Newly qualified teachers (NQTs) face a daunting challenge. Teaching, like no other profession, demands that you hit the ground running. New teachers do not have the luxury of growing into their job. A failure to establish classroom discipline in those first, fraught weeks in their new school can haunt an NQT throughout their induction year, and beyond. The most significant challenge felt by many is to gain their pupils’ respect. There can be few groups with less empathy and more intolerance than a class of adolescents who are unimpressed by their teacher.

New teachers are used to being observed and assessed throughout their training, but their induction year adds new stresses. The demands of teaching a full timetable, of keeping going when exhausted, of overcoming the barrage of infectious diseases circulating in the melting pot of a school, and of more frequent lesson observations, combine to heap pressure and stress on those starting out in the profession.

New teachers need support in their induction year, and beyond, to develop into fully rounded professionals. They are usually full of ideals. A recent survey called Why Teach? revealed that the most important reason for becoming a teacher was to make a difference to pupils’ lives, closely followed by wanting to make a difference to society and the desire to work with children and young people. New teachers want to make their mark and make the world a better place, particularly for children and young people. That is wholly laudable. We need idealism and commitment in education - and such qualities are particularly compelling and attractive to youngsters who are working out what sort of a person they want to be, how they want to behave and what they believe.

If only for these reasons, it is important to look after NQTs. But beyond the moral imperative to help someone to successfully begin their teaching career, there is another compelling reason to offer support and wise counsel, and that is the simple truth that there simply are not enough graduates who want to become teachers. (See one of my previous blogs: How to stop thousands of teachers fleeing the profession).

There are worrying signs, however, that new teachers in some schools are expected to be the fully finished article right at the start of their career. These schools are more likely to have an inexperienced headteacher and/or an obsession by the senior leadership team (SLT) on getting a good Ofsted inspection result. Other common denominators in these schools are high staff turnover and weak governance (which leads to the reasons for high staff turnover remaining unexamined). These are schools in which there is downward pressure from the SLT to the teaching staff, pressure that impacts particularly negatively on new teachers who have neither the resources, nor the resilience, to deal with it well.

I heard, very recently, of a newly qualified teacher starting her career in a primary school. Her class was acknowledged to be tough - containing a small group of challenging pupils and parents who were very quick to complain. Nevertheless, the NQT believed that she was making good progress, was beginning to relax a little, and to enjoy her work.

Imagine her shock, therefore, to receive a letter from the head inviting her to a meeting where she was informed that she was going to be put onto the capability procedure. Her behaviour management was, apparently, not good enough.

The local authority induction adviser was, very late in the day, informed of the head’s intentions. She was greatly concerned about the way the school was treating the NQT and argued that a new teacher should not be expected to be able to immediately meet all the teaching standards - rather, these should be assessed over the whole of the induction year. The advisor observed the NQT’s teaching. Her judgement was that, while the NQT was experiencing some behaviour management issues, these were far from being insurmountable, and with help and support she would overcome them. The adviser reminded the headteacher that the NQT had only been teaching for eleven weeks. To invoke the capability procedure because the NQT needed to make progress in one area was needlessly harsh and ridiculously counterproductive.

This tale does not end well. Essentially the NQT was given an ultimatum: either she resigned at the end of term, with an agreed reference, or she would be put through the capability procedure. Under a huge amount of pressure, the NQT decided to resign and to find a new school in which to begin her induction year again.

The consequences of her treatment rebounded on the school, which was informed by the local authority that it would no longer act as its authorising body for induction. The school will find it very difficult, if not impossible, to recruit any more NQTs.

The head (who was, remember, inexperienced) was getting advice from a firm of solicitors whose judgements entirely lacked nuance or common sense. In their view, the NQT was either meeting the teaching standards, or she was not. The fact that she had excellent subject knowledge, was planning her lessons meticulously, assessing pupils’ work assiduously and was only 11 weeks into her teaching career, counted for nothing. 

This is an extreme case, but it tops a pile of growing evidence of inappropriate pressure on new teachers that is starting to drive them from the profession. In this case, the new teacher was given no time, and no support, to develop her classroom practice. She was required to be the finished article when she had barely begun.

Our education system cannot afford to be profligate with our new teachers. They are, lest we forget, graduates with good degrees and many other career options, which they will grab with both hands if we put unrealistic and unrealisable expectations in their way.

Dr Mary Bousted is general secretary of the ATL teaching union
@MaryBoustedATL

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