Introduction

Teaching. It's an idealistic profession. We go into it to change the world. We watch education secretaries come, we watch education secretaries go. We get accused by pockets of the tabloid press of being lazy, of hiding during worldwide pandemics and closing schools, of taking too many holidays, and yet – and yet – folk still enter this profession. And the vast majority of the people with whom I initially trained to teach, 20 years ago, are still teaching today.