At last! An Education Secretary who thinks teachers should teach

Like Nicky Morgan I can't understand why teachers should be made to send out emails after 5pm

Nicky Morgan has suggested teachers should be able to put the marking to one side after 5pm (Getty Images)

My son used to attend a school that prided itself, rightly, on its super-efficient organisational abilities. We would get regular after-school phone calls from teachers telling us that Maume Jnr had done well in one class or another that day.

They were nice calls to get, though I did wonder slightly why we were getting them. There was the faint – though unmistakeable – whiff of good PR about them, a feel-good fillip for middle class parents rather than a vital part of the educational process.

To tell us that he’d been helpful in class, or attentive, or had got on with his work – well, yes, I’d have hoped that was exactly how he’d behaved, because he’s been well brought-up. A call telling us that he’d inexplicably strayed from the path of righteousness would have been perhaps not welcomed, exactly, but seen as necessary. Tell us if he’s being a bad lad, otherwise we’ll assume the best.

There was a definite feeling that the teacher could have been spending their time more constructively, rather than fluffing up our parental egos. So I have to say I’m in broad agreement with Nicky Morgan, the Education Secretary, when she calls for teachers to be freed from the time-wasting duties of keeping parents up to date about their loved ones’ progress by sending out emails after 5pm, as one school in her constituency has done.

She also said that teachers shouldn’t have to be doing any marking after that time, either, suggesting that she doesn’t really have much idea about how teachers live. When else are they expected to get marking done, or their lesson-planning? During lessons? Surely not.

But she’s bang-on about the emails. Teachers should spend their time doing three things: preparing lessons, teaching those lessons, and marking the resulting work. Anything else is a distraction from what will make the Britain of the future great – or rather less than. Morgan was addressing the issue of teachers’ workloads, in the light of the 44,000 of them who’ve complained to her about how much they have to get through. Working weeks of 60 hours are commonplace in a profession that is chronically undervalued.

Along, perhaps, with doctors and nurses, teachers are the most important people in this country. More important, that’s for sure, than politicians, for whom education, for all their fine words and confident policies, is just another theatre of war, another set of election pledges. So what can we do to help the men and women on the frontlines?

For a start we can pay them properly. I’ve heard the nonsense argument that they’re not in it for the money, that it’s a vocation, so their salary shouldn’t be an issue. But how much teachers are paid is inextricably linked to how much they’re valued by society – which under current Government plans isn’t much, with public-sector pay increases pegged back by the Chancellor to 1 per cent over the next four years, a measure which will surely see defections to private education.

I used to be a health professional working long, hard hours for pitiful pay. Still, I enjoyed the job, and I believed that what I was doing was worthwhile. I just felt that no one else did. Had my wages been even remotely commensurate with what I was doing – helping save and improve lives – I would, I’m sure, still be doing the job today, rather than earning considerably more as just another member of the chatterati.

So let’s elevate teachers to their rightful place in society and bring their salary levels more in line with those enjoyed by judges and mandarins. Make teaching an elite profession – hellishly difficult to get into but incredibly well rewarded.

Yes, the Department for Education is ring-fenced from cuts, but that’s not enough: we need to spend, spend, spend, on more and better schools, more and better teachers, more and better resources. If the Lib Dems can come up with a plan to boost spending by £2.5bn for two- to 19-year-olds by 2020 (though even that doesn’t seem like enough), then surely the Government could produce something similar.

There are also little fixes that can help. What about making the job of head of year an administrative post? My son’s present head of year seems to spend most of her time monitoring absentees and latecomers or sorting out lost locker-keys.

How a school is organised is crucial. Every school needs a good administrative system that is separate from the teaching side and deals with all parents’ practical queries (as opposed to matters of pure education). Teachers shouldn’t have to deal with mundane queries at all.

They should, quite simply, be above all that. Let organisers organise, and let teachers teach.