Kiss goodbye to teamwork

31st July 1998, 1:00am

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Kiss goodbye to teamwork

https://www.tes.com/magazine/archive/kiss-goodbye-teamwork
SO THE way to recruit more teachers and improve standards in education is to offer performance-related pay?

When will our politicians and bureaucrats realise that today it is teams of teachers doing most of the development in schools, that each teacher is using materials and methods worked out with others?

In recent years a string of educational innovations has been rescued from potential shambles (due to rushed timescales and constant revisions) and made into a success by committed teamwork by teachers. What chance of that in future when one of a team of five is paid much more than the rest, not for overall responsibility or time spent on co-ordination, but only because someone (headteacher? adviser? governor?) has tagged them as a “good teacher’’, and nobody is very clear why?

You can kiss goodbye to the old ethic among teachers that sees them sharing the work and the stress in support of colleagues. And with it will go much more, including any chance of attracting the young staff to provide the solid backbone of the profession in future. PRP is for industry: teaching is not an industry, it is a profession with a different ethic.

Harvey Linehan, Broyle Gate Farmhouse, Lewes Road, Ringmer, Sussex.

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