Listen to this story Members can listen to an AI-generated audio version of this article. 1.0x Audio narration uses an AI-generated voice. 0:00 0:00 Become a member to listen to this article Subscribe Lots of people confuse ‘use by’ and ‘best before’ dates. One implies a deadline while the other is really no more than a suggestion. I have been wondering recently if teachers have use by and best before dates too. I recently heard a piece on the radio suggesting that overall performance on cognitive tests now peaks around age 50. That gave me hope. 50 might seem late for mental agility to reach its apex. After all, processing speed peaks at around 18. I know I’m an awful lot slower than those who fill the seats of my classroom. But they’re not the finished product, the done deal, just yet. I have that advantage over them, at least. Some aspects of memory do not reach their height until the mid twenties. Others continue growing in power up to the mid thirties. Emotional intelligence, meanwhile, unsurprisingly seems to correlate with life experience so that is not at its height until a wisdom-soaked 40 to 60. I’m certain most of my best days are behind me now. But not all. There’s still time. My emotional intelligence is still strong and my cognitive abilities are only just past-peak. And my teaching is still good, maybe better than ever. I may be beyond my own ‘best before’ date, then, but my ‘use by’ is still some way off. And I’m planning accordingly. A 2018 DfE study showed that older teachers did not diminish in their abilities and the success rates of students taught by older teachers did not decline as might be expected until the age of 70. We will all be out of the classroom by then, I hope. But more teachers than ever are leaving the profession in their fifties rather than seeing out the full career course, either changing careers or taking early retirement. The issue is particularly acute for women. As a result, the average age of the UK teacher workforce has been steadily declining over the past fifteen years and we now have one of the lowest proportions of teachers over 50 in Europe. In UK primary schools, 31 per cent of teachers are under 30 and 60 per cent under 40. This shifts upwards in secondary schools, where the average teacher age is around 40. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, the average teacher age in FE is the highest, at around 46. Nearly 40 per cent of FE teachers are aged 50 or older. Maybe this reflects the value of the Li-FE experience many bring to the job. Experience is hard to come by and takes a long time to acquire. It has to be valued. Older people simply make very good teachers. Yet our education sector is crippled by perpetual short-termism, a problem endemic to our reactive system. It’s very much the case for individual teachers, for whom every year’s results can be make-or-break, career-changing crossroads. Of course, for individual students there’s only one set of results that count, and long-term thinking is irrelevant as far as they are concerned. Maybe we’re limited by an all-too-human need for novelty and immediacy. You may have written some of the most celebrated songs of all time, but you’re only ever one Frog Chorus away from irrelevance. Teachers are often only one VA-added measure away from the spectre of capability measures or simple sidelining. So how do we recognise and reward our older teachers, and keep this valuable cohort not just safely ensconced and enriched in the boardroom, but there in the actual classroom? I have no real idea, but I can see the problem clearly enough. I’m a teacher, after all, and not a policy wonk. Could we imagine a world where the value placed on experience was really taken into account? Perhaps such a system might add an extra grade to teachers’ pay scales, one which applied only after time. It would be like a hidden level unlocked late in a game. Maybe there might be an extra rise, given only after 25 years of teaching, or 30 years of solid work, there to counter the shocking attrition of our eldest and our best, designed to stem the bleeding-out of the profession which comes from teachers who leave before their time. UK teachers are already amongst the worst paid in Europe, and this would target only a small cohort of the workforce. I dream of a world where, alongside golden handshakes at the starts of teaching careers, we might find the grace to introduce golden back-slaps too as those same careers come towards their close. But in reality I know how the system works. The short-term rules. So I won’t hold my breath for long. I’m simply too old for that.
Benjamin Orme 2 June 2026 Excellent work. Pay rewards for experience and longevity sounds like an excellent idea. Especially for those in poorer areas like Stoke where I am from; students need that experience massively. Never liked the idea of golden handshakes despite being a young teacher myself. Learning from those experienced in the trenches has been instrumental for me. Thank you.
Colleen Sawicki 2 June 2026 Speaking from experience, I do think older and more experienced teachers bring something really valuable to the classroom. It is not just about how long someone has been teaching or how much subject knowledge they have, although that obviously matters. It is also about the emotional intelligence that develops over time. In FE, you quickly learn that teaching is not just delivering content. It is about reading the room, noticing when a learner is struggling, knowing when to challenge and when to support, and being able to stay calm when situations become difficult. A lot of that comes from experience. Older teachers have often dealt with a wide range of learners, behaviours and personal circumstances, and that gives them a level of judgement and perspective that is hard to teach. That said, I also think younger teachers bring real value to the sector. They often bring energy, fresh ideas, confidence with technology, and a strong understanding of the pressures young people face today. They can relate to learners in a different way and often bring new approaches that help keep teaching current and engaging. For me, the strongest classrooms and departments are not about one generation being better than another. They are about having the right balance. Experienced teachers bring wisdom, resilience and professional judgement, while younger teachers bring innovation, enthusiasm and new perspectives. Both are needed.