To wonder why so many teachers want to quit

[ChazsBrilliantAttitude]

Inspired by other threads but I didn't want to derail.

What is going on in education that is making teaching so stressful?

I work in the City and you don't see too many people quitting with stress even though the work can be stressful. Certainly, not the numbers you see in teaching.

I know the simple fact that many problems in education could be addressed at a stroke by equalising work loading is unpalatable to those who have become accustomed to their easy lives and light timetables.

So what you are saying is that you would ask a teacher with a full teaching load to create the timetable. Another with a full teaching load to resolve grievances. Another with a full teaching load to proof read all the reports. Another with a full teaching load to interview all potential new sixth formers. Another with a full teaching load to oversee the exclusions and reintegration meetings. Another with a full teaching load to meet with ofsted when they come in and talk through the SEF. Another with a full teaching load to remain behind after school every 6 weeks to go to governors' meetings. Another with a full teaching load to investigate disciplinary issues and resolve conflicts between students.

In your weird world, Amanda, where only subject leaders and class teachers are deserving of any respect, how would you decide which teachers (on a full timetable) would be the lucky recipients of all the stuff that SLT have to manage?
I do hope that subject leaders would also be on a full timetable - it's not like they should be apportioned a single moment to write schemes of work or do any of the work they need to do.

Or are you going to choose to ignore my post and continue banging your "everyone above department leader is a waste of space and money" drum?

Why do you not take an SLT role and address the issues you see from within? This is, surely, the only way of being part of the solution rather than part of the problem.

I am very confused by the recent posts.
Yes, I have come from industry and have been told that I am not a proper teacher, for all that.
And, originally taught in France where teachers teach, admin admins and pastoral people do the pastoral care.
It does seem that SLT are dumped with a load of stuff (school photos???) that could be done more cheaply and effectively by admin staff.

Outsourcing HRM, timetabling, data tracking and governance to appropriately-trained, professionally-qualified and indemnified services would achieve desperately-needed consistency in the sector, and release the current raft of unaffordable, unfit for purpose and unsustainable 'AHT' personnel to use their undoubted 'expertise' to support the many and varied chalk face staff who are shouldering a disproportionate contact burden. The staff who are tipped over the edge by the unreasonable, added demands of their integrity-free masters. That is why so many teachers want to quit, to return to the OP's question.

The data available via IT analytics on staff deployment informed some hard decisions in one leading academy chain, which were tested at ET in 2013. The deposed SLT member's Union advised him to settle rather than face the music of how he had actually used his time and the school's resources. I welcome this approach and look forward to its wider implementation.

You're over-simplifying Amanda. "Data" is a huge aspect which needs to be considered carefully - how to monitor progress; how to target-set; how to assess; how to report to parents. You can't outsource that effectively. It is continually under review. Student behaviour management - you can't outsource that. An external manager can't begin to pick apart ongoing issues with children they don't know.

Do you feel that it would make teaching a more aspirational career if it was a career with no possibility of promotion at all? So in your world you are only allowed to teach if you accept that you will never be allowed to have a say in how the school is led or be any part of leading anything at all? If you agree to take on any additional responsibility, like subject leader, you are only able to do so if you agree to do this work ON TOP of a full timetable?

Staff at ALL levels have a lot of stress on their shoulders and it ALL needs to be tackled.

In answer to the OP's post, the reason that teachers want to quit is that the government have put in place league tables which have in turn led to an extreme target-focussed "business" in what is not a "business" culture. They want children to be measurable, like toys in a factory, and to blame teachers when they do not perform.

I accept your points, Iguana, hopefully we can agree to differ.

I do not, however, think that it is financially sustainable to perpetuate a culture in which expensively-trained staff labelled 'senior' teachers waste time on the Jeremy Kyle-style dialogue you describe with students and their parents, while front-line teaching staff shoulder an unfair burden of contact time with the effect of depriving all students of attention due to bloated class sizes.

The toxic backwash from schools' enslavement to their position in a league table is undeniable. But Amanda has a justifiable contempt for SLT too. When I started teaching (I can hear the groans!) SLTs did not exist yet, presumably, the jobs done by them did. People did not require 'aspirational' career opportunities because being a classroom teacher had its own status and prestige - the UPS was intended to reflect this by rewarding those who 'stayed in the classroom'. At some point, a new class of teacher began to emerge, separate and superior to the rest. Self-aggrandising titles were appended in 18pt bold font to every email and appeared on office doors (of which a great many more were now required). The Senior Management Team was born. More often than not these new managers were apparatchik of the worst sort and were quickly loathed by the people actually doing the job of teaching. They kept themselves apart affirming to each other their value to the school and requiring a certain deference from the lower orders. It is very hard for me to see how the money spent on SLTs has benefited education and easy to understand why Amanda might want them swept away.

Amanda, I really think your views are coloured by your relatively narrow experiences. I agree with Iguana about the source of the pressure, and I honestly don't think any of it would be fixed by members of SLT teaching more, which seems to be your answer to the issues. The AHT at my school hardly ever stops. She may have fewer lesson to teach than I do as a HOD, but the stuff she does keeps the school ticking.

catford - I started teaching in 1997 in a school with a head, two deputy heads and a senior mistress. I know work in a school with a head, a deputy and an assistant head. What's the difference?? The head in my first school rarely left his office.

now work, not know.

I think rather than SLT teaching more, a lot could be achieved by teachers teaching less. More PPA.

If we had more paid free periods, we'd simultaneously have fewer classes to plan and mark for, and have more time to plan and mark for the classes we do have.

