Diary of an NQT I’ll never live this down...


PREPARE FOR the most embarrassing moment of my short teaching career; no, make that my life. Allow me to set the scene.


Period 2. Wednesday morning. I have an enthusiastic, passionate year 8 class which loves history and does tasks perfectly and in silence. I have never come across an easier class to teach. I have just delivered a lesson


on “urbanisation in the industrial revolution” in which we discussed the cholera, rats and the sewage that infested city slums around the emerging factories. They loved every second of it. A flawless lesson, their final


task was to write a letter home to their parents pretending that they had moved to one of these grubby cities and, using accurate historical information, report what life was like. I encouraged them to “add a little colour” and to really try and imagine what life was like living in the fetid accommodation of the period. I allowed around 12 minutes at the end


to hear their lengthy and elaborate responses. I was delighted with what they had produced and very pleased with how well the activity had worked. Combining both historical knowledge and creativity. I had the class in the palm of my hand.


Then disaster struck. The last letter to be read was from a small, slightly


eccentric boy who often offers bizarre contributions. He started brilliantly, offering a detailed description of his living quarters, eloquently describing the pervading smells that wafted up his nostrils. I was impressed. He ended by imploring his parents to sanction his


return: “Please mum, please dad, I hate it here, I can’t stand the smell another day. If it wasn’t for my new


Teach it like Torno! The stress test


“If our future is our children, then it is crucial we help our teachers do the best jobs they can.” Richard Gorham.


IT IS 6pm on a Friday evening. I have just left the staffroom where one teacher is in tears. She is in tears because she is visibly stressed. Stressed because she needs to send her coursework to the modera- tor and the deadline is getting nearer and nearer. Not only has it taken ages to get it


out of the kids, but she wants to get the process finished so she can go home and have some sort of weekend. More importantly she wants to do her very best by the students, and, in doing so is almost making herself ill. This is just one aspect of the stress


that takes place within schools on a daily basis. For some this may sound trivial or daft, but the reality is that stress is a very real feature of teaching in today’s world. Last week, Sir Michael Wilshaw, the


Ofsted chief inspector, denied that teach- ing and leading schools was stressful. “Stress is what my father felt, who


struggled to find a job in the 50s and 60s and who often had to work for long hours in three different jobs and at weekends to support a growing family,” he stated. I do not doubt this was true,


but the chief inspector is in danger of repeating the “get on your bike” gaffe dropped by Norman Tebbit in the 1980s. As one of my colleagues said to me,


“stress lies in the heart of the person feel- ing it”. What is stressful for one person is not necessary stressful for another. However, one thing is for certain – teaching in schools today is one of the most stressful jobs there can be. It is stressful primarily for two reasons. First,


because most teachers want to do their best by every student and in order for this to happen it is quite often the case that teachers have to undertake a massive workload – one in which there is never enough time in the day. Another colleague disclosed to me that for the


past week she has been going to bed at midnight and getting up at 4am every morning, purely to meet the marking demands of all of her exam classes. As far as I am concerned that is stress.


It is rare to meet a teacher who does not care and


is unwilling to go the extra mile to ensure their stu- dents secure the best grades possible. The second reason, the job is stressful is because


on an hourly basis teachers are responsible for the wellbeing, behaviour and, most importantly, learn- ing of up to (and on some occasions more than) 30 students. Added to that there is the expecta-


tion on the teacher for every student to make progress no matter what the circumstances. Of course that is what we all want, but with more and more headteachers being afraid to exclude stu- dents because they are worried what Ofsted might say, discipline has become another very real issue for teachers and it seems


to be getting tougher. In many schools


across the country, bad behaviour is increasingly being blamed on the lack of excitement during a lesson and parents no longer seem account- able for their child’s attitude to learn- ing. And if you are a headteacher of a state school, then you really do carry the weight of the world on your shoulders,


despite what Sir Michael suggests. A poor Ofsted can signal the end of a career, not to mention the shame and humiliation of having to carry the can for


factors beyond one’s control. The life chances of students seem to be


the responsibility of teachers alone. For once it would be good to hear the chief inspector speaking about the effects of bad parenting


on a child’s education or the rise of celebrity culture, instead of laying the blame squarely at the feet of teachers. The job of a teacher is never complete and this is


precisely why it is a stressful occupation. It is time for Sir Michael to stop berating colleagues and to start offering words of support. Have a great week!


