The Oxford English Dictionary opted for “toxic” as its 2018 word of the year, partly because they reported a 45 per cent increase in people searching for the word.

This little bit of data will speak volumes to teachers, although I suspect many of them would have plumped for “crisis”. A widely reported school funding crisis has joined forces with the teacher recruitment and retention crisis, to make quite an unholy trinity this Christmas. And just to put the cherry on the crisis cake, the BBC’s documentary series School has been delivering a warts-and-all view of what budget constraint really looks like, at least for one group of schools.

Who better to bring some festive cheer than the singer Charlotte Church? She made an appearance at the SSAT national conference and promptly told teachers they’re doing it all wrong, shortly before global thought leaders and some of the world’s leading policymakers, business leaders, philanthropists, educators and innovators gathered in Hong Kong for the second annual Yidan Prize Summit to tell teachers: “You’re doing it all wrong.”

Why is this? How come so many people employed outside the profession feel not just able to tell the professionals what to do, but to do so lavishly and without the least embarrassment? The annual events calendar in Dubai for thought leaders and innovators must be getting a bit crowded.

There are two connected reasons. One is that the profession is indeed in a kind of crisis, a crisis of confidence. I know of course it’s impossible to generalise too starkly, and that there are thousands of teachers doing a flawlessly professional job day after day, in schools children are privileged to attend. But the messages the public receive don’t come from them.

They come not just from BBC documentary makers, but from union leaders, other representative bodies and prominent figures with an agenda. One ex-primary school headteacher now MP, Thelma Walker, proclaimed at a recent conference, “teachers don’t believe in the job anymore”. Ms Walker certainly doesn’t. She now sits on the Commons Education Select Committee.

My response is that it depends entirely on what you think the job is. Which leads to the second reason why so many individuals and organisations, regardless of their experience, aren’t the least afraid to tell teachers what they should be doing.

The entire political message that schools are the key drivers of social mobility is a bandwagon few people wanting to feel good can resist. As some of the professionals at the sharp end in school have timidly tried to say, they can only do so much.

That timidity is the real problem. It is how a crisis of confidence manifests itself.

The social mobility message has been so consistent, so unanimous, so seductive, that teachers themselves have been conned into believing it. A contemporary political message, by the way, is one entirely designed to gain your vote, nothing more, nothing less.

The very organisations and individuals who should be exuding professional confidence, exposing the innovators and thought leaders for the self-absorbed fantasists they so often are, while demanding the job is kept within practical, intelligent parameters, opt instead to preen and parrot the politicians. Presumably, like Ms Walker, because they’d prefer to be one.

So here’s my Christmas recipe to restore professional confidence which, like all good recipes, isn’t short on seasoning.

The change has to start with individual teachers. Your leaders think they have better things to do. One of the most successful businesses in the UK is the Timpson chain. Its company vision is not high-minded, it is to put the money in the till and provide great customer service.

If you want to be treated like a professional you have to look like one. If you want to be a professional anything, you have to know how to read a set of accounts or a balance sheet and manage a budget. So much stress in schools is generated because teachers think money is someone else’s job. It’s just there, like turning on the tap. So anyone out there responsible for designing a teacher training course that doesn’t include basic financial management and budgeting, do something about it. Don’t kid yourself you’re turning out teaching professionals until you do.

However high up the scale you may already be, never indulge in nepotism or mates rates. Everything a school provides has a cost and the children inevitably pay that cost if you don’t recruit, reward and seek external advice, on merit and experience.

Finally, stop volunteering and expecting newly qualified staff to do so. It’s a job: not a favour.

Joe Nutt is an educational consultant and author. To read more of his columns, view his back catalogue.