It's half term. I have worked from 7am and still going ( should finish early tonight at 10.30). This will be the same all week. Next week I will be in school at 7, leave at 4 most days and then work til 11. Except for Weds when I have parents evening and I will be at school until 9.30 and then work til midnight. In this time I will teach, manage both staff and students issues, mark, assess, plan and record. It never used to be like this. And I've worked in the city (for 10 years pre kids). I don't get stressed as I'm old, but the work load is hideous. My kids make my dinner, do the washing and keep me sane( ish ). I can see why people quit. I earn a third of what I earned in industry and work 3 times as long. But I love it so won't leave. But I am exhausted most of the time.

The Head in my first school was acting and pretty hard working. The second one was lazy but fairly harmless. The third was inspirational. The last one was an unpleasant micromanaging spiteful bastard.
In my view there are good and bad heads and senior staff. The poor ones don't support their staff and the decent ones have a hard enough time supporting their staff and keeping their own heads above water.

I don't believe that the Science, DT and 2x English NQTs in my former school who cracked & had to take stress leave, ultimately quitting teaching, would have been tipped over the edge if the SENCO and Pastoral AHTs, drawing a combined £120k for doing nothing all day and disappearing by 3pm, had discharged their responsibilities.

Neither did any of my teaching colleagues believe so, particularly the HoDs and the entirely unqualified cover supervisors who had to take over from them.

I don't accept that staff are "labelled" 'senior' teachers - they have applied for a particular role and have been appointed to fulfil it. The additional responsibilities which come with that role mean that they would not be able to do a full teaching load in addition. Were you expected to do the subject leader role with not even one additional hour per week?

These Jeremy Kyle style conversations (and I agree with that term - some are beyond ridiculous) are not solely held by senior teachers. But teachers have a right (in my opinion) to pass on difficult conversations to senior teachers, and be supported by them. I don't think it's acceptable for teachers to have to ring Mr or Mrs Difficult Parent about sexual misconduct or theft or serious bullying. It is in some ways a waste of time (although if you are experienced enough you can often get parents on side) but it is a necessity. Those conversations need to be had, unfortunately. And in some schools very regularly. I would also say that some roles can make a vast difference to the experience of teachers. For example, a strong head of year or SLT member whose discipline is excellent, can have very far reaching influence. They can go into lessons and get the kids behaving properly so that they learn. The impact that they have is often far greater across many classes or year groups than in teaching one class themselves. If they have that time to go round lessons it can be extremely effective.

The burden of teaching time that teachers have is unfair in comparison with other countries, I agree with that, but not an unfair burden in comparison with main scale teachers across the country in state schools. I think it is very fair that heads of year, department leaders, SLT and headteachers have less teaching time because they have a hell of a lot of other responsibilities which they would not be able to fulfil if they had no time, and that would then have to revert to main scale teachers, which would be unfair.

When I was a new teacher, I would have felt pretty worried if I was told that there was nobody to lead my department or year group or school or to plan the assessments and schemes of learning and no support network available to help or advise with difficult classes or parents. I would have felt pretty alone.

Conversely, I can think of a lot of senior leaders who would be thrilled to bits to be told that they could have a couple of extra classes in return for not having to manage any difficult staffing situations or tricky parents or marauding kids. But they accept that is their role and they are paid more to deal with really shitty and delicate situations, and they are allocated some time during the school day to do it.

Amanda - Well those particular members of staff were obviously crap. But not all are.

Noble - yes I totally agree. I think all teachers should have a maximum of 15 hours teaching a week. But that will never happen.

Catford - someone in your school when you started must have led the school? It can't just have been a collection of main scale teachers? There must have been a headteacher and someone in charge of the curriculum and pastoral care surely?

I am not defending every single SLT member across the country. I have known some utterly ineffective staff (at every level) and have been appalled at the ineptitude of some. But it's ridiculous to say that every single person on a leadership team in every school is a lazy self-serving arsehole who deliberately pushes out the most vulnerable staff.

catford - I started teaching in 1997 in a school with a head, two deputy heads and a senior mistress

Ditto my first school at the beginning of the 80s. My last school had a head, three deputies, five AHTs and a data manager. I'll bet that isn't unusual.

Depends on the size of the school, surely. My first had about 800 kids. Current has about 600. In between, I worked in a school with 1200 kids, a head, three deputies and three assistants. I don't think SLT/SMT is a new concept.

Our data manager is not SLT and neither is our business manager. Data manager is a an admin role. Business manager is not, and never has been, a teacher.

I don't think SLT/SMT is a new concept

I did not hear that term until c.2000.

I started in 1998 and there were definitely fewer people at the top (head and 4 deputies) but then ofsted was quite a straightforward affair, performance management was results-driven, there were no league tables and systems were all pretty relaxed - minimal paperwork for trips, no DBS checks, no exclusion data being scrutinised, no any data being scrutinised. The current SLT teams are a reflection of what the government is demanding.

*Wasn't results-driven

*I don't think SLT/SMT is a new concept

I did not hear that term until c.2000.*

I don't think the term is relevant. The head/deputies always had management meetings and the jobs still existed. I've been a HOD for years and have been known as HOD, Learning Leader, Subject Lead, have been at meetings for HODs & HOYs, MLT, Progress Meetings. The labels may gave changed but the job is the same.

I don't think the term is relevant

I think it is. As I argued above, the emergence of the term SMT/SLT - at about the time you began teaching - coincided with a huge, and poisonous, shift in school culture.

That huge and poisonous shift was created by the emergence of league tables and ofsted.