Teacher shortages and schools in crisis - what can parents do?

[noproblemifnot]

I have 3 DC - Y6 and Y3 in a wonderful primary school which we and they love. Youngest not yet in school. Having read the recent thread on the challenges facing teachers and schools, I am worried about what awaits them in the years ahead as well as angry and depressed about - well, all the issues mentioned on the thread.

But I want to be positive and practical. What can I do as a parent to support my children and their teachers?

For context/further info on the teachers side - I realise that not voting Conservative in the next GE seems an obvious answer, but it feels so far away. Is there anything we can do now? I support the strikes and have been (with my kids) at the picket line outside our school every time so I hope they know they have my morale support but it feels inadequate.

And on the kids side - We have always said we wouldn't send our kids to a private school unless there was a specific educational or social need. This is both for broad ethical reasons and because we couldn't afford to send all three. But maybe we should consider this as a time of specific need? I hate the idea of my bright 11yo being taught by supply teachers, or over-worked exhausted teachers who can't offer the right support to him or his peers. Should we be saving for tutors, looking at moving him to private in a few years? We have changes we could make to our lifestyle to make it affordable for him and maybe DC2 - then we pray that things are better for DC3?!

I also see lots of posters suggesting parents are part of the problem, but how? What should change?

Anyway, any thoughts on what we can actually DO about the crisis in the short term whether on a personal or societal level would be much appreciated to lift me out of this frustration.

Write to your mp demand better pay and conditions for the teachers

Don't vote tory

As a teacher in Secondary, I would like parents to ensure their children treat others with respect and speak nicely to others (peers and teachers). I am not saying they can't challenge things but do so in a polite way. I work in a nice area in a nice school and some, and an increasing amount of students, across all years are arguing over anything and everything. Its draining.

For example I have arguments over asking students to draw diagrams in pencil, never in my 14 years of teaching have I had this resistance, I ask nicely, remind them before starting but still I get an argument.

Supporting the school, most of the time there is an element of truth in what a school may have contacted you about. I am not saying school are 100% perfect but if a teacher has got in contact - there has been an issue, I honestly do not have time phone parents just because I 'have it in for them'!

However - the tone of your message, the fact you care enough to ask this here says that you are not likely to have children who would fall into the above categories, or a parent who would either!

My DS14 is now at a small independent, a charitable trust, but we still have a 'Friends of' group.

We support enrichment activities so dcs can take part at lower cost. We pay for transport and sports kit. A new filtration system for the school pool (which the local primaries use as well). We cover costumes for school drama. We staff and run the town fireworks as a major fund raiser. We run a careers advisory between us because the external one was ludicrously expensive. It never seems to end.

Don't feel you can't raise concerns with the school, just think about the way you do it. It's the same as raising concerns anywhere - you get more bees with honey than vinegar is the saying.

Sadly a lot of parents think they can speak to teachers in an appalling manner, sadly their children have a similar mentality.

@noproblemifnot I think picking the right school for your dc is fine. If the selective didn't fit than you haven't necessarily made the wrong choice. And you can supplement with tutoring, extracurricular, experiences.

What is wonderful about the primary school?
Lots of things, I think the fundamental thing is that there is an excellent head who has been there a long time and that helps to attract and retain excellent staff in lots of roles (teaching staff but also pastoral, albeit that team has beeen reduced recently). We love the approach and philosophy of the school. Also it's a big school so has been well funded, and sensibly managed so that it took longer for budget concerns to reach our school than other local schools.

And in response to your other points @Clavinova - there are lots of reasons I won't be voting Conservative beyond education but I do appreciate you bringing balance to the thread in that sense. I don't for one minute think Labour will be perfect or will solve all the challenges which other posters have raised in the broader system.

I also take the point around fees and the impact of changes to the independent sector under Labour; and that my DC are not disadvantaged so they may not benefit directly or immediately under a Labour govt. I still believe that it is better to fix the system and raise standards overall.

I suppose my questions/thinking are because I had some basic assumptions about our education system and how to support my children in it, which I now see I need to reconsider and think about how to support them in the system as it is now or will be in the future

Something parents can do is to install self discipline in their children from a young age, part of the problem in schools is that a generation of children cannot follow simple instructions, are disruptive etc - we can't blame sen or even covid for everything, it's observable fact that behaviour in schools has deteriorated over last 20 or so years. If each person tries to teach their children to be good school pupils teachers can teach more effectively (there was 32 in my primary school class, no teaching assistants then and sen numbers were far lower across the borough (do they weren't just all shipped off)

noproblemifnot

Fair enough - although I still think Labour need to find much more than £1.7bn for their 'learning revolution'.

