Should teachers be held accountable?
Well, yes, obviously. The more pertinent question might be: for what should teachers be held accountable?
Reading around LinkedIn, The Times Educational Supplement and the wealth of other forums dedicated to education offers a plethora of answers. Students’ academic progress, their emotional well-being, classroom discipline, the national curriculum, the local authority’s latest agenda, LGBTQ+ awareness, budget spend, safeguarding, attendance, digital literacy, sustainability, employability, parental satisfaction, preparation for the world of work, preparation for a world that does not yet exist, and the successful implementation of whatever new initiative happens to be in fashion this term.
The list could go on forever. Teachers are expected to deliver the curriculum, personalise learning, close attainment gaps, nurture creativity, develop critical thinking, support mental health, manage behaviour, integrate technology, protect children from its harmful effects, and demonstrate measurable progress in all of the above. Ideally, without having a breakdown, increasing the budget or otherwise inconveniencing anyone.
Faced with such dissonance, a more pertinent question could be: to whom should teachers be held accountable?
Management, school owners, governing bodies, inspectors, local and national government, parents, examination boards, professional associations and the wider community all have legitimate interests in what happens in schools. Each brings its own expectations of what good teaching should look like, and each has its own measures of success.
The difficulty is that these expectations do not always align. A parent may want their child to achieve the highest possible examination results, while the teacher believes that the child needs time to develop independence. A school may prioritise measurable outcomes, while a teacher sees value in an activity whose benefits may not become apparent for several years. Developing character is a case in point: its importance may be widely acknowledged, but its development is not easily captured by the measures we use to judge educational success. Government may demand innovation while simultaneously introducing systems that leave teachers with less time to experiment.
Teachers are also caught between these competing expectations, often being held responsible for outcomes over which they have only partial control. They must account for results, behaviour, attendance and progress, while responding to individual needs and navigating the administrative demands that accompany each new priority. The pressure is not simply a matter of having too much to do. It can also mean having too little control over what needs doing, and that is one of the biggest stressors in any workplace. Having too little time to do what one believes is most important adds another layer of frustration.
Over time, this creates a particular kind of tension. Teachers may find themselves working to satisfy the measures by which their performance is judged, even when those measures do not fully reflect their understanding of good education. The paperwork gets done, the targets are recorded and the evidence is assembled. Yet the very things that brought many people into teaching — the opportunity to stimulate curiosity, encourage independent thought and help young people discover what they are capable of — can become harder to prioritise.
Part of the problem lies in the distinction between being accountable for students and being accountable to them.
Being accountable for students tends to focus attention on outcomes: their attainment, behaviour, attendance, well-being and progress. These things matter. Teachers have professional responsibilities, and neither good intentions nor a commitment to personal growth can substitute for responsible teaching.
Being accountable to students, however, invites a different perspective. It asks whether the decisions we make serve their interests, not simply whether they satisfy the requirements imposed upon us. It asks what we are preparing them for, what opportunities we are opening up, and whether our teaching helps them become more capable of making their own decisions.
The two are not mutually exclusive, but they are by no means always the same. Meeting a target may demonstrate progress without telling us much about the person a student is becoming. Equally, an educational experience that proves valuable in the long term may be difficult to capture in the reporting cycle or the next set of performance indicators. How can we possibly measure the character a person will develop?
So how do we judge whether we are getting the balance right?
My favourite answer is to think about meeting the 25-year-old version of the student sitting in our classroom today.
What might that person reasonably expect of us? Will they say that we helped them develop the knowledge and skills they needed, but also the confidence to question what they were told, the capacity to work with others and the judgement to take responsibility for their own lives? Will they mention teachers who helped them discover what they were capable of, or those who ensured that every box was ticked and every target met?
Of course, we cannot predict what our students will need at 25, let alone guarantee that they will look back on their school years with gratitude. Nor should this become another demand placed upon teachers: one more impossible standard against which to measure themselves. Teachers cannot control every outcome, and they should not be expected to carry the full weight of responsibility for everything that happens to their students.
But the 25-year-old version of the student offers something valuable. It provides a point of reference beyond the immediate pressures of the job. When competing demands become overwhelming, it allows us to step back and ask whether the decisions we are making remain aligned with our educational purpose.
Accountability matters. And so does the well-being of the people expected to shoulder it. If teachers are continually required to account for everything that happens in the present, with little room to consider the people their students will become, there is a risk that the process of demonstrating accountability begins to displace purpose. And when purpose gets lost, so does something of the wide-eyed teacher who first entered the profession.
Most of us have, at some point, bumped into a former student years later or received an unexpected letter or message. The things they remember, and sometimes take the trouble to thank us for, can be surprising. It might be a conversation, an encouragement offered at the right moment, an opportunity to try something new, or simply the fact that someone took them seriously. It’s hardly ever the budget we managed, the paperwork we completed or even the grade they received.
This tells us something about accountability that is easy to lose sight of amid the competing demands of the job. We cannot always measure the significance of what we do, and we may not see its consequences for many years. But that does not mean the significance is any less real.
It’s Friday. If the week has left you feeling stressed, frustrated or wondering why you ever became a teacher, perhaps take a moment to recall one of those encounters. Remember what that former student valued, and why it mattered to them.
And, for a moment, remember the wide-eyed teacher who first walked into a classroom, full of ideas about what education could achieve.