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.

Yes please Lola.

I am on hrt but recently found out I have high testosterone levels and finally had to take some time off to be able to even make a doctor's appointment. Have been signed off and have had an ecg and a load of blood of tests so far (results not in yet) and am waiting on a call from the breast clinic to have some lumps looked at. I also think I have a UTI or kidney infection now so need to try and get a triage slot tomorrow morning - missed the slot this morning battling ds to get ready and get into school and not be late for his mocks.

I feel a bit like I've ignored so many health things because it was impossible to get an appointment unless I called in sick so I could be free to answer my phone at any time and able to go in immediately if needed. Also because of the whole FOG like abusive relationship that one can end up with a school. Anyway it seems I've just kept on going, kept on going and now everything is falling apart. Little melodramatic sounding but it does feel like I've got so much wrong with me that needs checking out now that I've finally gotten out of denial and guilt and accessed medical help.

Sorry should have explained ecg was for palpitations and doc thinking my pulse was too high and there's a link with heart and testosterone stuff. I've been just putting up with it and assuming it was all 'just' peri and then it was really bad one day and I actually got scared and realised there could be something really wrong and I've been ignoring it in order to keep on going to work and get even more worn down.

So there's a whole raft of issues to deal with including the ignored lump (I noticed one a while back but denial and not being able to face how the hell to get an appointment etc kicked in). Mentioned it in passing to the doctor merely as a see how ridiculous my job is I even ignore lumps because all of my energy is sucked into work and I feel like if I take a day off the aftermath will be worse than just carrying on. Doctor of course was like errr a lump - let's check that out shall we?

I've been getting loads of migraines and coldsores and sores in my nose weirdly for ages and had been surviving and working on 3-4 hours sleep a night because I just couldn't sleep. Really stupid of me to just keep going but most people on here know how it is. My body was doing it's best to say this is not working, stop! lol

Feel like I've just been living on adrenaline for ages.

So just to say even though yes it's crazy in schools, yes you don't want to let your colleagues down etc please don't keep on ignoring being ill and push yourself to the point where your health is in tatters.

Not sure how widespread this is but to attempt to plug the TA gap locally I have seen a few adverts now for apprentice TA on a fixed 12 month contract for less than £5.00 per hour. The job description is a full on role with planning PE and music activities along with taking groups but making it clear the role is for 12 months. I wonder how much support these apprentices actually get in the frantic environment of a primary? Am not knocking the role, probably a good paid way to see if education is the career for you if you are still fully supported at home, better than volunteering. I suspect it probably isn’t all delivering lovely PE and music sessions all week long with a bit of phonics and maths.

Yes there’s a lot of under 20 apprentice TAs and office staff my neck of the woods I felt so sorry for my friends daughter who honestly thought bless her that if she worked hard and brought in home made cupcakes for staff she might get kept on

I've also seen a lot of apprentice positions in schools and local authorities near me.

A revolving door of staff isn't good for the children, but then we're at the point where a body for a year is better than a year of nobody. I can't see the apprentices getting the benefit of coaching and mentoring from experienced staff either. It's depressing how low the bar is for what our children deserve*

• That's a comment about schools' ability to staff effectively, not against individual apprentices.

MATs have to pay the apprenticeship levy, so they'll be creating apprenticeships to claw £15,000 of that back.

That's a good point Noble, or using the Apprenticeship Levy to fund SLT Apprenticeships that include a masters degree. One of my colleagues was pushing to have the levy used for that course. Part of me worked hard not to roll my eyes because that colleague loved a good course/an excuse for a pet project/an excuse to complain they were so busy.

And then SLT on those courses means staff briefings detailing their exciting new project for all teachers to work on.

I thought this thread was depressing, how about this news story?

schoolsweek.co.uk/three-quarters-of-school-staff-stressed-report-warns/

"Those working in secondaries and primaries were most likely to report being stressed – at 79 per cent and 78 per cent respectively."

"This was most common among senior leaders – including heads, deputies and assistants – with 37 per cent reporting their symptoms as burnout, a rise of five percentage points on 2021.

The figure also increased by five percentage points among school teachers, with 27 per cent reporting signs of burnout."

More than a quarter of teachers reporting signs of burnout? This is intolerable.

The article also rightly points out an explosion of mental health referrals in children. School is the first (and mostly only) port of call for these children and we cannot support them properly (or at all) if we are stressed and burned out ourselves.

That reads very close to home to me Noble. There's a reason I walked away from leadership in favour of part time teaching.
One of the major push factors was the endless list of tasks that kept being added because they needed doing and as SLT we tried our best not to keep pushing the load down onto our staff. My DH came to hate my job.

Oh great, the few trainees we have this year may drop out because of the cost of living crisis. This just gets better.

www.tes.com/magazine/news/general/teacher-trainee-dropout-warning-costs-crisis-ITT-schools

But what's-his-face announced today there is just no money, so we need to suck it all up!

