This study aimed to explore how educational leaders in England experience and promote their own well-being. To address this, five semi-structured interviews were carried out with educational leaders who expressed that they had personally experienced high levels of well-being. Using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA), four themes were…

This paper explores perceptions of work intensification around the world. Underpinning this analysis is C. Wright Mills' (1959) argument that many personal troubles are public issues, and the notion that a significant dimension of the privatisation of public education, a concern of public education advocates worldwide, is the ways in which school…

The collection of papers presented in this issue of Critical Studies in Education adds to the expansive body of work on teachers and teaching. Collectively, the papers draw our attention to new ways the field is problematising the emerging and evolving conditions that shape the work, lives and identities of teachers. With this editorial…

This paper reports on factors affecting the working lives of practitioners in health and education in the UK. The context is the increasing evidence of low recruitment, low retention rates and a high incidence of stress amongst expert practitioners in these two public institutions. Similar patterns of practitioner response indicate the systemic…

Prior to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, England faced a considerable teacher recruitment and retention challenge. The last ten years have been characterised by insufficient numbers of new teachers joining the profession and an increasing proportion leaving the state sector, particularly in secondary schools. This research is designed to…

This report presents the findings from the Teacher Workload Survey (TWS) 2019, which is a large-scale nationally representative survey of teachers, middle leaders and senior leaders, conducted over a three-week period in March 2019. The survey helps act as a national 'barometer' for teachers', middle leaders' and senior leaders' working conditions…

Maintaining an adequate supply of teachers is a challenge in the education sector and an area of significant concern. Previous evidence shows that pay is deemed to be one of the most important factors influencing a teacher's decision to stay in a role, together with the workload and flexibility of working hours. However, up until now, no study has…

Maintaining an adequate supply of teachers in the education sector is both a challenge and an area of significant concern. Of the teachers who qualified in 2013, 67.7 per cent remained in service after five years. The number of secondary school teachers has been falling since 2010 and the number of teachers leaving for reasons other than…

On May 10th, 2020 the Prime Minister announced a phased return of some children to school in England from June 1st. Schools had been closed to all but vulnerable and keyworker children since March 20th, meaning that most children have been educated at home for a period of 10 weeks, and some year groups are not expected to return to school until…

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted on all areas of society, including education. On 20 March 2020, the British Government ordered all schools to close to all pupils, except vulnerable children and the children of keyworkers (such as those working in public health, transport and supplying food). National examinations were also cancelled. As a…

This paper examines the "coming out" decisions at work of four lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) teachers in England. It argues that such decisions are complicated by heteronormative discursive practices within schools that render LGB sexualities silent while simultaneously demanding that they are spoken. This double bind for LGB teachers…

"The Politics of Teacher Professional Development: Policy, Research and Practice" provides innovative insights into teachers' continuing development and learning in contemporary western contexts. Rather than providing a list of "how-tos" and "must dos," this volume is premised on the understanding that by learning…

This article is based on the findings of a funded research project. It examines the perspectives of teaching assistants (TAs) and higher-level teaching assistants (HLTAs) on their responsibilities and their views on leadership and management to see how they might have a role in leadership and management. The sample (N = 58) was drawn from schools…

While there are significant differences between England and Scotland in the politics, the policy environment and the management of schools, leadership development both north and south of the border is charged with addressing what has been termed a recruitment and retention "crisis". An emerging phenomenon in both jurisdictions is that of…

This article investigates the perceptions of English headteachers to questions addressing the setting of goals and the effects of external pressure on headteachers. The research utilizes semi-structured interviews with headteachers from a variety of contexts. These interviews were used to write individual headteacher "portraits", which…