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

I teach in a fantastic London Primary and we are losing 5 members of teaching staff this year. 3 are leaving London as it's too expensive, none of them would leave if there were affordable housing options for them. For the other two it is the cost of childcare, one is not returning from maternity leave and the other has been back for a year. We have been able to fill posts, but we get far less applications than we used to get.

We also have a lot of staff leaving this year and are struggling to recruit replacements.

I agree with another poster above, who mentioned that many staff stayed put after Covid, but now things are more normal again they're making the move.

@Nat6999

That would work great if you’re English, Maths or Science. For those of us who teach other subjects, there’s not likely to be enough tutoring work to warrant leaving teaching

Our budget for supply this year ran out months ago. The head uses TAs or the 1:1s for pupil EHCPs to cover teacher absence. It’s very far from being ok.

This doesn’t surprise me, unfortunately. I left teaching 9 years ago as the workload was unsustainable and it was massively impacting my mental and physical health. It’s only got worse since then - most of my old teaching friends have left the profession. One of the push factors was being berated after a ‘mock Ofsted’ for not showing progress in one particular child - this child had just come back to school that day after suffering a major bereavement and I was trying to ease them back in. Not good enough apparently - progress at all costs. The fact you are dealing with actual human beings is often forgotten.
Also, the awful attitude of SLT to staff - I have never been spoken to that way in any other professional setting.

It’s a high stress combination of massive accountability but with little autonomy.

I work in a further education college and we're finding it virtually impossible to fill some vacancies. How are you supposed to persuade people with STEM qualifications and industry experience to teach at salaries even lower than the school sector? We can't recruit cleaning, catering, maintenance or security staff as our budget is so small we can't compete with other local employers. It's just not sustainable. Where is the next generation of skilled workers supposed to come from if there's none to train them?

Those thinking your children are in the independent sector so no problem, not so. There is a big difference between the top tier independents (Eton etc) and most others.
I worked in the independent sector for years and have friends at indie schools across the country. All are really struggling to fill posts. There is no supply. They are having to take the only candidate who applies even if they are a bad candidate.
Teachers thinking the independent sector is cushy are also wrong - again, one or two probably are - but I was expected to work far, far more hours in the independent sector, more contact time, more frequent marking, weekends as contact time, compulsory after school activities so the contact day lasts til 6 (and only marginally smaller class sizes) and we were paid the same as or even less than the state scales as classroom teachers. My last school we had teachers move from state thinking it would be easy and they lasted less than half a term. The indie schools I know are only coping because they have piled more work onto existing staff (no contact time limit like in the state sector) and they offer half fees for staff children. Without that fee perk, the lower/equal salaries than the state sector, higher hours and loss of pension and they wouldn't have enough teachers to cope.
Also, most independents no longer leave you to get on to teach, and have paperwork demands similar to the state sector.
Long post - but point is - teachers don't head to the independent sector for an easy life, you won't get it! Parents - don't think your child's independent school isn't struggling for teachers.

@Veryverysadandold totally agree with all of this, especially the covid thing. During the early pandemic I was pregnant and obviously unvaccinated (as it was advised not to be). There was a very real risk of me ending up in intensive care, dying or losing my baby but when some classes returned after the first closure my class was to return so a pregnant person was to be in there (with no TA) in front of a class while most staff plus the head teacher kept herself safe at home! This was the final straw for me. Once again, I didn’t want to let the kids down so risked my own baby’s life but continually fought her, HR, health and safety people who were sent in to tell me I was at ‘no greater risk than anyone else’, tell that to all the pregnant people who are now dead 🤔 It was the blatant disregard for my safety. They literally couldn’t care less as long as they didn’t need to get out their bed in the morning 😑

Yes there's a direct link with being able to use non-qualified teachers to cover classes - there is no need to buy in expensive teachers to cover anymore - everywhere around here is just advertising for more and more "cover supervisors" to fill the gap.

Combined with many other jobs moving remote making teaching look an ever worse deal.

It is really really bad.

Is there anything we can do as parents to support school staff in this?
The staff at my DCs’ primary school have been amazing, supporting them (and me) through a terrible year after DH died in September. They have really gone above and beyond, presumably at the expense of their own time/ health/ work-life balance. DC1 is in year 6, and most teachers and TAs we have encountered have been great. DC1 is starting secondary school in September and I am already impressed by the head of year 7, who answered an email on Sunday (I definitely did not expect that), is going to phone me today and appears to genuinely care about making the transition work for my DC who is just 1 new pupil out of a couple of hundred that she hasn’t even met yet. I don’t want all these people to be disillusioned and leave. I want my DC to be taught by people who are happy and supported to get on and do their job. I work for the NHS so do realise that is unrealistic and only in some sort of utopia.

