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

My children go to a private secondary and I am a governor. We have some absolutely amazing, inspirational teachers and all our vacancies are filled quickly. The reasons are :-

1. they get 50.% off school fees. This works out to effectively getting an extra £24k a year if you have 2 children which most do.
2. they don’t leave until their children are through their secondary education so usually 8+ years. This leads to stability of staffing.
3. many heads of department or staff of hard to recruit subjects are offered a house on campus at a discounted rent, also like having more pay.

The teachers work very long hours with many evening and Saturday events they have to cover. We are also not in the teachers pension so their pension isn’t great.

The children’s behaviour is pretty good! Any slight disruption in class is sent out and set on the sanction pathway which leads to an easy expulsion if they carry on. It’s rare to see children misbehaving and I have spent many hours in the school.

This leads me to believe that teachers would stay if given a decent pay rise and behaviour is cracked down on.

The biggest issue - ex teacher - is class sizes. That will never be fixed as it would require investment in school buildings and school budgets to pay for extra teachers. 15 children rather than 30 plus in a class would mean behaviour could be managed better and teaching and learning would take place. Bit utopian but any teacher who has taught smaller groups will know that this is the key solution.

That sounds like a desperation hire by the school.

I wouldn't want my child being taught by a 21 year old with crap A-Level grades.

Sorry, I don't mean to offend, but I'm being honest. I'm sure many others think it also.

You cannot be serious. You want to stick kids in front of a TV essentially.

This reminds me of being at school in the late 70s and 80s when if a teacher was off someone would wheel in a TV and we’d have to sit through some bearded bloke being utterly boring on a video.

No one learned anything.

I must admit I’m struggling to see why an average child shouldn’t be taught about people from previous centuries.

Mine (girls) were all interested in kings and queens from a very young age. Little boys seem obsessed with dinosaurs and very keen on the idea of them being very ancient indeed.

Exactly this.
Before I left teaching I was employed for 3 days per week but easily working FT hours.
Now I'm employed FT hours in a non-teaching job but in reality work fewer. I now have evenings and weekends free. I don't come home and start working again. I can go to medical appointments when I need to and take holidays when it's not premium price. I don't need to get up at the crack of dawn. I can go to the toilet when I need to and have an hour for lunch. A whole hour!
In short, I am now treated with respect and as a human. My working conditions whilst fairly basic (public sector) are still far superior to my school ones.
You could offer me a million pounds, I would not return to the classroom. In the end the job which was my passion for nearly 3 decades, made me ill both physically and mentally. I am by far not the only one.

I actually don't buy all the ' I work every day of the holidays' and 'I work every evening and weekend' teachers. BUT here's the caveat, although I've been told I'm a good teacher and inspirational (by some children, not all of course) I know that I'm not as good as I could be if I did put in that extra, additional time. I do my job well, and conscientiously, and it's got a lot harder due to the shit show that is school funding (or lack of it) but I make no apologies for having a life, and putting my own family first. I earn my money, but I'm not a slave. It's a job, and an important one at that, but not a calling.

In addition to this, parents need to realise that THEY are their child's first and most important teacher. You wouldn't (be allowed to) send him to school without knowing how to walk or wipe his bum, so why do you think it is ok not to teach him number sense or reading preparation?
And no, you don't need a mental age of 6 to benefit from reading instruction.

Anyone can work as supply, they are just called cover supervisors. They have no teaching qualification and as I have observed myself and my children tell me, it's like being in a zoo when there's a cover teacher. They hate it because they are well behaved kids.

May I ask which online school you use?

Off the top of my head I can think of several reasons

OU students are self selecting

OU students are older than 18

OU students are motivated

OU students are paying for their studies

OU students are given interesting, well presented materials to work with, and they are largely taught by people who are enthusiastic, who are not demoralised by constant criticism and blame.

Class size is indeed a huge factor. Combined with integrated Special Needs of every kind. I am totally in favour of integration, but it has to be with reduced class size and proper support.

And I shall be flamed for this, but never mind. One of the worst factors putting teachers off now, is the very many not very nice, often rude, and very demanding parents, with totally incredible expectations!

Unfortunately, my primary teaching friends tell me that it's becoming increasingly common for children to start at primary unable to wipe their own bums.

A fully qualified teacher working as a supply teacher and a cover supervisor- it's like comparing a Scout with a first aid badge to a surgeon.

I’ve heard and read that a lot. I find it fucking shocking.

@fightingthedogforadonut what are the least stressful jobs you’ve had (which pay the same as teaching per hour?). I find teaching stress-free compared to my previous career in sales and recruitment. I’m not baiting, I’m genuinely interested to hear what is less stressful than teaching

As I commented to a pp, teachers who say that pay isn't the reason they are leaving are already in the job and a biased sample. I said that the teaching workforce is predominantly female. From my experience the female teacher in a household is usually not the main earner. You can't ask people who went into teaching despite the salary and then leave why they are leaving and take 'it's not the salary' as proof that the salary isn't an issue. My gut feeling is that a decent chunk of the teaching workforce is being propped up by the salaries of higher earning male partners.

We know that people aren't going into teaching, that recruitment is a real issue. We know that pay has not kept up with the market. We know these things. Trying to argue that despite the severe erosion of pay and the lack of people wanting to even start the job, along with the lack of men willing to do the job that pay isn't a problem is baffling.

(I think people would be surprised to hear you say I'm not self-satisfied or arrogant...<sigh> is certainly quite low down the list of things I'm capable of wheeling out when having to repeat myself. Plenty have tried and failed to tone police me over the years so I wouldn't get your hopes up there).

The attitude stems from the children not valuing knowledge itself, or the art of gaining knowledge.

Youngsters can become online influencers, Tik-Tokkers, or have their own YouTube channel in their teens.... and earn more than a teacher!

No wonder they look down their noses at adults who work for a living and the children are constantly on their phones.

Disgusting and even more proof that parents need to step up!
If you aren't prepared to teach them, don't have them.

@pleasehelpwi3 I am exactly the same. I do the job and hours I am paid to do, and nothing more - which makes for a decently paid job per hour. I do well in observations, and get good results.

Thank you. Fair points.

I wasn’t ‘tone policing’ you (not that that stupid phrase means anything). I was pointing out that <sigh> puts a poster in certain company. But there you go.

@MrsHamlet A significant number of Reception children are also starting school in nappies/not reliably toilet trained. And no, I'm not referring to children with additional needs here.

That doesn't surprise me at all. Luckily that's not made its way to my secondary yet but it's only a matter of time.

I’m on something similar and not on the management spine. I’m a UPS teacher a with a TLR on top. FYI I am not London based so it’s not that bulking up my salary.

I looked at going to a head of department job and because it would push me another 6k over the 50k threshold we’d actually lose our CB (for 4 children) and with extra tax and childcare to cover the extra hours it really wouldn’t be worth it financially (or stress-wise in a core subject like mine).

The issue is that you have to stick out 7 years before getting to UPS (unless you have common sense and demand being out further up the pay scale for you first job, which my head assures me is standard practice now especially in severe shortage subjects like Maths, Sciences, Music and English - the shortages may depend a little on your area of the country).

So quite normally 2/3 of classes are now SEN children (from a different thread).

And significant numbers of reception class children aren’t toilet trained.

What the fuck has happened?