Teachers' load is far too heavy

From the Telegraph & Argus, first published Saturday 24th Jul 2004.

The head of Parkside School, Cullingworth, Mr Tony Rickwood, showed commendable initiative in heading for Australia and recruiting nine teachers to work in his own school and others in the Bradford district - two of which are in special measures and as a result have been encountering worse-than-usual recruiting problems.

It is no surprise that Bradford has had to look abroad for teaching staff. We have several schools which are struggling. As Mr Rickwood notes, those are not generally the schools that people rush to work in, fearing they might not be able to cope with the challenges that will come their way.

However, the problem of teacher shortages is not specific to Bradford. In May there were about 9,000 vacancies advertised in the Times Educational Supplement alone. It is becoming harder to recruit right across the country, thanks largely to the burden of bureaucracy which has been piled on ordinary teachers.

Record-keeping, report-taking, targets, changes to the curriculum, rigorous Ofsted inspections...all these and more, plus one new initiative after another, have been making life increasingly complicated.

It is absolutely right that the performance of schools should be measured to get the best out of the available resources and ensure that children get the sort of education they need and deserve. But this constant monitoring should not be allowed to get in the way of the teachers' prime function.

It would be better if schools and the Government could restrict the bureaucracy to specialists in every school and leave the classroom teachers to do what they do best - teach.

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