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| School's out for ever: a tale of two teachers | School's out for ever: a tale of two teachers |
| (about 2 hours later) | |
| Claire Hill, Surrey: 39 years in the classroom | Claire Hill, Surrey: 39 years in the classroom |
| Teachers are privileged. That’s why I’ve stayed | Teachers are privileged. That’s why I’ve stayed |
| Claire Hill rattles off a list of former pupils’ achievements: the son of a county cricketer who could throw a ball harder than his teachers by age six; the boy who became headteacher of the junior school nearby; the professor of Italian literature in Florence. At 61, she has 39 years of memories at Holmesdale infant school, where she got her first teaching job aged 22 in 1977 and still works. The school, situated in the commuter town of Reigate, Surrey, has quadrupled in size and moved to its current building from a Victorian one 20 years ago, but Hill says some things haven’t changed. “Teachers are privileged, that’s why I’ve stayed. They get the chance to see the world through a child’s eyes and that view never grows boring.” | Claire Hill rattles off a list of former pupils’ achievements: the son of a county cricketer who could throw a ball harder than his teachers by age six; the boy who became headteacher of the junior school nearby; the professor of Italian literature in Florence. At 61, she has 39 years of memories at Holmesdale infant school, where she got her first teaching job aged 22 in 1977 and still works. The school, situated in the commuter town of Reigate, Surrey, has quadrupled in size and moved to its current building from a Victorian one 20 years ago, but Hill says some things haven’t changed. “Teachers are privileged, that’s why I’ve stayed. They get the chance to see the world through a child’s eyes and that view never grows boring.” |
| On the day I interviewed her, Hill had run a bicycle club in the playground before school and has just taught maths, the last lesson before lunch – her year 1 class of 30, mostly six-year-olds, practising halving and doubling numbers with the aid of plastic blocks. | On the day I interviewed her, Hill had run a bicycle club in the playground before school and has just taught maths, the last lesson before lunch – her year 1 class of 30, mostly six-year-olds, practising halving and doubling numbers with the aid of plastic blocks. |
| Her favourite time of day is the morning: “Just seeing them and thinking: what’s going to happen? You go to the gate and I can’t help it: I have to smile because there’s always somebody hanging on the gate calling ‘Mrs Hill’ and it starts straightaway, yak, yak, yak, trying to tell me 20 things at once. They’re so confident coming in and that does me good; you think ‘yes, they’re mine’.” | Her favourite time of day is the morning: “Just seeing them and thinking: what’s going to happen? You go to the gate and I can’t help it: I have to smile because there’s always somebody hanging on the gate calling ‘Mrs Hill’ and it starts straightaway, yak, yak, yak, trying to tell me 20 things at once. They’re so confident coming in and that does me good; you think ‘yes, they’re mine’.” |
| Related: ‘Teach drama? I’d never even been in a school play’ | Related: ‘Teach drama? I’d never even been in a school play’ |
| Hill says her job got her through the worst months of her life when her son, James, a soldier, was killed in Afghanistan in 2009. Although she plans to carry on working as a supply teacher, at the end of this week she is retiring. She cites increased workload and “top-down pressure”, as well as a wish to spend more time with her husband. She’s leaving even though she will have to wait years to claim her state pension, and at a time when teacher retention and recruitment are growing problems. | Hill says her job got her through the worst months of her life when her son, James, a soldier, was killed in Afghanistan in 2009. Although she plans to carry on working as a supply teacher, at the end of this week she is retiring. She cites increased workload and “top-down pressure”, as well as a wish to spend more time with her husband. She’s leaving even though she will have to wait years to claim her state pension, and at a time when teacher retention and recruitment are growing problems. |
| Two-thirds of teachers quit within five years, something the outgoing Ofsted chief, Sir Michael Wilshaw, has called a “national scandal”. And Mary Bousted, general secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, said last year the job had become “incompatible with normal life”. Earlier this year, the government launched a review of teacher workload, after its recruitment target was missed for the fourth year in a row | |
