chapter 10, once the pigs have decided to join the humans to trade and to socialise, we are told, ‘Mr Pilkington once again congratulated the pigs on the low rations, the long working hours and the general absence of pampering which he observed on Animal Farm’ This one line sums up the state of the teaching profession. The word that stands out is ‘congratulated’. Such an approach to teachers in the profession is something that is seen as a positive, the need to get as much as possible out of every individual, without any thought about their emotional and personal well being. Such negative treatment is having a major impact. Rebecca Allen’s research testifies that many teachers want to leave, and 50 % are disengaged. If they are feeling so disengaged, they may look like they are doing their job as far as the paper exercises go, but teaching students when you are disengaged is an ineffectual way to teach.
‘The animals found the problem insolvable”
The government interference has reached comedic proportions. Why is no one fighting for us? Why are we not fighting for ourselves? Why are we not fighting for the students? The quotation, ‘The animals found the problem insolvable; in any case they had little time for speculating on such things now.’ Provides an answer for these questions. Teachers are so over worked they don’t have time to think through alternatives and challenge the changes imposed on them. They continue with the maxim ‘I will work harder’. But all of the evidence suggests that this is getting increasingly difficult. It appears that we are stuck with the changes. Therefore, the best way forward is to support students and teachers in recognising and managing their stress levels and their self esteem. We don’t want our teachers to end up in at the knackers yard where their only ‘reward’ is the money for their ‘superiors’ to buy a crate of whiskey to celebrate.
‘And yet the animals never gave up hope, they never lost, even for an instant, their sense of honour and priviledge in being members of Animal Farm’.
This is how most teachers feel. It has never been a profession where people joined it for personal wealth, but the personal sacrifices are getting too great to feel enough satisfaction in the role of a teacher. For the sake of our profession, our students and the future generations, we need to support the mental health and well being of the teaching profession, and the students. If we are to succeed, teaching needs to be more appealing, more balanced and we must restore a sense of pride in the profession.
We can help:
In collaboration with Blue Therapy Clinic we have devised a series of courses to support staff and students in the work place. We have developed three courses:
Stressbusting for Teachers
A course that advises school leavers on how to manage stress levels in the workplace.
Stressbusting for Students
We will inspire your students by delivering motivational sessions that provide a series of revision techniques and stressbusting ideas. Book this motivational workshop and lead your students to success.
Encourage Self Esteem, Resilience and Well being in Students
A workshop based course to advise teachers how to promote self esteem and resilience in their students.
All of our courses are available as school inset CPD
Please get in touch, we can support students, schools as well as individuals.