Noble, none of the SLT we have in my school have lasted beyond 3 years - there is too much work with fewer people filling each role, which just gets divvied up between those that remain.

Our head doesn't help - they can't keep anyone close to them in position (most have left within 3 months of working closely with them) and the deputy doesn't fare much better, which may be why they are still in the positions they're in.

Honestly, we talk about TA and bog standard classroom teachers in recruitment crises, but SLT seem far worse when it comes to burn out these days.

I'm only middle management. I have an interview to go to soon, another attempt to escape what we face now in my school and start afresh elsewhere, I guess. It's going onto the leadership scale, too, so who knows how long I'll last if I get it. I'm a single parent.

SLT seem far worse when it comes to burn out these days.

That article I posted seems to agree, 37% of SLT reporting signs of burnout.

One of our SLT has just been signed off. A friend of mine who is an Asst head seems to spend all their frees doing cover for absent teachers because they can't get cover staff. Mad use of their time, and then their actual job still needs doing, staff are left unsupported with behaviour etc.

The worst, most stressful job I ever had was 2.5 years as a TA in a secondary school. Paid an absolute pittance and trying to deal with children who desperately needed more support or who should have been in different schools altogether (behaviour issues causing disruption for the rest if the class). It was absolutely awful and management treated the TAs like crap. I had and english/history degree which wasn't utilised at all, it wasn't much more than crowd control. I've since trained in an NHS role which is a doddle in comparison. I'm not surprised they can't recruit.

Tes article

Dear god, this is depressing reading.

Most teachers have considering leaving in the last year.

Teachers at all levels scoring highly on measure of "psychological distress"

"more than two-thirds (68 per cent) of these respondents cited heavy workload as the main reason for them thinking of leaving.

An even higher percentage (78 per cent) said they have experienced symptoms of poor mental health such as insomnia, forgetfulness or tearfulness, due to their work - rising to 87 per cent of senior leaders.

Some 67 per cent of senior leaders said they have considered leaving in the past year due to pressures on their mental health, in the online survey of 3,082 senior leaders, school teachers and support staff, carried out in June and July for this year’s Teacher Wellbeing Index, in conjunction with YouGov."

I’ve worked in four senior schools and this isn’t the case in any of them

You’ve worked in 4 schools and never had kids at the back of the class chatting instead of working?

If so do let us know where these 4 schools are. Did you mean senior schools? That would narrow it down a bit as there can't be many counties still operating 3 tier education.

Why did you need to tell them they failed? It specifically says there is no pass mark. No where does it say 100% is expected. I told mine who scored 22 or whatever well done!

There is an article on Special Needs Jungle:

www.specialneedsjungle.com/school-pay-rise-las-dont-pass-funding-send-pupils-suffer/

It says LAs got on average a 13% uplift in High Needs funding, with the lowest amount 11% per LA. However, LAs are not passing that uplift to schools by increasing the amounts in the banding, which many of them use to allocate money to schools. Some LAs have made zero increases to their banding; some since 2018 and one since 2015. Obviously then, from schools pov, TAs pay rises are unfunded. There’s only one solution realistically, and that is to cut TAs, with a knock on effect on the children with SEN.

The situation is even worse for special schools, with their greater staff to pupil ratios.

There are online schools which do this, live teaching, but ability to rewatch lesson recordings, complete a mix of interactive online tasks and traditional tasks which are uploaded. No behaviour issues, but they are all feepaying.

Why did you need to tell them they failed? It specifically says there is no pass mark. No where does it say 100% is expected. I told mine who scored 22 or whatever well done!

Last year it was made quite clear that the expected standard was 25/25 for the MTC. This information was confirmed by county advisors and it was recommended that we gave our parents information about the tests and what the expected standard was. Scores were shared with children and parents. Of course we didn't and would never, tell a child that they had failed, but parents were well aware that they had not met the expected standard - only because we did as we were directed to. What was especially shocking was that all our SEND pupils (of which we have a lot as we are a very inclusive school) had to sit this timed test.

You are correct that in the latest update, it appears to have changed and it now says there is no expected standard but this was not the case last year. I can only imagine that someone has seen sense and realised from looking at the data that only 27% nationally met this unreasonable target.

Could you give examples of such schools?

Yes, Kings InterHigh, Minerva, Myonlineschool. There are several big ones in the UK, InterHigh has a few thousand students I think.

The MTC for 2022 - the first compulsory year of the times table check in Year 4 -stated very clearly and explicitly in the guidance that there was no ‘expected’ standard and no ‘pass’ mark. If your school chose to enter children for the voluntary tests prior to 2022, they were just that, voluntary, so you could gave chosen not to do them.