| Talking in the staff room, Hill is uncomplaining about the 10-hour days she spends here, followed by two hours’ planning and marking at home. She is “not one for sitting around”, she says; she was always the breadwinner, took just three months maternity leave, and was out of school for less than two months after her son was killed. | Talking in the staff room, Hill is uncomplaining about the 10-hour days she spends here, followed by two hours’ planning and marking at home. She is “not one for sitting around”, she says; she was always the breadwinner, took just three months maternity leave, and was out of school for less than two months after her son was killed. |
| Hill thinks some things in schools have changed for the better over the four decades of her career, particularly the support for children with special educational needs and understanding of emotional problems. She once had 36 children in a class, before there were teaching assistants, is surprised by the technological know-how she has amassed, and says that although education has become more complicated, that is partly because we are in a “more complex world”. | |
| Related: Teacher recruitment ‘a mess’ as every school slugs it out for itself | Related: Teacher recruitment ‘a mess’ as every school slugs it out for itself |
| Although she doesn’t think children today achieve more between age four and seven than in the past, she says it is possible that the government’s relentless focus on standards has meant they are better prepared for secondary school by the age of 11 than they used to be. | Although she doesn’t think children today achieve more between age four and seven than in the past, she says it is possible that the government’s relentless focus on standards has meant they are better prepared for secondary school by the age of 11 than they used to be. |
| Even in the 80s, a teacher’s workload was heavy. Hill thinks her son missed out on playdates and after-school activities because she didn’t have time. But what she remembers about those days was that teachers had more freedom and felt their judgment was trusted: “You could plan your own topics, you could go off at tangents. Sometimes something would happen. Once when we were doing weather the children got really fascinated with how a rainbow was made and I remember spending a great deal of time making rainbows with prisms in water because that’s where their interest led us.” | Even in the 80s, a teacher’s workload was heavy. Hill thinks her son missed out on playdates and after-school activities because she didn’t have time. But what she remembers about those days was that teachers had more freedom and felt their judgment was trusted: “You could plan your own topics, you could go off at tangents. Sometimes something would happen. Once when we were doing weather the children got really fascinated with how a rainbow was made and I remember spending a great deal of time making rainbows with prisms in water because that’s where their interest led us.” |
| Hill believes her school has a special atmosphere. But she is fed up with the continual changes handed down the chain from central government, the endless feedback, forms and meetings. | |
| “You felt like you had more time to nurture the children before,” she says. “Now it’s on and on and on – they’ve got to go from here to there – what level are they on? I preferred it when they could enjoy being children.” She is “scared rigid” by Ofsted – although Holmesdale is rated outstanding – and she has always liked those children who struggled or refused to conform and “walked to the beat of a different drum”. | “You felt like you had more time to nurture the children before,” she says. “Now it’s on and on and on – they’ve got to go from here to there – what level are they on? I preferred it when they could enjoy being children.” She is “scared rigid” by Ofsted – although Holmesdale is rated outstanding – and she has always liked those children who struggled or refused to conform and “walked to the beat of a different drum”. |
| An angular, lively figure, Hill says the loss of James, her only child, made her see her pupils through fresh eyes: “You take a look and you think these lives are so precious, they’ve only got the one chance at life and I’m going to make sure it’s the best possible damn chance.” From September, it will be as a supply teacher that she is rooting from them. | An angular, lively figure, Hill says the loss of James, her only child, made her see her pupils through fresh eyes: “You take a look and you think these lives are so precious, they’ve only got the one chance at life and I’m going to make sure it’s the best possible damn chance.” From September, it will be as a supply teacher that she is rooting from them. |
| Melanie Harris, Manchester: one year in the classroom | Melanie Harris, Manchester: one year in the classroom |
| The balance is wrong; the job is two-thirds paperwork | The balance is wrong; the job is two-thirds paperwork |
