Fears grow over shortage of qualified teachers

[noblegiraffe]

The Times is a bit behind the times in reporting on the teacher shortage crisis, however new figures show that after a brief respite for recruitment issues due to covid, the situation in schools for September is now looking dire.

"Job adverts for secondary school teachers are up 47 per cent on last year and 14 per cent on 2019, prior to the pandemic, according to SchoolDash, an education data company."

Oh, but we can just recruit fresh, enthusiastic trainees to replace the old, busted teachers who are quitting in droves, some on here would claim. Bad news there too:

"Government figures show fewer than 9,000 of the 20,945 new teachers it hoped to start training from September have been offered a training place.

In physics just 25 have been firmly recruited while a further 283 have a conditional offer to start training — just 12 per cent of the 2,600 target.

In design and technology, only 15 per cent of the required teachers have been recruited, while in maths and English the figure is a little over half."

While I can see the govt is gearing up to once again slate the profession, the question parents need to be asking is "who exactly is left to teach my child?"

And the answer isn't necessarily something you'll want to hear.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/cc94af68-eff3-11ec-9bea-abc2bc5953e5?shareToken=9852fc3a725ac809e13b4f5ea234ec8d

Another one here leaving at the end of the academic year. Autumn term is always difficult but this year is intolerable.

I doubt it. The problems in teaching are deeper than schools being "good or bad". People understandably won't jump through hoops for money that is worth 30% less than it was 12 years ago.

I don't disagree with this being your experience, but both as a teacher in Scotland and a parent differentiation is absolutely normal!

Just a couple of tuppence worth to put in.

First, marking. I’m in a primary school that has just been marked ‘good’ by OFSTED. Also, our head is an OFSTED inspector. Our marking consists of a tick. Just a tick. As far as our marking policy and head are concerned there is no value in marking in retrospect. The expectation is that you are marking as the work is in progress. As I say, we are ‘good’ going from special measures.

No teachers have left in a very long time, except for reasons like having babies, retiring, a move to another area.

For me the problem is the children and their parents. My last year 1 class was 30. All but 2 had some kind of additional need or problem at home. Autism, speech and language problems, severe poverty, parent on trial for murder, general poor behaviour. I had no additional support.
Many of the parents are lovely but some would create merry hell if I dared to tell their child off.

If a kid is behaving like an utter thug at school, it’s unlikely they are learning anything anyway. All they are doing is making it impossible for everyone else to learn as well. Kick them out. Sometimes people need to bottom out by themselves and then return to education a few years later when the adolescent hormones have sorted themselves out.

Outstanding school, best results in county: can’t fill posts. I’m in charge of Teacher Training in schools and all the universities are down about half in applicants this year. There’s massive issues now and just going to get worse.

I've been out supply for a couple of years, I'm still being contacted by agencies.

One of the things that impacted on me was the removal of claiming expenses.

Now I know none supply teachers have to pay for travel and food but doing supply I could claim so I did a couple of placements long distance.

I was offered on in Guernsey with accomodation included.

I’m a trained teacher still working directly with children for a charity. I earn slightly less but not drastically and take home pay is similar due to not needing so much childcare.

I think the retention issues are

• lack of part time/job share opportunities when people have taken a career break
• lack of flexibility (ie currently I can take an hour off work and arrange my own cover if I need to take my disabled child to a hospital appointment and I don’t need to ask anyone and no one thinks anything of it)
• Ideological - there are ridiculous expectations from government/ofsted that have no basis in any science of child development. This ultimately creates stressed teachers, parents and children. Education isn’t a race.

Absolutely this. I moved my special needs child who was causing utter disruption but (selfishly more importantly to me was in utter despair in school). The change was overnight because he had a SENCO who knew what she was doing and a class teacher who deeply cared about him (children can tell). He still needs 1:1 (doesn’t have it) and an ECHP (doesn’t have it yet) but he now has a diagnosis and teachers doing their best for him.
It must be exhausting for his class teacher because she is trying to be a class teacher and a 1:1 TA for about three children. She has my utter respect but she shouldnt be in this position.
It has such a knock on impact on the economy since many, many parents of SEN children (including trained teachers!) can’t work because of time off to support their children on school visits, plays, residentials, assemblies, etc.