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

Wonder if this is just England or Scotland too? We advertised recently and got 32 applicants for a role.

I think the pay is better in Scotland too, after 5 years we are top of the pay scale on a little over 42K this is a good salary for Scotland which I think contributes to teachers staying in the job. I was working until 11pm tonight though so that doesn’t change

@sweetkitty I’m in Scotland and quitting after I return from mat leave but I’m on a Facebook group called exit the classroom and thrive and a lot of the people on there are from England

@Sarah13xx its the LA and in turn the SG who I’m so annoyed at GIRFEC ha ha ha.

Good I'm glad people are noticing. I taught for ten years, became a ta for a better work/life balance but was so tired I've now left education for good. I can't believe how much better my life is, it makes me so angry how badly teachers and tas are treated in this country. I am getting soooo many supply/interview offers its insane, I was a dedicated teacher but there's no way I'm going back, here's why:

• abysmal pay for the hours and expected work.
• the government openly hates us and this filters through to parents and children who have zero respect for the work teachers do.
• the culture of criticism and blame.
• everyone is so stressed as a result the atmosphere is toxic.
• the behaviour of entitled children (not all but enough to make a difference!)
• unrealistic targets from government eg all children in class of 30 including sen to increase levels by 2 by the end of the year.
• being held responsible for children's behaviour, mental health etc when we dont parent them, have no time for these things, have no training in it, not to mention pay.
• the expectation that school comes befire all else- what about our families? Our mental health? It's a terrible example to set for our pupils.
• the sadness you feel when you know and love your students and know what they need but are unable to provide it because if you go against what's expected, you'll get fired.
• little to no breaks in a day when you are presenting to groups of 30 people who don't want to be there and therefore also having to simultaneously do crowd control.
• the state of school buildings and facilities which reflect how disrespected school staff are- I remember during covid there was one toilet for staff of about 50 both men and women to use, there was no hot water or soap and it felt so unsanitary. The building was freezing because we were expected to keep windows abd doors open throughout winter while management sat in their warm offices.
• in fact, the whole insanity of covid I think was enough to push many out. No protection, literally expected to risk our lives, in my case as a ta for less than minimum wage. Awful.

I could go on. Basically I wouldn't wish teaching on my worst enemy and the government need to buck up and start treating school staff like human beings or there will be a huge recruitment crisis.

The good schools and the Independent sector will have no problem attracting candidates.

Depends on the subject. I work in an independent school - we were inundated for some subjects, but others (maths and physics) we only interviewed 2 for each post because they were the only reasonable applicants.

I'm not sure how long I'll stay tbh. If my school pulls out of the pension scheme I'll definitely go - and not back to the state sector until it is properly funded!

@FlimFlam2 colleague of mine left a job teaching R to work in a physio clinic for children with CP who need one to one physio as an assistant

She loves it so much, less money but less stress!

Why would teachers stay in schools & take all the hassle when they can do tutoring with children who want to learn & get paid more money? I got a tutor for ds to get him through maths GCSE who was head of maths in a large comp, he tutored 3 hours a day 5 days a week at £30 per hour.

I’m a Primary senior leader with a teaching commitment and I’m leaving this summer. I adore my job but the workload is appalling and I no longer want to neglect my three children in terms of time. Teachers are overworked, underpaid, under-respected. The bile towards teachers during covid was enough to give me that last push to leave the profession.

DH finds it near impossible to recruit teachers for his Business and Economics department. It's the same as with subjects like maths, computing and science. If you have a degree in areas where you can earn lucratively elsewhere, why would you put up with the workload, stress and lower pay that is teaching. It used to be that the longer holidays would entice some people into the role but that's no longer enough of a carrot, especially as many other professions now offer flexible working/WFH options.

I teach primary. The biggest issues for m are SATs pressure, Ofsted and it's ever-changing remit meaning rafts of new (and largely pointless) initiatives being brought in with endless training and new things you are supposed to show, all for them to be dropped when Ofsted decides to make something else it's focus and the total lack of support for children with SEND. There are pupils with in some cases quite severe additional needs who receive no support because it should all be managed by "quality-first teaching" where all teachers should magically be specialists in all areas of SEND and produce rafts of planning and strategies for which they have never received any training while still managing to teach the rest of the class by themselves. It's all about cost-cutting.

