Last week, I posted a brief Ode to Teaching. I did not even include a photograph so was surprised by the reaction – over 400 ‘likes’ and counting. For a TikTok star, this would be small fry but in LinkedIn world (at least my own), this seemed like quite a lot. It seemed to have struck a chord. As we enter peak teacher recruitment season in the sector, let’s hope more people recognise or remember the thrill of teaching.
This was what I said:
News that the DfE has only recruited half the target number of new teachers is very worrying. The teacher recruitment crisis will get worse before it gets better. We are at a high for numbers of Year 7 pupils but a low of 21-year-olds graduating from university. Recruiting support staff isn’t any easier for schools. So, this is a brief post about what I love about working in education.
- You are shaping lives. Your work matters. It gets you out of bed in the morning. Young people and children are funny, surprising, genuine, sparky, occasionally mildly infuriating and always rewarding.
- You are never bored. Other than a few dull Conference talks I have never been bored in my career of 22 years. I have taught beginners’ Latin and Greek Verse unseen countless times, but it’s different each time.
- You are connected with knowledge that’s worth knowing. When I decided on my career path the question I asked myself was this: What knowledge do I want to take to my grave?
- If you love presenting, pitching, debating and negotiating, as a teacher and as a Head you do that all day every day. It is exhilarating.
- The holidays – yes, we work in the holidays too, but being reconnected with a slightly slower pace every 6-7 weeks allows you to explore other sides of your identity. Sometimes this is getting the dry cleaning done, sometimes it’s walking in hills or going to the theatre. But it’s a regular reminder that as amazing as your work is, there is more to life than work.
I’d recommend my career wholeheartedly and have never regretted my decision to teach for even a millisecond.
(There endeth the post.)
My job is very simple in many ways: recruit, retain and develop the best possible team of staff and the magic will happen. That job is becoming harder each year and I say this from the very privileged position I find myself in – Head of one of the best schools in the country. There are many schools up and down the country where the vacancy left by a departing teacher goes unfilled or filled by a non-specialist. This puts further pressure on the remaining staff, more of whom then resign. It is a vicious circle and it is putting unbearable pressure on so many schools and their leadership.
One of the reasons we decided that we were going to set up an Innovation Hub at NLCS was because I wanted to offer sector-leading professional development opportunities for teachers at NLCS and in state partner schools to keep talented teachers teaching. Joint research opportunities, cross-sector mentoring and leadership development programmes, opportunities to write new courses, but with enough time to do this.
One very positive change I have seen over the course of my career is that the typical teacher is now so much more invested in professional development. It’s one of the most frequently asked questions at interview by candidates – they want to know about what further training opportunities we provide. To remain attractive to the best possible teachers schools have to be committed to the professional development of their staff.
Teaching is hard work, granted. One of the elephants in any staffroom is how much work teachers do outside the school day. I have met a small number of teachers over my career who claim not to take any work home, but I have met more who work late into the evening and at weekends. Resource creation, lesson plans and marking all take time, and the outstanding professionals I have worked with are not the sort of people you can easily persuade to down tools.
So yes, teaching is hard work. But it is also the most rewarding of professions. I went into teaching simply because I thought it seemed like an intellectually stimulating and fun career. The greater sense of purpose came later, but initially it was just because it looked like quite good fun to experience the adrenaline of being at the front of a classroom. I don’t think we emphasise this side of teaching enough.
We also don’t emphasise enough the fact that it takes a certain degree of talent to teach well. There is a craft to teaching, of course, which has to be learnt, but there is also magic and art, and only some people ever really know how to unleash that. If we accepted that in fact not everyone can teach, perhaps teaching might be a more sought after career.
People sometimes tell me they could not be a teacher because they are not patient enough. As if being patient were the only prerequisite for teaching. But rarely do they admit that they probably could not teach because they lack the creative imagination, the communication skills, the clarity of thought, or emotional intelligence. We present teaching as very hard work because of the long hours and the complexities of the role. But perhaps we would sell it better if we focused on the fact that it is challenging because it takes a special set of skills to thrive as a teacher.
These are things that I would be celebrating if I were put in charge of Marketing for the Department of Education. The sheer fun of being a teacher. And the talent that teaching takes. The best teachers are often those that really enjoy the job, as well as being motivated to help their pupils achieve their potential.
So at the end of a very busy term, I would like to thank all the staff for their tireless work – teachers and support staff. I am privileged to work with such committed colleagues and I would like to thank them as well as all of you for making my first term at NLCS so enjoyable.
