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

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.
This. It's sucking every bit of joy out my role. I actually dread the level of nonsense I am faced with now, to the point where I wish we didn't have ECTs. It's also putting them off. It won't be a retention tool.... but the providers are making a lot of money!

This is a worry indeed. I recall saying a few years ago that I was (selfishly) relieved that my DC would soon be out if the school system. I am very glad I don’t have a 10yo just now.

I taught secondary for 10 years+ and needed to leave. A good number of the excellent teachers I worked with and am still friends with have either moved to different roles (other kinds of schools), teach in private or have left teaching (or retired).

I think one of the big issues is the crazy workload. In what other job where you earn £28-30k are you expected to work a full day (a very full day) and then somehow find time to complete hours of mandatory extra work (marking and planning). We used to get about 2.5 frees pw - about enough to mark one set of books. Halve the classes taught, which would reduce extra work and of course increase time to do it. But that would cost money.

I looked into teacher training, I couldn't afford to - I need to earn money and there's no bursaries for people in my position. I have over 20 years experience in the workplace but I got a 2:2 at university, something, back then they were very common because there hadn't been grade inflation!!! (Ditto my b's at a levels). I wanted to specialise in special education, something I have first hand experience of but the system said no. Teaching is not set up to recruit the 40 year olds looking to retrain, nursing is similar - we unlike youngsters have had our children and are likely to stick with our new profession until retirement currently it's 67.

As a 41yo teacher I just have to say that grades are not inflated now compared to 20 years ago (40-50 years ago, maybe). GCSEs and A Levels in maths are both significantly more challenging now than when I was at school, especially with the loss of modules.

I saw a thread on here tonight where a child in a special school does not have a teacher for next year.

I've seen other threads where primary children will be taught by a TA, therefore also do not have a teacher (some people will protest that this is fine, it's not).

In secondary, there will be many children who will not have a qualified teacher for next year, or if they do, they will not be a subject specialist. This will include children studying for GCSEs and A-levels.

If parents knew the full extent of what was going on in schools they'd be horrified.

@noblegiraffe If parents knew the full extent of what was going on in schools they'd be horrified.

This 👆🏼 We are sooo restricted by what we’re allowed to say so half of what I say to parents is a load of lies that I’m being forced to go along with in order to be ‘professional’. In an infant class I had a few years ago there were three children with a range of needs that were just thrown into my class with no support from nursery. They were violent to me and other children. Children had tables, chairs and pins thrown at them all in one afternoon. They’d regularly be punched in the face. My shins were black and blue from being kicked. One of them gave the head teacher a black eye (on the rare occasion she actually showed up to help). I would spend the majority of my day on the phone to the office trying to get help because the situation was beyond dangerous, yet again. No one ever came. I’ve now got a little boy and I would be completely heartbroken if I thought my child was being ‘taught’ in that class. The parents would line up outside the window at home time and I was regularly assaulted in front of them. At my lowest points I’d even go over to the glass door to allow them to see me being kicked repeatedly in the shins. Desperately hoping one of them would help me out by complaining to the head teacher. No one ever did, for fear of it going against me by the sounds of it. They had no idea I wanted them to, yet they were the only ones who could help me.

I handed in my notice then just started evacuating the class every time they were being assaulted. Children were hit by chairs on one of the days and a parent came up at home time to ask if that had happened, as she was confused that her child had told her it had. I confirmed what happened and asked her to speak to the head as I was doing as much as I could about the situation. She said ‘are you sure?’ when I said to go to the head teacher. Once again, trying not to do anything that could reflect badly on me 😩 They were a lovely class of parents (which isn’t always the case 🤨) but parents don’t have a clue what goes on at school. They see a tiny little perfect snippet from a picture posted on the school app and presume things are going well 🤦🏼‍♀️

I’m on SLT and we are really struggling to recruit. For September, approximately 20% of our teaching posts will be filled by TAs. The TAs who will be teaching all have degrees in the subject areas they will be teaching but will need a lot of support. It’s also really hard for them to learn ‘how’ to teach so I hope we can hold on to them and they don’t get put off.

