Prelims

Half Title Page

TEACHING IN ENGLAND POST-1988

Endorsement Page

Accounts of change in education tend to focus on capturing how policy is developed at a system level. Teaching in England Post-1988 is important because it examines a 30-year period of unprecedented change in English schools through in-depth interviews which capture the lived experiences of some of the teachers who survived it. This enables it to offer a detailed, longitudinal perspective that remains all too rare, and new insights into how and why teachers maintain their commitment to teaching and schools in the face of increasing pressures and demands. As a result, it should be read carefully by everyone interested in the future of schools and of education more widely.

—Michael Jopling, Professor of Education, University of Brighton

Joan Woodhouse has applied her considerable experience as both a teacher and a teacher educator to bring to our attention the previously under-researched phenomenon of teacher retention. While other researchers and the mass media have focussed on the issue of early leavers, Woodhouse details the creativity and tenacity of those who have responded to ever-shifting policies which have increased prescription and proscription, heralded the erosion of teachers’ autonomy and creativity, imposed longer working hours and increased workload, and facilitated changes in the culture of schooling and the nature of teaching. The essential question – Why have these career-long teachers remained in the profession, when so many of their peers quit? – is addressed through enlightening and original accounts which offer deeper understanding of how this generation of teachers navigated the changes and sustained their commitment to teaching. ‘Vocation’, ‘wisdom’ and ‘agency’ are shown to be their essential characteristics, which provides a much-needed antidote to the doom and gloom image of teachers as burnt-out automatons often promulgated in public discourse.

Career teachers should enjoy reading this well-researched and well-written text in the knowledge that they are not alone in their dedication. Anyone considering teaching as a profession will find much to comfort them, and to arm them for the challenges they will face. Policy-makers, who rarely seem informed by research which doesn’t fit their preconceptions, would particularly benefit from understanding the damage they have wrought and identifying potential remedial strategies by reading about the real experiences of dedicated professionals.

—Ralph Leighton, Former Principal Lecturer and Secondary PGCE Programme Director, Canterbury Christ Church University

This book could not be more timely: with teachers leaving the profession in droves, and teacher recruitment at an all-time low, it is vital that we learn more about the experiences of those who have remained in the profession for some time. Dr Woodhouse is ideally placed to give this account, based on her long experience working with teachers, and as a former teacher herself. It will be useful to post grad and PGCE students and, from both theoretical and practical perspectives, represents a valuable contribution to the literature.

—Professor Jacqueline Baxter, Professor of Public Leadership and Management, The Open University

Joan Woodhouse has created a fascinating and innovative history of education from 1988 through the eyes of long-serving teachers whose vision and wisdom has enabled them to have marathon careers in times when many teachers have left the profession. Her own wisdom and vision – which I’ve known for years since we taught together in the 1980s – make this a provocative and vital read for all who care about teaching and teacher supply.

—Lat Blaylock, Editor, RE Today magazine, National RE adviser, NATRE

This book is exactly what is needed currently. The teacher recruitment and retention crisis, the meltdown in the initial teacher education ‘space’ wrought by the ideologically motivated ‘market review’, and the well-documented impact of the pandemic on teachers’ well-being, welfare and willingness to remain in the profession, all contribute to its necessity. Insufficient qualitative research has been undertaken on why teachers leave. What exists are statistics and trends which show the outcomes, not the reasons. Even less qualitative research has been undertaken on why teachers stay, up to this point. Politicians tend not to ask; system leaders are more concerned about performance and outcomes, and armchair analysts assume they have an authentic answer to everything. Joan’s approach here builds on her years as a successful classroom teacher, teacher trainer and educational researcher. She builds positive and mutually respectful relationships with peers and those she’s teaching. Few others could successfully administer a research tool such as this because of its dependence on professional, collaborative relationships. Consequently, the findings are genuinely authentic, giving this book a degree of validity and reliability, in a sector dominated by external perceptions of truth.

—Dr Simon Hughes FRSA, Freelance Educational Adviser, former Her Majesty’s Inspector and former diocesan Director of Education

Title Page

TEACHING IN ENGLAND POST-1988: REFLECTIONS AND CAREER HISTORIES

By

JOAN WOODHOUSE

University of Leicester, UK

United Kingdom – North America – Japan – India – Malaysia – China

Copyright Page

Emerald Publishing Limited

Emerald Publishing, Floor 5, Northspring, 21-23 Wellington Street, Leeds LS1 4DL

First edition 2023

Copyright © 2023 Joan Woodhouse.

Published under exclusive licence by Emerald Publishing Limited.

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No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without either the prior written permission of the publisher or a licence permitting restricted copying issued in the UK by The Copyright Licensing Agency and in the USA by The Copyright Clearance Center. No responsibility is accepted for the accuracy of information contained in the text, illustrations or advertisements. The opinions expressed in these chapters are not necessarily those of the Author or the publisher.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-80382-510-6 (Print)

ISBN: 978-1-80382-509-0 (Online)

ISBN: 978-1-80382-511-3 (Epub)

Dedication Page

In memory of my father, Francis Joseph Smith (1927–2022)

Contents

List of Abbreviations

Acknowledgements

I would like to express my sincere thanks to the nine career-long teachers who gave generously of their time to be interviewed for this project, and to the Universities of Nottingham and Leicester for funding the study. I am indebted to my friends and colleagues for their important contributions to the work, in particular to my co-researchers Carmen Mohamed, Phil Wood and Pete Sorensen, our critical friends Howard Stevenson and Djihad Drari, and research assistant Maria Scalise. I am very grateful, too, to Jacqueline Baxter and Gowan Dawson for comments on a first draft, and to my colleagues in the University of Leicester School of Education for their kind consideration in allowing me some space and time for writing. Finally, heartfelt thanks to my husband, John, for ongoing support and feedback, hot dinners and encouragement at all stages.