Teachers - Keep Your Data To Yourself!
Teaching is incredibly stressful: too much is out of our control, we have too much to do and too little time to do it in. Targets are set for children based on spurious assessment data and we have to move heaven and earth to ensure that they reach these targets. If attendance falls below 95% we must show evidence that we are intervening. Books must be marked in different colour pens, the correct stickers applied and then students must respond to our marking before we respond to their response. Learners must make progress (whatever that means) every 20 minutes. We are learning-walked, observed and scrutinised. Some teachers are asked to submit short, medium and long term planning for scrutiny. No wonder that so many of my colleagues have taken time off with stress, anxiety and depression. But this is the profession we have chosen and we have a choice - we can leave or we can deal with it. Nine months ago, I dealt with it by finding a job in alternative education. I am still working he...