Not any more. Independent schools are withdrawing from the Teacher’s Pensions Scheme and becoming a much less attractive option. GDST staff went on strike over the issue.

A note or email to the headteacher drawing attention to these staff will go a very long way.

More widely, please write to your MP about the teacher recruitment crisis and please please please consider education policy when you vote.

Do any schools have the budget for cover any more? Ours was long gone by Christmas. Most of the agency staff seem insane as well - so many have had to be asked not to return due to inappropriate behaviour.

At 5 yr post qualified a primary or secondary teacher here (Scotland) earns 42k.
What is the salary like in England? Is it set by individual schools?

There’s a national pay scale but it isn’t always straightforward to progress through it. Top of the mainscale is about £36k. I’ve been teaching nearly 25 years, top of the upper pay scale-I think that’s less than £42k. Nobody else in my school is on the upper pay scale-budget won’t allow anyone to go through the threshold!

Notbluepeter
At 5 yr post qualified a primary or secondary teacher here (Scotland) earns 42k.
What is the salary like in England? Is it set by individual schools?

In London you would be on 42K after 5 years. The problem is you would still be a long way off ever being able to afford to buy your own place and the rent on even a 1 bed flat would be more than half your take home pay. It's fine to live month to month and flat share when your not long out of university, but after a few years people want more.

A school can stop a teacher going through the bar.

If a teacher stays on the main scale and doesn't take on TLRs then it wouldn't be £42k.

7 years ago when DH was top of main, not gone through the bar and a TLR 2 he was on £37k. He was planning on going through the bar but decided to leave instead.

The amount the agencies charge school is outrageous. If you really want work then contact the schools direct, they will snap you up if you are a core subject.

Sadly this does not surprise me. Two grandparents of mine were school head teachers and must be turning in their grave with what teachers have to put up with (especially some parents), never mind housing and salary questions.

A lot of the issues people are mentioning have been problematic for years. And while teachers were quitting in the past, they weren’t quitting at anywhere near the rate they are now. So what’s changed?

Imo Covid has a lot to do with it. Teachers weren’t permitted to have any protections during Covid, not even masks. They got the message loud and clear that neither the government nor parents nor in many cases the pupils gave a shit about their well-being. Teaching came to be seen as a risky career with a high risk of catching Covid, so many teachers opted out.

Covid has also created a lot of remote working opportunities. In certain areas teaching was one of the few graduate jobs, but that’s no longer the case now that people can work remotely. Teachers (and would-be teachers) have more options.

I also think Covid has made people think long and hard about their lives, their futures, their quality of life and life-work balance. Priorities have changed. People are prioritising happiness more, so they’re quitting teaching.

Finally, teaching is in fact getting worse. Budget cuts. Less resources. Less support staff. Being asked to do extra hours for free. Risk of being sacked when you get old and expensive. Imo it’s tipped over the threshold from “something teachers can cope with” to “deal breaker”.

Even in the three years I’ve been teaching recruitment has got harder in my area. For me the salary isn’t ideal but the main issue is the excessive workload and constant pressures. Expectations of us are way too high - to paint a smile on our faces and deal with huge classes of varied needs for hours on end, often with no TA, little to no breaks and constant scrutiny and judgement. I’m pregnant now and I’m not sure I can go back. How is it that a job centred around children has no empathy towards the staff at the heart of it?!

I agree with everything you've said. Great post.

It’s a very real problem. Covid has nearly tipped me over the edge - the endless vitriol in the press and online was just awful.

And while teachers were quitting in the past, they weren’t quitting at anywhere near the rate they are now. So what’s changed?

Part of the problem with the shortage of teachers is that recruitment targets have been missed for years and years and the govt have really done fuck-all about it. They've been blithering on for ages about raising NQT salary to £30k but it's becoming clear that this will not lift wages for all, rather create a flatter pay structure where experienced teachers will be paid very little extra compared to the teachers that they will be mentoring and supporting. That may get people into the job but it's not going to keep them.

In addition, the govt have recently overhauled the NQT year - it's now 2 years and has become a complete ballache of even more tedious paperwork and patronising training (for both students and mentors) where it was supposed to make things easier.

With recruitment targets being missed for year and increasing shortages in schools, the responsibility for trying to cover-up the shitshow has fallen to the remaining staff who are more and more overworked trying to mentor inexperienced staff, cover absent staff, constantly have their timetables rejigged to work around staffing problems, share classes with supply teachers and have to take the full responsibility for planning/marking/reporting.

My dept used to be stable, this year has been much more difficult just trying to keep the show on the road juggling major staffing issues. If things only look set to get worse, then it's easy to see why many experienced teachers are saying 'fuck this'.

Not read the whole thread but the pp who said about house prices is correct where I am. There are no teachers, mechanics, chefs, anything manual as they can't afford the rent or mortgage.