After an issue this year with an unqualified teacher I am very nervous about using inexperienced/unqualified teachers but we have no choice. There has to be a body at the front of the class.

Using unqualified staff also increases my workload massively - I like being able to trust that my staff know what they’re doing and leave them to it as much as possible. I can’t do that though with staff who don’t know the specification for the qualifications they’re teaching.

I am worried for the future as it’s just not sustainable.

For September, approximately 20% of our teaching posts will be filled by TAs.

This is horrific. And really, really not fair on the TAs. Are they being paid as teachers?

It’s also really hard for them to learn ‘how’ to teach

Yes, it normally takes a year of training and now 2 years of induction, they won't be getting that.

We need more people speaking up about how unqualified teachers in schools isn't ok and they aren't all 'just as good as a qualified teacher' as some on here would have you believe.

This is interesting. In Scotland we have far too many qualified teachers and not enough jobs! Teachers are crying out for work here.

In addition to all the reasons stated by posters upthread, which I have no reason to question, there's also a demographic perfect storm, where a peak cohort of children entering secondary school coincides with a drought of young adults of the age ready to start teaching. There's a mismatch of 20% before you even start on the profession-specific issues. We're now back to the low birth rates of the year 2000 again, there's just a huge wave of births from around the year 2012.

We need more people speaking up about how unqualified teachers in schools isn't ok
In many cases parents aren’t being told that their child’s “teacher” is unqualified. Otherwise I suspect they’d be complaining. I also think unqualified teachers are being used for budget reasons as much as anything else. Many of them are on repeatedly renewed temp contracts, they don’t even have proper permanent jobs with access to maternity and holiday pay. Its exactly what has happened in colleges and universities in recent years and now it’s filtering down to schools.

Yes, and not only are there fewer 21 year olds, fewer of them are considering teaching. One effect of public pay gap data is that companies are very keen to recruit women to their graduate schemes to improve their overall figures. Consequently more young female graduates who might traditionally have considered teaching are doing other things.

On the subject of birth rates there is a contraction coming. There has been a big drop on the fertility rate since 2020. We’ll see a lot of school closures in the next decade.

Well that rather depends on whether the fertility rate rises again or not.

Although I wouldn’t put it past this government to close schools on the basis of a couple of years of low birth rate and then find they don’t have enough schools after that. Long term planning is not something they are very good at.

Yes to tbe parents not knowing - the kids just call them all mr or miss whoever and assume they're teachers...

In many cases parents aren’t being told that their child’s “teacher” is unqualified. Otherwise I suspect they’d be complaining.

I know, one of the big problems schools have is that they work their arses off to conceal problems from parents or make out things are fine (and then you get threads on here saying “20 teachers are leaving this Easter, is that normal?” Or “my kid is being taught by a TA next year, this is ok, right?” ) and particularly in secondary they don’t know what’s going on because kids don’t tell their parents that they’ve never met the teacher listed on their timetable and are currently being taught maths by 3 supply teachers.

I don’t know how to fix that. If schools do go public with problems they get told off for political campaigning, and parents may take their kids elsewhere, resulting in a loss of funding.

We need more people speaking up about how unqualified teachers in schools isn't ok and they aren't all 'just as good as a qualified teacher' as some on here would have you believe.

So true.

Unqualified teachers come in many colours, you can be an expert in your subject and not know how to get that information accross.

A teacher who has qualified abroad eg an Australian teacher on a 'working holiday'.

A teacher from FE.

A TA.

Someone from an agency who has no experience at all.

I'm technically unqualified as I trained in FE, when I got more work in schools I did a PGCE but my health was on a downward spiral so I didn't complete my second placement. So I have the PGCE but not the QTS.

If you have QTLS this has been considered equivalent to QTS since 2012. The same legislation also allows fully qualified teachers from Australia, Canada, New Zealand and USA to teach in England as qualified teachers.

