Foreign teachers are being offered an extra £10,000 to come and work in Britain in bid to fill classroom vacancies

[SerendipityJane]

Apparently we aren't getting enough immigrants.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12131699/Foreign-teachers-offered-extra-10-000-come-work-Britain.html

oh, and it seems we need to import fishermen too

https://www.ft.com/content/5a438a26-4046-4df6-b4e1-b49af82cfbe0

This. We have enough ex teachers here to staff schools many times over. The government treats teachers with contempt.

And I think it's very likely that overseas teachers will not last- they are likely to come from countries where pupils, parents and society values teachers. It's gonna be a hell of a shock.

Gove certainly has a lot to answer for. Scrapping pay portability for teachers has meant many are trapped in a school as they won’t automatically stay on the same pay band if they moved.

The government’s latest drum to bang is ‘mental health’ and wanting schools to spend money and hours training a champion to be responsible for sorting everyone’s mental health. Mental health isn’t an add-on that can be ‘done’ in the spare time of some over-worked member of middle-management. The struggling mental health of many pupils and staff is CAUSED by the government policies itself-so that’s what needs to be changed. The primary curriculum (Gove, again) is broken and doesn’t cater for large swathes of children. Ofsted is also broken and is probably one of the biggest reasons cited for stress. The total obsession with Phonics is another huge issue-which I blame Nick Gibb for!

Until the curriculum and Ofsted-and then workload-are addressed. No amount of ‘mental health’ accreditations are going to make a difference to schools.

@noblegiraffe

"The problem here is that the DfE know that they have a massive shortage of teachers but can't pay them more because the Treasury won't fund it and govt policy is to not negotiate with strikers. Schools can no longer be expected to take it out of budgets like last year as the well is dry."

++++

The problem is that with £2.5 trillion of Government debt Treasury simply doesn't have the money, as Liz Truss discovered when she attempted to further expand Government debt.

Current Government spending on education is £54 billion and spending on interest alone for Gov debt is £51 billion.

https://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/uktotallspendingpieechart

Wouldn't it just be easier to reduce essential service degrees fees to attract more young people

What we need is something to persuade people to stay in the job once they are already there. Throwing money at recruitment with bursaries/paying fees etc but not fixing the inherent cause of the problem. It’s tinkering and just doesn’t work.

Yeah the government has been telling us there’s no money for education for 13 years.

A country that doesn’t invest in the education of its children is fucking over its economy, not saving it.

It’s about political priorities here more than money.

And I think it's very likely that overseas teachers will not last- they are likely to come from countries where pupils, parents and society values teachers. It's gonna be a hell of a shock.

Why do pupils, parents and society not value teachers in the UK? Genuine question because I think this is correct - they are not valued and respected. What can be done to change this - unlike pupils, you can't punish and control parents and society into giving teachers respect - so if teachers need to be valued, what's the way forward in winning hearts and minds?

@noblegiraffe

"A country that doesn’t invest in the education of its children is fucking over its economy, not saving it"

+++

I absolutely and completely agree with this point but it still doesn't answer the question of where does the money come from?

Policies are how you would like the country to be run, economics is how the country is actually run.

I could easily come up with a number of ways of where to find the money but all of which would be massively unpopular with the electorate and would ensure that such a party with these policies would never get elected.

The problem here is that young people don't vote so spending on education is always a lower priority than say pensions.

As for the lack of investment in education for last 13 years then this would because of the austerity from 2010 to 2020 (caused by unsustainable Gov debt) and spaffing £500 billion away on Covid measures.

Teg this happens at DD's school "The response to poor behaviour seems to be stricter school uniform rules - maybe they could try actually dealing with behaviour than fiddling with the window dressing?". Heaven forbid anyone wears a coat that isn't black or navy. Great for kids who cycle and wall to school in winter.....

My DD is a foreign teacher, why on earth would she give up her well respected and well paid job to relocate to the UK? The UK treats its teachers like absolute shite, that's why you have a shortage and why you'll keep having a shortage. Even if some foreign teachers take this up, they won't stay.

