The spring term is a make-or-break term for school leaders.
It’s the peak term for the recruitment of teachers and few leaders will be facing into it without an element of trepidation.
As a country we have consistently failed to recruit enough teachers, and the list of shortage subjects grows ever longer. One former head I know (a teacher in a shortage subject) joked that there was one teacher available in that subject in any given year in London and whoever got to them first was a lucky head.
In the independent sector we are shielded to some extent from such stresses as having to withdraw subjects due to the lack of available teachers. I have only rarely as a head needed to persuade a maths teacher that they might like to teach computing, for example. I count myself lucky, despite some close calls. But even so, it’s essential that all school leaders think about how to weather the next few rocky years of recruitment.
“What impressed me most was the consistency of provision.”
It was a learning walk in an academy which made me rethink my views about teacher recruitment. Previously I had responded to the crisis by being faster and more uncompromising than the competition in my search for outstanding teachers. I treated the search like an arms race and generally I got lucky.
But as I watched these lessons in the academy what impressed me most was not inspirational individuals but the consistency of provision across the learning walk. There were teachers whom I could tell were instinctively stronger than others and I wondered if they felt a little caged in by the prescriptive nature of the approach to teaching.
But in classrooms with less experienced and non-specialist teachers the power of the consistent approach was evident. Their pupils were making good progress just as they were in the experienced teachers’ classrooms.
“We told them NOT to write learning objectives on the board.”
I concluded that I wouldn’t want such a prescriptive framework for my own school, but I went back and appointed a head of teaching induction. Their remit was to inject more detail into ensuring that new teachers understood not just the principles, culture and pedagogical standards of the school, but also benefited from explicit instruction about to how to teach in our framework.
For example we told them NOT to write learning objectives on the board, and NOT to start their KS4 lessons by outlining the GCSE syllabus, but instead to start with a moment of awe and wonder. Ironically, we were providing explicit instruction on how to loosen up, something which new teachers to the school sometimes found difficult to do.
“Feedback will not involve chastising them for not marking in three different colours.”
Many talented teachers in independent schools I have worked in cherish the trust that is placed in them and as a result magic happens in their classrooms. They certainly aren’t left just to “crack on”: they will be observed regularly and given feedback but that feedback will not involve chastising them for not marking in three different colours.
But what happens if we can no longer recruit teachers talented enough to operate within a framework of principles rather than very explicit pedagogical direction? The likely outcome would be a mixed picture of teaching with some outstanding teachers and some much weaker teaching. Such a picture would reflect poorly on the school’s leadership and do a disservice to pupils.
“What happens if we can no longer recruit teachers talented enough to operate within a framework of principles?”
In the years to come having precise processes for teacher induction, an open-door culture of lesson observation will be essential mitigations. As will programmes such as instructional coaching focused on improving the detail of individual teacher performance, and explicit approaches to pedagogy. And perhaps retraining in a second subject might be the intellectual challenge a teacher of some years’ experience needs.
Staff professional development will become an area of competitive difference between schools, not just to attract talent but also to grow it to ensure consistent quality of teaching.
At North London Collegiate School we are setting up an educational Innovation Hub so that talented teachers can have opportunities to deepen and develop the art and craft of the very best job in the world.