“You. Belligerent. Oaf.” This is what my Year 9 history teacher would say - with a piercing look over his lowered glasses - whenever I, or anyone else, insisted that we had “left our homework at home”.

From my English teacher, on the other hand, a simple “get it to me tomorrow” followed by a sympathetic smile was enough to make the point. My geography teacher set homework, but never chased it; and my Year 11 science teacher never set homework at all and instead motivated us to revise throughout the year of our own accord. “You’re doing it for you, not me,” she’d say.

Throughout my career, I have continually worked with school leaders who espouse a need for consistency across a school - be it around homework, behaviour or teaching - as if having a lack thereof means doing a disservice to our pupils.

Of course, consistency is not all bad: there has to be a strong degree of uniformity to maintain boundaries at a school.

However, the endeavour to get everyone teaching in the same way risks crippling two of the most important traits of any good teacher: their personality and their ability to build relationships.

Obviously, we would never advocate name-calling as a punishment for not completing homework, but the history teacher who called me an “oaf” was the same teacher who once showed my timeline to the whole class as an example of excellent work. Had he robotically given me a merit point instead of this, I think I would have laughed. It wasn’t in his nature to smile and give lots of merit points, and he didn’t need to. He achieved objectives in his own way. The genuine way he praised my work still resonates with me.

In defence of inconsistency 

If there is any kind of consistency for which a school should advocate, it should be for the consistency of an individual teacher rather than consistency between teachers. My English teacher gave everyone a second chance for homework and my geography teacher never chased anyone’s homework. We knew what to expect and we were treated equally: another trait of a strong teacher.  

Whether this focus on consistency is motivated by the irrational need to micro-manage staff, or the misguided belief that pupils will somehow benefit from all teachers doing their job in the same way, my experiences both as a pupil and as a teacher indicate that teachers need the freedom to be individuals.

When my maths teacher wanted us to be quiet, he’d scratch his fingernails against the blackboard. My art teacher was notorious for giving detentions for the slightest whisper, and my chemistry teacher taught us ionic bonding with nothing but a cup of coffee in her left hand and a board marker in her right. Had these teachers all been completely consistent with one another, I don’t think I’d still remember them.

Ancient wisdom tells us that “it takes a village to raise a child”, so let’s not deny our pupils the cognitive and social benefits they will likely receive by interacting with various adult personalities, all of which are genuine. We owe it to our pupils to be inconsistent.

Omar Akbar is a science teacher and author of The Unofficial Teacher’s Manual: what they don’t teach you at training college