Schemes, Screens and Scripts: How Education Lost Its Soul

I loved teaching. But teaching stopped loving me back.

A Walk, a Rant, and a Realisation

I was on a walk recently with a dear friend — a fellow educator who, like me, has left the classroom after nearly a decade. Our weekly walks are always a space for reflection, and this week’s topic was a familiar one: schemes.

“What do you mean you don’t know?”

When I began teaching in Reception, schemes didn’t exist. In fact, relying on a scheme was frowned upon — seen as a lazy option. As teachers, we were expected to plan the curriculum ourselves, for every subject. If you didn’t know something, you found out. That was the message from the very start, even at university:

Don’t know? Go find out!

When Did That Change?

To be honest, I didn’t see it coming. It started with phonics schemes (SSPs), then moved to maths (White Rose), and before long, it had spread to the foundation subjects too. You could technically still write your own content, but only if it mirrored the scheme and carefully evidenced progression of knowledge and skills.

Schemes were introduced as a way to reduce teacher workload. That’s how they sold it. But in reality, they’ve sucked the creativity and autonomy out of teaching, replacing professional judgement with prescribed content and colour-coded plans.

Hundreds and Thousands

Originally, schemes were intended as tools — to support planning and inform CPD — not to replace them entirely. But since the reform of Ofsted, they’ve become the preferred way to "keep them happy." Schools no longer feel they can build their own approach; to do so means having to justify every decision to someone who may not even understand your phase.

I’ve spent countless hours defending my curriculum to inspectors who didn’t have early years experience. I created something I was (and still am) incredibly proud of. But because a PowerPoint slide said otherwise, I had to prove that I knew what I was doing — again and again. Exhausting doesn’t even come close.

What makes it worse is that schemes can cost thousands to implement, monitor and maintain!

Help Teacher Workload, You Say?

This is the part that stings most. Schemes were brought in to “save us” — to take planning off our plates. But here’s the thing: have you ever tried to teach from a plan that isn’t yours?

I hate it.
My worst lessons are always the ones I didn’t write.
I need to create and nurture a plan before I can deliver it authentically.

Now, instead of spending time crafting meaningful lessons, I spend just as long adapting, reworking, and rewriting plans that were never mine to begin with. We haven’t solved the crisis. We’ve just put a plaster on it.

What Have We Lost?

I fear my beloved profession is becoming a vocation where anyone can step in, follow the script, and tick the boxes. But great teaching isn’t about following. It’s about innovating, connecting, creating.

We used to celebrate teachers as thinkers, designers, and experts. Now, we’re asked to be deliverers of content — robots with a lesson plan in hand.

Final Thought

Schemes may offer structure, but they’ve come at a cost: the professionalism, creativity, and trust that once defined teaching. Until we start trusting teachers again — really trusting them — we’ll keep losing the ones who care the most