Staffing crisis in schools - teachers/school staff, what's your school like?

[noblegiraffe]

Discussions with fellow teachers about the current crisis in school staffing has raised the issue of whether parents know how bad it is. I guess they won't know if we don't tell them?

My school - struggling to recruit teachers. There are subjects at A-level where students are currently teaching themselves, and with no prospect of a teacher on the horizon. Last year we had similar issues, pupils went into exams not fully prepared, and coursework was a huge problem. At GCSE where we couldn't recruit, there was a teacher in front of the class, but not qualified in that subject and pupils complained about the syllabus not being taught.

TA provision has been cut to the bone. There is only in class support if a child has an EHCP, this support is then spread to other children who need help. Due to backlogs with EHCP applications, and applications routinely being rejected (the assumption is automatic rejection, then appeal) some very needy children get no additional help in class. In addition, we have bigger classes due to leaving teachers not being replaced, so teachers are spread even more thinly.

There are huge concerns about teacher recruitment for next year as the number of trainees on local PGCE courses has collapsed.

And I know my school is in a relatively good position compared to others.

Can't access...as in a child who has processing issues or learning disabilities or is working at a different level to the other children or who has English as an additional language or communication difficulties or sensory processing issues that mean they struggle with screens or the head phones.....or the many many issues that can be a barrier to children's learning.

What happens to those kids who are supposedly being picked by their parents every day, how do those parents work? How will the kids get jobs?....I thought you were worried about the economy?

Special schools are for children who have huge barriers to their learning, that cannot be managed in a mainstream setting, not just because they disrupt a lesson. They are expensive, and sadly there are not enough of them.

Your posts demonstrate how far removed from the reality of the state of education you are, and why noblegiraffe was right in posting this thread in general chat.

Oak Academy stuff is dreadful in my subject English. Tedious formulaic nonsense. Teaching is about individual relationships and working with classes. It’s not just a Gradgrindian feeding of facts although that seems to be what’s currently in fashion.

It seems to be pretty bad at Ds school. Lots of cover teachers and some of the new subject teachers concern me with their lack of knowledge. The computer science teachers in particular. Ds is autistic and anything to do with computers is his special interest so he knows a lot. He says none of them really know what they are talking about and are teaching incorrect information much of the time. I think the current head of computing is a psychology teacher 🤔

The whole thing means DS is fed up and bored and refuses to stay in education post gcse next summer. Luckily the company he did work experience with loved him and asked if he would do an apprenticeship as soon as he is done with school.

Oh I don't know.
Gradgrind would probably be one of those "best" teachers we've been hearing about. Put a few PowerPoints up on the internet and all the learning is done.

How does differentiation work if you have one teacher teaching the masses?

Remote learning when teaching your own class who you know well, is different than a standard produced remote lesson for all classes. How would intervention work?

Some videos of lesson from specialist teachers can be useful, but when used in working with tandem with the actual teacher, not instead of the teacher.

I can't imagine there would be a rush from people signing up to be TAs to be in effect crowd control if all lessons were taught via a remote teacher

If parents aren't aware of the funding crisis they may suddenly become aware of it when their child is being taught in a class of 60 by the TA

@ILoveAllRainbowsx Are you a fucking idiot?

The holes in your plan are many.

What happens to the students who don't understand the topic the first time round, do they just watch the video again until they do?

This stands out to me as well. Perhaps it needs its own thread but I’m interested to know what the reasons are behind this.

More generally, as a parent I’ve found this thread quite shocking and I won’t forget what I’ve read here, it’s very sad 😔

Yes why?

It seems to be a growth industry

This is taking me back to the good old days of gazebos and 30 buckets of water per classroom for primary kids.
<misty-eyed>

Tests that can be administered and marked online can only test certain things. My subjects do not lend themselves to that.

Read upthread esp the post at 00:08 last night and posts before and after, as to why we have more SEN children now - to those asking this morning!

Teachers like @Hercisback who may resort to swearing on here are despairing, @ILoveAllRainbowsx .

