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

It's thinking outside the box. You have a glut of history graduates wanting to teach and a lack of English graduates wanting to teach. The skills required for both subjects are similar. Why is it so shameful to use this to your advantage?

Thank you very much for keeping this problem in the public eye @noblegiraffe .

I've had to withdraw my son from his school and am frantically training myself up to be able to teach him the current spec of GCSEs in 8 subjects. It's not what I expected to be doing this year. Something is very wrong for kids at the moment.

The observations do slow down massively - teaching trainee is actually really tough for some, especially when you are expected to start all your lessons from scratch, rather than adapting school shared resources.

Please believe me - I was training 5 years ago whilst project managing a big house renovation, and getting used to civvie life outside of the military.

You'll learn so much over the first five years that will stand you in the best place for the rest of your career. You will be able to help those students you mention, and when you see their faces when the pass, it’s amazing!

Can I ask what the take home pay is on that after pension contributions etc? Thinking about retraining but want to know the reality…

History teachers are generally used to teach general humanities, so geography, RE, PSHE and so on.

A friend of mine who is a TA is actively looking for another job as their school is so bad in that children are so unruly and very rude to them, with no support from the head of the school.

So bad they’ve removed their own child to another one and now prays they find another job.

Children’s behaviour at this particular school has just worsened year on year. Terrible.

I have classes of 35 students - I have no issues with behaviour. My class with 13 in however….

But that’s the joy of teaching - every lesson is different.

Smiling - but schools / PGCE providers already do this. Maths trainees may not even have a good GCSE in Maths.

It’s not enough, and such trainees either fail the course; drop out because it’s too hard; or fail their students.

Could it be, young people arent going into teaching, because the majority of the teachers they have as role models, are clearly disillusioned with the job, clearly dont get any pleasure out of it, therefore they arent inspiring future generations into the profession?

Not really. Firstly, you seem to be implying that the fault is with the uninspiring, disillusioned teachers, rather than the causes of their disillusionment. Secondly, the young people who do train as teachers very quickly discover the causes of disillusionment for themselves, which is why many quit teaching within a year or so or go and teach abroad.

Out of interest, where would you like data to come from?

The Nfer are a non political organisation who didn't actually recommend much of an overall uplift in pay compared to some other review bodies and research organisations.

Actually the ECT salary is low. When I began in 1999, my starting salary was approx £16500 so index linked an ECT should be on £36,387.

Teaching, in the right school with the right management can be THE best job in the world. It just doesn’t pay well enough for what is expected.

If you add in all the social-ills schools are expected to address with limited resources, tightening budgets and the threat of OfSted ever looming then why would anyone want to stay in the job?

Private schools are also being affected with teacher recruitment - they aren’t getting the field when advertising posts so either don’t employ or take staff on reluctantly on temporary contracts. This was almost unheard of 15 years ago.

Our children are the ones who suffer and I can’t imagine what the answer is as the issue is so huge.

We don't have a glut of Historians. The only glut is PE trainees and they very rarely want to teach English too.

You don’t need the highest grades to be a good teacher. You need to be a people person who can influence the way children think about their learning. If you have that, along with a no BS approach, the learning comes a lot easier.

And actually, if you find the subject harder, you’re sometimes a better teacher because you can explain different ways to understand the learning.

Thank you. Yes, observations will taper off 🙏 it's just the constant scrutiny right now. I'm hoping after ECT is complete it will all click and things will speed up in terms of planning and marking.

I'm fairly resilient but teacher training has been a big test. Nearly done though.

(Also have house renovations, a 4 year old and a small side business I'm trying to keep happy too).

Slight diversion from the conversation but I taught five lessons on Thursday and did a lunch duty. Then I had parents evening from 3.30pm - 6.30pm and my school didn’t even offer us a free cup of tea.

Richard Branson said that to look after his customers he had to look after his staff.
This sentiment got lost in teaching years ago and it was a bad move.

