In response to @ChrisChivers2...

I read an excellent and insightful blogpost from Chris Chivers (@chrischivers2) today. In this post, he posed and answered four questions:
What got you into teaching?
If you are/have been a headteacher; what was your motivation?
What would you do to improve the current system?

What keeps you in teaching?

I enjoyed his post so much, I thought I would try to answer the questions myself because this time of year seems right for reflection.

What got me into teaching?
My answer to this question is awful but a lack of something else to do. I was on the verge on finishing university, couldn't afford to stay on for further study and didn’t have any burning career ambitions. I had spent a lot of my uni days working on play schemes and enjoyed it so thought I would try teaching. I had flirted with the idea of primary school teaching whilst doing my A levels but a degree in Psychology and Philosophy seemed better suited to secondary. So I applied to do my PGCE, was pretty awful at it, scraped a pass and got a job.
What really got me into teaching though was my first school. If you can imagine what a rubbish trainee looks like as an NQT in a not-easy school, I was it. But my mentors, my colleagues, the leadership team, the dinner ladies, the cleaners, everyone just helped me. And I got better. And then I started to love it. And at that point, that's when I got into teaching.

If you are/have been a headteacher; what was your motivation?
This is easy. I am not a headteacher. But sometimes I think I would like to be. Then I realise that I am not that person and I probably won’t ever make it that far. But on those days when I want to be it's because I have a compelling belief about what education should look like for every single child, regardless of postcode. There are lots of things that I don’t like about education and where it is going and the approaches some school leaders take, but it makes me want to fight it from the inside. So, I am not a headteacher and sometimes I want to be and sometimes I think I would be rubbish if I was, but if I ever am, it will be so I can create a school that reflects my beliefs.

What would you do to improve the current system?
I would fight the power that Ofsted has over some leaders. I don’t hate Ofsted but I intensely dislike school leaders who make decisions that affect their children and staff because of Ofsted. We need an objective observer, someone who can come in and help us critique ourselves and figure out how to be better but we shouldn’t be slaves to it. And we shouldn’t be breaking teachers because we are enslaved.
I would hand data back to teachers as a tool to help them, not a stick to beat them with. And not just data… Where is the trust? We need to trust teachers to deliver their subjects effectively and free them up to focus on what matters not bog them down with mindless accountability measures.
And I would grab teacher training by the shoulders and shake it! It is so hard to figure out how to be a teacher – PGCE, School Direct, TeachFirst, apply to the school, apply to the university, it just goes on, and it shouldn’t be that hard. Quality training for teachers – realise that it's a tough profession and develop a training programme that will prepare them and sustain them. Think about visions and values and resilience as well as the other stuff. And tell them that sometimes education is not the problem, that you might just be in the wrong school. I love working with trainee teachers but I understand why they leave sometimes and it makes me sad.

What keeps you in teaching?
I love it. I am a deputy/assistant headteacher at the moment and so I am not a proper teacher and honestly I am not sure I could be. The demands on classroom teachers are ridiculous. But I won’t leave because I believe things can be better and I would like to help make them better, which I can do in a leadership role. And I hope I never leave the classroom altogether because honestly, the best part of my day is when I am teaching kids. That's what keeps me there.

Comments

  1. Good to read this, Nikki!

    Re: headship, and your comment: “Then I realise that I am not that person and I probably won’t ever make it that far”, I just have to say that there isn't really such a thing as "that person". If you were a head (and from what I've read of things you've written I should say that you definitely could be) you would do it in your own way - it is possible to lead a school and to be true to who you are and what you believe.

    And when you say, of headship, "sometimes I want to be and sometimes I think I would be rubbish if I was", I must just say that, when a head, I had days when I thought, "I'm actually quite good at this..." followed by days where I thought, "Who am I kidding?! I'm barely getting away with this, and someone will find me out!" I actually think this is quite normal, and a degree of self-doubt and humility can make us BETTER leaders.

    Would love to talk this through with you sometime, and if I can ever help in any way, please just get in touch.

    Have a great Christmas!

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    Replies
    1. Thanks for this Jill - you are always incredibly supportive and it is much appreciated!

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