50% of the prison population have dyslexia, it’s a good thing for more children to be diagnosed and helped with SEN. There may be some increase as we are a more inclusive and mobile population so possibly more people meeting others with Sen and having children. I know lots of people diagnosed as adults they generally just didn’t meet their potential, got into trouble, had mental health issues etc. there were more Sen schools when I was younger
denying recognition of SEN doesn’t fix things, neither does parent blaming, but it’s commonly used by both government and the general population. It makes things more difficult for teachers too.

in answer to the original question, no there’s no huge issues with staffing but it’s known as a fairly ‘nice’ school which I’m sure makes
a difference. Sen provision is poor though, those kids are effectively managed out and become someone else’s problem

I'm sure there won't be any issues with 4 and 5 year olds being plugged into a computer all day. Perhaps they could watch videos of sand play rather than experience it, or watch PowerPoint explanations of bubbles rather than blow them themselves, or maybe online phonics lessons for 4 year olds will be the next growth industry!

Yes I think phones and computers may affect concentration and don't always help

Plus not reading enough or doing any independent study out of classes.

@ILoveAllRainbowsx I ask again - SEN? Who is providing lessons for my pupils who have BSL as their first language and have a massive deficit of incidental language, therefore struggle to access even in-person lessons, let alone ones online?

And what happens if the tests show they don’t understand @ILoveAllRainbowsx Who is going to explain it to them?

In Primary schools maths didn’t seem to go very well during lockdown especially compared to reading. Children seemed to need a much more hands on approach.

"Lost the argument?"
I would hope we're all on the same side - pointing out the dire straits many of our schools are in and searching for SENSIBLE and pragmatic solutions going forward.

Bob's favourite refrain is "I dunt gettit"

I hope the best teacher in the world can manage to unpick exactly what he "dunt get" by email.

I would love to to see that email exchange @MrsHamlet I wonder if @ILoveAllRainbowsx has met Bob!

Lots of reasons. Better knowledge of particularly ADHD and Autism leading to earlier detection and intervention is part of it. These clearly are not the only SENs, but they are a huge proportion of the ones in mainstream classrooms. They're also the ones that tend to lead to the most disruption if the child is not supported appropriately.

A huge driver, in my opinion, has been COVID. I know it's easy to blame everything on that but I am seeing a huge rise in cases relating to the KS1/early KS2 children who are cognitively/academically able but have significant SEMH and C&I needs. The very ones who missed out on so much Early Years socialisation and education. These children obviously would always have had difficulties and hit crisis point eventually but they would have learned I think, like their peers before them the social skills to effectively 'mask' (not that this is a good thing, for them, it's highly detrimental) and get along ok until late primary/early secondary. This seems apparent especially in little girls.

They've missed all this. So they've not learned to mask. They've hit schools and boom! All those challenges are apparent for all to see at a much earlier stage.

The children who have significant learning difficulties/disabilities or who are non-verbal etc do not seem to have had the rise in numbers that the children without these challenges but who still are neurodivergent and require significant support, have. Nowhere near.

I don't think there are more children with SEN. There are more that don't have the skills to hold it together, and so are highly disruptive when they are expected to be in a 'bums on seats' mainstream environment. They've been at home for extended periods, in (hopefully) their safe spaces, and all of a sudden now they're not.

For the older ones, I'm not sure. As I say I work with more primary age than secondary. There is a huge amount of information out there on SM though (I'm a dinosaur but I believe Tik-Tok and Twitter are awash with accounts relating to ASD/ADHD) and young people are learning way earlier that the difficulties that they feel are actually 'something' rather than them just not fitting in, or being the class odd-bod. They're speaking up, as are their parents. The independent clinics (private) in my area have nearly all closed waiting lists for diagnostic assessments because they're so over-run. As for CAMHS? 3-4 year wait IF you can even get past the screening gateposts.

You also have the additional problems in Health and Social care. There are more Looked After children. There are lots who are living in poverty, in cold houses with hungry tummies with parents who're horribly stressed because the cost of living is crippling them. Relationships are crumbling causing further upheaval.

Honestly all this combined - is it any wonder the effects are being felt in classroom everywhere? As someone else said, schools are being left to pick up the pieces of all of these problems.

@toomuchlaundry I suspect that @ILoveAllRainbowsx would call Bob's parents and ask them to collect him pretty quickly.

Since Bob's mum once asked me "what's the little twat done now?" when I called her, and never once came to school for any reason, she might be disappointed in the response.

Imagine how many parental complaints the remote teacher would have to deal with even if they are the best teacher in the world! They wouldn’t actually have time to teach