VIEWS & OPINION The mask of teaching Comment by NICOLA MARTIN of FBR Coaching
Reasons for school staff leaving the profession have become a list that can be rhymed off by most people without a second thought: workload, long hours, poor student behaviour, low pay and choked budgets, so much so that it’s just a prosaic sound that goes hand in hand with the discussion. Outrage rarely accompanies this list; it’s been around so long that it’s part of the general noise, and just as with the NHS and its challenges, we’ve become accustomed. Long holidays and the 3pm finishes lull
people into the idea that school staff have got it good. However, the long-accepted list of issues misses the emotional experience of working in schools, the way it can negatively impact staff and how it inevitably adds to potential reasons for staff leaving the profession. Teenagers aren’t in control of their emotions; they aren’t designed to be as they are changing, trying out different ways of being, figuring out how they fit in - and if anyone thinks back to their teen years, it was probably a bit of a mess!
As a teen, did anyone teach you how to manage your emotions? Did they give you the skills to control your emotions so that they don’t control you? Were you told of the dangers of not setting personal boundaries and enforcing them? However, school staff, who can be met with rage, anger, sorrow, defeat and hopelessness from students, are meant to know how to manage it all. Staff are expected to effectively manage their own emotions, despite never having been shown how, and to help students manage their ramped-up teenage emotions too.
Learning a better way Comment by ROB BLANCHET, Deputy Headteacher and Learning by Questions Ambassador
When considering the impact of SATs on children and teachers, how much has really changed since the comprehensive 2009 Cambridge Primary Review, led by Professor Robin Alexander, warned that SATs could “distort children’s primary schooling for questionable returns”?
This question is one of many raised in ‘The SATs Effect’, a 2024 UCL survey of teachers which found that SATs continue to “dominate” Year 6 and concludes, “Teachers felt that the ‘high stakes’ nature of SATs had led to ‘toxic’ effects, distorting primary education.”
Proponents of the Key Stage 2 SATs argue they are essential to the national accountability framework for primary schools. However, primary school teachers and parents alike are well aware of the concerns that SATs can create undue stress for children, with the potential to negatively affect their mental health and wellbeing. The ‘high stakes’ associated with SATs also place significant pressure on teachers and school leaders, potentially impacting on their health and wellbeing too.
Schools work hard to mitigate these potential impacts – and deserve praise for their efforts. But as we approach 2025, surely it is time to ask: Isn’t there a better way?
As a Year 6 teacher, one of the greatest pressures I faced was the need to try to deliver the entire Year 6 curriculum in just two-terms, whilst simultaneously addressing ‘gaps’ in the prerequisite knowledge and skills from earlier year-groups that individual children might have. My recent experience suggests that this challenge has only intensified with the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. Despite schools’ tireless efforts, Year 6 teachers continue to encounter unexpected gaps in pupils’ prior knowledge, especially in content covered during the lockdown years. Across all year groups, the pace required to deliver the curriculum can
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feel relentless. For years, both as a teacher and Headteacher, I worried that this ‘coverage’ pressure could hinder children’s learning. With so much content to ‘get through’, was there truly time to offer high-quality opportunities for the consolidation and repeated practise essential for long-term learning – especially for children struggling to attain age-related expectations? Is it really surprising, therefore, that Year 6 – as the ‘last chance’ to address children’s learning gaps before the SATs – can become “distorted,” with an intensified focus on English and maths squeezing out other subjects?
To be clear, I’m not opposed to the principle of end-of-Key Stage 2 assessment or the importance of school accountability. However, I worry that the current ‘pass’ / ‘fail’ nature of the SATs places unfair pressure on both pupils and teachers, particularly if less confident children risk being left behind by the pace required to fully deliver the English and maths curriculum. Certainly, I question whether the current testing arrangements help schools to promote children’s enjoyment or engagement in learning. Surely, there must be a better way? One hope is technology. In my most recent Headship, I regularly taught Year 6 and was fortunate to have access to transformative technology that engaged and motivated pupils, whilst significantly reducing the ‘stress’ typically associated with SATs preparation. New opportunities presented by A.I. may gain coverage, but there are already ed-tech products out there proven to make a profound difference. These smart platforms take much of the heavy data lifting from our shoulders and provide instantaneous Question-Level Analyses, empowering the most vital agent in the classroom: the teacher. Whilst reducing marking, teachers get detailed insights into each child’s learning and can address their individual needs and those of the class even more effectively. The conclusion of the UCL teachers’ survey is right, what has changed with regards to SATs since 2009? The technology exists now to change this.
Emotional labour is the never-mentioned aspect of working with students. As staff, we must ignore our triggers, disguise our emotions and wear the mask of positive emotions all day, every day… our ‘surface acting’ goes with us everywhere we go around school. Surface acting is pretending to feel emotions that are not genuine or authentic. If a person screamed at you in the street, how many of us would instantly think that ‘behaviour is communication’? How many of us would look to be curious and understanding in the first instance? Our authentic selves would likely act differently in the real world. There is considerable research linking surface acting to increased stress levels and burnout. Surface acting is driven by an organisation’s requirements on how staff act in given situations. The expectations for school staff are that you keep your cool, model ideal behaviour for the student by expressing positive emotions, then seamlessly move on to the next task.
At the end of a day filled with surface acting, the brain needs to restore its reserves, and that requires a full switch-off. Effective recovery methods need to guard against rumination as replaying the events of the day keeps the body in a state of stress. True mental distance is needed, which requires strategies and practice. Without effective recovery, staff will start their next day already depleted and carrying an increasingly above-baseline level of stress.
It needs to be recognised that school staff deal with far more than academic education and need the tools to protect their wellbeing in the form of meaningful training in emotional intelligence, both for existing staff and trainee teachers to learn how to deal with their emotions and with those of others. It also means providing staff with a coaching-style culture within the school that offers social support among colleagues to reduce the need for surface acting on a daily basis. Invest in staff; reduce stress and burnout.
November 2024
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