Creativity, collaboration and conformity: Curriculum making and teacher motivation

Abstract There is a teacher recruitment and retention crisis in England. There is a particular challenge in recruiting physical science teachers, with government targets for recruitment being missed for the last 10 years and a high proportion of physical science teachers leaving early in their careers. This paper explores very experienced (25+ years) science teachers' description of school curriculum‐making against the backdrop of this teacher retention crisis. Semi‐structured interviews focusing on teachers' views on the national curriculum and how it impacted school‐level curriculum‐making were carried out with 15 very experienced teachers. Data focused on curriculum‐making at academy trust, school or classroom level were extracted and analysed using reflexive thematic analysis with the theoretical lenses of curriculum‐making and self‐determination theory. The data show that teachers value creativity and collaboration in curriculum‐making but are increasingly subject to school policies requiring their conformity. Expecting conformity can reduce the skills of curriculum‐making in the teaching workforce and is experienced as profoundly demotivating and even dehumanising, leading directly to teachers' decision to leave the profession. The findings will be of interest in understanding teacher motivation and retention in subjects beyond science and countries beyond England.