Utterly disastrous teacher trainee applications for next year

[noblegiraffe]

Analysis on twitter of the current state of play of teacher training applications for September shows that the figures for secondary have barely changed from last year when the government only reached 59% of its target for secondary recruitment. This is despite massive increases in bursaries.

Really worryingly, primary teaching applicants are down 15% on last year.

twitter.com/jackworthnfer/status/1630150284683911171?s=61&t=oXSFDbmiMqnRpz_ijYIZlQ

We do not have anywhere near enough teachers. Teacher trainee numbers for last September (who schools are currently hiring to fill vacancies in September) were awful. Even school who previously didn't struggle to hire many well find themselves without teachers in September. That the year after is looking similar is unthinkable.

Classes are having different supply teachers each week. Unqualified teachers. TAs are teaching classes in primary school. A recent thread on here had classes logging into computers and watching videos of lessons instead of having lessons. Exam classes are having to teach themselves due to no teacher or no specialist teacher.

And what has the government done? Just announced another massive pay cut for teachers next year, scrapped the fee-funded schools-based training route and massively reduced the number of accredited teacher training providers for September 2024.

What. The. Hell?

Wages aren't overly low, but it's expensive to take 3 years out to train as well as to lose a % if your wage to student loan for the next 30 years. Many who do nursing are mature students who probably have a household to run and contribute to, just not feasible. There is a rise in apprentiships though, joining as a HCA and your trust paying for your training and you get a wage throughout, that's bound to affect people wanting to go to uni. That said I expect working from home or whatever else affects the desirability.

My son's school is looked down on in our area but the teachers are so keen and are finally staying rather than leaving every term - one year he had 4 or 5 Science teachers in one school year.

However he has his GCSEs in May and will then leave for Sixth Form college and it can't come soon enough. My kids will then be out of the school system and we can stop worrying about the state of our schools and the lack of teachers. My sister's youngest doesn't even start school until September, I really feel for her as who knows what things will be like in the years to come 😯

Core subjects struggling to recruit because the workload is insane. You see each class 4x + a week. Let's say you teach 4 out of 5 periods in a day. That's 120 kids. Some days it's 150. How are you supposed to find time to look at what they've produced that day? I mean really look at it, looking for areas of strength and weakness and giving personalised targets? It's impossible.

I do therefore think there is a place for some kind of monitoring to ensure the increased standard we have seen over the past 3 decades since ofsted was introduced is maintained. Whatever form that took

when I started it was mostly HMI inspectors and local authority school improvement officers. In my school at least, they were monitoring but in a friendly, supportive way suggesting solutions. The last few ofsted inspections I have had the pleasure to be part of(!) they look at data from afar and then decide to took at a few specific points based on that and come in to ‘confirm their judgement’.

The whole inspection thing has turned into a high stakes swift judgement…and it does feel judgy. Between each visit, we have a year after just catching our breath and then onto the next 4 years fiddling around trying to change things to satisfy the findings of that 1 person. And then it comes again….the last 18 months before it is a bit more frantic. I do so many unnecessary box ticking things because of this one inspection. It would be much better if heads and salt inspected other local schools but in a supportive way. However, we are all pitted against each other with sats GCSE results etc.

I did say that there wasn't much the government could do that would significantly reduce workload without increasing staffing. Paying us more won't reduce workload, neither will not slagging us off in the press.

Increasing the number of TAs would be good however lots of schools are struggling to recruit TAs because due to school budgets they can only offer ridiculously low wages and term-time only working isn't the draw it used to be.

You can also earn much more money in the sciences, computing and maths than you can in teaching. I think with the cost of living rising etc there are far less people who have the luxury of viewing jobs as a vocation as pay is secondary. Comp Sci especially there are a tonne of very interesting career paths and they're very much in demand. If schools were permitted to take a more flexible approach they might have more luck ie professionals teaching in blocks or just a few sessions a week alongside their regular jobs etc. It's a very important subject now more than ever, but if they can't get suitably qualified and experienced teachers it's a shame.

