A calling to the classroom. Research about teachers’ resilience

A former secondary school teacher’s experience of the ‘blackboard jungle’ forms new research about how his peers deal with duties other than educational ones.

Andrew Chitty’s PhD research focuses on how teachers develop resilience to deal administrative and regulatory responsibilities that take them away from their core educating and student support role.

With recent figures showing, for the second year running, that up to 40,000 secondary teachers have quit the profession, Andrew – who was a secondary school teacher for more than 30 years – issues recommendations to the new Government to offset what has been termed a “haemorrhaging of good teachers”.

For his research, Andrew used the principles of positive psychology, that is, looking at meaning and purpose rather than focusing on issues or challenges to be examined.

He carried out a survey of 279 teachers at various stages of their careers that gauged their levels of hope, optimism, self-efficacy (having confidence to attempt something and that you can do it), the resilience techniques they use, job crafting (how they see their role as a teacher) and wellbeing.

His findings showed that self-efficacy and optimism were significant predictors of resilience, and hope and optimism contributed significantly to wellbeing. Low levels of optimism predicted intention to quit but crafting work to maximise a sense of calling was the strongest predictor of lower intention to quit.

A series of in-depth interviews followed with some of the teachers who were at different career stages (newly qualified, established, and left/leaving teaching) to explore the factors contributing to decisions to stay or leave the profession.

Aside from finding that teachers with higher levels of a ‘calling’ to the profession had a lower intention of quitting, one of the strongest influences on their decision to ‘quit the classroom’ was what they felt are burdensome bureaucratic duties such as regulation, or Ofsted inspections.

The form of Ofsted inspection results has been in the news recently. Following the suicide of headteacher Ruth Perry after an inspection rated her school as “inadequate”, changes have been made that include the removal of single-word ratings.

The teachers Andrew surveyed also felt:

• Strongly there is a lack of freedom and autonomy with their teaching, compounded by an ever-present corporate, managerial feel to how schools work.
• There is increased competition in a target-driven environment that reduces the collegiality of their experience in school.
• Examination performance has become the focus of teaching work, over and above education or pastoral support to their students.
• Top-down directives from leaders who are perceived to be ‘out of touch’ with the reality of teaching.

The recommendations Andrew sets the Government include giving early career teachers better mentoring, guidance and support and creating or enhancing existing Professional Learning Communities in schools where teachers have space and time to collaborate and discuss teaching, learning, and subject-related matters.

Andrew – whose research was supervised by UON Associate Professor Dr Rachel Maunder and who co-wrote the final paper – talks about his personal experience of being a teacher that led him to select this topic for his PhD: “I currently teach in higher education – at the Open University – but I originally came to Milton Keynes to teach at a progressive school.

“But increasingly throughout my final years, every meeting became about Ofsted. Even though I agree in principle with holding teachers and schools to the most rigorous standards for the good of our students, its dominance in discussions was part of the reason why I retired from that part of the sector early.

“Sadly, the challenges and issues that heralded my departure from schools are still facing teachers today. The findings of my research are not a ‘moan’ about the state of things but make recommendations to develop teachers and support them, so they don’t lose sight of the value of what they do.”

Andrew’s findings can be read here.