Dear ministers,
After 21 years of teaching I am now at the point where I am considering my future as a teacher. I never believed that I would get to this point in my career. The tipping point came for me after the announcement by Nicky Morgan of yet more testing of Year 6 pupils - this time of times tables. What a lovely welcome back to the new term and 2016.
As a teaching deputy head and Year 6 teacher, I have given teaching more than my “pound of flesh”. I don’t know what is expected of me any more. Changes in government policy at such short notice have very far-reaching effects on morale and teachers’ core values. They have impacted greatly on me. Not only do I no longer know what is expected of me but I also don’t believe in what we are being directed to do. This confuses me and makes me very, very sad.
I have never complained about workload and pay as a teacher over the years. The issue has always been about working conditions. I challenge anyone to work in a system that changes almost termly and without the criteria being made available on how I will be judged as a teacher. Periodic threats to remove teachers from their posts demoralises and undermines every one of my fellow professionals.
I am writing not in the hope that any reply will placate me or reassure me or that policy will miraculously change. I never believed that I could be made to feel this way. However, sadly for me I have reached the point where only my individual actions count. I am at the point where I have to consider making my own personal and moral stance against a system that makes me feel confused, bullied and lost.
I have no issue with the testing of times tables. I have an issue with the simplification of a wider concern through yet another test. Alongside this the constant threats and bullying that hang over me and the profession. I feel bullied by a system I no longer believe in. I have had enough of gap analysis, booster groups, study groups, cramming, pushing, prodding, testing, revising, tracking, vulnerable this, vulnerable that, watching children cry, struggle and question a system that alienates their true strengths and qualities. I wonder whatever happened to educating the whole child. Add this to all my other daily and weekly tasks, threats to sack me, judge me, hold me to account on this or that are now wearing thin.
Therefore I have two simple questions I would like answering honestly and sincerely:
- Why hasn’t the profession been consulted on the introduction of on-screen multiplication tests?
- When will we receive the criteria by which we will be judged and held to account by this new test?
I look forward to your reply.
Regards,
Alex Ellis
A Demoralised Teacher
Alex Ellis is a pseudonym. He is a deputy headteacher at a primary school in the East Midlands