Really not good news at all

I'm a teacher.

Currently in private. My teachers pension was removed during covid and replaced with something lesser. It was very bleak.

During Covid, most teachers stayed put in my school and there were very few staff leaving; I think it was a case of "better the devil you know".

This year however, they are leaving in droves, including myself. I've never seen this many staff leave this school. Personally I am leaving for a year or two and then going back into the profession. I love what I do but I need this time off to look after myself as teaching through the Covid years with a young family of my own has made me burn out with the numerous issued it created for us all, no support at all-my childrens school even refused us a key worker places for them. I intend to be going back into a small, good state school so I can rejoin the TPS (teachers pension scheme) and because (after 15 years teaching in both state and private) I feel like I fundamentally disagree with private education.

We don't use supply. We have 3 in house cover supervisors who do 90% of our cover. We had 12 staff off yesterday and teaching staff were put on cover.
We can't afford supply.

In general COVID left school staff totally exposed in many ways.
As we go into another winter there is still no proper ventilation system in place.

I also think many staff on the COVID front line felt let down by SLT hiding away in their offices!

A couple of weeks ago I got chatting with the Iceland delivery driver, he has a degree and a masters and wants to start teacher training.

I took his email and forwarded it to some of the agencies I've used.

It was the same delivery driver yesterday.

He has already been offered work and asked if he knows if anyone else is interested.

Now he is an intelligent, educated man who wants to teach, but he isn't a qualified teacher.

On my PGCE some of the maths / physics students were just doing the training to put it on their CV and had no intention of teaching, but as long as they complete the year they get to keep their bursary.

Headteacher of a 1000 student secondary. Good school, nice area to live and my HR team have processed 30 vacancies since Feb.

Never known it like this! Teachers and support staff turnover is immense.

Put it down to lack of decent pay and the government and public constantly running us down - we're everyone's whipping boy!

Am 5 years out of the classroom and I would never go back. I have huge respect for people still there. It's an important and, at times, wonderful job but it drove me to the edge of a breakdown.

Very few vacancies in Scotland, for primary at least. Our last few NQTs have not managed to get posts- there is competition from lots of more experienced teachers who have been on supply for a few years.

Wow, a huge change.

This is not such an issue in primary schools. Dh had 100 applicants for the job at his school and friends finishing pgces are struggling to get jobs and considering teaching assistant posts as they can't find anything !!

It's not just teaching either. I'm nhs and we have so many vacancies and cannot recruit - same with many industries at the moment.

I teach in an outstanding school in the lovely leafy Cotswolds. Our head is amazing, SLT really supportive and the kids are great.

We still only had one applicant for almost all our posts and still have unfilled vacancies for next year. We even have discounted staff housing- obviously not tempting enough.

FWIW- we have two ECTs in department this year and I think both of them will be gone by next year. It is such a brutal process compared to when I started twenty years ago.

Anecdotally, I know someone who runs the PGCE at the local uni and they are struggling to fill the course. The calvary is not coming.

I think the NW has always been saturated

Ditto- rarely cover is a thing of the past. My school tries to limit it but it is actually impossible to find good cover staff. We’ve had to ask so many not to return because of unprofessional behaviour that it is both expensive and a massive hassle.

This. It’s poorly paid for the wide range of skills involved. You can’t do it remotely and you can transfer the skill set to much more amenable environments for three times the money and half the hassle.

I can believe this. I’m a teacher and one of my colleagues (who only qualified two years ago) is leaving teaching - she’s excellent, but just doesn’t want to do this anymore. I’m actively looking for something else outside of teaching in the next year too, my main reasons are that I’m fed up of missing all my own small children’s school activities and fed up of the poor behaviour at work! A lot of my colleagues are also thinking about leaving and making plans.