As the academic year goes by and concern grows about filling teaching vacancies, the sales pitch for artificial intelligence (AI), together with claims about its ability to fulfil pedagogical functions, has become more inflated. It’s a sign of the times that such claims might not be dismissed until such time as the robots demonstrate their inability to take on a real class.

And now, like many other Tes readers, I find myself aghast at the latest attempt to fill the gaps left by teachers departing their classrooms. The advocacy of “lessons in a box” by the former chief inspector of schools, Sir Michael Wilshaw, seems an even more desperate measure than the robots.

If he had read the latest research on the stages of development of teachers’ lesson-planning, he might have realised just how far his solution is selling pupils short. This is not because the “lesson plans in a box” are in themselves necessarily deficient; nor am I suggesting that supply teachers are incapable. But classes taught in such a way will be at a severe disadvantage compared with those taught in a school with a stable staff of experienced teachers, and the inequality of provision will become worse still.

In the June 2018 English in Education journal, an article entitled “The Invisible Plan” by Professor Andy Goodwyn and Dr Linda Enow shows the developmental stages of planning and implementation in the classroom. They outline a five-stage professional journey: from beginner, to advanced beginner, competence, proficiency and expert stage.

They suggest that it takes five to 10 years to move from the rigid planning and almost unswerving application of detailed, almost-scripted lessons to the mid-point competent stage, where teachers have developed confidence stemming from their experience across groups, stages and even specifications. Such teachers will be more consistent in achieving high-quality teaching and will move from materials-focus to student-focus.

The implications of these findings alone should move retention of teachers to the top of Sir Michael’s priorities. The students he is currently working for will be getting the equivalent of a series of beginner teachers time after time if he can only look to “lessons in a box”. However good they are, supply teachers don’t normally have time to build relationships or to acquire curriculum-exam-based expertise in order to make their material more individually focused. If they aren’t specialists, they won’t have the depth of knowledge to move very far away from the set plans.

'Just filling vacancies isn't enough'

If we consider that almost a quarter of teachers who qualified in 2011 had left the profession by 2017 then it’s not just that we are a quarter down on numbers; we have squandered the kind of expertise that takes years to develop. Just filling vacancies is not enough.

Goodwyn and Enow’s research used think-aloud protocols, where teachers talked them through the thinking and decision-making processes of lesson-planning and implementation in the classroom. These interviews demonstrate just how intricate and complex teaching is. At the fourth stage, proficient teachers become more flexible and “refine” their “input”…“often experimenting to develop excellent outcomes”, whereas in the earlier two stages they would be avoiding such risks.

Those of us who have been in the profession long enough know how valuable such experimentation is in advancing the curriculum, and how fortunate we are to have such flexible teachers in our departments. It means that specification-change is more fluid:  if one exam board doesn’t provide a good enough service, we can move to another with minimal fuss.

Most of all, it means that students benefit enormously from more wide-ranging discussion and sophisticated interactions, a more varied diet of lessons with anything from direct instruction to independent group-work.

If we have Goodwyn and Enow’s “expert teachers” in our midst who are able to accommodate “constant spontaneity and fluid performance”, then their classrooms will contain a whole variety of methods and material within lessons, not just in a sequence of lessons in a fixed scheme of work.

So if Sir Michael Wilshaw is looking for a solution to the problems of providing high-quality teaching in his school, he might look again at his mechanistic materials-based solution. He would be better off importing an expert teacher to work alongside his staff to provide support in refining off-the-peg lessons, creating more varied materials as well as observing and coaching teachers in the classroom.

For far too long the educational establishment has looked to processes and procedures to keep pace with other countries. Too much emotional and financial capital has been invested in managerial systems and quality control in particular. Teachers at all stages of their careers realise that they cannot maintain two dialogues – one with the accountability system and one with the students in the classroom.

We need to look again at the remit of the classroom teacher, acknowledging the complexity and depth of the expertise which can make a genuine improvement to the lives of all our students. AI and off-the-peg-lessons are poor substitutes. 

Let’s get the balance of the job description right so that we prioritise the elements that are really crucial to keep teachers in the classroom for longer than a couple of years. That way we will cut expensive, unpredictable supply budgets.

Studies such as "The Invisible Plan" show more tellingly than any skilled negotiator the true worth of the experienced professional. So let’s actually pay the right price for the skills, knowledge and emotional investment of the professionals at the front of the classroom.

Yvonne Williams is a head of English and drama in the south of England