On the face of it, when you walk around schools at break-time, or glance into classrooms during lessons, they look just as they always did. But things have changed. Schools are not the places they were. In many schools, teachers no longer socialise or discuss education informally in the staffroom, meeting instead in formal meetings where the agenda is set. They communicate with colleagues by email, or have brief interchanges in the cupboard they call the departmental office. In class, their lessons have become more formulaic and their relationships with pupils have due regard for the ‘boundaries’ prescribed by school policies. Even the way teachers dress is more formal, in keeping with the business ethos many schools promote. What has driven these changes, and what effect do they have on education? Is the idea of teaching as an inspiring vocation a thing of the past?