Teaching is a privilege. It shapes individuals and entire communities. Yet, despite its importance, public perceptions of the profession often fall short of recognising the dedication and mastery required to excel.
NASBTT’s recent manifesto, The Future of Initial Teacher Training, calls for a transformation in how we view teaching. It advocates for a shift in public perception to reflect the expertise and commitment involved.
Just as the world recognises and respects architects and surgeons for their relentless pursuit of mastery, so too must we seek to elevate the expertise of great teachers.
Teaching as Mastery
Mastery in teaching, like any other profession, is not accidental. It requires relentless practice, feedback, and a commitment to continuous improvement. Whether guiding a struggling pupil through a difficult time in their life or delivering complex concepts to a class of eager young minds, expert teachers exemplify mastery through dedication and a deep understanding of their craft.
We don’t hesitate to recognise the relentless pursuit of excellence in other professions. Surgeons train for years to develop the precision and expertise required to perform complex operations. Pilots undergo thousands of hours of practice and rigorous testing before taking responsibility for passenger safety. Lawyers meticulously refine their advocacy skills, preparing for courtroom debates and mastering the intricacies of the law. Elite athletes dedicate their lives to training and pushing the limits of human performance, and actors continually rehearse and perfect their craft to deliver powerful, compelling performances on stage and screen.
Why, then, should we see teaching any differently? An expert teacher is no less skilled, no less dedicated, and no less impactful than a top actor, athlete or surgeon. The classroom is their stage, their field, their operating room. An incredible athlete might thrill representing their nation; an inspirational teacher can change the trajectory of their pupils’ lives. An actor might seek to win awards; a teacher seeks to win hearts and minds – often in front of a reluctant audience. A surgeon might save a life in a moment; a teacher can help a class realise their dreams across a decade.
However we look at it, the stakes are high. A surgeon might save your life; a teacher might shape it. The impact of a talented teacher on the lives of hundreds of students across many years is not a one-off event, it is not a single moment. Whilst we hope that the help of an impressive surgeon is needed only fleetingly, the assistance of talented teachers is undoubtedly needed across decades. The compound impact of expert teachers can transform lives.
Great teachers, like other professionals at the peak of their craft, are made – not born – through sustained, purposeful effort and the unrelenting pursuit of improvement.
Excellence despite adversity
We wouldn’t expect an actor to perform a play without rehearsal, and yet, too often, our teachers are thrown into the classroom with little more than the duration of an interval to prepare each week. Despite this, teachers up and down the country strive to ensure every pupil can succeed, tweaking and changing their delivery to adapt to the needs of their children.
Top business executives spend hours across weeks preparing for a 20-minute presentation. Teachers have several, hour-long lessons to deliver day after day to an audience often less engaged than business executives face, and yet expert teachers deliver consistent, excellent lessons that result in that famous lightbulb moment in classrooms up and down the country every day. They use every ounce of their considerable skill to ensure their lessons will make a difference.
Great teachers shape lives.
Defining great teaching
The recent StepLab documentary, Great Teaching Unpacked, featuring teachers from Reach Academy Feltham, explores what it means to be an expert teacher and how we can better support the development of teaching mastery. Its aim is to dissect what great teaching can look like in different settings, and – just like in other professions – what great looks like in one place might not be what great looks like somewhere else. But if we know and understand the common ingredients, we can learn something from each other and tell a better story about our incredible profession. Watch the documentary here.
Partnership
Collaborative efforts are essential in ensuring that the next generation of teachers not only knows what expert teaching looks like but are also supported on their journey to get there. Through Reach Schools and the Reach Foundation, we partner with organisations like Jamie’s Farm, Place2Be, The Centre for Emotional Health and Sport Impact to ensure that trainees receive a wide view of the educational landscape and grapple with the concept that great schools are necessary but not sufficient to ensure every child can enjoy a life of choice and opportunity. By studying and sharing great practice we can help trainees to see excellence in its many forms. We can train teachers to mimic, recreate and adapt what they’ve seen to maximise impact in their own contexts, thereby ensuring remarkable outcomes for all children everywhere.
Long-term commitment
The NASBTT manifesto states that we need to articulate a bold, inspirational 10-year vision for education that positions teaching as one of society’s most respected and desirable careers. At Reach Teacher Training, we are committed to shaping this vision through our relentless focus on training the next generation of teachers. We believe that promoting teaching as a high-status profession will help attract the brightest and best graduates, and professionals making a career shift, to the field.
Our trainees’ experiences and lives are rooted in their communities. Many of our trainees and alumni have been teaching assistants for many years in the schools they train in, are parents of children in our schools, and are alumni of the schools themselves. We have alumni of our schools now teaching in our Sixth Form and another training in Primary next year. We actively discuss the virtues of teaching as a career with our students and work to help those in our community who wouldn’t have trained otherwise to realise their dream of joining our profession.
We also believe that funding must reflect the value we place on teaching. Training to teach should be fully funded for all subjects. Fully-funded training shows that society recognises the return on investment. Teacher training targets have not been met for over a decade and that should concern us all. Showing teachers that we value them enough to fund their training is one of the most powerful signals we can send about the power of education.
Every child deserves a life of choice and opportunity, made possible through expert teaching. To realise this vision, we must elevate public perceptions and recognise teaching as a profession that demands relentless commitment and mastery.
We challenge the narrative and hold teachers in the esteem they deserve – as experts, as professionals, and as pivotal figures in the lives of the next generation.
Ryan Holmes is Director of Initial Teacher Training at Reach Teacher Training, a lead partner of the Ted Wragg Teacher Training Partnership.