Education is totally broken. Our recent trainees have not been ready to train to teach. I don't know if this is something to do with covid or lower entry requirements but our most recent trainee was very hard work. Not only did they arrive with a lot of emotional baggage. They were unable to run their day to day life, lots of dramas about needing to ge their car fixed so not being able to turn up, needing to go and take their partner to to Dr's because partner couldn't drive etc. They were constantly expecting us to help them negotiate life e.g wanted us to tell them it was ok to take the day off for ridiculous reasons. On top of that they just dragged their feet and didn't do the paper work, and as a result were totally unable to reflect on their teaching. They took up way more than the 1hr I week I gained for training them and I refuse to do it again.

Hmm, the government all but freezes teacher pay, creates a tedious and dull curriculum, decimates funding so there is no specialist support available for anything meaning teachers are left to deal with a myriad of issues in the classroom that they are not trained to deal with and spends years denigrating the profession in the media. I can't think why there is a shortage of people wanting to enter the profession.

Many private schools have withdrawn from the Teachers Pension scheme so they will also have issues with recruitment.

Threads like this scare the shit out of me. My eldest due to start school in a year and I really worry about the education she's going to receive, class sizes, teacher burnout. I would look into private but the way things are going, we just can't afford it. It all seems so different from when I was a student and I feel so awful that my children will have worse educational prospects than I did. That's not the way it should be. It feels like the wheels are coming off. Can everyone just stop voting Tory please!

Someone asked if it's better in private schools.
I left the state sector back in 2006 and then taught for 3 years in an independent.
The independent was better in a lot of ways - class size being the main one. Having 15 - 18 children in a primary school class compared to 30 makes a massive difference in workload - marking, assessment, etc. and behaviour management is easier (aside from the fact the behaviour of the children is much better because the more challenging ones are "filtered" out - children have parental support at home and live in a stable environment which means there are fewer issues. In the school I was in, any child who was causing issues was "encouraged" to move on.
However, a lot of independents (and certainly the one I was in) demand a lot from the teachers as far as extra-curricular activities go. We were expected to be running clubs nearly every night of the week and also coming in at weekends for extra events. I was responsible for music and that really was a bit of a nightmare as I had so much extra work on, putting on shows, running orchestra and choir, music clubs for KS1 and so on and forth, but with no extra PPA time or reduction in other duties, and all with no extra money.
I'd had enough of it in the end and moved on to pastures new. I don't regret leaving at all.

Interesting. My school cannot recruit a teacher for a particular subject. They have taken on a private sector expert instead. Not a teacher. My son says they are excellent. The school has also purchased a new exam revision piece of software in this subject and the kids are using that too to supplement their studies. Will be interesting as my son has his exams this year.

Most of the good supplies left long ago - cheered on by the full time teachers who viewed them as on easy money and unable to hack the classroom, when in reality it was a particular subset of skills you needed to survive on supply and enjoy it (I did supply because I loved doing it). No matter how many emails I get from my old agency - you're not getting those guys back (and I would plan, mark, assess work as required when I was on a longer than day to day stint - or follow existing planning as much as I could do - I'd even make sure all the glue sticks got left with lids on, tidy the classroom and leave everything as I found it).

I retrained (which took a big time and cash investment) and moved into SALT which I absolutely bloody love - only way I'd consider going back into teaching would be in special ed or post 16 special ed these days. But some of the behaviour of teachers themselves drives colleagues out of the profession - schools being by their nature so insular and inward looking - cliques breed, outsiders get marginalised and the rot sets in so if your face doesn't fit, no matter how good you might be at the job or with the kids, you're going to get hounded out. Add in the obsession with the next new shiny initiative, and new shiny teacher who is cheap as a pleasant side-note... no wonder it's a mess.

