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.

The senior tutor said the difference teaching the likes of me as against teenagers was that we wanted to be there and valued learning new stuff 😔

My generation appears to value education, youngsters these days, do not, or so it appears

How many young teachers actually go on to have careers teaching?

Politely, as tone is difficult with words on a screen: it can be significantly easier to turn to teaching when you don’t have a significant amount of time left before retirement, or can afford to be part time.

I have been teaching for 12 years and am fairly young still. I see fabulous young teachers training and leaving in droves because 60 hours weeks on poor pay and in crap conditions isn’t what they want for a 40+ year career. At the moment, the thought of the time remaining in the career I choose and have poured so much of myself, my time and my energy makes me want to sob as I don’t know how I can do it.

And on top of the general rubbish that occurs in teaching, my colleagues and I have spent the past week with PPA time in which it was also too cold to type and it isn’t proper winter yet. Children are coming in cold and hungry and there is nothing we can do. Schools can’t afford heating and it’s a struggle to feed those whose parents are struggling but aren’t on the free school meal or pupil premium list.

And, finally, people like thunder aren’t you supposed to want better for your children than you had? Does this thread sound like that’s happening?

Pretty sure that’s the plot of a dystopian novel.

Of course - children misbehave for no reason whatsoever. Not bad conditions at home, lack of role models, difficulties learning etc etc. FFS.

We also need to bring back grammar schools so that all the kids who want learn can go to one and the ones who don't can go to a technical college.

Delightful attitude.

Teaching isn't just presenting information.

Why can't your school use online resources? You say that some of the kids are teaching themselves

If I was off and set the kids videos for the work I was meant to be teaching them, I would still call that them teaching themselves. And in maths we are extremely lucky to have lots of resources available online, where other A-level subjects have very little.

Watching a video isn’t being taught. Teaching is highly interactive and responsive.

My friend considered to become a teacher. She’s educated to a high standard, however is facing unnecessary struggles getting into the training/profession because her degrees are from abroad. It’s expensive and stressful, yet there is a shortage of teachers. Doesn’t make sense

I have seen lots of posts by healthcare workers on MN.

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

Nice try!

I'm not even a teacher and I know teaching isn't standing in front of a class lecturing.

Thunder - are you a parent? Did you try and home educate your children during Covid lockdowns? How did that go? The vast VAST majority of parents and educators held their heads repeatedly in their hands as children tried and failed to engage with PowerPoints and distance learning and make any kind of real progress. And this was with their own teachers, who knew their students and were trying desperately to fit the learning to the kids in their classes.

In the nicest possible way, that idea is shit. It won't work. Instead, pressure the govt to find education properly.

Work in a SEND primary. If someone is off sick, there is no cover. We just have less staff. If we don't have enough staff, keeping the kids safe is the absolute maximum we can accomplish, there just won't be learning done that day.

It's frustrating because when the kids aren't learning they get bored, which leads to poor behaviour and all our time is spent keeping them safe from each other, so they get even more frustrated and bored. You end the day with everyone having regressed in some way instead of moving forward. So on days with fully staffing you're constantly catching back up.

Yes, I have a friend who I genuinely think would make an excellent English teacher, he has a degree from a UK university, but because his secondary education was outside the UK, he doesn't have an equivalent to Maths GCSE, and this is proving a bit of a barrier for him in terms of training. Yes, he could shell out to get the GCSE, and he could attend evening classes etc- but it's another hoop to jump through, and if it wasn't in place he'd probably already be qualified, and teaching.

We can recruit younger classroom teachers. But having a lot of ect isn't always ideal and you need the more experienced staff there alongside then too for it to work well. But we can't afford the more experienced staff. Luckily we get a lot of applicants from the newer staff, very fortunate in that, so can pick and choose from them.

But applicants for management or leadership roles is really hard. Very few applicants - and this is a good school, good if diverse area, good reputation, etc. Just not enough more experienced staff willing to make the move I guess.

