74% of school staff have considered leaving this year

[NorthernGirlie]

Almost three-quarters of school staff (74 per cent) say that they considered leaving education completely over the last 12 months, an annual Tes survey reveals.

Moat threads about schools have responses like "All of my immediate family are teachers and love it"

I've taught for 20+ years - always enjoyed but even I'd like to leave now.

Unless there's a huge wedge of money thrown at local authorities very soon so they can
*Improve staffing ratios
*Support SEN kids in appropriate settings
*Pay aupport staff the money they deserve

we're screwed.
https://www.tes.com/magazine/news/general/school-staff-views-wellbeing-revealed-survey?fbclid=IwAR0c2Ecyzx-iBjyCaaxDqAkod9Mml8TaWGEi8T4d-qGUB67uETPqraByBwM

I am friends with three teachers.

One took early retirement last year, her DH got a huge redundancy package, so they did this together.

One left the pupil referral unit she worked in and has transferred to a regular pretty average secondary school.

One is about to change jobs after Easter, moving from an inner city comp where 27 languages are spoken to a pretty regular secondary school in a medium size town. The behaviour of the children meant my friend was at risk of burning out. They already had a vacancy in her dept that they couldn’t fill.

So one has left and the other two have moved or are moving to less challenging environments. Both have 25 years teaching experience. It’s not like the new jobs are easy they just both worked in some of the most difficult environments. The other teacher I knew died from covid in July 2020 still going in to teach during lockdown, she had a compromised immune system and was still very young in her thirties. The two that have changed jobs found getting a new post really easy.

I left teaching and put my own kids in private school (I went to a much better paid job). For years and years, I believed I could help make a difference and do something worthwhile. But state education is so badly broken, all I was doing was breaking myself. I taught under the last Labour government when children with SEN were supported and families weren’t being driven into poverty and the curriculum had some creativity and wasn't just a dispiriting grind of endless assessments and pointless admin. Then I watched in horror as Tory austerity and ideology crushed children's lives and prospects until I couldn’t do it anymore.

My aforementioned DH works in a private school. It's riddled with RAAC and they are hauling everyone out of TPS. The grass isn't much greener.

Lots of teachers from my school have left to g to teach in private schools, that said. But the private sector is also leaking staff as its own work practices become more 'corporate' and target driven.

Me too.
Except I left and now home educate my DC.
You’ve summed up well the reasons I left too. I couldn’t be part of what you describe as ‘crushing children’s lives and prospects’ either. It jarred against everything I went into teaching for.

Many school leaders are starting to wake up to the fact that they need to work to retain staff (because hiring new staff and training them up to standard is expensive!) and also to the fact that us "oldies" are experienced in getting decent results.

I wouldn’t say that is the case in primary schools around here. Schools’ budgets are so tight, heads are forced to only hire ECTs or even HLTAs to take classes. I’m sure they know experienced staff get better results, but they can’t afford to hire them.

Agreed. In some of the schools I visit the most experienced staff are only 3-4 years into their teaching careers. It's very unusual to find staff who have 10 + years of experience these days.

Usually it's 'my mum is a teacher and she's happy as Larry and listens to every child read every day then does art'. Then it comes out she's retired.

Perhaps it's different for primaries; I work in a shortage subject in secondaries and have known myself and many colleagues to be able to basically determine our conditions. This is in several different schools, so I doubt we were just lucky.

An advert on TES used to be around £2.5k, I'm sure it's more now and I've known schools to go through 6 cycles of this before recruiting successfully. A recruiter once told me he'd get a 3k commission for my referral, and that was years ago, so, again, I'm sure it's more now (and the advert was on TES, too).

Might as well pay staff better. And the leaders who can do basic maths also often recognise that it's better to be a bit lenient here or there - e.g. a member of staff is looking after a sick relative, might as well let them leave 30mins early on a Friday during their PPA rather than having to fork out for cover when they're off sick with stress.

I'm not saying all leaders are logical, but I have seen a big increase in them.

Or ‘my mum taught Reception just after the war and had a class of 40 without moaning, so teachers today don’t know they’re born’.

The parents are not campaigning for things to change either! If I posted asking about moving my DC from state to indie most answers would be « waste of money, not worth it, state is fine, etc. ». Why?
My guess is that the parents won’t admit to themselves that schools can’t function correctly with the budget they receive, because it would mean admitting their DC are not receiving an adequate education and they (the parents) are turning a blind eye so are partially to blame.

