S. R. St. J. Neill

Teachers of the youngest children at school were the first to bear the brunt of the policies to change the curriculum after the 1988 Education Act. What did the changes mean to them? How did they perceive their impact upon their work, on standards in the curriculum, on assessment and testing, and on their relationships with pupils and colleagues? How did they cope with stress, long working hours, intrusions into their home lives, and with change imposed from outside? The authors capture in detail the views of thirty infant teachers and compare their subjective perceptions, dominated by a sense of massive change, with the objective record of both continuities and changes in their work.

The first part of this book charts and analyses the working days of 326 primary school teachers. It shows how they spent their working lives, the nature of the curriculum they taught, and analyses their work into five main categories: Teaching, Preparation, Administration, Professional Development and Other Activities. The second part comments on the findings by relating them to issues of school management and curriculum manageability and looks at how the idea of `conscientiousness' among primary school teachers may have lead to their exploitation.

Teachers of the youngest children at school were the first to bear the brunt of the policies to change the curriculum after the 1988 Education Act. What did the changes mean to them? How did they perceive their impact upon their work, on standards in the curriculum, on assessment and testing, and on their relationships with pupils and colleagues? How did they cope with stress, long working hours, intrusions into their home lives, and with change imposed from outside? The authors capture in detail the views of thirty infant teachers and compare their subjective perceptions, dominated by a sense of massive change, with the objective record of both continuities and changes in their work.

The first part of this book charts and analyses 2,688 working days of 384 teachers in 91 LEAs in 1991. It shows how they spent their working lives, how well matched their teaching was to their academic background, and the balance between teaching and other aspects of their work. The analysis uses five major categories: Teaching, Preparation, Administration, Professional Development and Other Activities. The authors argue that there is an occupational split between `the managers' and `the teachers'. The second part comments on the findings by relating them to issues of school management, and teacher professionalism, arguing that `conscientiousness' poses a professional dilemma for secondary teachers.

The first part of this book charts and analyses 2,688 working days of 384 teachers in 91 LEAs in 1991. It shows how they spent their working lives, how well matched their teaching was to their academic background, and the balance between teaching and other aspects of their work. The analysis uses five major categories: Teaching, Preparation, Administration, Professional Development and Other Activities. The authors argue that there is an occupational split between `the managers' and `the teachers'. The second part comments on the findings by relating them to issues of school management, and teacher professionalism, arguing that `conscientiousness' poses a professional dilemma for secondary teachers.