Online lessons because schools can't recruit and retain teachers

Shortly, AI will be able to do this.

I think children should be taught by (human) teachers. However, I can easily imagine a situation where children will sit in a classroom on a personal device and be given feedback by AI with just a human supervisor in the room. I think we are very nearly there in terms of the technology and the DfE will be rubbing their hands with glee at how cheap that will be.

www.schoolmanagementplus.com/features/in-focus-i-used-to-think-computer-science-teachers-would-be-safe-from-ai/

Tbf I think @SummerWinds means home ed, not higher ed! I don’t agree that remote learning via recorded lesson is a good idea there either tho. Certainly not as the main or only source of learning.

"It’s going to lead to negative effects on children’s lifestyles, as parents scrimp and stretch to afford private education because state schools are so bad."

Possibly, that only applies to a fraction of a fraction of the population. I wouldn't spend any time worrying about it.

Let's address the actual problem instead

It makes complete sense to me. The opportunity cost of teaching, say, computer science (with a computer science degree), is much higher than teaching, say, English (with an English lit degree).

If schools cannot reduce that opportunity cost, it's only natural they will struggle to employ in specialist subject areas that have substantial market demand in the private sector.

But is it still a controversial idea?

It's sort of acknowledged by the government already through this type of policy change - www.gov.uk/government/news/salary-boosts-for-new-maths-science-and-computing-teachers

They need to take it further to cover senior teachers as well I guess.

Another thing that may make a difference, is the social status of the job. From how I have seen some parents behaving with teachers in DD's old school (state primary), it seems they don't respect teachers as much as some other cultures (I am Asian, and respect for teachers is ingrained in some cultures). I don't think any government policy can change this though! It's a cultural thing.

It’s not just a pay issue. Behaviour of many students and parents nowadays is absolutely appalling and it’s only going to get worse. Kids are no longer disciplined and most are brought up to be entitled shits. Workforce entrants these days are horrific and they get worse every decade. Teachers are at the coal front of this behaviour, who the fuck would want to put themselves in this position? Money won’t fix this.

Not in UK but same here and not just public schools. For senior secondary, many have not had specialist teachers for years, just an unqualified Joe thrust into the situation and doing their best. A colleague at work has a child in senior years at a private school. They literally have teachers for half their subjects as there is no one out there to recruit, so they have gone to an online centralised distance learning model. For subjects such as chem/physics/bio they are making deals with uni’s to send kids there for a block of days to do required prac work under appropriate instruction. While I imagine the uni’s are not thrilled, they have little choice really as otherwise they get lumbered with first year entrants that can’t light a Bunsen burner, don’t have requisite practical skills.

None of this is limited to the UK and for us it seems to be agnostic to which party is in Government.

I think discipline is the biggest issue, that along with parental attitude is the main reason I left teaching (maths). This needs to be addressed urgently and I believe the only way is a no tolerence policy across the board. We also need more SEN schools so that other children in the class can learn without disruption from those that are struggling to focus on topics that are way beyond their capacity.

I agree with the pp that said we need to go back to segregation on the basis of ability - it is pointless teaching simultaneous equations or pythagoras to a child that is never going to grasp algebra in any form. Trying to teach something that is that far beyond a child's capacity to learn is counter-productive and is partly to blame for poor behaviour. That child would be more engaged and better off spending much more time learning practical life skills such as how to manage their money so they can at least function in the world after school ends.

Online learning of the future is much more nuanced that most people seem to think. I now work in home education and find that some of the more advanced online systems are excellent at picking up on errors and misunderstandings and adapting to suit the individual child. For maths this is much better than using a class teacher who does not have time to diagnose and tailor that sort of individual attention to a single child in a large class. The teacher can see the progress through the software immediately and can address it. I therefore think a combination of online and face-to-face time is the solution. Children watch a lecture, complete an exercise at a computer and then smaller groups arranged by ability are used to address common issues. This is more like a university lecture and seminar system that caters for large numbers of students with a lower staff pupil ratio, however it can only work if we resolve the behavioural issues first.

The problem is way bigger than that and we ought to grapple with it

"Why would Rishi care when his daughter goes to Wycombe Abbey?"

I'm no fan of the Tories, and of course am desperate for a Labour landslide as soon as possibly can. But I hate this kind of reductive argument. It's not an explanation nor is it a reasonable assumption.

I've never had an issue with drugs but I still care that the state provides good quality medical and psychological support for heroin and crack addicts 🤷🏻‍♀️

Controversial opinion: I think we need to discuss paying teachers different rates. STEM teachers can earn significantly more outside of teaching, so teaching is less attractive. Other subjects teaching pay is greater than non-teaching pay, so makes teaching more attractive.