For comparison, my DD is an English as a second language teacher and gets paid around £45k pa for a 35 hour week. Hours above 35 are accrued as time off, so if she spends the evening doing parents evening she gets to take a half day the following week (or another time of her choosing). It's a two teacher system so in her class of 24 students there are always 2 fully qualified teachers. And, as a teacher moving to the area she was prioritised for council accommodation and was housed before her start date. She has a lovely two bedroom appartment within walking distance of her school, for which she pays around £800 per month including heating.

The UK has a long, long way to go if it wants to keep hold of its valuable assets. Otherwise they'll be clearing off abroad, and who could blame them.

Even if some foreign teachers take this up, they won't stay.

…and this is exactly why it won’t work.

Exactly but in this country we fail to confront this fact. There is a mindset that immigrants are bad, uncultured people when in fact, immigrants are usually shocked at the indiscipline, rudeness, and laziness that plagues this country.

I am not in favour of taking qualified professionals from countries that need them, and I think that there is a lot of work to be done to make the UK education service fit for purpose. But congratulations to those (including the OP) who have managed to turn some serious issues into an anti-immigrant rant.

And for those who are concerned about their English - I know more than a few immigrant workers in the UK whose English is better than the English of people born and bred here.

I get that the behaviour needs to be addressed but we've been using school uniforms as a weapon for far too long - it pisses parents off, maybe that doesn't matter to schools who like to talk about partnership but don't listen they wear you down. I've seen at one primary swimming googles forbidden for swimming unless you have a note to say you are allergic to chlorine - (which all the parents lie about because their kids won't swim without them and countless parents tried to address this with the school but they don't listen), to the next school - googles are essential for swimming and if you don't have the full kit you can't swim (although this school will provide them and all the other kit so the kids whose parent can't be arsed providing the kit don't feel left out)). Both these schools attend the same swim school. Rules and more fucking rules about stuff that doesn't matter yet schools get so bloody obsessed with, suspend kids for having their hair cut a millimetre too short for wearing nail polish for having 2 earrings in one ear.

Do schools in other countries obsess over petty rules - I get the feeling they don't. These petty rules piss parents off - instead of focusing on the stuff that matters by the time you have dealt with all the petty shit - your tolerance for the important stuff, when it happens has also been diminished.

And I'll say it again for those at the back - my kids were well-behaved, academic and wore all the right bloody uniform and according to their teachers a joy to teach but by the time they left school I was ecstatic to escape too! Schools are exhausting.

Focus on the stuff that matters hasn't really caught on in schools, they want it all and more.

So if you think parents are the problem - have a look at why.

The media/current government can take a lot of the blame here.

They won't.

Neither will schools.

This is what is happening in my current school. Teachers leaving for better packages abroad.

Presumably because that would set a precedent and give other professions grounds to request the same?

This!!!!
'Experienced' teachers on here who moan endlessly about being 'too expensive' have no idea of their actual worth to their employer.
Do the job, get whatever the annual increment is but there should never be a 'pay scale' based simply on longevity.

So your argument is that experienced teachers should stop teaching?

I used to teach abroad, but when I returned to the UK I taught in private language schools even though I could have earned more in the education system. The prospect of a UK school horrified me. In many (or most) other countries pupils have more respect, a better attitude and behaviour, and are disciplined when needed. Quite unlike the situation here (except perhaps in private schools). I can't comment on the workload/curriculum issues but I should think that comes second to the everyday 'crowd control'. Such a pity for the pupils who do want to learn.

There are relatively few opportunities for experienced teachers to move upwards. We need to keep good teachers in the classroom and they can't be expected to live on a starter wage forever. A big part of the recruitment issue is people doing it for a couple of years then leaving.

Have you read the thread? There are many, many bursaries for teaching well above £10k. Even ten years ago, I got a 10k bursary for primary teacher training (which basically cancelled out the 9.6k fees).

Err no? Where did I suggest that?
You get paid to do a job. Luckily you also get automatically pay scale increases as as inflation etc. And more annual leave than other jobs can dream of.
If there workload is to onerous then refuse to take on the extra work.
Or leave.
But here it seems there default is take extra work and whine about it.