I can believe it. Dd is Yr 11 and on Friday only 1 lesson was taught by her usual teacher. All the rest were taught by supply staff. She begged me to stay home as she thought she could get more out of the day by staying home and revising on her own.

Yes AreWeOutOfTheWoods agree although mine are in state and doing fine or have left but although ‘academic’ are doing jobs that keep them outside the system and self employed. No student debt and plenty of control over working conditions - yeah can see where they got that idea!

Am still teaching - had a student last week who just kept asking how on earth… it’s like an extreme sports event daily.

@WhyDoIWorkInASchool I'm in the same boat, this RAAC business has really been an awful situation. We are losing teachers now because of it and still have only a few temporary classrooms. It feels worse then covid was because at lest then we where all in the same boat. We are looking at being in temporary classrooms for possibly 3 years as are most likely looking at a rebuild.

Staffing was a problem before, I've no idea how we are going to recruit in our current situation.

On the other hand my son is in a brand new school and they also have massive Staffing problems to. It's just going from bad to worse and the government doesn't seem to care about trying to fix the problem 😕.

Not just staff
Our school has had 6 governors resign/leave after their too ended
It's bleak

I left a year ago and couldn’t be happier we can buy extra holidays so I do t feel like I’ve missed out.
Flexible working no late nights just been paid a huge bonus.

The transferable skills you have are a real bonus to a lot of companies.

We have free tea and coffee free nights out - you can’t make this up and on top of this I don’t get called names, I’m not hit or punched - I don’t run on adrenaline any more.

I wish I’d escaped years ago.

When I left, which was earlier than I intended, there were six rounds of recruitment for my post, which is statutory. No one applied.

Had I not been so broken, I would have challenged the worthless head, the chair of governors and the business manager, who were responsible. They were all removed soon after.

If I’m guessing your role correctly, there is a huge shortage of people prepared to do it in our schools as well-thankless job and nobody seems to stay long any more!

Also just to add, it's incredibly hard for people to even become teachers now. I wouldn't mind retaining from support staff to teaching as then at least I'd be paid better for the abuse I receive working in a school! (but still not great)

However, for me to do a PGCE now means not earning for a year, and with a mortgage and a family, I simply cannot do this. On top of not earning for a year, I'd be PAYING to take the PGCE. So unless you become a teacher right out of university, it is almost impossible for somebody to retrain into this profession. There are other train-on-the-job routes, but these are few and far between and still don't pay enough to be viable.

There are still bursaries for some subjects (maths, maybe science?)

We've had multiple "trainees" come through - they take the full bursary, put in no effort and never actually go on to teach.

Someone upthread mentioned TES and recruitment agencies. This may not be the right forum, but I'd like to make a point.

Our Trust, like many have negotiated deals with TES which used to be the go to for recruitment. It takes a lump out of the budget, but was until 2 years ago still the most effective way to recruit, even in the hard to fill subjects.

Now I am seeing a complete swing towards teachers only using recruiters.

If I recruit from them the minimum I've negotiated is 15% if the starting salary. Even on M1 that's £4,500 for doing literally nothing but dive bombing the HR inbox.

Teachers please note. Your T&C allow for a recruitment allowance. Please use that. At least the money stays in the profession.

Hanging on in there for one more year then I’m taking early retirement. If I wasn’t so close being able to do this I’d be out this summer. Workload, behaviour and unrealistic parental expectations are the main factors for me.

You must my point,
Instead of supporting each other it sniping at each each.

And if you don't like it why should teachers have to put up with it?

However, for me to do a PGCE now means not earning for a year, and with a mortgage and a family, I simply cannot do this. On top of not earning for a year, I'd be PAYING to take the PGCE.

Depends on the PGCE. Massive tax free bursaries are available to train in certain secondary subjects. You can earn more doing a PGCE than you can as a first year teacher (which is a problem in itself).

I'm out in July after 15 years, age 52. I am looking forward to joining the ranks of the Economically Inactive while I recover. It may take some time.

Considering 2 out of 5 of DS’s A level teachers don’t bother to turn up half the time, one of the others is poor and another mediocre, it wouldn’t make any difference to us.

we just have a tutor for everything. We sent the other two privately and the teaching is almost entirely great.

teachers should be offered more money but only on the proviso that their performance is monitored and it’s far easier to sack those who are consistently underperforming. That is the only way to level up state and private.