I'm not sure that I can sleep tonight - I actually went into school today. It's the holidays and we only get 13 weeks per year. Ok, so 13 weeks per year is great, don't get me wrong, but I am genuinely disappointed in myself for going in.
Why?
I think it's important to keep home/holidays totally free from work. During term I arrive at work at about 7.45am and leave at about 5pm. Put your small violins away because it's not sympathy I want, but I feel that I work hard enough for the money I'm paid, and a work/life balance is important. As a result I don't like to bring work home, I want to spend time with my family like most others would want to. The trouble was that I had a test to mark and other stuff to do, so I spent around 2-3 hours in school today. Fortunately my wife and child are away at the moment so it was only me I was putting out, but that's not the point.
The work/life balance was something that unions, government and anyone else that doesn't really matter were going on about relentlessly not so long ago. That's all changed with the arrival of a new government and a new Chief Inspector of Schools. Teachers should be grateful to have a job apparently (Michael Gove did actually say that), and the pressure to produce data that shows how wonderful you are as a classroom practitioner has increased hugely.
Is this a healthy situation? The answer is a resounding "No". All that will happen is that schools will be full of teachers who are too tired to do a proper job, a job they could do if they were not so tired. Term time pressure is huge, with the marking of books (I'll get onto that in a bit) and planning so-called "outstanding" lessons - "outstanding" in whose eyes? By the end of a half term the staff room is exceptionally quiet, either with a lack of numbers (staff planning in their classroom) or due to exhaustion of those in there at the time.
Marking books is a total waste of a lot of a teacher's time other than to show the students that you do actually look at what they are doing in class. We are supposed to write formative comments for every student, comments that inform them of what they need to do to move to the next level. This is fine, but very few students actually bother to read the comments written by their teacher, instead wanting to know what level/grade they are currently at. It is a similar thing to a teacher and their lesson observation feedback. Observations were supposed to help teachers improve their practice but due to the increasing influence and power of Ofsted, all a teacher's worried about is their grade. This is not healthy!
I thought that once I'd become a little more experienced I could live without taking books or planning at home. The opposite seems to be the case, as I now go in when I don't have to be there far more than I use to. I can't believe that I'm the only one either - no wonder that teachers' morale is at an all time low. Not that that bothers Sir Michael Wilshaw, Chief Inspector of Schools or Head of Ofsted in layman's terms, as he regards this as a sign that he is doing something right.
It depends what his objectives are (I presume it's written on the board, I'm too tired to see), if they are to force loads of teachers to leave the profession through various means, he's spot on and I offer him my congratulations.
Otherwise, he's an arse.
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