True about long term planning, but it's not really to do with fertility rates. UK short to medium term birth rates, much like global population growth, are driven more by the number of women of peak reproductive age in the population than by the number of babies each of them have. We're seeing the ripples of WWII and the baby boom, and of the Eastern European immigration of the early 2000s.

The number of eleven year olds is going to peak in the next year or two and then decline for another eleven years, and nothing will change that. Beyond that it'll broadly follow the booms and busts of previous population waves (both birth and immigration). Longer term fertility rate trends will be superimposed on that. Shorter term pandemic pauses and restarts in birth rates will mess up university admissions in 2038-2041.

@noblegiraffe yes they will be paid as unqualified teachers. We will also pay for them to do their teacher training so that they can become qualified teachers - that doesn’t help them when they’re standing in front of a class in September though. I’d like to think that training up our TAs would be a long-term solution but it will likely be an ongoing process as other staff leave and we can’t fill their posts.

Unless there is a major change in education then I have no intention of returning. It is relentless and the phrase I heard daily this year was ‘survive’. We were just trying to get through the day without too many incidents. I was in a lovely primary, decent staff and approachable SLT. Generally supportive families as well. But so many profound needs, social as well as educational and health. Plus throw in parents/carers who are just on the attack all the time. Along with a punishing rigid, joyless curriculum. It was actually better during lockdown when we had half size classes and usually two adults to support the children. The children were happier, we had a different level of stress. I am a qualified teacher, late career changer but I couldn’t keep mentally stable with the relentless work as well as manage my own family. Perhaps if I had been single, I could have done it. In my first school it seemed to be every half-term there would be a new whole school strategy to try. Honestly, in my short time in education I have things come and go, it’s all about results and points of progress. My target this year, as support staff not a class teacher, was for my pupil premium children to make at least five points of progress. ☹️ I was paid peanuts and was still planning at home for my intervention groups. I loved working with children and my last school was supportive but I don’t need the stress and the abuse from a few parents/ carers.

Interesting - DC secondary school south Wales is struggling with staff - though perhaps more retention and long term sickness in all the areas Wales government acknowledges shortages - science, mathematics, English and Welsh - it's impacted both children even DS sitting GCSE who was left many months with no subject teacher in GCSE finishing this year they couldn't even get subject specialists.

When they move on though they do seem to move on to other schools or FE colleges rather than leave profession.

I am a qualified teacher and would consider going back after a very long break having had DCs - but there are very few jobs around me being advertised and they are all full time. (To be fair I chose the only subject in which there is never a teacher shortage!) There is support for returners but only for core subjects. I've looked at support staff jobs as some are part time but I'd have to work more hours for less pay. So sticking with current admin job in a university as the pay and conditions are much better.

I briefly considered teaching, have a degree and currently do a mixture of retail and freelance work. what put me off was

• the number of hours outside work teachers are expected to do. The absolute maximum I will do for a job is around 45. My friends who are teachers do over 50 at least, and find it mentally and physically disastrous.

• I looked up the starting salary, and after tax my take home would only be about 200 a month more than I earn now. I know there's progression to higher salaries, but the pitiful starting salary is just not attractive enough.

Until they fix the workload and pay, it will just not be an attractive job. I also know two teachers who have attempted suicide and one who succeeded.

Try telling that to the idiots on the strike thread that think people are going to stay in teaching without a cost of living pay rise.

As a rural school in an area full of second homes and Air BnBs we are really struggling to attract staff. No one can afford to live or travel here on an ECT wage. For yet another year we have two department one school relying on long term cover to film the gaps. They’ve had to ask the new Chemistry teacher to attempt to teach GCSE Computing!

And headteachers.
We have had more headteachers resign this year than ever. Many posts are not filled for September. Posts are only attracting 3 or 4 candidates who don’t get though the shortlisting process and even when they do the two day selection process has resulted in no one being asked back at the end of day 1. Applicants not suitable.
schools have advertised a second and sometimes even a third time and still not found anyone.

Lots of schools with interim arrangements having to be put in place for Sept.