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staff in order to keep those teachers motivated and up-to-date with subject knowledge, while reminding them of why they went into teaching in the first place. On the other hand, could all of this actually come down to a question of teacher flexibility? Professor Brian Boyd – who worked in the Faculty of Education at the University of Strathclyde for 13 years, after a career in which he held the posts of headteacher, education officer and education adviser – believes it’s a case of teachers themselves being best placed to meet their pupils’ range of needs: “I think the issue here is about variety of teaching approaches. It’s the teacher’s responsibility to ensure that the pupils are learning,” he states, adding, “This entails finding out how pupils learn, and tailoring methods appropriately.” Rotation’s pros and cons Of course, there’s an elephant in the room here – namely the effect that a poorly performing teacher can have on pupil progress. A recent survey of secondary teachers carried out by Leeds Beckett University found that three quarters of respondents thought poor mental health among teachers was having a detrimental effect on pupils’ education, with teachers reporting that they feel less effective in the classroom if their mental health isn’t good. But can a head of department realistically use staff rotation as a means of alleviating the disparity in quality of their teaching cohort without acknowledging that some teachers are simply better than others? Rotation does happen in other professions, but not always successfully. While junior doctors will often move round departments teachwire.net/secondary ABOUT THE AUTHOR Gordon Cairns is an English and forest school teacher who works in a unit for secondary pupils with ASD; he also writes about education, society, cycling and football for a number of publications 49 S TA F F I N G as they find their specialism, the Civil Service’s Fast Stream scheme is routinely criticised for how its graduates barely get the chance to master one role before being rotated into another department. Being rotated round classes like a football manager could well be an attractive option for many in the teaching profession, especially if accompanied by a salary boost – though if poor results led to regular sackings, you’d naturally expect far fewer to support it! However, we do need a serious examination into whether rotating secondary teachers around classes can have a positive effect on student performance.