What's it like to be a teacher in today's state schools? What's it like to be a pupil in 2013? We all went to school and many of us are parents of school children so we all think we know something about schools, how they used to be, how they should be. The government, the media and most of the general public think education is about exams results, if Educating Yorkshire is representative teachers think it’s about turning out decent young people. So less about academic success and more about social skills. This is not surprising if students come to school with short concentration spans, difficulty in coping with frustration, failing to understand the difference between being assertive and being aggressive and too willing to settle disputes by resorting to threats and violence. Before I was a social worker I trained as a teacher so I know the difference between the roles. After watching Educating Yorkshire I am less clear, much of what the teaching staff were doing to give the young people confidence, self worth and social skills is what I and the other residential social workers did with the children in our care. What struck me about Educating Yorkshire was that the relationship between the teachers featured and the pupils was nothing like my experience of school but very much like my experience of working with young people in children's homes. An informal relationship more like a kindly uncle or older brother rather than the disciplinarians who used corporal punishment rather than interesting lesions to keep the class quiet and pupils in their seats. The troubled and troublesome pupils left school early, officially or unofficially, were excluded and expelled or schooled separately. Lesions were not constantly disrupted by the unruly behaviour of a minority. The issue now is have we gone too far in trying to be inclusive and keep young people in mainstream school? Do we expect too much of teachers? Are teachers spending too much time on the pastoral care of a few at the expense of teaching the many? Should teacher leave social work to the social workers? Blair McPherson former director of community services author and commentator on the public sector www.blairmcpherson.co.uk
