Guardian survey finds teachers want to be treated as professionals

Nearly 2,000 teachers responded to a Guardian Teacher Network survey asking how they feel about their jobs. Many wrote: ‘I love teaching but…’ Disrespected, often bullied, fed up with governments that don’t trust them and despairing of the decline in parenting skills, you’d think teachers would be scouring the jobs columns for other careers, but, according to the Guardian Teacher Network survey published today, the reason they aren’t in larger numbers is because so many of them still love teaching. If there is a single message that sings out loud and clear, it is a plea from teachers to be treated as professionals, rather than infantilised by short-termist governments and political philosophies. Teachers who have come from other professions wonder openly about the lack of trust in their professionalism. One former solicitor, now questioning the sense of the career switch, said: “There is a profound lack of respect by senior staff and parents for the quality of work and quantity of work undertaken by teachers. “I have never before worked in a place where I have not been treated as a professional. My every move is monitored. I am not trusted to do the job I have trained and gained qualifications to do. It has had a great impact on my confidence to do the job. As a solicitor I was trusted to do my job once I had the qualifications and experience, why is this not the case in teaching?” Nearly 2,000 teachers – most of them members of the growing Guardian Teacher Network – filled in the survey during late August and September. There was a free text box at the end for extra comments and it was here that teachers, like that former solicitor, poured out eloquent testimony of what it feels like to be a teacher in the UK today. In the first five hours after the survey went live, 600 forms were returned, many with very detailed comments. Time and time again, they began: “I love teaching but …” or “This is the best job in the world but …” And they were big buts – government targets and interference, senior managers who bullied colleagues to achieve those targets, Michael Gove and Conservative party policy, league tables, Ofsted, bureaucracy, unsupportive parents, declining parenting skills, deteriorating student behaviour, disappearing pensions and lack of respect. There are relatively few references to wanting more money for the long hours teachers work – a third cited working weeks in excess of 50 hours – more often there is a straightforward recognition that they have a vocation to teach and they came into teaching because of that drive. The despairing voices are there – those who can’t wait to retire (“Three years to go and counting…”) and those who yearn to get away (“I am an NQT. I’m already looking forward to a way out”) – but they are not the loudest. Most simply feel frustrated that they are not trusted to do their job. Cary Cooper, professor of organisational psychology at Lancaster University, who has done major studies on workplace stress, is not surprised by the findings. “Global evidence is clear – lack of control and autonomy in your job makes you ill. It is stressful to be in an occupation where you feel you have people looking over your shoulder and where you can be named and shamed. All those characteristics were there in teaching 10 years ago, but it is worse now because jobs in the public sector are no longer secure. “Teachers want autonomy and respect – the people who go into it have a real vocation; they don’t do it for the money.We should train all our headteachers in engaging their staff in the decisions that affect their jobs, and the government needs to stop dictating top-down to teachers and instead discuss ideas with teachers. It should then undertake systematic pilots of ideas, which are evaluated. It needs to start treating teachers as professionals.” So, to some of the key statistics. Around 85% of respondents felt teachers had less respect from society in the UK than in some other countries. Just over half of the sample had considered leaving teaching and of these, 62% quote excessive government interference in schools as the reason; 50% blamed student behaviour; 44% workload or exhaustion; 30% parent behaviour; 25% lack of career prospects and just 22% had considered leaving for a job where they could earn more money. A massive 90% complained of teacher bullying – nearly two-thirds cited bullying from senior management, just over half cited parents as the aggressors, 40% students and 35% colleagues. Around 60% of the teachers said that student behaviour had become worse during their teaching career, with teachers outside London more likely to say it. And the theories offered for the decline in student behaviour? Teachers point a sharp finger at the shape of British society. 81% blamed a decline in the nuclear family and 75% the growing influence of dubious and negative role models for young people. Just under half felt parents had become less supportive of teachers during their time in the profession, with teachers in the south-west of England and in Scotland most likely to say it. Asked why they felt they had less parental support, 79% of this part of the sample pointed at declining parenting skills; 65% said parents’ perceived value of education had diminished; 59% said that long hours at work had affected the time parents spent with their children. A picture of some senior management as unsure of their rights, or not wanting to get into trouble, also emerged, with 68% blaming worsening student behaviour on lack of support in imposing discipline from senior staff. But care for their students shines through, with appeals for more vocational opportunities and concerns that some students are put on courses that will meet school targets rather than their individual needs. Only 10% in the survey wanted to see GCSEs abolished, but 65% wanted to see an end to Sats. Just 22% thought their career prospects were good. Only 14% wanted to be headteachers (“Many are very reluctant to aspire to headteacher posts because too much is now expected”) and 44% had considered teaching abroad. A DfE spokesman said: “We’re making teachers’ lives easier and stopping breathing down their necks – by slashing bureaucracy and thousands of pages of statutory guidance; we’re giving them greater freedom over the curriculum; and transforming the quality of career development training. Good schools know best – not politicians or bureaucrats.” Casestudy Daniel Hartley has been teaching for three years. He studied for his PGCE in secondary history at the University of Exeter and is head of history and religious studies at Chulmleigh community college in Devon “There is so much that frustrates many teachers. It feels as if we face a constant tide of change, forced on us from above.New governments always feel they have to put their own stamp on education – for me this means that while we wait for the new curriculum to come out in 2014, I am wary even of spending cash on text books – there is no certainty. Everything seems to change at a rate of about 200mph so it is a constant struggle to keep up with new initiatives, which are often just regurgitated old ones with a sexy new name. My school is pretty good so I don’t suffer with many of the problems that I know other teachers do. What I find annoying is that the government and others don’t take into account the hours of paperwork, the re-jigging of schemes of work, professional development sessions and effort that go into reacting to these changes … that then suddenly are made worthless by a white paper. It can be totally exhausting. I also find alarming the focus on league tables and targets. For my GCSE students we use a computer program to predict grades. This takes no account of social problems the students might face and so can often spit out a grade that might not be achievable. For example, if you have a student who just doesn’t turn up, you still have to give him/her a grade and when they don’t achieve that, the quality of your teaching is scrutinised. It is tough on them, too, to be given expectations they can’t meet. You still can’t help but look at your targets sometimes after the exams and question if you still have the ability to teach. That constant feeling that you have to defend yourself can be demoralising. Teachers can feel totally undervalued and even bullied when targets aren’t met. I feel we’re missing a trick. Surely if we support colleagues rather than berate them, and focus on delivering engaging lessons, we will have a much happier staff whose love of what they do will rub off on the pupils. I feel sad that many teachers are now, more than ever before, expected to be social workers, parents and teachers all rolled into one as there is a lack of parental support. Children are hoofed into schools and we have to do the groundwork of teaching them manners and how to behave properly. Surely the school should just be one link in the chain? Parents, teachers and society at large all have a role to play in producing rounded, responsible members of society.” • For more details or to join the Guardian Teacher Network, see http://teachers.guardian.co.uk/ Wendy Berliner is head of the Guardian Teacher Network Teaching Teachers’ workload Education policy Schools Wendy Berliner guardian.co.uk

Posted by on October 3, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.