Education Blog: Step aside Mick Jagger

### Daniel Mountain

**The Queen’s New Year’s Honours saw two of Britain’s best head teachers made Dames. Joan McVittie received the honour after overseeing the transformation and revival of two schools in disadvantaged areas of London, and Sally Coates is headmistress of the greatly improved Burlington Danes Academy in London.**

I think the recognition of these two women in the New Year’s honour is absolutely terrific, and denotes a shift in the perception of teachers that I think to be absolutely essential. We are always hearing people saying how underappreciated they think teachers are, but not enough people really stop to consider it.

A child’s education is one of the most important factors in determining what kind of life they are going to lead, and this makes teaching one of the most vital roles a person can fulfil in their life. I want to see teachers become revered like rock stars. I want people up and down the country to strut around their living rooms pretending to be Matilda’s Miss Honey, or School of Rock’s Mr Finn just as much as they pretend to be Mick Jagger.

The reason for this is that teaching needs to become a selective profession. If you want to get the best out of your teachers then we need to see people fighting tooth and claw to become teachers. Former Education Minister – Lord Adonis, states that we only have two applicants per teacher training position in the country. While this is good, it’s hardly as selective as the ten to twenty applicants we see in countries such as Finland or Taiwan.

We have 200,000 people applying to take part in the X factor year upon year, and yet teaching is still seen as a fall-back position by many. The joke “those who can, do, and those who cannot, teach” could not be more wrong. We need to come to the realisation that teaching is one of the most difficult, crucial and rewarding jobs on offer and we need to see many more people aspiring to teach.

I hope we see many more Dame Joans and Dame Sallys in future, I know they’re going to become the ultimate pin-ups in my eyes.