Teaching a hard lesson

It seems that the success rate of the school is the benchmark for value, but can you judge a well-disciplined school against a school on a rundown council estate, where the teachers actually have to work harder under more stress and are always in danger of running into parent anger?

It seems that perhaps the salary doesn’t reflect the workload or the stress, but that’s life I’m afraid and as a product of a school that was, to say the least, well-disciplined or academic, I can see both sides of the argument.

But is £47k a lot of money in today’s terms for a professional person, when you can see parents of large families being paid more than this to stay at home and breed? I don’t know, but one thing I do know is that we need good teachers and we need dedicated professionals both in educating our children and in administrating the school.

School management is as important as teaching and to run a well-oiled educational system you need a good team from the head teacher and the board of governors, teachers, kitchen staff and cleaners. It’s the team that runs a good school and that includes parents’ behaviour and students’ respect.

S T Vaughan, Yardley Wood