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

You do realise that if they sacked those A-level teachers, your child wouldn't get a great A-level teacher to replace them, they'd get no teacher and have to teach themselves from textbooks?

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).

This.

I've just acquired a trainee in a shortage subject who is being paid more than my ECT in the same subject. Nice person... but their highest qualification in the subject they're training to teach is a pretty mediocre GCSE.

Have they got a job? No. Have they applied for a job? No. Are they intending to? They're not sure.

We are pissing money up the wall, training some of these people.

I'm a HT done over 20 years as a teacher . I'm 50 and done this year , up until recently I felt I could keep ahead of the tide not anymore it's a bloody tsunami !

We had a trainee Chemistry teacher last year who told me they had a scholarship of around £30,000. Nice person, had a PhD and obviously good subject knowledge but you could see they were not good with teens, not good in a classroom and not really interested.

They were very open about the fact that they had no intention of teaching ever again after the PGCE year - this was done for the money (earning more than many qualified teachers) and they were failing in pretty much every area as they weren't interested in the job in any way. They passed the course as the govt is so desperate for teachers that I think someone was hoping they might go on to teach, but they haven't. They were not prepared to take a pay cut to do a job they thoroughly disliked.

The number of PGCE or other ITT candidates who take the tax free bursary, buy a fancy car with it (or a year long travel fund) and never teach, or even intend to, is ridiculous.

@Hatty65 everyone passes. Courses are grades on their pass rate.

And then some poor sap (also me) ends up trying to support those who do decide to teach to get through ECT induction.

It's wholly depressing.

My DD had an A level teacher who was at school but very rarely present in any lessons, not available for advice or feedback....it was essentially the same as not having a teacher.

I know this is not indicative of most teachers BTW

@MrsHamlet That is no surprise to me at all. I've seen some dreadful PGCE candidates in my time, and I'm not aware of anyone failing. Similarly ECT - a colleague is currently tearing their hair out over her ECT teacher who is failing to cover the GCSE syllabus and just keeps going off piste!

@MigGirl I agree re the RAAC - it felt like Covid all over again but specific to our school. Kids remote learning - but none of their peers at other schools experiencing the same. And so disruptive - none of that will be taken into account when their GCSEs are being graded.

We are also going for a new school, but in the interim 3 years our classrooms/offices are being 'shored up'. I'm not sure if I'm being overly optimistic that we might all be back in the main building for September......

My point was, if you want to make it easier to sack bad teachers, we need to have enough teachers.

At the moment we are in a beggars can't be choosers situation.

Big pension though. Often early retirement. Most other workers get nothing like that so there’s that to look forward to!

Also, I was at secondary school in the 1970s. Probably 28 in a classroom, no assistants, no SEN. We seemed to manage fine, but we mostly did as we were told as that was the culture in my Catholic girls school (not posh). I doubt there was much money either. Teachers weren’t brilliant, I’m sure they knocked off at 4 pm, but not bad.

Education is such a drama llama now and teachers roles seem to have expanded exponentially and of course parents and children feel the pressure too.

Some good sides to this as I think opportunities are made clear to young people in a way that weren’t with us. However, there seems to be more stress and hot housing, even if my son had some good teachers actually, quite possibly better than mine in the 70s.

You don't get a big pension if you quit within 5 years of starting which many do.

Indeed.

That's sad. I left just over 2 years ago after 12 years, 10 of which I enjoyed. Awful at the end. I am unimaginably happier in my non teaching job, earn pretty much the same and nothing would see me go back to the classroom.

Not 24 years but totally agree- love the classroom (secondary MFL) but too many jumped up ‘leaders’ making pointless work to justify their existence. They wouldn’t survive a minute in the real world.

I left last summer. Its great being out frankly.

Station11

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.

Where the fuck have you been for the last 30 some years?

Teachers are performance managed, Which most wouldn't mind if they actually had a say over who was in the class and SLT didn't put unsuitable pupils in the room with those that want to learn.
And it is easy to get rid of teachers, the myth that is bandied about should really lie down and die.
But if they got rid of all these bad teachers who would you have in the classroom.
In all honesty parents have ended up with the system that they deserve, but not the one that they want.

What is RAAC

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-confirms-plans-to-permanently-remove-raac-from-all-schools-and-colleges-in-england#:~:text=Measures%20to%20permanently%20remove%20Reinforced,England%20has%20been%20published%20today.

RAAC is essentially a building material that was used in the construction of schools and other buildings which has been deemed dangerous due to it's short life expectancy.

I’m so sad and angry about this. I’m 30 years in but I’m in a selective independent school and so have sidestepped most of the key issues. It’s still hard work but nothing like the state sector.

I am nearly 15 years in and if I could leave, I would. I don't work in a terrible school and the children are on the whole "good", but as our job role expands with no extra time or money I am finding it increasingly stressful.

I can feel myself heading to burnout. My anxiety is sky high.

It's just so hard.

I should add that I am incredibly worried about the state of secondary schools as I have DC who will be attending in the next few years.

The other issue is we have terrible teachers being recruited because a crap teacher is better than no teacher.

Whilst my default position is usually to defend teachers on here, I have to admit that the calibre of some of our more recent staff members is pretty ropey.

I’m involved in recruitment of trainees and the quality of applicants is awful. Rejections are queried by DfE even when they have no work permit.