Yes, please write to your MP regardless of party so that education moves up the ranks in terms of political importance (everyone knows the NHS is in crisis, education not so much).

If you do, ask that your email be forwarded to Gillian Keegan, Secretary of State for Education and that means you should get a response from the DfE.

I'd love to know how they intend to sort out the shortage of teachers because at the moment, treating us with utter contempt doesn't seem to be working.

Easiest way to email your MP is through this website https://www.writetothem.com/

Yes, The Tories really have dropped them in the shit what with having to sort out pretty much every area of the public sector and the economy in such a mess.

The library budget in my school is £1000 a year. For 1400 11-18 year olds.
We'd love some book tokens, a subscription to a couple of newspapers and magazines, and whatever decent copies of popular texts you'd like to donate.

And a letter to your MP.

And for you to send your kid with a full pencil case, no vapes, and to back up the staff who are really just trying to do their best by all of your children.

noblegiraffe
Yes, The Tories really have dropped them in the s... what with having to sort out pretty much every area of the public sector and the economy in such a mess.

Jan 2009
Britain's economy will be the hardest hit in the developed world in what is expected to be the "deepest recession since the second world war," the International Monetary Fund said...
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2009/jan/28/ilo-global-unemployment-to-soar

March 2010
Alistair Darling admitted that Labour's planned cuts in public spending will be "deeper and tougher" than Margaret Thatcher's in the 1980s, as the country's leading experts on tax and spending warned that Britain faces "two parliaments of pain" to repair the black hole in the state's finances.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2010/mar/25/alistair-darling-cut-deeper-margaret-thatcher

May 2010
The former chief secretary to the Treasury, Liam Byrne, has reignited criticism of Labour's stewardship of the economy with a note for his successor which said "there's no money left".
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2010/may/17/liam-byrne-note-successor

We're not in 2010, Clav and the Conservative government have run schools into the ground and lost a whole bunch of teachers since then.

@noproblemifnot
Encourage a learning perspective as best as possible, any extra circular activities too that would give them more knowledge about the subjects they study and or help their personal development.

Overall always try to encourage learning and studying different subjects.

noblegiraffe
We're not in 2010

What a pity - we should have left the EU sooner - 2010 here;
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Commission criticised Britain’s deficit-cutting plans for lacking ambition in a report that has already embarrassed Prime Minister Gordon Brown weeks before a parliamentary election.
The report by the European Union’s executive said the fiscal programme failed to guarantee the country would meet an EU deadline of 2014-15 for cutting the deficit to below the bloc’s cap of 3 percent of economic output.
https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-eu-britain-budget-idUKTRE62E3XH20100317

@noproblemifnot never rely just on the schools alone to encouragea learning and studying.

And for you to send your kid with a full pencil case, no vapes, and to back up the staff who are really just trying to do their best by all of your children.

I do all of this, but parents are not responsible for resolving this, just like they're not for the NHS crisis as a patient.

I’m thinking on the micro level here, as others have talked about the politics:

Talk positively about the school with other parents at the school gates and on social occasions. Not unrealistically so, but in a way that is reasonable about what is likely to be out of the school’s control: ‘I know, they’ve had a cover teacher again today. It must be so hard for schools at the moment because there is such a shortage of Maths teachers. I do think that x is a great Science teacher, though, don’t you?’ Defusing a culture of ‘school gate grumbles’ can create a more positive climate for all staff.

Be the parent who offers support on Social Media for parents who are having IT / timetable / kit / letters etc issues, rather than everything being pointed towards the school. I had two utter hero parents who quietly mopped up all the minor IT issues that arose during pandemic online learning, and then were my main points of contact both for them to relay serious issues and for me to push out any known problems or solutions that came up. They saved my sanity and many hours.

Volunteer as a Governor if you have time. Hard work but gets you into the teal nitty gritty of a school, and there’s often a shortage.

Offer a work experience placement at your employer / volunteer to do mock interviews / a careers’ talk.

