What would be the ONE thing that'd have the biggest impact on your teaching?

[CatKisser]

A teacher pal and I were just discussing this.

For me - smaller classes. From 30 to 20, it'd be a dream. Currently I mark 60 English and Maths books almost every night and it's bloody hard going if you're actually going to be constructive. And the time you could give to each child would be brilliant!

For my friend it was more powers to exclude violent/disruptive pupils. (He's secondary.) He's struggling with some fairly outrageous behaviour in a failing school and is feeling very, very down at the moment. I don't necessarily agree with his comment, but it was an interesting discussion.

How about anyone else?

That's insane, 3 piece suite! Presumably that makes you late for your lessons??

Why doesn't the person with the clipboard who is stalking you, put it down and go and tell people not to run...?!

Trust - not having to 'evidence' every tiny piece of learning that takes place, in the form of detailed planning, detailed marking, detailed assessments, detailed annotations... I spend hours doing this. It takes me longer to plan, resource, mark, assess and evidence every teaching hour than it takes me to teach it. Far longer. It would make so much more sense for me to be spending that time after a teaching session thinking really carefully about next steps, how it can individually support children's progress, rather than 'evidencing' what I have already done. Drives me mad.

Oh yes, Padkin - definitely that.

Aha! All kids to be legally required to have their own glue sticks.

Less pressure from above for me. I am always having to do things that are know are not helping my children just so I can tick a box. My 5 year olds cannot read and respond to daily comments in their maths and English books so why do I have to write them! Some don't know their surnames, where they live, how to do up buttons or read a word so why am I expected to ensure that they can recite their targets should a visiting Ofsted inspector ask them.

A peer support/review system that means struggling teachers are found and helped. Everyone is chasing their tail and I feel my colleagues are really falling off the radar into a black pit and I'm just keeping afloat and I can't help them.

If I could have more than one:
Smaller class sizes, fewer rules about marking (I have to mark 150 books per week, each class of 30 takes 4 hours!), better management and communication, a culture of support, less changes in curriculum!