The summer holiday in our neighbourhood has coincided neatly with the road-improvements programme. From early morning until six at night, the air has been split by the racket of iron drill on tarmac somewhere in the vicinity.

Bright blue pedestrian barriers have cordoned off sections of pavement, ensuring a hazardous detour into the path of traffic to add an extra thrill to the journey. And then traffic lights create new bottlenecks. It’s all very…disruptive. 

To add a bit of context, the road resurfacing has been part of an ongoing programme of phased improvement. And the finished product would be a pleasure to behold, if it weren’t for the fact that some of the earlier improvements left the road surface so slippery that horses and motorcyclists often slid or even fell. 

Education policy changes

Just when we thought it was safe to go out, a new disruption came to our doorstep in the shape of crews digging up the pavements and threading (also bright blue) conduits for the installation of a fibre-optic cable network. The paradox, as my husband points out, is that, in order to bring about connectivity, our highways and byways are constantly obstructed by barriers. Hopefully the end product will be worth it.

The education community has for some time been experiencing a very similar nuisance. Teachers may have thought it safe to gently plateau - to take in the view of progress on the “reformed specifications” and refine their methodology in key stage 4. After all, the Department for Education signed up to the recommendations of the Workload Advisory Group, promising a period of peace, post-qualification reform. But, just as the road resurfacing is completed and the last few qualifications have been sat, there is a new focus. And a new nuisance.

For the unlucky residents here, that means the pavements. For teachers, it means the curriculum. Is there anything more disturbing than finding familiar paths and roads rerouted and new stuff installed? There is no path or road untouched, and no area of teaching left for teachers to roam unhindered.

Eventually, of course, the pathways will be restored here. Those residents who can pay for the broadband service should see improvement in their connectivity. And vehicle suspension, tyres and traveller comfort may be enhanced. 

Ongoing deviations

But, in education, the changes in inspection, the increased pressure around results and the changes at the top, post-Tory leadership contest, bring such wide-ranging ongoing deviations from our pedagogical path that it’s impossible to conceive of a time when classrooms will be returned to their owners. 

As a resident, I would have preferred the road and pavement improvements - and concomitant disruption - to have occurred at the same time, so that when both were over I could sit in quiet in my garden, enjoying my holiday reads (the new Kate Atkinson Jackson Brodie novel that I’ve been waiting for ages to enjoy) after a rather shorter period of disruption than this ongoing saga of noise. 

As it is, there is a promise from the pavement crew to leave by Wednesday. Summer 2019 so far hasn’t provided the period of tranquillity I’d hoped for, but we might just have smoother roads, faster broadband and more money flowing into the area. 

If only the period of uncoordinated, never-ending education reform could bring equivalent benefits. 

Yvonne Williams is a head of English and drama in a school in the South of England