Education secretary Gavin Williamson’s assurance to the heads’ union the Association of School and College Leaders that doing ”more to build on the prestige of the teaching profession” will be at the core of future education reforms could well send the profession running for cover.

Call me a cynic, but I’ve heard such ministerial aspirations so many times during my career, going back to a government intention in 1998 “to raise the image, morale and status of the profession”. 

The key problem is what this “prestige” means and what it will look like. To be in a prestigious profession means high status and autonomy, where professional judgement is respected. Sadly, measures intended to deliver nirvana to teachers usually consist of more onerous teaching standards and heavier workload. 

The more a government says it wants to make the profession more attractive, the more its actions achieve the exact opposite.

Teacher ‘prestige’ and extra workload

Sadly, there’s a mind-numbing banality about Gavin Williamson’s vision that: “The core of change is about supporting teachers to drive up quality and standards in the classroom and making sure the best can be even better still.”

Are we talking about quality-controlling an assembly line or improving an education system?

At face value, such rhetoric seems unexceptionable. After all, who would advocate lower-quality work and chaotic classrooms? But “quality” and “standards” have for too long promoted the visible outputs and the activity of monitoring over the holistic activity of educating pupils.

Going down the cul-de-sac of performance management has distracted us all. Too great a premium is put on the short-term indications that learning has taken place and on the graphs purporting to show progress - which may be nothing of the sort. Or, alternatively - as we all know from a former head of Ofqual, Dame Glenys Stacey - a student’s final exam result is accurate to one grade either side of their final grade.

The worst outcome of successive government interventions to raise the status of teaching is that the profession has sunk lower in everyone’s esteem. Prior to the Covid crisis, we had a serious recruitment and retention problem - and will do so again once the graduate market picks up. 

A recent report showed that the experience of the pandemic has led to “more than a third of teachers losing enthusiasm for the job”. The shifts to online learning and blended learning have taken their toll, but school staff have not just been doing their jobs under increasingly difficult conditions - they’ve been doing everybody else’s, too, as gaps in policy and provision appear.

The education secretary may be momentarily grateful for the incredible job that heads and teachers have done; they have saved the government’s bacon. But it’s been a thankless, low-status task. 

For Gavin Williamson: an effective model for change

So before Gavin Williamson repeats the mistakes of the past, now would be the right time to set out a more effective model for change. It’s probably easiest to remember it if we use the acronym “prestige” as follows:

P for Profession 

Teachers belong to a profession - not a workforce. The value of being a professional is that you have the necessary status to do a job that will often put you at odds with a number of your stakeholders, particularly when deciding final student grades this summer.

R for Respect 

It can be soul-destroying when you’ve given everything to the teaching week, only to read a destructive article hammering teachers. Media critics are not usually best placed to provide meaningful comments: often they’re following the wider political agenda of their publication and are, at best, partially informed. 

This does not mean that teachers are above being criticised (by the right people) - but we are entitled to a fair press. 

E for Education first

During the pandemic, schools have expanded their operations and overstretched their human resources. Then there’s the exhausting bureaucracy of monitoring. It’s time to strip back teachers’ remit, so that pedagogy can once more be the focus of our efforts.

S for Support…of the right kind

Professionals in a prestigious role should have greater autonomy over their professional development. They need excellent training. Too much time and money has been wasted on passing fads and sessions, just to make up the hours.

T for Trust in teachers

Teachers know their pupils and their context. They recognise what research is most relevant to their situation. They experiment when they see a compelling case to do so - but they are guided, first and foremost, by their finely honed professional judgement. 

I for Independence 

As long as teachers are seen as assembly-line operatives, we will not be part of a prestigious profession. Teachers need to be unshackled from ministerial dominance and constant directives, so that we can truly take charge of our classrooms. 

G for Grading

I have included grading here because of this year’s arrangements for GCSE and A level. 

A prestigious profession does make decisions about important life-defining grades. It did so in the past and can do so again. But it can only do so fairly if it is distanced from parents and candidates.

E is for an Era when targets are jettisoned and education is about the whole child 

You may say I’m a dreamer - but I hope I’m not the only one. 

We have seen far-reaching revolutions in teaching and incredible things achieved this year. It has come at a high cost to the teachers who have supported their communities throughout. They have earned the right now to work in a prestigious profession where they are truly valued and where their judgements are properly respected. 

Yvonne Williams has spent nearly 34 years in the classroom, and 22 years as a head of English. She has contributed chapters on workload and wellbeing to Mentoring English Teachers in the Secondary School, edited by Debbie Hickman (Routledge)