It isn’t a coincidence that science and maths are the hardest subjects to recruit. They have been falling behind recruitment targets for new teachers for years. I have a PhD in physics,I choose to teach as I do love it, but I know I could be earning a shit load more elsewhere. If I stop loving it, I am going to go.

Pay in demand subjects more. Pay shortage locations more. Pay more expensive areas more (not just London weighting). 1 national payscale is too clumsy.

I also do teach in a private school, as I was fed up with not having the right equipment, class sizes too big to be safe (34 in a practical subject is too many, Scotland limits to 25!). And a big one for me, I can teach in specialism, as my subject knowledge is valued, unlike state where I would be asked to teach all 3 sciences, where I do not have that knowledge base.

Why would anyone want to be a teacher nowadays?

The starting salary is around £23k which isn't enough to pay rent and bills on a 1 bed flat near me (not an affluent area and I imagine it's the same in most of the country). Maybe they could manage if they got a guarantor and lived off food bank parcels or community fridge schemes. Definitely no money left over for a meal with friends or days out. A one week holiday is out of the question.

Why would anyone get into £30k of student debt (and that's just the tuition fees on an undergrad degree) to work in a job where they can't afford to have any quality of life?

"Well where I live you can rent a one bed flat for a fiver a month so why don't they just move to a cheaper area?" Because if everyone moves to a cheaper area, it's no longer cheap because landlords will increase the rent like they have everywhere else.

The salary alone is a barrier for people accessing teaching as a career. Yes, there's a salary scale they go through but it's going to take quite a few years to get to the point where they earn enough to house themselves and have any kind of basic quality of life.

That's just the salary aspect. Like PP have said, teaching isn't respected. Everyone knows teachers are underpaid, overworked, having to deal with constant abuse from pupils and parents. Why would anyone sign up for that?

Pretty much every graduate career is a better option than teaching is right now.

We need to make teaching an attractive, prestigious profession again.

I work in an indie and when we advertise for staff it is always teachers from state who apply. Our classes are a bit smaller, pay is in line with, or just below state teachers’ pay and our days are significantly longer with expectations we will do many more parents’ evenings, reports, clubs etc. However, the main difference is the children are (generally) well-behaved and no one fears teaching any groups. We still teach a huge number of children with SEN but we can teach, not lion tame!

State teachers come to us and think it is like a holiday camp as there are no discipline issues. We still work incredibly hard but if a kid steps out of line, the head can suspend and permanently exclude. This is a big difference between state and my school.

It's certainly true that the private sector is affected, but it's also true that the strongest private schools are going to be affected least and last - so it's still a two tier system, but the upper tier is increasingly small. At our school, for example, we're finding teacher recruitmemt harder (and support staff recruitment much harder than that, incidentally), but we're still in a situation where every lesson is taught by a subject specialist (apart from a once in a blue moon short notice one off lesson where we have to use a non subject specialist). That's a very different situation from what is happening in a lot of the state sector.

(FWIW I don't think pay is the main issue, even if that's what the strikes are ostensibly about.)

It is a severe crisis and disgraceful that things have come to this. This is just one visible problem, but there is a massive ongoing recruitment crisis under the radar. My niece in a London comprehensive has only ever been taught computer science by a various supply teachers since September last year.

About this though -
We really are a two tier society now, with students in private schools in small classes, taught by specialist teachers, and students in state schools effectively teaching themselves at a computer

I am not so sure.

From my personal experience, the crisis is affecting the independent sector acutely too, at least in London.

The worst such example I know of is when South Hampstead High School (quite a high profile school in London, 21K fees) jointily advertised for a chemistry teacher position with another nearby state school because neither could fill that position independently. South Hampstead had that position open for five months!

www.standard.co.uk/news/education/chemistry-teacher-london-recruitment-crisis-state-schools-b1057751.html

In my DD's senior school in London (about 22K fee), a long standing English teacher left, and an entire term went by before they could find a replacement. We now really worry about who would leave next!

I think teacher salaries are simply not competitive enough in this country, and as a result, many are leaving the profession for better opportunities elsewhere, fewer joining the profession, shrinking the pool of available teachers for both independent and state sector.

Just as you would expect in a free market.

To attract people more people into the profession, better conditions and pay are required.

I used to break myself trying to come up with ways of teaching chemistry to kids who were so dyslexic they couldn't read or write and are certainly never going to need to know about the structure of an atom or ionic or covalent bonding. And that's the really basic stuff of gcse chemistry we teach them in the first month.