| Some of the best moments of Melanie Harris’s first year of teaching have been on the stairs, or in the playground: “When they say ‘mi-iss’ in that kind of voice, and then tell you something random about what’s happened at home. | Some of the best moments of Melanie Harris’s first year of teaching have been on the stairs, or in the playground: “When they say ‘mi-iss’ in that kind of voice, and then tell you something random about what’s happened at home. |
| “Even when I’m knackered they keep me on my toes,” says the 44-year-old, a biology graduate who worked as a lab technician for a decade before taking time out to have a baby and retrain. “I know it’s a cliche but they always said on the course that as teachers you have to be learners and it’s true. Children demand honesty of you, they’re such little animals, it’s exhilarating.” | “Even when I’m knackered they keep me on my toes,” says the 44-year-old, a biology graduate who worked as a lab technician for a decade before taking time out to have a baby and retrain. “I know it’s a cliche but they always said on the course that as teachers you have to be learners and it’s true. Children demand honesty of you, they’re such little animals, it’s exhilarating.” |
| But just a few months into her first teaching job at a two-form primary school in Manchester, after becoming ill from stress, Harris had already had enough. “It’s a terrible cliche but I have no life. I have to choose ‘which friend do I see this weekend?’, and I don’t enjoy it because I’m always worrying.” | But just a few months into her first teaching job at a two-form primary school in Manchester, after becoming ill from stress, Harris had already had enough. “It’s a terrible cliche but I have no life. I have to choose ‘which friend do I see this weekend?’, and I don’t enjoy it because I’m always worrying.” |
| Younger teachers are just as worn down, she says, but unlike her they don’t know any different. “Tired, frazzled and so unhappy” is how she describes them. | Younger teachers are just as worn down, she says, but unlike her they don’t know any different. “Tired, frazzled and so unhappy” is how she describes them. |
| Harris gave in her notice in May after being hauled up for having unmarked books in a spot check at the end of a difficult week. “I love teaching, I feel sick at the thought that I’m not going to any longer physically be there,” she tells me on the phone, the 12-14-hour days she works having made this the only way to fit in an interview. | |
| “But the balance is all wrong. Maybe a third of your energy goes into how you are when you’re with the children, a third on planning and a third on assessment, so the job is two-thirds paperwork. You want to be on tiptop form in the classroom but you end up giving a threadbare version of yourself to the children because you find yourself thinking about all the lesson plans and schemes of work. You constantly have to prove what you are doing.” | “But the balance is all wrong. Maybe a third of your energy goes into how you are when you’re with the children, a third on planning and a third on assessment, so the job is two-thirds paperwork. You want to be on tiptop form in the classroom but you end up giving a threadbare version of yourself to the children because you find yourself thinking about all the lesson plans and schemes of work. You constantly have to prove what you are doing.” |
| Related: Nearly half of England’s teachers plan to leave in next five years | Related: Nearly half of England’s teachers plan to leave in next five years |
| Figures last year showed four in 10 new teachers quitting, almost triple the number six years before. Harris says the first year is tough because beginners are continuously monitored, but knowing that subsequent years would be easier was not enough to change her mind. With a family and people in her life she wanted to have time for, she simply judged the workload unmanageable. | Figures last year showed four in 10 new teachers quitting, almost triple the number six years before. Harris says the first year is tough because beginners are continuously monitored, but knowing that subsequent years would be easier was not enough to change her mind. With a family and people in her life she wanted to have time for, she simply judged the workload unmanageable. |
| “I had a terrible inkling in my first placement that I was pushing the rewards of working in a school a bit too far, I remember thinking ‘oh my god, it’s so exhausting’ but I put it down to fact I was training,” she says. | “I had a terrible inkling in my first placement that I was pushing the rewards of working in a school a bit too far, I remember thinking ‘oh my god, it’s so exhausting’ but I put it down to fact I was training,” she says. |
| Of course, some new or recent r-ecruits will drop out of any employment. People make mistakes and change their minds. But Harris believes she should not have become one of those statistics. She volunteered in a school before training and enjoys the classroom, is enthusiastic about teaching and has no complaints about other staff, her year 4 pupils (aged eight to nine) or her salary. | |
