Laurence Fleck is so passionate about classroom teaching that he has resisted the pull to management and has never had a day off sick
I went to the Royal Grammar School in Newcastle and my career advice was being called into my headteacher's office: "Any ideas what you'd like to do, Fleck?" "I thought maybe English at Oxford Sir." "Jolly good". That was it.
So I went to read English at Worcester College and when I left I no idea what to do. In those days we had the milk round where prospective employers came to tell graduates about their jobs (that seems like a very long time ago). I thought advertising sounded interesting. I got a job in an ad agency in London. I was doing well. Then my girlfriend (now wife, married 35 years) got a teaching job in Jamaica. When she got there she phoned to say the school down the road wanted an English teacher and didn't require any teacher training qualification, just a degree in English. I thought, two years in the Caribbean? I'm there. My ad job offered me a huge increase in salary and a car and said they'd give me a job when I got back. At that point I thought of this as an extended holiday and a career break. But when I got into the classroom, I found I loved it. The Jamaican children were so polite, so keen to learn, they were such a pleasure to teach.
So I came back after the two years and did my PGCE at Newcastle. My main subject was English and my subsidiary was PE. I learnt the most from the PE part of the course, run by a fabulous man called Alan Brown. He taught me a great deal about teaching and gave me many pieces of practical advice, for example to never shout "pass me the ball!" to a class. You'll get eight balls thrown in your face if do that!
My first job in the UK was teaching English at Gosforth High School in Newcastle, a co-ed comprehensive. I really enjoyed teaching there. Of course your first year of teaching is desperately difficult but as long as you continue to grow and learn it does becomes increasingly manageable. If I get through a day without learning anything, it's been a bad day. I thought I'd spend my whole career there but after 13 years an opportunity arose for head of department at Newcastle Church High and I got the job.
I absolutely love teaching. I'm 61 now and I'm as passionate as ever. The most rewarding part for me is the "Oh I see" moments. Seeing my pupils' eyes light up – there is no substitute for that. There are some days when I think to myself: "Was I actually paid for doing that? I would have done that for fun". I'm very fortunate to be teaching English. If I was a geography teacher I might need pupils to have understood Oxbow lakes, if I were a maths teacher I might need them to know about surds but as an English teacher I want them to understand more than using English devices to generate rapport: I get to give them the opportunity to be a better human being.
I didn't want to be a manager. My thrill is being in the classroom, interacting with the students, being at the chalkface. I'm on the SMT now but I'm the only one that has a full teaching timetable.
When I was a younger teacher I thought the pay scale in teaching was all wrong. I thought you should get the highest pay and most respect as a full time class teacher. I saw so many of the most talented teachers taken out of the classroom and going into management positions. I thought why can't an NQT do the timetabling? Now I'm not so sure, I see it's not so simple. I know how important experienced management is to a school. The saying goes you need someone to make sure you are doing things right and someone to make sure you're doing the right thing. At Newcastle Church High our deputy head Alison Roe does the former brilliantly and our wonderful headteacher Joy Gatenby does the latter. But still I do think too many teachers get out of classroom teaching too soon.
It's so important that individual class teachers have to be trusted. I think trust has broken down between management and their staff and between the government and schools. But at Newcastle Church High we are protected, we are given the freedom to teach and that comes straight from our headteacher.
I love the autonomy which I'm afraid you don't usually get in the state sector. In a private school your head can decide the degree of admin the teachers have to do. I know all our staff work phenomenally hard and put in many extra hours but we are not expected to waste our time filling in a mountain of forms. We aren't monitored like this and it's a relief.
I am an ISI team inspector and visit departments across the whole school in order to guide teachers in their teaching. These mini-inspections are very different from government inspections where the questions is: "Are you doing what we're telling you to do?" My inspections are about asking "How can I help you?"
When I look at my fellow teachers' schemes of work I'm looking at how that theory is reflected in practice. I interview groups of students and ask for their opinions on what worked, what went well and how well they understood the lesson. The students invariably give me really mature and thoughtful answers. I observe a whole lot of lessons and talk about what was good and how a teacher can be encouraged. I think it's vital to reflect on your own practice as a teacher. The problem is that teaching is such a pressurised job, it can be hard to find the time to ask why am I doing this?
I inspect lessons across all subjects: it's fascinating to see how different disciplines work. Recently I delivered an INSET session on outstanding lessons. I picked out four that I had witnessed and they were all completely different. Remember though as a teacher that all your lessons can't be outstanding. They should all be good. Sometimes you'll give an outstanding lesson one day, and then do the same lesson with a different group at a different time and it will fall flat. You haven't changed a thing. I see lots of lessons that are really good and a few outstanding ones. Sometimes I come out of my own lessons thinking well that didn't quite work...
My advice for teachers just going into the profession is:
• Always explain what your students are doing and why they are doing it. I give a little exercise to my new sixth formers. I ask them to write a story about a dog. Some of them look a bit confused, then they start writing. "Stop!" I ask. "What on earth are you doing?" "Writing a story about a dog!" "Why?" "We don't know!" "Never do anything I ask you to unless you know why you're doing it!" It works across all levels. If management ask me to work on a document I want to know why. If I know what I'm doing and understand the reasons why I'm doing it, I'll make a better job it. So you might be required to give your students homework, you don't really have any to give them so you just find something for the sake of it. Don't! There's just no point.
• It's easy to forget that the important thing is not the teaching but the students' learning. And these are not always the same thing!
• Listen to your students, genuinely listen. Not what they are saying but what are they hiding? What reassurance they need? Often the question they ask isn't really the question they want to ask. So for example your student might ask, "I don't understand why Iago is so set on destroying Othello" but what they mean is "I'm not following the play". There's a tendency for teachers to be too quick to answer their own questions and be scared of silence. Give your students time to answer, time to think.
• There's no point teaching a superb lesson, if meanwhile the class is paying no attention whatsoever. Unless you have their attention there's no point doing anything.
• You need to get your students to realise you trust and respect them if you don't, why should they trust and respect you? If you expect unpleasantness then you'll get it. I've always had the belief that if I ask the class to be quiet and they won't then it's time for me to get out of teaching.
• Be passionate about what you are teaching. My pupils often ask me how I know so much but there are numerous children in my class who are cleverer than me, they just don't know so much because they haven't had so much time to learn things.
Make it fun and make it relevant. If at all possible relate what you're doing to your pupils' own lives. Why should my students care about something made up in Verona 400 years ago? But if I can show them Shakespeare is writing about love, they are teenage girls, they can relate to that.
Do I ever regret not going back to that adversing agency? No, if I had I would probably be a richer man but be divorced with a stomach ulcer.
There's no doubt teaching is a stressful job, but it's an incredibly rewarding one. To some extent stress is what you impose on yourself. Of course there are external factors, especially in teaching. If you saw me at Easter just before the exams, well, if I had any hair I'd be tearing it out. But I'd say it's important for teachers to keep their eye on the bottom line, that is not what you're teaching but what they are learning.
Physical fitness does help. Teaching is not a job to be done by someone in poor health. You need energy. I'm lucky with my health. In fact I've never had a day off sick in my whole career.
Laurence Fleck is Head of English and Senior teacher at Newcastle Church High School in Newcastle.
Interview by Emily Drabble. If you have an inspiring story to tell and would like to be featured in this page please get in touch with emily.drabble@guardian.co.uk.
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