England is running out of teachers

[noblegiraffe]

Or, to be clear, people who are willing to teach in schools. It has plenty of ex teachers who have vowed never to set foot in a school again.

While everyone seems to understand that you can't expect to see a doctor or dentist anymore, the message about not being able to expect your child to have a teacher anymore doesn't seem to have filtered through in the same way.

The number of cover lessons that kids are having is going through the roof. Some people think that if a kid has an adult in front of them then they are learning something, where kids know if they have a 'supply' timetabled that afternoon they are in for a doss lesson. Some people think that if a kid has a teacher for their subject that the teacher actually knows the subject being taught, which is increasingly not the case. Some people think that if lessons are being planned for those teachers and the teacher just has to 'deliver' them then that will be good enough, which is often not the case.

Exam classes at least used to be protected and given the 'good teachers', which is increasingly no longer the case, with Y11s reporting that they have a variety of supply teachers, even in core subjects.

There was a thread recently where an A-level student hadn't had a teacher for a year, wondering why the school hadn't done anything about it. We cannot magic up teachers! A-level students at my school are increasingly in the position of not having a teacher and having to teach themselves, and schools are now encouraged to put 'no teacher' on UCAS applications as relevant information for universities.

Recent threads about suggesting teachers need to be paid more to boost recruitment, or given a day off a fortnight to boost recruitment have attracted replies about teachers thinking they are special, or lazy, paid well enough already and having enough time off already.

But the education system is in crisis and something needs to drastically change as it's only getting worse.

The DfE's solution is to hire from abroad, at a time when the rest of government is seeking to reduce immigration.
https://www.tes.com/magazine/news/general/dfe-mulls-boost-international-recruitment

OP I completely agree on counts. How people take issue with the idea of giving teachers more money and flexibility so that we can retain and recruit to fill this absolute crisis of staffing levels I don’t know. Maybe they don’t have kids in a secondary with a revolving door of cover teachers, teaching the same lesson multiple times and missing other stuff out altogether to the point where even the kids are despairing at the quality of teaching they are receiving.

That doesn’t answer the point at all.

Yet another of the consequences of Brexit that leavers hotly denied would ever happen.

I said during covid and I said it again - if your kid had a shit experience during covid due to crap teachers - do you think things are any better now that they are back at school?

Covid put the state of education, and the disparities between schools and teachers into parents' living rooms and a lot of them were horrified.

Then kids went back to school and parents just assumed that meant they were now getting a good education with proper teachers.

The same disparities are there. The same poor provision is there and getting worse.

Decent teachers shouldn't be defending the situation. I know I'm a good teacher and work hard. So when people are talking about shit teachers, they're not talking about me. I don't need to be defensive about that.

It's a self selecting sample.

1. the participants have already been taught to read, write and perform calculations at school, so the hardest job has already been done by teachers.
2. their numbers have dropped hugely since they moved to online only, rather than having the ability to drop into unlimited standalone tuition sessions at assorted places only limited by the distance the student is prepared to travel. So the only ones remaining are those who learn best with a book and limited contact.

It is interesting that a decade of government committed to a 'free market' to determine salaries and conditions doesn't apply the same thinking to the under supply of teachers

How does it not answer the point? If salaries were higher then obviously teaching as a career would appeal to more graduates. At the moment, it's not appealing enough to attract enough new teachers, plus the pay advancement is not enough to keep people from leaving.

Yes I agree. The online school we use has small classes of 10-15. The children must have their cameras switched on, unless the parent has given specific permission for it to be off. In this way the teacher is even more able to monitor the students becoming disengaged than when faced with a class of 30 plus students. All their little faces are at the top, easily viewable. The teacher controls the switching on and off of microphones so the children are encouraged to interact verbally but there is control over that. Another great benefit is that teachers are hired from all over and get to work from home, so they have a really strong teaching team. I never lurk in the background - no need to!

There is also the impact of repeated covid infections on teachers and pupils to add into the mix.

x.com/blacklabrador10/status/1769663169260114082?s=46&t=G9BWOZlYGPa1_pR7aKkbHQ

The thing is the online school seems to need a teacher still.
Is the idea that its a nicer job so more people will want to do it?

Teaching, done properly, involves working 1:1 with individuals in a whole class situation to support them to do their own work. That is more or less impossible online.

Absolutely agree!
'Streaming' that used to be done years ago meant quiet classes as the disruptive kids were filtered out. It's not fair on anyone to have mixed abilities all lumped together.

