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

The educational system needs to fully collapse in order to introduce a different way of education, one that will prepare students for the world they live in today.
The Home Educated students have jumped a sinking ship and are leading the way.
Education needs to move online for older students then we won't need as many teachers.

Education needs to move online for older students then we won't need as many teachers.

That experiment failed during covid.

Perhaps it is about time children were properly disciplined from an early age then. Taught respect for their elders and betters, and to do as they are bloody well told. And to learn that if they are naughty, they get punished for it.

All this endless fannying around where teachers no longer have any kind of sanctions they can hand out, and consequently no authority, is where the real problem lies.

And yet the Open University has managed and thrived for half a century. How can they make distance learning work but no one else can? (Genuine question)

So you can say there is a shortage of teachers when graduates and workers are standing in front of you wanting to train into the profession and getting no help.

Because Open University is not compulsory. Adults actively sign up to it and pay for it.

It is an entirely different kettle of fish to dragging a reluctant teen through solving quadratic equations when they'd rather be playing FIFA.

Plus, it's much easier for people to blame teachers for the problems in schools than it is to blame dentists or doctors for those retention issues. Dentists aren't ripped apart for saying if they treat more than their NHS quota they won't get paid for them. If teachers say they will work the hours they get paid for people seem to think it's lazy!! The English government's Education department does not deserve anything else. It's also tough in other parts of the UK but at least the conditions, salary in Scotland is top of main grade 48.5k and due to rise in April again, and curriculum is more autonomous, no support staff can teach a class or group and all teachers must be GTC registered, degree and PGDE. Why has it not moved on in England too. SEN, behaviour and violent incidences are awful too, a lot changed, not all for the better. I feel for English teachers and hope it starts to improves.

The OU has NOT thrived. It is in a woefully dire straits having had a massive redundancy programme recently, closing over half its centres.

DD qualified as a teacher three years ago and can't get a teaching job for love nor money. She's worked as and LSA since but every teaching job she applies for wants experience and nobody is taking on NQTs. Most of the people she was at uni with are having the same experience and most have given up on teaching and moved into other fields instead.

How are NQTs meant to progress if nobody will employ them?

What do you want to train as? There are paid training routes.

Yes, an institution for adults who have already completed a certain amount of learning, who wish to learn more. Distance learning is very popular with universities because adults are paying for it because they are keen to learn. It isn’t at all comparable to children, many who haven’t been taught to behave appropriately and who don’t appreciate the value of education.

Most people I know who leave teaching haven't done so for money. Money really doesn't seem to be the driving issue. My feeling is that it is more about the stress of the job, expectations, blame etc.

I can't recruit English teachers. I'm using unqualified, non-specialist or overseas teachers. Sometimes this works out (2 excellent overseas teachers in my Dept). Very often, it doesn't.

HODs are covering lessons themselves in their PPA across the school just so affected classes can occasionally have a specialist in front of them. Which means that the other stuff we have to do as HoD gets pushed to one side, or we burn out. We're firefighting. I've been a teacher for 23 years and I can't fix this.

The profession is losing young, talented, driven teachers at a rate of knots. @noblegiraffe I don't know why the message isn't getting through but I don't get it. Nobody is blaming 'lazy, entitled' NHS workers for that crisis but blame for the education crisis is laid squarely on us.

What did she qualify as?

DD is an English teacher and she can't find work anywhere. She's applied to hundreds of schools in around a 30 mile radius of where we live over the past three years and not a sniff.

Secondary English.

There's a clusterfuck of reasons, tbh. But pay is one of them. The graph I posted upthread clearly shows that teacher pay isn't competitive.

That will affect recruitment.

@Coincidentally Yeah I call BS on that salary after 6 years too, unless you are holding a significant TLR which involves line management.

Also, if you are only 8 years pre-retirement then you must be at least 49, because you can’t retire earlier than 57 from 2025. Otherwise, you’re waiting until 67 for your career average (crap) pension.

When you have done 34 years like me, through the thick and thin vagaries of the political system, seen your profession trashed constantly despite the hoops we have to jump through, and pupil behaviour deteriorate in conjunction with familial and social breakdown. THEN you can call us experienced staff ‘jaded’.

Take all your enthusiasm and shove it up your bum and come back to me when you stick it for another 6 years, at which point you’ll still be only 34.28% as experienced as me.

It’s a nightmare.
DD goes to an outstanding grammar school with very few behaviour problems. She is in y10 and they have had 3 physics teachers this year. Each worse than the last. The current one tells them to chat quietly and do what they like, he willl turn a blind eye. Literally his words. DD now failing ink physics as is the rest of all his classes, even those who were previously predicted 8’s and 9’s in the past year or so. They can’t get anyone decent to teach it. Total nightmare.

My ds did his entire secondary education online. He wanted to learn though and was well behaved enough to follow the lessons and homework because we've brought him up properly and he values education.

The dragged up kids who have the concentration span of a gnat and the behaviour of a chimpanzee will fall through the net. That's life. It's tough, it's competitive. Quit the permissive parenting and take parenting responsibilities seriously perhaps? I know, radical 🙄

@ThaMiSporsail I have literally no idea why that might be. She's not getting interviews even?

Most stressful job I ever had. There is absolutely nothing anyone could offer that would ever persuade me to go back.

Well I hate to tell you but the government does not give a crap - they are very happy to fill the schools with a revolving door of overseas teachers, who may have a different way of teaching and understanding of UK teaching culture/expectations. They are also happy that they can put them on the cheapest level and they are likely to leave before they get expensive.

It's already happened in medicine and nursing. It's now spreading into other professions.

With all these professions the UK has plenty of people who are trained and qualified to do these jobs. They are not currently doing them because they have been made more and more difficulty to do safely, professionally and with good outcomes.

She can come and work at my school where Y11 don't have a qualified English teacher.

I don't know why your particular area isn't short of English teachers when so many other areas are.

I also believe that shools with lower Ofsted ratings are not allowed/discouraged to take on ECT's (formerly NQT's). There are obviously reasons for this, but because it is quite difficult to get a decent Ofsted rating, this probably does cause a barrier to new teachers looking to complete their training.