How we can cut the levels of NQT burnout

Improved support could end NQT burnout: new teachers need both the nuts and bolts of teaching and pedagogical expertise
31st May 2018, 1:57pm

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How we can cut the levels of NQT burnout

https://www.tes.com/magazine/archive/how-we-can-cut-levels-nqt-burnout
The Government Has Launched A New Teacher Recruitment Strategy

Like so many, Mark Heaton alludes to the need for regular professional development and support. And like them, he misses the main problem which is less to do with quantity and more to do with the quality of provision.

Teachers receive a lot of training on the five days allotted to Inset. Constant developments in child protection and health and safety means that a large slice of this training is spent keeping up-to-date with legal and professional duties in these fields.

The increased use of IT for registration, record keeping, resource ordering, trip planning and lesson delivery also absorbs a lot of time. The other essential area is from exam boards usually via webinars after school, which can include the whole department learning together after school. Feedback on exams from the most recent series contains a lot of useful material to direct teaching and learning.  

Some trusts develop their teachers’ repertoire of skills and strategies through short regular Inset in the mornings before school and expect them to absorb their new learning into lessons by experimenting and reporting back.   

But it’s not always inspiring. These approaches are often off-the-peg courses with set ways of doing things. Overall, too much time is given over to ways of enabling teachers to perform the legal, bureaucratic and exam-related tasks. In the process, Inset can become something “done to” passive recipients.

If we want to retain teachers then we need to professionalise them, not just upskill them. So, how do we do that?

See teachers as individuals 

Teachers are individuals with varied needs. Such differentiation is hardly easy: not everyone progresses at the same rate over the course of a career. Line managers need to be perceptive in determining what would be most enabling for their staff.

Principles and practice of lessons and curriculum-planning are vital. Purveyors of textbooks and online resources may argue that teachers cannot single-handedly produce the shiny (and expensive) resources that publishers can. Perhaps not - but take away skills of planning and the teacher loses sight of the pedagogical know-how needed to bridge the next gap between specifications as the publishing world gears up for the next run of books.

Teachers understand and engage far more critically with the structuring of learning through their own attempts at amalgamating materials for lessons.  Planning with colleagues and sharing in well-structured sessions gives them far more insight than a lecture would do. Professionals need experience to develop the discrimination to understand what is good and to challenge what is selling their pupils short.  

Widen new teachers’ perspectives

NQTs need to see beyond the walls of their establishment. One of the most promising recommendations is the appointment of a mentor. Whilst there is a lot to be said for having someone on the premises to refer to and by whom to be guided, it’s also important to have access to advice, ideas and different perspectives from a mentor outside the usual environment. 

Education is a wider construct than just one school and thus possesses more avenues of support. Unions provide one context and offer advice - but usually when the union member is in extremis. Other bodies that could offer specialist guidance on pastoral or curricular matters could be the new Chartered College of Teaching or subject associations. Attendance at their events is often discounted for NQTs.

New teachers could be directed towards involvement in other aspects of their work. Examining is one such way: it may be gruelling, and not particularly financially rewarding, but it can enhance subject expertise as examiners encounter a range of approaches and the national standard. Sadly it has moved online to an anonymised and potentially alienating experience.

Technologising education brings gains in efficiency and improves presentation but increasingly hooks teachers to their screens. One benefit of technology is the growth of online learning communities that offer ideas and resources as well as access to debates about educational issues. But does it outweigh the disadvantages?

Liberate teachers so that they can become autonomous professionals

Research has become much more powerful and increasingly teachers are becoming participants. Having been on a classroom action research programme for about six months, it’s a developmental route I can strongly recommend. 

Allowing teachers to select the topic, focus and methodology for a longer-term project played to our interests and strengths. It also produced a final day of unparalleled learning about a range of educational issues. Listening to colleagues present their findings was inspiring and the subsequent discussions were highly analytical and thought-provoking. Each of us had invested a lot of time to get to grips with the research tools, and often we came across the unexpected and surprising. 

Joint problem-solving and shared feedback provides the kind of metacognition that all teachers need to keep them in touch with the best of their professional selves.

If we are to keep new teachers connected to the education community for longer than the first five years we need to provide supportive structures.

Taking a developmental approach to the education of new teachers would involve structuring the right programme of training. This training should take an NQT from the nuts and bolts of classroom practice to self-realisation and higher-level pedagogical expertise.

Yvonne Williams is a head of English and drama in the south of England and a member of the National Association for the Teaching of English’s Post-16 committee. 

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