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

Jesus wept...
A good teacher can teach a class with little to no resources. Resources are not a problem.
Someone some time ago invented a 'programme'- which was about a script. The idea was that you could give the script to anyone who could then deliver the script (powerpoint and resources) to a class, which would help avoiding employing teachers, as anyone who could read could read the slides out. Guess what? It didnt take. Becakse shitty script reader would not be able to anwer additional questions kids may have. Do you think AI worksheet or a video will teach a kid how to speak a foreign language or carry out a science experiment, or learn to play the violin? Or how to plan and deliver an engaging motivational speach, or write and act out a play?
You value teachers little, thinking they are jusr resource makers/delivers, but teaching is not just reading out a lesson...

No.

@noblegiraffe

this is another gift from Brexit

the sooner we are back in the EEA with freedom on movement and employment the better.

for all parents that voted leave I have zero zero sympathy atall

this is just one of the many consequences

Sorry @Winter42; I couldn't agree with you more on everything you have said. I meant @ToryHater.

How ignorant. All teaching requires great skill. Just because I'm teaching numbers to 20 doesn't mean I am not skilled or academically able.

To be able to carefully pitch, scaffold, explain and support children to develop their Maths skills takes experience, patience, knowledge of pedagogy and skill whether pupils are 4 or 14.

I couldn't agree more. Dreadful irrelevant damaging un-child friendly over crowded curriculum.

What is the problem with the curriculum? Is it too difficult?

The issue is, its not the same everywhere.

1. The pay is not great in london & the south east. But actually, if you live in say, birmingham, where a nice 3 bed semi is £230k, 2 teachers who've been teaching a few years earning £70k between them, can comfortably afford a nice home. Throw in the holidays & the decent pension and its not awful pay. There are swathes of this country where the pay in teaching is not bad - and in fact you'll struggle to earn as much in anything else locally.

2. there are still quite a lot of well run schools where the workload is not as bad. Our school, teachers can do ppa wfh, there's a separate senco who doesn't have a class, who combines taking intervention groups, dealing with EHCPs, meets with parents etc. Its a sleepy semi rural area with low deprivation, where most parents tend to support a lot at home, and give their kids a good diet & plenty of exercise & sleep, and behaviour is not bad. Staff turnover is low, so despite the fact that we are in the south east where teaching pay doesn't buy as much, we don't struggle to recruit.

Its clear there are a lot of issues in education, but its not universal. Secondary i think is worse than primary.

Where does a child learn the attitude that they know more than you? Something wrong in society If children don’t listen to teachers and I can only guess that attitude is learned at home.

Bloody TikTok. It’s so disruptive.

I'm sorry to burst your bubble but many many children with significant needs aren't having their needs met in primary school. We don't have funding, support, or space for them. It's heart breaking but the sad truth.

It's fucking depressing. My dd is in year 11 and this year and last year, she was taught English by an ECT, lets call her Miss Jones. She has been amazing. My dd has been getting 7s and 8s. My dd admires her so much and she's a great role model. At the beginning of the year, Miss Jones said she was leaving at the end of the year but would see them through their GCSEs. She was quitting teaching. Last week we were told she had taken a leave of absence and wouldn't return. I'm concerned she's actually been signed off for stress. She didn't even manage two whole years in teaching.

Couldn't agree more. I'm SLT and love my job most days. I am a firm believer that grass roots are needed to secure good provision and try my damndest to put in place what staff tell me they need.

I can't employ a teacher for a vacancy we have in our primary. Parents are going mad (quite rightly) as no-one willing to do long term supply and so the children have had weeks of different teachers every Monday. I can't stop or change it but the vitriol I'm facing from parents is next level. Complaints to higher ups, governors, LA, Ofsted...I can't control the lack of teaching staff in this country!

Can I just say, supply teacher are also qualified teachers. In primary schools,, having a supply would not make it a “doss” lesson. I was supply for 4 years and I definitely taught full lessons - I just didn’t plan them myself. I’m not longer term supply so plan, teach and mark as normal. I cover other teachers ppa too and again, teach to the exact same standard they would. That’s a bit generalisation. Otherwise I would agree with the sentiment. I’m 6 years in, have considered leaving this year but decided to stay for now.

From personal experience I work 80+ hours per week. I have not has a lunch break this academic year (or for years in fact). The expectation is you are being paid good money so suck it up, I don't think the hours are poor work life balance are attractive.