We are lucky to have a substantial LSA team working alongside teachers. But as they leave I'm not sure how many may be replaced. Luckily more are there for the long haul at our school. We simply couldn't afford to replace them at the same level, nor with the same level of experience and qualifications.

We have 3 very stable supply teachers who we use but one is retiring entirely this year, and another has already reduced how much she will be available for. Supply agency staff is harder to get and we can't really afford it too much.

We have had some staff sickness across teachers and LSAs. More work, more stress, everyone doing longer and longer hours are contributions to a reduction in people's health. No one is off with stress but staff are picking up more and more bugs and becoming more poorly for longer, I think everyone's immunity is shot due to a range of reasons. People are in when clearly unwell and then get to a pint where they end up feeling worse and end up off for longer than if they'd gone off originally.

We have 3 (possibly 4) maternity leaves to cover amongst teachers and LSAs later this academic year and into next. We've managed to recruit an ect for one of them so far, but that teacher will be here to replace an experienced teacher with management roles. Who knows about the others yet. I suspect the LSAs won't be replaced.

Most training providers will look at NARIC for equivalent qualifications @Postapocalypticcowgirl

And as another poster says it's really hard to get lunchtime supervisors right now. A lot of our LSAs are having to cover but that then takes them out of the classroom for part of the morning and/or afternoon to facilitate this and there break turn.
Struggling to get cleaning staff too.

Anyway, my current school is "alright" although we struggle to recruit LSAs (and our SENCO is really stretched). We have a slightly shifted school day, which means it's not even attractive because it's a school hours only job. I do think that some of the teachers they've recruited recently don't have the experience they might have hoped for, though. They also offered me effectively a "double jump" on main scale when they hired me.

Obviously can't get cover though. Certainly forget long term subject specialist cover- if we're really lucky we might be able to get general supply in some times.

My previous school, I have mentioned on here before, really struggled- expensive town, crap public transport links, limited area to recruit teachers from. Currently they have vacancies in science, maths and MFL- some of these vacancies have been ongoing since last academic year and can't be filled.

Currently, there's 37 teacher jobs being advertised locally to me. A lot of those are primaries. And it's an awkward time in the recruitment cycle, so it's not normal for so many jobs to be advertised right now.

In terms of what parents can do, I'd say that you could write to your MP? You could vote for political parties who promise to fund education properly? You could make it clear education is a political priority for you, and you won't just watch on as schools collapse?

We also need to bring back grammar schools so that all the kids who want learn can go to one and the ones who don't can go to a technical college.

What about the children who can't quite pass the grammar exams but still want to learn and make progress, albeit at a slightly lower speed?

Problem is this could go the way of the NHS. The government want teachers to tell everyone how terrible state education is. The conservatives want state education run in to the ground. They would like to see those who can afford it to move to private or those that can’t to home school. They want the burden off their hands. They don’t want to provide anything to anyone and they want to wash their hands of the health and education systems. Individual responsibility and private outsourcing are where they are leading us. Teachers are complaining to parents about the state of affairs and this is exactly what the tories want. Spread the word, the state system of education is dying - best source an alternative in whatever way you can

Teachers are complaining to parents about the state of affairs and this is exactly what the tories want

Yet I’ve already been told off for not hiding this thread in the staffroom where only teachers would read it.

The problem with shifting to private is that the people who can afford it are probably already there.

Without going into it too much, he comes from a country with a high school diploma type system and he's been told by a few training providers his current qualifications wouldn't be sufficient. He wants to get GCSE Maths regardless, but didn't want to do it via distance learning during the pandemic.

The old system with the English and maths tests might have actually suited him better- I mean it's an edge case regardless, so I don't think it's making a large scale difference to the number of ITT students!

Hmmm well there’s a market for everything somewhere- perhaps more mid to low end , cheaper private schools will be the trend. Less elite and more just “ not state” will be their USP

I’m not sure teachers can be replaced entirely by automaton - there could be aspects of the curriculum that could be online but classes would need to be supervised