If I could go back to my first years in the classroom, I would join a subject association immediately. Current generic training covers how the brain learns, how to keep control in the classroom and motivate pupils, but rarely do our subjects get the attention they deserve once we get into the classroom.
It was memories of reading Middlemarch and The Secret Garden in class that brought me into the profession - as well as the inspiration of To Sir, with Love. Yes, teaching has my heart and mind, but English has my soul.
If like me, you need your fellow enthusiasts around you then it’s a good time to get involved with one or more associations. It changed my practice and enriched my career in so many ways.
So what will your subject association offer you, and how can you make the most of it?
A community of practice
Teaching is a lonely job. There will be many dark nights of the soul as you struggle to fulfil the competing demands of vocal stakeholders. Your school and university, Teach First or School Centred Initial Teacher Training (SCITT) will provide a circumscribed space where your first learning happens, but you may get stuck in a rut unless you are in a position to encounter alternative ways of seeing the subject and teaching it.
You need a wider support network that will provide professional discussion and human warmth. Subject associations are national organisations with international links: networks of practitioners and theorists at all levels from the freshest recruit to experienced academics who will welcome you and share their many insights.
As your confidence and experience grow, you can participate in committees that give you deeper insight into key stages and teacher training.
Affordable, extensive and intensive CPD
Days or weekends in new surroundings at conferences absorbing numerous sessions on topics that you have chosen is far more powerful than even the strongest after school sessions. Guest speakers often include high profile people whose passion and expertise are infectious. And of course, you will make friends, as I did at my first conference.
Teaching resources and materials
For the time-strapped teacher, desperately looking for something to bridge a learning gap or a way of introducing new material or skills, the resources are a gold mine. There are lots of strategies, tips and even sequences of lessons to tap into - all volunteered by other professionals. Teachers who have shared my subject association’s magazines from school have successfully tried out the ideas and strategies presented in the articles. You too could offer new ideas and share your best practice within these pages.
Access to subject-based research
The best journals showcase international as well as domestic research that is directly relevant to the subject discipline. The best articles question prevailing orthodoxies. For me, the most useful reading addresses the ongoing debate about assessment: formal and informal practice, the accuracy of examination marking and how far national criteria embodied in the national curriculum and exam board mark schemes best describe how pupils progress.
Become an expert
The more you participate in your subject through writing for their peer-reviewed journals, sharing your research and supporting their committees, the more you learn from the activity and the joint enterprise - and the more you understand about the politics of education. The English Association offered me my first opportunity to write an article for publication. The sense of accomplishment and the ego boost of seeing my ideas reach a wider audience were satisfying side products. This experience provided the groundwork for all subsequent writings. It made me a more reflective teacher as I make sense out of my reading and adapt other practices to suit my context.
Subject associations are excellent training grounds for anyone seeking advancement within their discipline. Currently, so much professional development feels as if it is being done to teachers. In your subject association, you direct your professional path and find greater personal fulfilment.
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)
