After two years of working internationally, I am returning to the UK education system this September.

And as I prepare to leave my Milanese flat for the final time, with open suitcases and half-packed boxes strewn around my feet, I am overcome by an overwhelming sense to stop sifting my belongings into the usual three piles titled ‘keep’, ‘bin’ and ‘donate’, and reflect on my decision to return to teach in the UK.

Like many teachers, having marched to the beat of an academic calendar for most of my life, September presents the true start to a fresh year and with it an opportunity to formulate a new year’s resolution.

An international mission

I began my career in 2013 teaching in UK state schools. But for the past two years, I have lived and worked in Italy. I have found international employment to offer the professional climate I so keenly craved when working in England.

A greater teaching carte blanche, lower bureaucratic and administrative pressures and a healthier work/life balance.

Despite these considerable benefits, my heart has always resided in UK schooling and my international experience was a planned research mission, not an irreversible move.

I hoped to learn from a different education system in the hope that the experience would broaden my knowledge and help to improve my practice as a teacher and aspirational future school leader.

Additionally, I am excited to rejoin a front-line public service where all processes are under adjustment and review.

Upbeat on the storm

Although returning to the UK feels like the calm before the storm, I remain sanguine.

I am looking forward to re-engaging with the important business of improving life chances for the most vulnerable and to be back ‘inside the tent’ present to effect change.

I am also optimistic that the pandemic will prove to be more than simply a period of tragic disruption, but will act as a catalyst for systemic change across society, avoiding a return to the status quo.

Recent high profile exposure has heightened public understanding of an educational system requiring urgent reform and it is imperative that this opportunity is seized upon to implement widespread improvements.

Having taught the International Baccalaureate (IB) for the last two years, I have witnessed a more rounded and relevant curriculum that better prepares students with a set of transferable personal and academic skills suitable for a rapidly changing world.

As such reforming both curriculum and examination processes within England to break away from high-pressure rote learning that prioritises the regurgitation of information must be a priority for educational refinement if this pandemic is to act as a lever for change.

Evolving learners

School closures have also highlighted a necessity for learners to work differently as well as independently and the curriculum should be shaped to enable this, developing greater agency through student-driven projects that promote academic ownership.

Additionally, a systemic change to the current examination system will free up additional teaching time, enable student appraisals that are broader and may well contribute towards reducing academic pressure that can act as a catalyst for wellbeing and mental health.

This could be executed through blended, internal formative and summative assessments that also includes oral evaluations, extended projects and practical tasks.

Although the algorithm used to calculate GCSE and A-level results this academic year has been widely criticised and evidently requires significant adjustment, the silver lining is that the process has demonstrated teachers’ and schools’ ability to effectively assess, rank and grade students without external summative exams.

This premise doesn’t contradict reliable national standardisation or appropriate accountability but shows that when implemented comprehensively it empowers skilled professionals to enact their well-honed judgements.

New academic year resolutions

So before returning to my more immediate challenge of fitting everything I own into two hold luggage cases and a cabin bag, I have set myself a new academic year’s resolution: to be patient for these aspired structural changes to take place and to stretch the boundaries within the current parameters to ensure my teaching develops students transferable skills, academic independence and breadth of assessment.

If in August 2021 I have also kept some of my recently acquired European joie de vivre, then the year will have been a success.

David Fitzgerald is a pastoral leader and secondary teacher who has taught for 7 years