• David Torn is a professional tutor at St Edward’s School in Essex. He is a former Teacher of the Year for London and co-author of Brilliant Secondary School Teacher. He returns in June.


best friend Jeff the Walrus I’m not sure I would have made it this far.” Now obviously, that is funny. Surreal and random, but funny. But as we know from years of terrible satellite television, “kids say the funniest things”. You may be confused – this isn’t at all embarrassing. It’s about to get a lot worse. For those that don’t know me, I


have a very particular laugh. Some have even called it (rather aptly) “the quack”. Whatever you call it, however, it involves a large sniff at the


beginning. This walrus joke caught me off


guard and I was hit by a course of involuntary laughter. As I began this giggling fit with my trademark opening sniff disaster struck. A


humungous globule of green slime projected from my nostril, flew through the air and landed with a splash on the front desk in front of a


quiet student. The whole world stopped turning for that fraction of a second. He took account of what had just happened, looked at the mess on his desk and turned to stare at me with a look of abject horror


like I have never seen before. The class was stunned – the majority had no clue why everything had stopped while others


were letting the momentous event fully sink in. I lent forward to try and destroy the evidence


before anyone could see but as I moved in, the deafening silence was broken by a single word of condemnation. One of the boys in the class had stood, pointed and with all his might bellowed: “Snotman!!!” I will never live this down.


• Tomas Duckling is a history NQT at Queens’ School in Hertfordshire. He returns in June.


STRESS SLUR ‘I have tears in


SecEd has received an unprecedented response from teachers, sc inspector of schools, Sir Michael Wilshaw. It came after the Ofste Last week,SecEd quoted from a selection of these letters as we and frustrated responses from our readers, we have decided to g


What he said: Sir Michael Wilshaw


“We need to … challenge those who have power invested in them to make the difference, but too often make excuses for poor performance – it’s just too hard, the children are too difficult, the families are too unsup- portive, this job is far too stressful. “Let me tell you about stress. Stress is what my


father felt, who struggled to find a job in the 50s and 60s and who often had to work long hours in three different jobs and at weekends to support a growing family. “Stress is, I’m sure, what many of the million and


a half unemployed young people today feel – unable to get a job because they’ve had a poor experience of school and lack the necessary skills and qualifications to find employment. “Stress is what I was under when I started as a head


in 1985, in the context of widespread industrial action – teachers walking out of class at a moment’s notice – doing lunch duty on my own every day for three years because of colleagues who worked to rule – covering five classes in the sports hall when there was no-one to teach them. “Stress was, in the days before local management of


Dear sir,


I am a head’s PA in a large secondary school and have been for the past 13 years. In that time, I’ve seen heads and teachers come and go, I’ve been here for three Ofsted inspections, and no doubt I’ll be here when the “dawn raid” happens somewhere in the next few weeks and for which we’ve been “getting ready” since September. I know we are a good school, I don’t need


Ofsted to tell me, I know because I live in this community, and I’ve seen the school go from a school where no-one wanted to go, to a school that is at the top of its game – helping the most vulnerable and challenging students as well as the highest fliers, and all of those in between. And let’s be honest, most of them are “in between”. Walk the corridors and you will witness a


calm, studious atmosphere. Our kids behave, they like coming to school, they achieve really well, they make great friends, they have great experiences, and they respect and like their teachers – who are incredibly talented and dedicated. But when Ofsted comes, we are told that


the most we can hope for is a 3 or maybe a 4. Last time we were “good with outstanding features” – we are no different now, but we will now be nothing more than satisfactory, and our outstanding head will be considering her future and whether she will be sacked. The school hasn’t changed, the kids haven’t


changed, our results have continued to go up, we are oversubscribed, the head inspires great teachers, we offer an amazing GCSE curriculum – what would she be sacked for? It makes my blood boil. The head’s PA role is unquantifiable and one


of the things that goes unseen is “mopping up” those staff going through tough times. I cannot tell you how many staff, many senior, have been sat in my office on the verge of tears, saying that they just can’t cope with the stress that teaching creates now. They struggle to get any sort of work/life balance. They become ill. I cannot count how many conversations I’ve


had this year to reassure teachers, senior and junior, or to listen to their frustrations with a


