First published Times Educational Supplement (TESPro Magazine) July 2012
I understand the motivation of politician when they tell teachers they should work for as many hours as necessary and that a "no excuses" culture is the way to turn around schools. It works. When teachers are forced to use their personal time to plug the gaps in funding for social work, educational welfare, attendance, care system, education psychology and parenting. It works for the children. With phenomenal effort above and beyond what is contractual, moral or even advisable, teachers can create an oasis of calm even in communities that thrive on chaos. But it has casualties. The work rate of ‘no excuses' is not sustainable. The casualties are the careers of some outstanding teachers.
My work takes me to a huge amount of schools in diverse settings. I see exploitation of teachers' health sacrificed for this short term approach. Every teacher I have coached in behaviour management is close to tears if not actually weeping with exhaustion. Teachers on 6-day contracts with 2 duties a day who rarely see their own children, headteachers who are have no choice but to work from noon on a Saturday just to stay afloat, teaching assistants who are emotionally exhausted by the intensity of their interaction with chaotic and hurt children.
I see behind the perfect PR and into the dark heart of schools where the exhaustion has become normalised. Places where the staff are on stronger energy drinks as the children. I see it in the damp eyes of teachers who are falling out of love with the job because ‘no excuses' has consumed them. Fully grown men weeping when I arrive with "you're the first outsider we've had in since the wall went up". That's a joke right? I wish it was. Schools where teachers are drowning but not waving for fear of being identified as a weak link. I have watched outstanding, inspirational teachers crumble through simple exhaustion. When they gasp for air and breathe in the world outside they see a tide of mistrust and blame. Armchair teachers screaming "Get back to work you work-shy achievement stopping holiday mongers".
I have been part of a few ‘no excuses' cultures. I remember days of supping Benylin and popping ibuprofen like Smarties just to get into work. Turning round a special measures judgment in a school on a notorious estate, 11% A-C , 85 % male unemployment, the highest suicide rate in the country etc meant that we had to patch a lot of holes. I remember listening to the Action Plan that was being handed down to us. It was immediately clear that working time directives were not just being stepped on. They had been ground into the concrete with an iron boot.
Tired adults deal with the behaviour of children badly. We exhaust our teachers and then expect them to be inspirational. It is completely unsustainable. We overload teachers with work and then demand the emotional resilience of an undertaker from them. When teachers start struggling with the workload and pressure we heap observation, performance management and inspection on them. For the last 11 years we have been using a kinder approach to teachers who are sinking and not swimming. It doesn't grab headlines, it is not snake oil but it works beautifully. It starts with relationships, conversations, trust, respect, talking the talk and walking the walk. A thoroughly collaborative approach to school and staff improvement has sustainable results. It just doesn't write headlines.
If we want to have more excellent teaching lets do the simple things well. If we want excellent teaching and transformational behaviour management to be sustainable then give teachers time to focus on it. If we really believe that outstanding teaching will unlock opportunity in the system then lock up the data trolls, burn the target sheets, call off the monitoring dogs and stop the emails. If you want sustainable transformation then change the working routines of teachers. Give them time and energy to be inspirational, creative and innovative. Free them from the constant political interference and short-term revolutions.
I go to many schools where teachers have been completely freed from additional tasks to focus on excellence in teaching. School leaders protect their teaching staff from the choppy waters of the media or daily vanity of the political class. The institution has a focus on teaching and learning. Meetings are focused on innovative and creative ideas for teaching that excite and engage. They do not waste their time trawling through the latest OFSTED tit bit, being hammered by FFT targets or planning ridiculous Saturday morning detentions. These schools would never preach a ‘no excuses' culture, they have more respect they would never be so ignorance or indeed insulting. Unfortunately ‘these schools' are not in the state sector and most are not in the UK.
I understand that we need flexibility in the profession. That over policed agreements on working time seed bad feeling, that children demand time at the most inconvenient moments and that turning around schools takes a huge input of effort initially. I also understand that working smarter is so much more sustainable than working harder. The idea that working teachers to the point of exhaustion will result in a huge increase in the number of outstanding teachers is patently ridiculous. There are many routes to being an outstanding school, many of which don't involve ignoring simple work life balances.
Lets stop recruiting the most dedicated and enthusiastic teachers to work in the toughest communities and then working them until they don't want to teach again. Lets not turn a career of great teaching into a few years of flourish. Lets have a plan for sustainable improvement over time not for a short burst that proves a political point.