Honestly? If parents raise children that want to learn and not disrupt others that would be game changing. And support the school by not arguing every time your child is disciplined or has some minor negative experience.

😂
It's like listen to the gov brag that funding is returning to 2010 levels.

Which let's face it is absolutely disgusting!

Today I wasted 15 minutes of my 45 minute planning time chasing up a teacher to discover if my student was ‘talking to him’ which is why he was late to my lesson. The teacher confirmed my suspicion that the student was lying and had not spoken to him at all that day. When I reported this to the parent, the response was ‘my child would never do something like that’. The student told his parent that he felt I was ‘targeting him’.

That is what I find most exhausting in my career. I love teaching, I plan to do it until I retire, and I’m at a lovely school right now. But parents who can’t discipline their kids or who want to be their friends are making our lives so much harder. Behaviour (not at my current school thankfully) is so outrageously bad that many parents would be shocked. Especially when they see how their own children behave.

So, all that to say - the best thing you can do is BE A PARENT. Don’t make the schools or teachers the ones who have to raise your kid. Let us focus on our job which is teaching.

Yes yes yes and amen. This a million times.

Honestly, having been a governor for over a decade and a Chair for the best part of that this is what I would say

A: Vote for an alternative party that is prepared to fund education.
B: be a reasonable person and dont go in guns blazing and work in partnership with the school. Teachers generally don't like conflict and usually won't tell you that you child is being an idiot unless they are in fact being an idiot.
C: if the teacher has made a mistake then treat them like a human being- we all make mistakes.
(My son's teacher did and we had a very productive conversation as a result).
D: support school events, they take lots of work to organise.
E: if you can afford it, pay the voluntary contribution. Don't withhold it on principle because, for instance, swimming should be funded. Yes it should, but transport isn't and the meagre funding doesn't really cover the cosy.
F: realise that your child (in primary) gets funded about £5k (quite often less) for their education for a year and they are doing magical things to do what they do for that amount.

*cost

Ime, the crisis in recruitment and retention isn’t evenly spread. I teach in a nice comprehensive in a nice area, and we don’t have the same problems that many schools have. We have a reasonably settled, experienced staff, we can generally always cover classes with subject specialists. Yes, when we need to recruit we don’t have many candidates to pick from, but bar a few instances when people have been on sick leave for example, we haven’t had to use supply or cover teachers very much. I think this is the same in most “nice” schools (nice in terms of being a good place to work as much as anything like catchment, although the two can go hand in hand). Yes we don’t have any money for resources like books, we rely on the PTA for that, and support services are almost non-existent for things like SEN and mental health needs, which is challenging. But generally, in a school like mine, a child who is well cared for at home so they come to school with their basic needs met, with engaged parents, will do as well now as they have ever done. Possibly more so in many ways, I feel pedagogy has come on leaps and bounds in recent years. I do feel like we know a lot more about how learners learn, and we’re using evidence informed practice, rather this just doing what we’ve always done. If your child is starting at a school like mine, I really wouldn’t worry. If the school has a good, long-standing reputation locally, they likely are going to a good school, and they’ll be fine. In the more difficult schools however, maybe with bad behaviour and a not great reputation, poor exam results etc, it’s an absolute shit show. This is where the problem is, these are the schools who cannot recruit and retain teachers.

I know of some schools locally who have maybe one or two qualified science teachers. Everyone else is a random unqualified cover teacher, or qualified to teach something else, or the students learn online in computer rooms with a supervising adult. An average comprehensive should have a science department with at least 10 full time teachers. In these schools it really is a crisis, and too many children are in schools like this. There’s little the schools can do about it, as the pool of teachers available is simply not large enough to staff both the good schools, where recruitment and retention is difficult but not impossible, and schools like theirs, meaning that in the not so great schools it’s actually impossible. It’s very uneven and it exacerbates inequities. But overall, it’s not all state schools in this mess by any means, and private schools aren’t immune either. The fact that many have chosen to ditch the Teachers Pension has started to affect recruitment, so paying privately does not necessarily translate into schools fully staffed with qualified subject specialists. I wouldn’t worry about going private unless your child has additional SEN needs, or they’re going to be joining one of comprehensives that really are in crisis. If you were joining one of those schools, being as engaged as you sound, I reckon you’d know about it already.