Nicky Morgan: We must lift the burden on our ‘hero’ teachers – Education – TES News

Nicky Morgan: We must lift the burden on our ‘hero’ teachers – Education – TES News

I don’t know much about education policy and politics in the U.K., but I found this article from the Times Education Supplement (TES) quite interesting. Nicky Morgan is the new education secretary in the U.K., and the TES article about a speech she gave includes this:

DSC_0056The minister, who took charge of the Department for Education in July, said she “marvelled” at the dedication of teachers who are “working late into the night, marking books, planning lessons, preparing for inspections that may or may not come”.

But she said that there had to be a “better way” for teachers, adding that as a parent she did not want her own child to be taught by someone “too tired, too stressed and too anxious to do the job well”.

“So I have set two priorities. Firstly, to do everything I can to reduce the overall burden on teachers. And second, to ensure that teachers spend more time in the classroom teaching,” she added.

Without knowing how many hours they already spend teaching, I don’t know if British teachers need more or less, but if the overall idea is to help teachers manage the load and focus on the students, let’s hope some progress can be made.