 What are your education hopes and fears for teachers in 2020? So this is my annual plea to the profession for the year ahead And I often pose it at Christmas time in a letter on my blog to Father Christmas So I've got eight points. I'd like to go through so dear Santa I write or in this case speak to you so that you can pass this message on to every school across the country to help Make education a better place for our teachers and pupils So number one to want to talk first about reducing teacher workload for years I've been researching the root cause of teacher workload and time and time again The results often came back as school leaders who are to blame for increasing teacher workload Note I always highlight here when I work with schools that anyone with a teaching and learning responsibility Particularly those who are responsible for setting deadlines on others is in the broadest sense a school leader Meaning that they're also responsible for driving workload imposed on other teachers a final point My latest survey suggests that there has been a tipping point school inspection appears to be driving teacher workload more Rather than school leadership, which I've unpicked for last two or three years So we must always question our choices habits or perceptions of what we think people want or what works This is one way to guarantee teachers can be trusted The question is is it school leaders who don't trust their teachers or our external audiences? Point number two want to talk about am here frequency and compliance There's a pattern evolving from some of the schools that I visit schools working with disadvantaged peoples or in particular demographic regions of the country is more often than not they seem to apply Frequency and compliance methods upon their teachers Particularly in teaching and learning policies So where this choice Often happens in schools that are typically under difficult circumstances But not always or labeled requires improvement by off-stead this notion that we can determine our child's progress from a deep dive Or an exercise book is dangerous. It's unreliable and a poor proxy for learning so see my blog deep dives on teacher talkit.co.uk Examples include the purple pen of progress or you will mark once or twice a week Where is the research to suggest that this improves learning? So we need to challenge this dialogue if a school insists that a teacher marks books once or twice every two weeks Why would you want to work in that school when other schools down the road totally doing it differently? Number three who likes meetings and I've asked that question to 20,000 teachers over the last two years and I've counted maybe less than 100 hands keeping teachers busy in Meetings was one of the top things listed by the Department for Education work load surveys in 2013 and 16 and recently They increased teacher workload Now I like meetings when they're well led the agenda shared in advance the chair keeps everyone to time and everyone has a voice Who wouldn't I also enjoy meetings when they are a professional development opportunity and people in the meeting Get a cup of tea and a slice of cake after a full day of teaching. It's not difficult Instead we could also try stand-up meetings or walk-about meetings which are great to improve teachers well-being and effectiveness So why not give it a try? There's loads of research to back up the more effective point number four Mental health conversations over the last academic year have been asking schools if they have recently discussed teacher mental health sadly, the number is few and far between Schools that are excellent in managing pupils mental health are still struggling to manage their own and others well-being And in happier and higher performance Schools that I visit teacher well-being and mental health conversations are high upon the agenda So my question here for you is when will your school discuss teacher mental health? Is it driven by your leaders? Schools which are achieving collective teacher efficacy who protect teacher professional development fiercely and regularly access Internal action research and external publications. They interrogate them the interpret In use it to inform teaching pedagogy and I'd argue that these schools that I visit by the very notion that they're protecting teacher professional development Are at the same time improving teacher well-being and mental health? So if that's not your school, why not and how far are you away from achieving this? point number five Feedback not marking not many teachers will be able to tell you the etymological meaning of the word assessment It actually means to sit beside what if we did this more often What if we banished the word marking and replace it with feedback? I know it's a simple fix But imagine if we could free up our teachers from that burden to get on with their job spending more time with kids More of the time planning and supporting pupils if you've not read my verbal feedback project Which is research from seven state schools across England or access to supporting resources Then you really are missing something those teachers reported they save time marking to inform their better planning lessons number six cognitive load theory Cognitive science may be the most important thing that teachers need to know and useful for a teacher or one people But I would often argue that this is difficult for all of us to achieve When considering 30 pupils in front of any teacher and as more and more schools consider the curriculum Honestly, it's any wonder why we'd never would doing this before I wonder what the reason could be Anyway schools may have the best intentions laid out on paper and be able to articulate their decisions But unless schools equip their teachers to bring in the curriculum to life Then all this hard work is a waste of time It's important for all of us to consider More effective teaching methods to improve pupils retention and memory and I often advocate if teachers do less Not more and think best about how they impart instruction They can deliver more effectiveness in the classroom All teachers must focus on the basics and master these to the best of their ability as I often say mark plan teach If we continue to be frustrated Particularly by politicians and parents telling teachers what to do There's no hide in place for any of us myself included to keep our classroom doors closed or to ignore research And we cannot ignore the recent emergence of research based practice I think social media has played a huge part in that and it's important that everybody regardless of when you first qualified as a teacher Engages with research number seven professional wisdom matters the current model for the government For teacher recruitment does not support experienced teachers Teachings a team sport and no teacher can be great without solving complex classroom problems without their peers It cannot be done alone new and inexperienced to the profession New teachers experienced teachers need experienced people around them The problem is I believe is that the government continue to fund new teachers with bursaries and high salaries Rather than grant our experienced teachers were better paying conditions to keep them We'll then keep losing these people to the profession and our younger teachers will be isolated We'll continue to be regurgitated within the system leave prematurely and be unable to solve challenging problems in our schools Particularly disadvantaged contexts you only need to look at the DFE data and dig into the census data to see that this is the established model dating back over 20 years Now I discovered the etymological meaning of word for an Isis from my good friend howl roberts It means professional wisdom. We need more wisdom in our profession to solve these complicated social justice problems Finally other present issues the world of politics continues to berate one another Particularly the general election time while schools struggle financially I'm pleased to see more schools considering research informed appraisal I've outlined how schools can achieve this on my blog and in my book just great teaching But sadly six years on this still needs a mention as there are still some schools in England that choose to grade their teachers It's nonsense. I often say to teachers that are working With go find another school in which to work an organization which will provide you with the soil in which you can grow professionally So these are my hopes for the profession threat 2020 I'd like to know what yours are. So please leave a comment on the video and have a happy holiday season and a great academic year ahead