6 Overcoming barriers

Mr Thapa was a conscientious teaching school leader who attended a briefing confirming details of the state’s implementation of the Right to Education Act 2009 (RtE), including the banning of holding back promotion to the next year group. When he returned to the school, he knew what the staff reaction would be, and he was tempted to raise his hands in the air mouthing, ‘kya karein’ – ‘It’s not my fault; we have to make the most of a bad job!’

He believed that inclusion was right, and he thought a lot over the weekend about how to approach the first staff meeting. Over the weekend the media had got hold of the launch of the RtE and so everyone was in a state of anxiety about what it would mean. When his meeting started on Monday, the wall of sound that greeted him was immense. Staff wanted to let their frustration out about someone having made their job even tougher. What Mr Thapa did was very simple. He told them about the RtE and some of the benefits that it could bring to their students, to the aspirations of the next generation and the benefits in the much longer term that they would reap in smaller class sizes. He certainly did not blame anyone. It was what he said at the end of the meeting that helped the staff to stop, listen and reflect.

I know I don’t teach as many lessons as the rest of you [Mr Thapa told the staff], but I do teach every day, so I understand why you are upset. But if we’re really honest, how many of us actually stay behind at the end of the day to keep students back? And when did the threat of no promotion stop a student being lazy or naughty? Listening to you, I think your concerns are also about how we can help our students to succeed – and yes, of course, what we can do to make sure that the naughty students don’t become even more difficult. Today when I went on my regular daily round, I saw some lessons in which the students are always interested, in which behaviour is rarely a problem and in which the students are learning. That will continue whatever the government says.

Today reminded me that my main job is not about filling in forms and sitting in my office. What I want us to do today is to start a discussion among ourselves about how to make our classrooms more interesting no matter how many students are in them, about how to learn from those teachers in our school who inspire me as well as the students, and work out how to share their DNA with the rest of us. And – most importantly – how to involve the students themselves in working out what their responsibility is to make learning more enjoyable and teaching more productive.