The education secretary, Damian Hinds, was questioned today by various MPs on the Commons Education Select Committee about a recent survey, which Rikama reported on, finding that teachers in England work the longest hours in Europe however; these teachers are actually teaching for less time than they did 5 years ago.
Creative Arts dubbed as ‘not-essential’
The blame went to data analysis, overload of marking and unnecessary lesson-planning. Although a ‘toolkit’ has been installed in all schools to identify the unnecessary work for teachers, the culture of targets and testing seems to be the most stressful aspect for teachers, meaning most of their time is spent on this. Due to a serious amount of time being spent on preparing for testing, the curriculum must be narrowed, meaning creative arts are to go first, as these are ‘not-essential’ subjects.
If creative arts are removed from schools, there is an argument to suggest that pupils will not enjoy their time in school as much, therefore; increase bad behaviour, increase stress for teachers, increase mental health issues, which leads to recruitment and retention crisis. Everything is linked.