Dear teachers: you are not alone. Gabbie Stroud’s story is one which will be familiar to all teachers. With more than a decade’s worth experience behind her and a lifelong passion for teaching, Stroud reached a boiling point in 2014 which eventually resulted in her resignation and, among other things, the penning of this insightful, heart-wrenching memoir.

As a teacher myself, this book was a comforting reminder that somebody gets it – drowning in paperwork and assessing and benchmarking and entering data and making visual tracking resources and attending PLT and PLC meetings, is what ‘teaching’ is these days. Teachers are so pushed for time and so focused on ‘the measurable’ that other areas are suffering.

Stroud has put into words the effect this is having on teachers and more importantly our students. We want to prioritise how happy the kids are, or how engaged they are, but without the time and resources it feels impossible. It is difficult to assess happiness, creativity, curiosity and self-belief but that doesn’t mean that these things are less important than quantifiable results.

This book not only tells Stroud’s story, or even those of her friends and peers (such as in her friend Lana’s lamentable decline) – it tells the story of every teacher behind the closed classroom door. Stroud mentions that ‘Every teacher knows that child’ (the one rolling around on the floor during assembly or eating the blu tack). Unfortunately every teacher also knows a teacher like Lana. Or maybe they are Lana. This is an issue which needs to be demonstrated to the politicians and Stroud’s book is a good place for them to start.

I recognised myself in these pages, and my copy of Teacher is already doing the rounds among my fellow educators.

Reviewed by Gabrielle Jones