Not so long ago, I loved teaching. I was living in Australia, inspiring children’s fascination with the world around them and stretching my own creativity. When I married my British husband, I moved to the UK. Now we’re desperately waiting for his visa to come through so I can get back home to normal teaching.
I knew moving abroad wasn’t going to be easy, but I didn’t expect to find the British education system so exhausting and pressurised. Since we moved here, every hour has been spent marking, stressing about data and planning lessons. I don’t blame students or even other staff members for this. The responsibility lies at the door of one group: Ofsted (the “big O”).
There’s no equivalent to Ofsted in Australia; I only got monitored at university. Just like any other profession, experienced teachers are trusted to get on with their jobs. But here, in my “special measures” school, I’m constantly being checked, probed and poked.
When I first arrived I was taken aback by how much the leadership team in my school feared the inspectorate – and how much they put teachers under ridiculous scrutiny to please them. A member of management would come into my class, look around, frown and ask students demanding questions; what are you doing in this lesson? Do you know what your targets are? How are you progressing? Books would be brought out to make sure they were good enough and management would whisper in doorways, penning notes on everything from how I wrote on the whiteboard to how I dealt with distracted children.
With each inspection, I felt judged, belittled and unconfident. I no longer have faith in my creative ideas and have started keeping lessons safe (read: boring) rather than try new ideas out. I had planned a treasure hunt to teach about angles in one lesson, but when I heard that I was going to be observed I decided it wasn’t worth the worry of making sure everything was in place. Instead, we stuck to reading notes from a book.
Back home teachers share ideas and work together. I remember working on a unit for aboriginal studies and asking the principal for help. He gave me lots of brilliant suggestions, but also encouraged me to try out new ideas. That year we built aboriginal shelters, performed animal puppet shows and had a treasure hunt. But in the UK your peers only tell you what you’re doing wrong and even if colleagues are on your side, no one wants to speak out against senior management because they are afraid of losing their jobs.
Marking and planning is also dictated by the big O. In Australia, we plan for ourselves and only mark if there is a point to it; we certainly do not mark every piece of work. We mark how we like, with whatever colour we like and we use stickers and stamps. Yet in this country I am expected to stay late or take more than 100 books home to comb through. The children are not given stickers or stamps, there are no positive comments and we cannot mark in red pen because apparently the children will associate it with negative things.
I will leave this country with my creative spirit crushed, my ability to make lessons fun diminished and my confidence lost. I used to love teaching, but now each day is a struggle. I feel forced into a box, and bullied into a predetermined shape. There is no room for me to have my own unique teaching style, and I miss my old fun and quirky teacher self. I did not enter teaching to be constantly monitored and told I am not good enough.
I’m lucky to have an escape route and a better place to go, and I feel awful for those left behind. That’s why I am speaking out. To save education in this country teachers desperately need to be trusted, appreciated, acknowledged, and given the space to do what they do best: teach.
Join the Guardian Teacher Network for lesson resources, comment and job opportunities, direct to your inbox.
Originally published by The Guardian