How much would you have to be paid to teach these oiks?

Michael Gove, Shadow Schools Secretary, has announced a quite simple new policy to entice more science graduates into teaching science – graduates get their student loan paid off, if they go into teaching.

It’s a good policy insofar that it gets lots and lots and lots of headlines. The downside is, it won’t make much difference. Gove claims that the scheme could potentially save graduates ‘£40,000 over a lifetime’.

‘Over a lifetime’, that is not a lot of money. A grand a year over a forty year career? Will that replace the hole in a science graduate’s earnings caused by turning down Glaxo for a teaching job? I doubt it. In real terms, Gove is offering a 3% pay increase to science graduates – up until their student loan is paid off. When that debt has gone, there is no incentive.

It’s better than nothing, but why would high-achieving graduates want to embark on a really stressful career for the sake of a barely improved salary?

Gove claims that the scheme will help create “generation of teachers who have made a commitment to the long-term, and thus we will diminish the churn that characterises our system now.”

How is a short term pay increase going to ‘diminish the churn’? To be a good teacher, you have to love your job. And I mean really love it. Extra pay might cushion job dissatisfaction, but not forever – and certainly not if the extra pay dries up in a few years.

Teaching is difficult and not particularly well paid. Why would someone with a first in Chemistry go and teach at a crappy comp if Deloitte have offered them a £25,000 starting salary for a piss easy consulting job?

Gove has got the right idea: you want better teachers, give them a better pay deal. But he needs to go much further.

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Peter Harvey, who has been charged with attempted murder

A science teacher has been charged with attempted murder after allegedly attacking a 14 year-old boy with a 2kg weight. Mr Peter Harvey, who taught at All Saints Roman Catholic School in Mansfield, had recently returned from sick leave after having a stress related stroke.

It is alleged that Mr Harvey attacked Jack Waterhouse after he intervened in an argument between Mr Harvey and a female pupil. When Mr Harvey aimed a kick at the female pupil’s bag, the class started singing “I’m looking at the physco in the mirror”, to the tune of Michael Jackson’s Man in the Mirror. According to one account, Jack Waterhouse told Mr Harvey to “Fuck off and have another stroke”.

It was at this point that Mr Harvey allegedly dragged Jack Waterhouse from the room and hit him with the weight. Paramedics found the boy lying in a pool of blood. He suffered a fractured skull and blood on the brain – in short, he is quite lucky to be alive.

But there is more to this story than a teacher simply snapping and striking a pupil. What surprised me most about this sorry tale is the fact that incidents like this don’t happen more often. From ages of 14-16 I went through seven science teachers over the course of my GCSEs. Some of them were competent and perfectly stable, but at least three were not.

Jack Waterhouse: The pupil who was attacked | Nottingham Police

I have sat through lessons where the teacher has been bullied and ridiculed from beginning to end and not once, despite extreme provocation, did any teacher ever give the impression they might hit anyone – never mind with a weapon.

The second surprising aspect of this story is the reaction of many people to it. Rather than being horrified at a child being nearly killed by his teacher, many seem to sympathise more with Mr Harvey. There are a number of Facebook groups – one with over a thousand members – giving ‘support for Peter Harvey’.

It’s true that the attack was verbally provoked, and that Mr Harvey had been let down by those who should have supported him by being sent back to work too early, but this does not in any way justify Mr Harvey’s alleged actions. To write, however, that Mr Harvey “was a bloody good teacher” as one group’s creator does is missing the point. Good teachers do not nearly kill pupils.

The system failed Mr Harvey. He should not have been sent back to the classroom in the state that he was in. But this does not condone his alleged actions. A 14 year old is currently in hospital and lucky to be alive. That is the crux of the issue, and the person responsible should be held to account.

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