Yes that's supported by evidence.... it was somewhere in the nfer research. I was surprised when I read it but then thought perhaps its that career changers, with something to compare teaching too, can see how unreasonable its demands are!

*to ffs

Or that they're more likely to have a reasonable escape plan and fall back option. Many who go straight into teaching aren't sure what else they could do, even though they have a degree and transferable skills. Essentially making the job more sustiable helps recruitment of everyone.

Most of the good supplies left long ago - cheered on by the full time teachers who viewed them as on easy money and unable to hack the classroom

I can’t imagine ‘cheering on’ supply teachers who are leaving?!

I left teaching in 2018 and wouldnt go back even if the salary was tripled. Bullying SLT types (far too many of these in teaching) and pain-in-the-ass parents ruined the job for me. Plus the endless paperwork. Im so much happier now. Its sad really but most people looking to start a career wouldnt want to put themselves through that. Much better career options exist.

I am 34 and I am really, really tempted to actually do secondary training. I work as an agency TA and I’ve spent a year in a secondary doing a pastoral role. Different to teaching of course, but familiar with the environment which definitely helps however….

• I’ve worked in a lot of jobs in my sector prior to working in schools so I’m a little concerned I’m too old and not as mouldable as the younger NQTs

• I would want to train in Health and Social care (what my degree is in and work experience) and these training places are few and far between. I know that once in a school I would be expected to teach other subjects (not core but I love teaching PSHE and have done a term on the timetable unqualified for that).

• I have 3 kids. 2 in secondary and 1 in primary so I’m a little concerned about workload as ultimately they are my priority and always will be

• Oh and im absolutely shocking at maths and haven’t even got a GCSE in it, so that would need to be rectified prior to applying (ballache but yes teachers need to be numerate so I can’t really complain) despite having a first class in my subject.

• And finally, it’s all just a bit shit isn’t it at the minute??

But here I am…. STILL contemplating it like an annoying itch that won’t go away. I’ve had lots of jobs along the way but for me, nothing really beats working with young people.

The workload is like nothing else. It's indescribable really. Like keeping forty plates spinning at the same time, then having to keep another forty spinning outside of work with general life shit.

You will get school hols off, but you will be exhausted from each term and have no breaks or respite because you'll then be looking after your kids.

Honestly, don't do it.

Thanks for your honesty. It is sad. The kids have picked up on all this now. My son who is in year 8 said to me this morning another teacher has left and that they never stay because the job is too hard and stressful. Even they know that most staff are temporary features of the school.

He said behaviour is very, very bad. This is the most oversubscribed state secondary in the city that I live in. I just don’t know how this is all going to end up…..

There is a very good reason why teaching jobs in Scotland are in more demand than in England. Conditions for teachers in Scotland are much better . I doubt many of those waiting for a job in Scotland would be keen to teach in England and I don't blame them at all

www.tes.com/magazine/archive/id-rather-be-teacher-scotland-england

We actually have plenty of qualified teachers. Most of whom don’t want to teach because it’s shit and underpaid and the workload is too heavy. They’re recruiting these new teachers but it’s irrelevant because most of them will quit in a few years. The focus needs to be on retention not recruitment - but the government won’t address that because it would involve paying people properly and reducing workload.

I have to agree on the person who said supply teachers are poorly treated on the whole by existing staff.

My experience as supply lulled the job for me.

Killed

We actually have plenty of qualified teachers. Most of whom don’t want to teach because it’s shit and underpaid and the workload is too heavy. They’re recruiting these new teachers but it’s irrelevant because most of them will quit in a few years. The focus needs to be on retention not recruitment

Completely agree. There isn’t a shortage of qualified teachers but there is a shortage of qualified teachers willing to teach.

If Gillian Keegan bothered to do the tiniest amount of research into the problems in teaching, she might look at ways of making the job more appealing to stay in. If I was Secretary in charge of a profession that had a Facebook group of 120,000 members wanting to leave, I’d be listening to what they had to say.