VIEWS & OPINION


Managing and supporting teacher stress Comment by KIRSTY WAINWRIGHT-NOBLE, Towergate


As a leading provider of staff absence insurance in the UK, we are always keen to understand the market and how it is changing, so we can continue to provide a policy that meets the needs of the people working in the ever- demanding education sector. It is important for the Towergate education team to understand why staff


absence happens in schools and by sharing our insight, this will hopefully help the necessary teaching bodies understand the pressures teachers face and work on ways to reduce it. We recently conducted some research, among 1,000 teachers nationwide,


that found almost three quarters believe it is more stressful to be a teacher today than it was when they first entered the classroom. Over the 2015/16 academic year, over a quarter of a million school days were lost due to teacher stress. This belief is more pronounced among more experienced teachers, with 9


in 10 who have taught for 15 years or more believing this is the case, compared to 60% who have taught for less than five years. This increase in stress may be having a wider impact on the profession; a


fifth of teachers have considered resigning and 6% have already handed in their notice. Our findings follow recent statements from Christine Blower, leader of the National Union of Teachers, who highlighted the “retention problems” facing schools across the country. While high standards are vital across the sector, among teachers, the top


reasons for rocketing stress levels is the emphasis on achieving higher results (70%), the focus on league tables or performance targets (61%) and the frequency of curriculum changes (60%). Teachers also pointed to a number of underlying societal factors that play a role in rising stress levels, including anti-social behaviour (43%) and language barriers (26%). It is very concerning to see the large numbers of teachers that are feeling


extremely stressed in their jobs – and what’s even more concerning is that the majority of teachers feel more stressed now than when they started their job. Teachers play an incredibly important role in our society, educating our next generation and we must ensure that they feel supported, enthused and happy in the profession they are all committed to. We reviewed the findings from our research and decided to make some


changes to the product we offer. We are now pleased to announce that every single one of our policies come with our market-leading Health Assist service which includes: up to 8 sessions of face to face counselling per person, every year – this is more than any other provider in the market; day 1 stress intervention, meaning you can get the appropriate advice immediately should you need it; legal advice for HR; an online health portal; GP call back and medical advice; 24/7 day helplines; and structured telephone counselling. Staff absence can have a huge impact on the running of a school or


academy, so it is important to have a robust absence management policy and the right support for teachers in place.


Bringing assessment into the digital age


Comment by PATRICK COATES, director at International Skills UK and board member of The e-Assessment Association


Back in 2009, Simon Lebus, chief executive of Cambridge Assessment, said that traditional examinations are likely to disappear within 10 to 15 years, and will be replaced by computerised testing. Although exam boards like Edexcel and AQA are now marking some papers online, the education sector remains slow in its adoption of technology- enhanced assessment. So how would e-assessment benefit the education sector? e-Assessment can take many forms; whether it’s a multiple-choice


test, marking online scripts automatically or by a human grader, or the use of an online portfolio for evidence based assessment – it’s diverse and evolving rapidly. In the professional world, such as the medical and accounting


sectors, e-Assessment is the norm. Initially, this was driven by the license to practice market in the USA, where legal defensibility of exam results is required. But, it’s being introduced increasingly in the UK to improve the speed and efficiency of the examination process. E- Assessment, however, is more readily adopted on a smaller scale. There are exceptions in terms of scale though. The UK Driving


Theory Test, for example, has around 2 million tests taken each year. Candidates take an exam that is created by items from a pool of questions, using statistical techniques to ensure that test for one candidate is going to be comparable to another candidate. There are two ways we can look at the advantages of using


technology in assessment. On the one hand, you can use it to do things in the same way as you did before, making the horse faster. Or


18 www.education-today.co.uk


you can change the way that you do things, and move to a car. The main barrier to adoption has almost always been that digital assessment requires several thousand PC’s and this physical barrier means we cannot (yet) have every child sit at a connected computer on the same day at the same time to sit one GCSE exam. But this makes me ask - why are we doing this anyway? If we start to view technology from a more strategic perspective, it


affords us the ability to ask, can we transform educational assessment practice? Why not completely change the way high stakes, high- volume exams are delivered? Why not completely review and change the way we assess skills and knowledge? If we can robustly assess someone’s medical capability or IT skills at


a time and place that suits the individual learner and institution, can we not be equally confident that we can assess a young person’s knowledge of mathematics or English? There are many questions surrounding the use of e-assessment in


education that need to be asked. They’ve already been asked by the Australian Government who are moving all of their National Assessment Program - Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) online next year. The Welsh Government is also planning a similar change. And we haven’t even started to discuss new advances in adaptive


testing, auto-marking, remote invigilation or adaptive comparative judgement and the opportunities they bring. It’s time to start debating the real strategic opportunities technology can bring to assessment, not just tinkering on the side-lines.


January 2017


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