The whole educational system needs a rehaul, those kids could be learning something vocational, they are wasting their time and it's no wonder behaviour is so bad.

I know the secondary modern/grammar system was so hated but similar systems work in other countries as long as it is fluid and you are not pigeonholed age 11 if you didn't make the grade. There should be the ability to switch at 13+ and 16+ so gcse equivalents still offered as options at the more vocational schools

I'm in the same situation. But I think we're talking about a fairly small (and dwindling) number of schools that are in this strong a position. Even among the big HMC schools, some are really struggling, with finances as well as teacher recruitment. I think private schools as a whole will be hit both hardest and least hard by this situation - in the sense that the most precarious will implode and close, while the likes of mine and yours in the strongest minority will find things very tough but will ultimately be OK and probably suffer less impact than the state sector.

totally agree @huji

ofsted have destroyed the english education system

remember when they went "off" text books? Millions of pounds worth of resources dumped, and nothing ever replaced them.

No we are beyond desperate for those old text books.

I'm a teacher. Worked for 12 years in state and jumped to private as I didn't want to deal with the increasingly poor behaviour of the kids. Schools can do nothing about it as ofsted downgrade the school if the have too many exclusions - even if they are for a day or two.

When I made the switch I was on the same wage as I had been in state. I relocated with the family and at my new independent school I was on less than I had been on in state. Then when issues with teachers pensions scheme contributions in independent schools started to become an issue I ended up getting paid even less as I had to top up myself.

But even though I get paid less than in state there is no way whatsoever that I would move back to state education. When we relocated i interviewed in a state school first. I taught the requisite interview lesson to a class, spent the day in the school observing and then when I went into the interview room I said that even if offered the job I won't take it. It's just dire.

My only relief for getting paid less than my state colleagues is that I get a fee discount and this means my two dc can go through my school rather than having to go into the state system.

The system is broken but it wasn't the lack of funding that did it- it's ofsted

Most kids do not have the discipline to learn online or from video tutorials. We know this from covid. Yes there are a small number of kids with parents who could support them at home who loved this style of learning. They are primarily kids whose parents think home Ed is best or who have other social or mental health problems. The vast majority of kids need to go to school. Our schools are struggling g to recruit and retain teachers. The main issue is behaviour in my view. Student behaviour is pretty hideous. It is draining to spend hours preparing lessons when some students do everything they can to not engage and in some cases to ruin the lesson for others. These students then move on to misbehave in social times and around the school. Add to this the number of pastoral and mental health issues being det with by school staff and the constant pressure to do more and you have your answer to the issue of retention and recruitment.

ok, so explain this to me,

last time I did online learning I had a "class" of 240

How am I supposed to take the register? How am I supposed to see which students are having which issue? Which students are working, and which are not? Which need help? who is happy? Who is being bullied? who is copying the answers? Who needs to be stretched?

Yes, there are ways of doing all this online, with a class of 30, but if there were only 30 students needing a teacher, it wouldn't be online, would it?

Even worse, when students are not even watching online live, and at least able to signal thumbs up or thumbs down if they understand or not - you can at least maybe do a quick tally and see of yes, 237 students say they understand this, if it is live online, but of course you have no idea if they are telling the truth, or even know what the tally is for. In a prerecorded lesson, you can't even do that

Sorry,

Do more regurgitate information, think safe guarding, providing information for/ working with EHCP. It also increases the advantages of an educated/ academic family and further scuppers those that don't.

I'm sorry I just can't agree with this.

For some children this may actually be a better option, but for many it's catastrophic. Looking at results in higher education is a fallacy because you're only looking at students, who narrowed down their focus to their talents and interests and have already shown a degree of ability to pass exams etc.

Teachers also do more than

It’s going to lead to negative effects on children’s lifestyles, as parents scrimp and stretch to afford private education because state schools are so bad.

And this is why we’re striking! The cuts to school budgets and the cuts to teacher wages have a direct impact on children’s ability to learn.

It's not online learning at home, it's online learning in school. So students sat in a computer room doing online lessons, watching pre-recorded videos, with an adult there for supervision only.

Oh I see. Great plan.

Then people could set up,businesses where instead of lessons being delivered online, a person could be employed to deliver those lessons 'live' and in person, for a fee, to small groups. Perhaps they could employ people who knew about science for example to do the science parts and some arty for the art. I might copyright this.

While it is true that watching a video is better than having no teacher at all and simply staring at the wall, it is certainly not an adequate replacement for a good face-to-face teacher.

The idea that a selected cohort of motivated learners can learn certain things from watching a video therefore so can all teenagers and children is just balls. Everyone knows it's balls and it's embarrassing that you thought you might convince people.