The increasing pressure for teachers to obey school curriculum policies is „profoundly demotivating“ and is leading directly to people leaving the profession, a new study warns.
The increasing pressure for teachers to obey school curriculum policies is „profoundly demotivating“ and is leading directly to people leaving the profession, a new study warns.
Teachers value being able to be creative and collaborate with each other to design lessons but are increasingly subject to school policies requiring their conformity.
The research shows this is also reducing their curriculum-making skills and reducing teacher autonomy and motivation, as well as relationships between colleagues and with pupils.
There is a teacher recruitment and retention crisis in England. There is a particular challenge in recruiting physical science teachers, with government targets for recruitment being missed for the last 10 years and a high proportion of physical science teachers leaving early in their careers.
The study says in an era where teacher retention is concerningly low, policies which reduce teacher motivation should be of „profound concern“.
Dr. Victoria Wong, from the University of Exeter, who led the study, said, „We have found evidence school and academy trust policies which require conformity are potentially very demotivating for teachers and can deprive them of the opportunity to learn curriculum-making for themselves.
„This might save time in the short term but leads to loss of skills and experience from the profession, both by the direct loss of good teachers from the classroom and by the reduction in opportunities to learn from more experienced colleagues. Neither the loss of experienced teachers nor the loss of skills from the profession will lead to higher quality teaching.“
Dr. Wong interviewed 15 very experienced teachers about curriculum-making at academy trust, school or classroom level. The teachers involved had served either 25+ years as a classroom teacher or 20+ years along with having worked with a Learned Society, the Association for Science Education, a relevant educational charity, a government agency or an awarding organization. Two had spent the majority of their career in grammar (selective) schools, the rest taught mainly in non-selective state schools, several in areas of high socioeconomic deprivation.