Many private schools, including the one I worked at, pay less than state do. And as a PP said they often don't offer the pension scheme. The trade off is meant to be the smaller classes and longer holidays but it wasn't worth it for me. I genuinely felt bullied by some of the parents. One told me she wanted a meeting to discuss her child, but when we met she shared nasty messages from the class WhatsApp group about me under the guise of concern. I am sure I wasn't perfect but their complaints weren't fair or reasonable and the language used around them was horrible. I had raised concerns to the school multiple times that the children didn't have easy access to an outdoor area and that my TA was also the art teacher which meant I was alone with 20+ 4-5 year olds for the majority of the time, but this was treated as my issue to deal with as if I could somehow magic up extra staff and a better located classroom. When I told management about the parent's comments and how they had approached me with them, I got a bollocking for allowing the situation. So yeah, they can be pretty toxic places.

My colleagues in the public sector who are ex-teachers have all said they left due to the workload. Some were heads of subject at what seems like a very young age. They basically didn’t have any life outside school in term time and they didn’t want that.

It’s a massively responsible job which makes for good interview examples, and lots of transferable skills. The job itself needs to be attractive to retain good people.

Who will vote for a government that sets income tax at the level necessary to fund education and the nhs properly?

And there is a fundamental part of the problem. Too many of our politicians are driven by votes, not their political vision for the nation. Where did those politicians go? The ones that stood by their principles? None of them got elected, perhaps.

We have staff in their 30s who are paying off their student loans. I think the government should cancel that debt, after 10 years service. That might help retention.

It’s a shite job, literally had no life and was paid a pittance…why would anyone do it?

I did the maths and worked out I earned less than minimum wage…Got the same bloody holidays as everyone else as the other weeks I had were just overtime…

Just awful…

Is this the weekly teacher’s moan thread? Is it the same person posting?

Yep! 😂

I remember one lesson when I had to teach Yr 1, (mostly 5, rising 6) history and the difference between Elizabeth I and Elizabeth II. Does anyone with experience of child development understand that young children’s understand of today, yesterday and tomorrow is still developing at that point?

I'm sorry but i think you are a victim of low expectations there. Most of our year 1 class (during the jubilee) were able to understand that Queen Elizabeth II was the current queen & QE 1 was a queen from long ago. The ones who struggled with this were mainly the ones with additional needs. Temporal understanding starts much younger - most children understand today, yesterday, tomorrow at about four.

Its like the stupid thing with people posting scans of 5 year olds wrists and claiming the stage of bone development means they its unreasonable to start teaching writing until 7/8. My child has delayed bone age, so their wrist bones are like those of a 3 year old, and yet... neater hand writing than older brother! Well formed letters etc.

Most children in my daughters reception class, including summer born children, joined knowing most phase 2 phonic sounds well already, as well as recognising numerals to 10. When children come from homes where books are games are part of life, it really is perfectly possible for most.

Where the current curriculum expectations do fall down is around the fact that in some schools children arrive poorly parented and starting from a low base. But I've seen lots of teachers achieve a huge amount from a low baseline - the reception year is key.

Not surprised, the ones on here are always complaining

I'm jealous- a SENCO who actually takes intervention groups. I had a Y6 child a few years ago refer to the 'office lady' and then described what the SENCO looked like.

Whilst I agree that it's a fucking mess right now (former teacher here), I don't think pupils having to self-study is a bad thing. That's what they have to do at university, that's what many home educated children do. In fact, many universities comment on how well home educated children settle into university, because they are used to self-study. So really, that in itself isn't a bad thing, of course however, they do need the learning resources to be able to self-study, so if no one is actually giving the school pupils these, that is a massive problem.

Teaching isn't an attractive career anymore. I have considered going back to it, but it takes just one pupil to make a false allegation against you, and your career is ruined. It's not worth that stress, the workload can be shit too.

I decided to home educate my children, I hope they never set foot in an English school. They are both self-motivated and really enjoy learning.

Day rate supply teacher - £130, union recommended rate M2 is £186.26
Day rate carpenter Kent - £200
Day rate electrician Kent - £300
Day rate heat engineer Kent - £350

Salaries for senior teachers in the extremely popular British curriculum schools in Dubai are over £100k tax free with free housing, education, private healthcare. Allover the world countries copy the British private school system and want to emulate the high standards, they seek out UK teachers.

We should probably should pay teachers more in the UK?

We already have some of the highest tax rates in Europe, fund the NHS on a par based on % of GDP with the wealthiest countries in the world so I wonder why we can't pay teachers more? Is it because we are pissing money away with total mismanagement of the public sector and a benefit system so generous immigrants travel thousands of miles across Europe through dozens of countries to get to? Or is it that we have some prisons that cost more per prisoner than it costs per pupils to send someone to a boarding school in Switzerland?