It's annoying when people are saying teachers get paid similarly to other starting salaries for professional jobs. That they get good salaries for low total working days (i.e all the holidays) etc etc.

Loads of my teacher friends have left or planning to leave post pandemic. The world is increasingly hybrid and flexible - for many being able to WFH for a few days a week is so important and teaching does not offer that (obviously) so to compensate for that and stay competitive with the reality of the professional job marketplace they have to pay more....for having to commute / be 'in the office', on your feet, 5 days a week, for having zero flexibility, for dealing with the spiralling behaviour issues....the list goes on.

It essentially does not matter if the salaries align to other professions (they don't) what matters is the salary needs to be enough to compensate for those other non movable issues....

You do have to actually be able to do the subject though. The understanding has to come first.

There is a limit between ‘finds some aspects of the subject hard and strives hard to overcome them and teach them well’ and ‘genuinely lacks subject knowledge and understanding needed to teach the most able children I will
teach’.

Personally, as a primary teacher, I can teach most subjects to most children. I can teach Maths to the highest ability child I have ever taught. I cannot teach a county / national gymnast gymnastics. I do not have the subject knowledge and expertise that I would need.

That totally cuts across the value of the social aspects of school. Yes, the Mumsnet parents of this world will make sure their children are socialised but what about the kids who already get no attention at home. Talk about leaving them to rot!

This post comes from such a privileged position.

We have shared resources but they are only there as guidance. They need to be adapted for each class. I wouldn’t be able to work in a school that does as yours does!

I trained ages ago (and didn't start on 30k) and I'm still in the job. However, I've had times when I nearly walked out forever. There's way too much nonsense going on in English schools.
We moved abroad a few years ago, which is possibly the only reason why I am still in teaching. I wouldn't go back to teaching in England. It wasn't even the kids. It was mostly the adults around it. There's so much bullying going on. SLT tend to be incredibly negative and critical without actually offering any solutions to problems. Children, who clearly should be accessing different provision, must be catered for regardless of anything else.

I'm now at an independent school. Parents get asked to pull their children out if it clearly isn't a good fit. Unlike in England, though, I'm much more relaxed with behaviour management. I haven't had to raise my voice in years. My classes are well run and orderly but everyone is just much more relaxed. They need a run around in the afternoon? Let's go to the playground or to climb some trees in the forest. We need to go over a concept again because they didn't get it? Let's just try again a different way. On the whole, they make much more progress than my classes did under the heavy scrutiny of SLT in England. We don't have targets. We don't have tracking. We don't have book looks. Lesson observations are informal and generally positive. Pupil progress meetings consist of talking about which children might need additional support, whether they are happy and gaining confidence.
Added into that, I earn more and have more PPA time to get stuff done. Consequently, I don't need to take work home or use my weekends to catch up on stuff.

If a person's highest qualification in a subject is a GCSE grade C, I remain unconvinced that they should be training to teach that subject.

Oh so you’re talking about the QTS guidance rather than PGCE then. It’s the QTS that qualifies an individual to teach, not the PGCE.
I don’t have one, and never saw the need to have one. Doesn’t affect my teaching in any way shape or form.

So does my current school- the place I mentioned was hell, they even berated people for changing the font size or not having the academy logo on each slide and adding slides or not ending on the same slide as another teacher, zero flexibility. I am now in a school where all classes are mixed ability and I teach multiples of the same year group, and not one class is the same, having shared resources which everyone is free to adapt is so good. But I think the system overal is pushed towards the dreaded 'standarisation' that looks great to people who have never taught in their life or are too lazy to plan anything.

@Isitovernow123 PGDE or PGCE is the teaching qualification you complete in Scotland after an honours degree. You can either qualify by doing a 4 year degree in Education and 1 years probation or already have a 4 year degree and complete the post graduate diploma or certificate and 1 years probation. PGCE grads are often people who have had a career elsewhere, broad experience and already know how to complete academic work to a high standard proven in honours year. PGDE is a mix of a years placements plus professional studies re education policy, the curriculum etc.