Teach Secondary Issue 14.7

6.1% Of the United Kingdom’s GDP is being spent on education – third behind South Africa (6.9%) and Norway (6.2%), and tied with Israel among the OECD countries investing the most Source: ‘Education at a Glance 2025: OECD Indicators’ report produced by the OECD Have you ever faced the prospect of being unemployed just for forgetting some photocopying? Seven years ago, as I neared the end of my two years as a Teach First participant, that was the position I found myself in. It was my last day at the school where I’d been training for two years, and I was feeling pretty pleased withmyself for getting to the stage where I could start applying for other teaching jobs. At first, I’d been unsure whether I had what it took to teach, but as the writing of the students inmy class improved, so did my self-confidence. It was a proud moment for me when the children’s work was moderated and judged favourably by other members of staff, including the headteacher herself. On that final morning, I’d been told to expect a meeting with the headteacher. I’d thrownmyself into the task of teaching creative writing, but had forgotten the memo to photocopy the final work the students had produced. Thus, it was with a mixture of anticipation and fear that I sat in the final school assembly of the year, anxiously awaiting my fate. Towards the end, the headteacher affably presented me with a box of chocolates, wishing me luck withmy future career in front of the staff and children, all looking on fondly. Assembly over, I soon found myself face-to-face with the headteacher, now sat in her office with the chocolates perched squarely onmy knees. I can’t recall if any pleasantries were exchanged, but what was firmly implanted onmy memory were her words, “ You are never to approach me for a reference. ” Such was the gravity of my offence in forgetting to do the photocopying that I now found myself essentially unemployable. Given that a fellow Teach Firster had been given the boot just four months into the job, I’d always been keenly aware of how precarious my situation was, and how disposable I was personally during my time at the school. The role of headteacher is undoubtedly one accompanied by a degree of stress, but her reaction seemed to be beyond belief. If it wasn’t before, it was now glaringly obvious how the stress of running a school generated its ownmomentum, and could impact upon those on the lowest rungs of the school hierarchy. In the years that followed, my teaching ambitions would often be frustrated by the lack of a reference from this headteacher, my first employer. While I was still able to find work in schools, it wasn’t easy for subsequent employers to overlook this anomaly whenever they perused my CV. Each time it happened, I was reminded of the circumstances that led to it. I couldn’t have predicted that the headteacher would react as she did, but lamented my administrative error all the same. If my knowledge and experience of teaching since then has taught me anything, it’s that schools are often, by their nature, chaotic places. The person in charge of steering the ship usually has a big job on their hands – but should that excuse the sternness, severity and even shamelessness of the behaviour I’ve described here? Probably not. THATTIMEWHEN… MADDIE MICHIE IS A FORMER ENGLISH TEACHER, NOW PRIVATE TUTOR; FOLLOWHER AT@MISS_MICHIE_TUTORING (INSTAGRAM) Amid the fevered discourse surrounding teacher recruitment issues, curriculum changes and Ofsted’s inspection framework is a commonly recurring question – what would a truly sustainable education system for England actually look like? The Association of School and College Leaders has recently weighed in with 16 proposals of its own, based on a year-long consultation with the 60 school and college leaders making up its ASCL Council policymaking body. As detailed in its ‘Roadmap for a sustainable education system’ paper, those proposals include increased public investment in children’s services so that they’re better able to meet pupils’ various health and social care needs, as well as mapping out the entities overseeing standards of education, health and social care at a local level, and providing clarity for the public as to precisely which bodies are responsible for which areas. ASCL is also calling for all Ofsted inspections and league tables for schools and colleges to be based solely on core education responsibilities. At the same time, it’s mooted the idea of extending accountability in the opposite direction, by introducing a new system that would give schools, colleges and other local agencies a means of officially registering any concerns that another agency might not be fulfilling its remit effectively. According to Julie McCulloch, director of strategy and policy at ASCL, “More needs to be done to clearly distinguish where the core responsibilities of education staff start and end. It is time to rethink exactly what we expect from schools and colleges and how they should be resourced to meet these demands.” ASCL’s ‘Roadmap for a sustainable education system’ can be read in full via tinyurl.com/TS147-LL4 THE HEADTEACHER WITHHELD MY REFERENCE 77 teachwire.net/secondary L E A R N I N G L A B