I can think of 2 children in my Covid online classes who progressed as well / better in online school - supported by parents - than they would have done in their mainstream class of 32.

Is the success for these 2 - both outliers, in a variety of ways - an argument for online schooling for the rest? No.

A mainstream universal state education offer should be based on what works best for the many. And it should always provide for the needs of the most disadvantaged, not be monopolised by the wants of the privileged.

Because, as PPs have said, the wages, holidays and pension may actually be attractive enough - and that’s leaving out the intangible rewards of doing such an important and formative job, which I take for granted as true.

But that trying to teach disengaged, badly behaved children is the bigger turn off.

Ok?

@noblegiraffe when I saw the thread title I knew it would be your thread. You seem to spend an inordinate amount of time complaining about your job/the lot of teachers (I remember the endless threads and posts about COVID-related matters, are you still campaigning for better ventilation?!)

You are not going to change what the government is doing to teaching by complaining on Mumsnet and sniping at anyone who may disagree/be having a different time of it than you. Do you ever post anything positive?

Why don't you choose to apply your time, energy and emotion to something more positive? A change of role/school/career? A new hobby or some volunteering?

They're not staying very long now. Many of those who come into teaching as qualified teachers don't stay when they discover the reality of teaching today. Teaching as a long-term career has largely disappeared out of the window.

@WhatsTheUseOfWorrying

I really think that the apparent increase in SEN comes down to funding and curriculum. Not necessarily that there are more children with SEN than before. Just more children identified as having SEN. If our education system was able to put all learners front and centre of education policy and teaching and learning, and stop chasing ever increasing 'standards' for the sake of it, I doubt we would be in this situation, and schools would be places where many more children and young people could thrive.

Let me illustrate:

I work in a primary school. We are putting in an increasing number of requests for EHC needs assessments, year on year, to our Local Authority. We are also entering a greater number of learners onto our in-house SEN register.

This is because, as the demands and expectations of the curriculum are intensifying in line with government policy (standards nudging ever higher in all year groups), and the culture of robust assessment of these stringent standards means a greater degree of target-driven teaching, we are finding that an increasing number of learners are unable to access the curriculum at a level deemed appropriate for their age. They're just not ready.

There is less flexibility in the system to facilitate learning in a way that suits a wider range of learners and little money for interventions to fill gaps in learning for individuals falling behind. I'm certain that some children, who would previously have been supported through more creative and innovative approaches in teaching (not because teachers are not inherently creative and innovative!), a gentler pace, and a greater number of additional support staff delivering interventions and in-class support, are now being identified as SEN on account of working below the age-related expectation, whereas previously, they would have been better supported and not necessarily identified as having SEN.

We've raised the bar and narrowed things down to the extent that there is very little room for divergence from a norm of expected age-related attainment.

As funding is so scarce, schools and parents know that in order to stay on the radar and gain access what little support is available, it makes good sense to at least see if a child's needs pass the threshold for assessment for an EHCP. There's nothing to lose. Especially as children prepare to transition to secondary school.

No not ok.

Every job has its disadvantages as well as advantages and in the private sector jobs that are increasingly difficult to fill would have a wage increase until they found the point at which people were willing to start doing them and stay doing them.

Same for primary, my partner has just resigned as a teaching head (small school), and I won’t be far behind him. 50+ years of teaching between us, and really another 10 to do. We have both absolutely had enough. The whole education system completely broken 😢

@mynewname0324 I think Noble is performing an act of bloody public service with these threads.
If you are fortunate enough, or junior enough, not to be wrestling with these issues in your setting, count yourself lucky. Schools are in crisis, up and down the country, and it is really important that parents (hence posting on MN, I presume) know that this is systemic and deliberate policy on the government's part. No less.

If jobs can’t be filled cost effectively in the private sector, the jobs may well disappear or the company winds up. There’s no rule or expectation that we must have a certain number of people making engine parts or conveying houses. (That’s another aspect of the public sector, including teaching - job security.)

You can’t have it both ways.

Even when I interviewed for my PGCE back in’83 they asked about teaching experience it experience of working with children.

When I was a PT/HoD, we had former pupils volunteering to help out with classes so that they could get the requisite experience - they tended to do this while they were still at uni.

Re 'it's not the pay, it's the conditions'

People sign up to be lawyers or investment bankers knowing that they will have to work stupidly long hours under a lot of pressure.

Why do they still sign up to do it?

Apologies. Can’t correct typos on this phone.

Because they’re interested in it, at least initially. And because they can leave if they don’t like it.

Read the legal press. The disillusion is widespread.