Dear sir,


Put teachers in the combination of working in a school in a difficult setting (facing real behaviour issues and without family/parental support) and looking over their shoulders at the shifting sands of the inspection system (with ever-changing descriptors, a satisfactory grade being unsatisfactory, etc) and the vagaries of individual Ofsted inspectors: of course teachers are stressed. Uncertainty and powerlessness together – a toxic mix. It’s all very well for Sir Michael and ministers to say


that difficult home circumstances, problematic settings of schools, poverty and alienation are not excuses for


8


schools, writing letters in triplicate to the local author- ity asking for a brick wall to be built in the playground or for a bit of extra money to keep an excellent maths teacher – and not receiving a reply for weeks. I still bear the scars of those days. “Times have radically changed for the better: there’s


much greater accountability in the system and heads are now firmly in the driving seat. “They’re better paid than ever before, have more


independence, more autonomy, more power and more resources than they’ve ever had. They are now, even with the cuts, in a better position than I was 26 years ago. “We need heads who know what a privileged posi-


tion they are in now and who can use their new-found independence well – people who roll up their sleeves and get on with improving their schools, even in the most difficult circumstances. “What we don’t need are leaders in our schools


whose first recourse is to blame someone else – wheth- er it’s Ofsted, the (local authority), the government or a whole host of other people.”


system that is out to fail them (and the kids). I know of at least four who are having stress counselling. That was unheard of until this year. I have been fortunate enough to know some


amazing teachers, teachers who inspire, nurture, enthuse and create an atmosphere for learning that could not be bettered. They work tirelessly and are in school from 7am, rarely leaving before 5.30pm. They then go home and spend the rest of


their “evening” planning lessons, marking books, reading up on the latest nonsense published by Michael Gove or Ofsted. I would think my colleagues work 12 to 13 hour days. My door is always open and teachers come


to me to “rant”. I listen to the planning, the preparation, I minute the meetings, I support and buoy up the staff, I listen to the frustration and anger that the job they love is being torn apart. I feel the frustration of the leadership team as they put more pressure on those they line manage – because they have to, because the system dictates it. I work with one teacher who has recently


been promoted to a management post – someone who came from a background like mine, yet worked her way up from the bottom. She inspires the kids, they love her. She isn’t even 30 yet and she is one of the most natural teachers I’ve known – and yet she looks burnt out, exhausted. She has no social life. She keeps the smile on but her eyes show how hard it is to keep up that momentum. And that makes my heart break. To think that teaching might lose people like her, like the management team I work with, like the dedicated, amazing teachers who I watch inspiring the next generation of children. There are thousands of excellent teachers in


this country. I have had the privilege of working with a few hundred of them. If you are a teenager, you know. If you work in a school, you know. If your family are teachers, you know – you too will have that Ikea bag stuffed with books in some corner of your house. I have tears in my eyes as I type this, in pure


frustration that this man is allowed to hold a job of such significance and yet talk such drivel.


Head’s PA – name and school supplied


failure: they aren’t, or shouldn’t be. But they are reasons why the job is that much more difficult in such places, and why it’s entirely unhelpful for the inspectorate and its leader, egged on by ministers, to crank up the pressure. Shifting floor targets; impossibly short timescales for improvement; critical, hostile rhetoric: our leaders need to look at themselves, their actions and their attitudes before denying the existence of stress in the teaching profession. It’s a lousy management style. With his enormous experience and successful track record of headship, Sir Michael should know better.”


Headteacher – name and school supplied SecEd • May 24 2012


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