Teachers who are members of the National Union of Teachers (NUT) went on strike on Tuesday 5th July 2016 in long running dispute with the government over working conditions.
As a teacher, I’d like to take the opportunity to present why many teachers are choosing to take industrial action.
This is isn’t about pay – actually as teachers, we do get a good a salary and for most teachers, the profession is not a career but a vocation. We love working with and inspiring children and young people. However, Government initiatives have already started to change the environment we work in to the detriment for the children we teach. In addition, current proposals will compound problems already in the system.
Class sizes – the last few years have seen class sizes regularly go over 30 per class. When I started teaching the average was 25. Educational standards are bound to fall and children who need support will be neglected. Its hard for teachers to get to know each individual child in a large class, behaviour can be difficult to manage and anxiety for teachers increase, especially as performance related pay is determined with how a class performs. Marking and planning for large classes is difficult too.
Teacher recruitment and retention – so many teachers are leaving the profession and universities are finding it difficult to fill spaces on their teacher training courses. Morale is low, workload is unmanageable, with added pressures of budget cuts (where teachers are told the school cannot afford enough exercise books) and constant, unnecessary testing of students; the teaching environment is becoming unbearable. Is this what we really want for our children in schools? The Government doesn’t want to listen or trust teachers.
Workload – Each teacher takes their responsibility for each child they teach extremely seriously. I know most teachers come in to school at around 7.30am, do not leave until 6.00pm (some stay until caretakers ask them to leave) and then continue work at home often until late. Many experienced teachers also have families and as such often sacrifice family life. This is not sustainable and certainly was not the case when I started teaching 10 years ago. There has also been a big increase in bureaucracy – such as data entry for each child. More and more the increase in workload has meant that teachers cannot offer the extra-curricula clubs that help enrich our children.
Exam focused curriculum – the current focus on exams and results means that we are cutting creativity out of the children we teach. English and Maths are dominating the timetable because league tables are based on that data. It means schools inevitably focus resources on those two areas at the detriment of other subject areas particularly the arts. Children are all different, not robots and as such the education system should reflect that diversity. Secondly, the introduction of testing at KS1 and KS2 (7 and 11year old) is causing stress and anxiety for children and teachers alike. This can’t be right. The Government do not seem to trust teachers (as we do continually assess our students in a variety of ways) and say these tests are to drive up standards. This pressure on children is not healthy and numbers of children needing mental health support has risen. Furthermore, this sort of testing does nothing for the children who have special educational needs.
Budget cuts – schools, like other areas of public service are facing huge financial cuts. I know of schools and departments struggling to adequately resource schools even with exercise books.
Academisation and free schools – there are so many issues around this: no local elected accountability, unqualified teachers, run-for-profit, academy chains removing students from exams so not to impact data, to name but a few. (This is a massive issue in education and probably needs another article on this)
The Government are refusing to address the big problems of budget cuts, teacher shortages and class sizes. They dismiss teacher concerns and push an ideological agenda of academisation (which holds no local accountability as well as a host of other issues) and pushing for testing system that ignores advances in pedagogy expects our individual and unique children to all be the same.
I hope, by writing this, you can see why teachers have chosen to strike and hope that you as residents, parents and former students support teachers. I am sure there are other additional reasons why teachers have chosen to strike. It’s not an easy decision, but I wholeheartedly believe each striking teacher is fighting for the future of education and children they teach.
As for me, I had to take the difficult decision to leave the profession a couple of months ago as the pressures of the workload, meant that I could not meet the needs of my family. Nevertheless, now as parent and former teacher, I stand with my former colleagues.
Cllr Shama Tatler