| “It’s not because anyone you’re working with is being mean, it’s just that everyone is working within in a system. For my money that system is broken,” she says. “You’ll find goodhearted people who will say ‘this is ridiculous, isn’t it?’ but they’ll still do it and expect you to do it. It’s so much bigger than the people in it.” | “It’s not because anyone you’re working with is being mean, it’s just that everyone is working within in a system. For my money that system is broken,” she says. “You’ll find goodhearted people who will say ‘this is ridiculous, isn’t it?’ but they’ll still do it and expect you to do it. It’s so much bigger than the people in it.” |
| “Assessment for learning” is her particular bugbear. While the idea when the strategy was launched was to make feedback a continuous process, and an alternative to tests, Harris believes it has led to intrusive monitoring. “I hate it with a passion,” she says. “Ofsted want to see a dialogue that shows growth, and the amount of work that requires is incredible. I wouldn’t quite say it’s Kafkaesque but there are moments. It’s one of those situations where if everyone is doing something, it starts to feel normal.” | “Assessment for learning” is her particular bugbear. While the idea when the strategy was launched was to make feedback a continuous process, and an alternative to tests, Harris believes it has led to intrusive monitoring. “I hate it with a passion,” she says. “Ofsted want to see a dialogue that shows growth, and the amount of work that requires is incredible. I wouldn’t quite say it’s Kafkaesque but there are moments. It’s one of those situations where if everyone is doing something, it starts to feel normal.” |
| She is almost as scathing about the national curriculum, and believes the endless focus on maths and literacy means everything else is superficial. “Imagine you’ve got a soup that’s a bit rubbish, you think: ‘I’ll throw a few vegetables in, let’s throw some herbs in, this is still not really working so let’s throw in some beans’ – but something isn’t necessarily improved by adding more to it.” | She is almost as scathing about the national curriculum, and believes the endless focus on maths and literacy means everything else is superficial. “Imagine you’ve got a soup that’s a bit rubbish, you think: ‘I’ll throw a few vegetables in, let’s throw some herbs in, this is still not really working so let’s throw in some beans’ – but something isn’t necessarily improved by adding more to it.” |
| The sad thing about listening to Harris is that she sounds like a lively teacher. She talks about the thrill of watching her brightest pupils make new connections, but also of how important it is to teach children to be kind. She is thoughtful about the shape of the school day, calling the first and last sessions “nursery slopes”, and rails against the constant emphasis on how to improve. | The sad thing about listening to Harris is that she sounds like a lively teacher. She talks about the thrill of watching her brightest pupils make new connections, but also of how important it is to teach children to be kind. She is thoughtful about the shape of the school day, calling the first and last sessions “nursery slopes”, and rails against the constant emphasis on how to improve. |
| She is shocked by the animosity towards teachers expressed on social media, and believes this is allowed to continue only because the profession is dominated by women. “I don’t think men would stand for it for five minutes,” she says. | |
| The irony is that former education secretary Michael Gove, who drove through many of the changes that have left Harris so dissatisfied, wanted to recruit teachers like her, with strong academic qualifications (Harris has a first-class degree). But she says government changes have made the job unsuited to independent thinkers, and more attractive to passive form-fillers. | The irony is that former education secretary Michael Gove, who drove through many of the changes that have left Harris so dissatisfied, wanted to recruit teachers like her, with strong academic qualifications (Harris has a first-class degree). But she says government changes have made the job unsuited to independent thinkers, and more attractive to passive form-fillers. |
| That she doesn’t rule out working in another school, perhaps part-time or in a specialist role, is largely down to her enthusiasm for children: “I find them so hilarious, I love the way they’ll say whatever is on their minds, and I’m really going to miss those proper conversations that are really deep and weird.” | |
| Melanie Harris’s name and some details of her story have been changed | Melanie Harris’s name and some details of her story have been changed |
| And finally … one school that says it’s found the secret to teacher happiness | And finally … one school that says it’s found the secret to teacher happiness |