Reading of the sentimental gush and sanctimonious backslapping at the so-called teachers’ Oscars (TES and Friday, November 2), I couldn’t help thinking of a beauty competition in an anorexia clinic. If ever there was an idea at the wrong time this is it. Until the reality of teachers’ working lives changes, the Teaching Awards ceremony will languish at the bottom of the league - a lit match in a dark universe.
Lachrymose award ceremonies cannot overcome the decade-long discourse of derision, the “naming and shaming”; the imposition of a Gradgrind-style, joyless, utilitarian curriculum; blanket surveillance by Ofsted inspectors searching for failing teachers.
Worthy as the concept is, the awards may reinforce or even justify failure. When success is celebrated, it’s on the basis of, “we’re brilliant but the rest of you are crap” - for instance, the shiny beacon schools.
I know of one dedicated teacher of 20 years’ standing who was told by her ambitious head that she was only an “average” teacher and not up to the standards of a beacon school. Life’s under-achievers (most of us) are made to feel that we are not worthy.
If the Government is serious about staunching the haemorrhage of teachers, it must address the crucial issues of pay, hours and conditions. There remains little chance of that while we have the crazy dichotomy of Blair’s infatuation with all things private alongside the Stalinisation of public services - public condemnation and humiliation in the face of failure; setting of impossible targets; the suppression of dissent; delegation of blame; the promotion of dubious “model” institutions.
The Teaching Awards are the final part of the jigsaw as a few Stakhanovite hero-workers are hailed as the solution to all our problems.
And how many repeats are there of the Science Teacher of the Year, who left the profession, burnt-out, two years later? Is there no chance of a they-tried-to-maintain-their-sanity-by-not-working-cripplingly-long-hours-an d-seeing-their-family award? With a hefty pay increase for all teachers?
At best the Teaching Awards are well meaning and well intentioned, at worst they are a patronising, cynical PR stunt by New Labour’s luvvies.
The true heroes and heroines are those who manage to hack it for decades - often under-resourced, facing “challenging” children, under-paid, under-valued. And there will be a wry smile from these teachers, that some of the award winners have already left the trenches for the security of the field hospitals in the rear.
The Teaching Awards are the equivalent of sending a terminally ill patient a get well card.
Richard Knights, Liverpool
