What do exam study leave and the latest Bond film, No Time to Die, have in common?
Both were due in April 2020 but were delayed until 2022 because of the coronavirus pandemic.
As the corridors empty and the dinner queues diminish, so, too, do some of the period-by-period demands for teachers.
Unfortunately, study leave 2022 may not be the oasis many dreamed of during the long Covid winters. What could be valuable time set aside for personal, professional, and school development often ends up being eaten away, even without a global pandemic in the mix.
Of the teachers from various schools who I recently surveyed about plans for this year’s study leave, a large majority said they would be concentrating on a backlog of paperwork and deadlines for various reports.
More than half mentioned that they would be focusing on improving lesson resources produced at short notice for myriad approaches adopted during Covid, including socially distanced learning, home learning, online learning and blended learning.
While No Time to Die had all the iconic trappings we’ve come to expect from the Bond franchise, this year’s study leave feels a little different from the 2019 prequel. If it were a film genre, it might end up being a tragicomedy - one where the well-intentioned protagonists have an over-committed calendar, underwhelming success and there’s a smattering of tears and laughter. And the title? No Time At All seems pretty apt.
A few respondents to my survey mentioned that fleeting attention would be given to tasks relating to the school improvement plan. Almost all expected that covering lessons, because of staff absences and diminished budgets for additional supply staff, would occupy most of their time.
A storyline where workloads are high, and time and resources are limited, is cemented in teachers’ lives, in as predictable a fashion as any Bond-film trope. And when time is limited but demands are high, it is often educational quality that suffers.
A 2021 report by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development highlighted that Scottish teachers currently have more class-contact time than many of their contemporaries in other countries. The SNP government has promised to increase teacher numbers and provide teachers with an extra 90 minutes of non-class contact time per week. It will be interesting to assess the impact this has on Scotland’s attainment standards.
A minority of teachers in my survey said that they were planning longer lunches and more time to work with colleagues during study leave. The significance of positive working relationships became evident during lockdown: it is important to allow time to socialise and ensure colleagues have time to catch up with each other.
The benefits are not limited to teacher wellbeing: Goddard and Goddard’s 2007 study directly linked pupil attainment and quality working relationships in school as an enabling factor. However, Sawyer and Rimm-Kaufman (2007) suggest that teachers are often left feeling that collaborative practice is undervalued by school leaders.
Times have been challenging, but the commitment and will of Scottish teachers has not diminished yet. Action, love and empathy are always straining to triumph over adversity in our schools.
As Bond villain Felix Leiter says, it’s harder to tell the good from the bad, the villains from the heroes these days. Let’s try to make sure that study leave 2022 feels like a force for good in teachers’ lives - that study leave doesn’t flip sides to become yet another reminder of how Covid has eroded opportunities for planning, reflection and time with colleagues.
Kirsten Colquhoun is a teacher and MEd graduate in Scotland. She tweets @kirstcolquhoun
