What happens if schools cannot recruit new teachers for September?

[calzone]

Hypothetically speaking....

If a school was to lose 11 teachers ( as they were retiring or just moving on), what would happen if no one applied for the vacancies?

[RandomHouseRules]

You would probably get a lot of nqts.

[calzone]

What if school is level 4 Inadequate......can it employ NQTs?

[ReallyTired]

They will employ lots of supply teachers. My daughter's school lost 13 out of 15 teachers when it was rated inadequate. My daughter's school has employed loads of NQTs but it was serious weaknesses rather than special measures. I don't understand why there are two categories of inadequate.

[Essexmum69]

You risk the situation we are in, where DS has had 6 form teachers since sept! He has had, so far, an NQT (lasted a few weeks), a supply teacher, the HM, a part time mat leave returner, a teacher borrowed from another local school and now finally a recruited new member of staff.

[ReallyTired]

I think that being in an OFSTED inadequate school is a more desperate situation to be in at secondary than primary. It is easier to find someone who can teach primary than A-level Physics.

When a school gets rated inadequate it is absolute carnage for the staff. Often there are lots of staff on sick leave and other staff are in no mental state to teach.

[Millymollymama]

Requires Improvement(3) is the old Satisfactory. Inadequate is (4) - the worst. RI means that there are some better aspects of the school but that some areas need to be improved upon. This can be, for example, that children make inadequate progress but their behaviour, safety and even results might be good, ie a coasting school.

If the school is Inadequate (4) then they cannot employ NQTs unless they have been given permission by HMI to do so. They can seek to improve the teachers they already employ but some may not accept that scenario and leave. The deadline for teachers handing in resignations is May 31st so you do not know the full position at the moment. If the school does already know its resignations, then it still have time to recruit. If good teachers are not available (and this is the real challenge) the school will have to take supply teachers or be linked with another school to borrow teachers. If there is a new leadership team in place and the quality of teaching expected is being ramped up, some teachers will not be happy about this because the workload goes up - a lot. They retire or move on. The new leadership will require good teachers to get them out of the Inadequate rating. I expect, if you look at the Ofsted Report, teaching and learning were the big failures.

Believe me, good primary teachers do not grow on trees either. There is a shortage of good teachers - full stop! If every school had brilliant outstanding teachers there would hardly be any RI or Inadequate!

[calzone]

Oh dear.

And OFSTED are in tomorrow.......

[toomuchicecream]

Filling the gap with supply teachers depends on there being supply teachers available. It took 7 agencies to find someone to take on my old class, and it wasn't confirmed till the day before we broke up at the end of term. By all accounts she's fairly useless, rarely arrives before the children, the class are out of control and the parents up in arms. But there isn't anyone else out there - better to have someone than no one....

[Millymollymama]

The problem will be that Ofsted (or HMI) will be looking for the school to secure good teachers. They are not really concerned with the supply of decent teachers and wsith the school population expanding, the Government has not understood the lack of good teachers either. Ofsted are concerned about the teachers being in place, that they teach good or better lessons and the children make progress. They will look at whether the school is doing enough for that to happen. I assume Ofsted (HMI) are following up on the their previous judgement to see if the school is putting in place what is needed. A letter of their findings will be published on the Ofsted website. It is very difficult for a school to make progress when it has a huge number of unfilled vacancies. It might be that there are new staff coming but that parents have not yet been informed but the visit today will only see the existing teachers.

I feel for parents and schools with this problem. However, although the "someone rather than no-one" scenario has to happen, it is clearly not acceptable if this puts the childrens' education at further risk.

[Charis1]

agency staff, many schools and departments are run with over 50% agency staff. i left full time teaching to become agency staff, it is fantastic, there is nothing like the stress, pressure and workload. More and more teachers are doing short term supply, instead of long term. The last department I left had only one full tie long term teacher.

I am now doing consultancy in special needs, quite a lot, on a free lance basis, but still doing some supply. Schools are desperate for anyone long term, but I only take day to day. If I wanted to do long term or permanent, i would have a choice of 10 jobs to start tomorrow!

it isn't unusual for a school to be understaffed, many or most schools are, and it is common for job adverts to receive no applications at all. In some subjects, there is a shortfall of 40%, and most schools in London have a shortfall across the board.

[CharlesRyder]

Ship in teachers from abroad (often Canadians or Antipodeans) who want to teach abroad for a year. I think there are actually fairs schools can go to to pick up people in this category.

[calzone]

13 teachers now going.......

4 new ones have been recruited.

[mrz]

Is the school an academy?

[calzone]

No

Got inadequate last time and they came in last week with no formal verdict announced yet.

[mrz]

How large is the staff? How many original staff will be left?

[MilkRunningOutAgain]

Getting a requires improvement is a long haul, I imagine getting unsatisfactory would be worse. Essexmum's experience is the same as mine, my DD had more teachers than I can count last academic year and the school lost many pupils to the local private girls school, as well as loads of capable teachers. This was after a requires improvement nearly 3 years ago. Last academic year my DD's levels plateaued in reading and went backwards in writing and maths. This academic year the school is stabilising, my DD has an excellent teacher and is making up for lost ground. But, so many girls left last year to the local private girls school, there are only 7 in a class of 30 left. It is now a bit unbalanced gender wise throughout the school, there is no similar boys private school locally, so the number of girls' parents who gave up with the school was disproportionate. It took about 2.5 academic years to get the school back to near normal after the requires improvement, the impact was huge, the head and most the previous staff left and it took ages to recruit new ones. Out of about 10ish teaching staff, just 1 remains from before the requires improvement! It got worse and worse until a good head teacher was recruited and since then has improved rapidly. We are fairly rural, it's the only school in the village, there is the one private girls school within a reasonable distance and nothing else. Until the requires improvement the school had always been good. It is now good again thankfully. But it isn't the school I chose for my kids, the whole feel and ethos has changed.

[admission]

But there is an interesting problem, Milkrunningoutagain, the school that you chose for your child had a nice feel and ethos but the school was not a good school, your children were not learning. Does that not suggest that there was a need to change and that the new head teacher is now bringing about the need for change that was probably over-due.
From experience, too many small village schools are still in a time warp where the head teacher is a respected member of the local community, all think the school is wonderful as the children love going to school, but actually the school is rubbish in ensuring that your children are getting a good education.

[Millymollymama]

Very true, admission. It happens all the time around here. Most parents don't seem to know their children could have done better.

I know a school that had 50% of lessons taught be agency staff and Ofsted roasted them for failing to secure good permanent teachers for the children.

[calzone]

There will be 10 remaining teachers......4 recruited and need to find SLT for whole school plus 9 new teachers.

[calzone]

Though 3 of those remaining ones are being massively propped up by other staff members.

[mrz]

So the school has lost half the staff plus SLT?

[mrz]

A local village school (much smaller) was staffed by LEA advisors until after Ofsted had revisited.

[calzone]

Yes

Half the staff plus SLT.

Where will we get staff from now?

[Millymollymama]

LA advisers will run the school or they will second a Head and Deputy from another school. From agencies for the other vacancies. This looks like a school imploding. Such a dreadful situation for the children.

[calzone]

Managed to pull my child out of this school at Easter, thank goodness. Gutted but necessary as there are currently no y6 teachers for September.


((and the parents have no idea ))