The clatter of change opens the meeting. The Head of department stares. Copper coins and lint. NQT arrives, a nervous smile on her lips and tips out the yogurt pot she clutches tightly. The skitter of silver coins shimmers for a moment and the Head smiles before starting and glancing nervously toward the doorway. The corridor is dark, just the gentle tap tap of water from the pipe above pooling on cracked linoleum. The Head opens her mouth, her eyes quickly refocusing on the riches piled in a neat palmful on the desk. From outside comes a sudden clatter and she throws a tattered coat across the coins. Second moves quickly, a bundle of rags in his arms. He pauses, meeting two faces, expecting three. “Where's Sheila?” he asks. The Head and NQT glance down, bowing their heads. “Efficiency and Improvement meeting, yesterday.” Head mumbles, “We've been Improved… Efficiently.” There is a moment of respectful silence, their thoughts on the the now empty class...

Julie Ashmore works in a Sixth Form in the north east. I teach A level Literature to A LOT of students in a big sixth form college and I love it. I really really love it.  Like all teachers my job gets harder every year, bigger class sizes, less resources and more pressure to get results.  But since returning to work in August, after 17 years of teaching, I’ve become aware of an ever increasing barrier to my students’ learning and my teaching: my kids have the attention spans of stoned goldfish! My current first years will sit their exams in July 2019.  Each  exam lasts for 2 ½ hours.  Currently very few of them can manage 15 mins without checking their phones (just to check the time of course!) so how will they mentally and physically be able to cope with the time demands of these exams, let alone applying content in a meaningful way? We talked this week quite openly about this situation.  Many admitted that homework is not given undivided a...

Most of my teaching career has been spent in Key Stage 1 with a brief flirtation with Key Stage 2 and a recent (hopefully permanent) move to Early Years Foundation Stage.  In the 14 years I have been a teacher, teaching has changed in many, many ways but what worries me the most is the move from child centre approaches to a data driven approach.  I hold Michael Gove mostly responsible for this.  His scribbled on the back of an envelope one night curriculum has striped the fun out of primary school. Gone are the days when Year 1 were allowed to play in the home corner. Wonderful, bright, well thought out provision areas have been replaced by tables and chair and hours and hours of dull intervention groups to prepare children for the evils of the Phonics Screening and the following years SATs. In my final year of teaching in year 1 I was stressed. I was stressed because of my work load, I was stressed because my class size was increasing and I had less ...