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

Where do they go then though? Someone still has to supervise them.

DD provides cover for all the English teachers at her school - she's told to do so because she's a qualified English teacher. She does all the lesson planning and also helps to plan/deliver lessons for teachers when they're there because they're so busy (not just English either). She's the only LSA with a teaching qualification at her school so she gets a lot of extra work and responsibility pushed onto her. She says she doesn't mind but she's doing a teaching job for £19k a year and it seems so unfair to me. Of course they're not going to offer her a teaching job there because she's far better value doing what she's doing (my opinion, not hers!).

There is at least one academy chain who pay a 2 grand increment on main scale (my God they get their pound of flesh for it though) so possibly that? Or else it has to be an independent sector salary.

I am on a shade under 50k FTE at top of UPS on inner London scale.

I think that there is a massive shortage in scarcity subjects but not in the rest.

As someone who has taught at private schools, you advertise for a language or humanities teacher, you get loads of applicants. Advertise for a Maths, Physics, Chemistry or Computer Studies teacher and you get very few, most of those low quality and with lots of conditions (part time, additional responsibilities etc).

There is a weird contradiction, though. In banking or management consultancy, even though there are many (sometimes hundreds) of applications for each grad trainee position, for some reason you need to pay a huge premium to attract the ‘talent’. Even though they can’t actually fill teaching jobs in these STEM subjects, paying up to attract the ‘talent’ is never mentioned. Supply and demand doesn’t seem to work for teachers.

Many teachers are happy to work for way below their market value, but there is a limit. Virtually all the STEM teachers I know are either second incomes (to fit in with childcare) or second career, having already made their money (people like me). But, clearly there aren’t nearly enough of them (us).

Teachers need decent pay, working conditions and respect. If we want to pay more than lip service to valuing education, you need to address this urgently.

(Of course, there is the awkward question of variable pay by subject. This already happens but by fudging grades, extra responsibility etc, but not overtly).

Yes I think this is it in a nutshell.

Thank you for your good wishes 💐

@ToryHater how did you get into an elite university with weak A-Levels ?

I think that there is a massive shortage in scarcity subjects but not in the rest.

The only subjects that met their recruitment targets for trainees last year were PE, history and classics. That means that there will be schools who are now putting out job adverts for almost every subject for September who would normally expect ECTs to apply will be disappointed, and those classes won't have a teacher.

I mean I did apply to get a PGCE in MFL and got rejected, so I was willing to become a teacher.

I’m another who would love to train to teach but can’t afford too. I’d happily commit to a minimum length of time teaching to get my degree etc paid for. However, I’ve worked in schools so would be going in with my eyes open, I think there’s a real risk someone who hasn’t would take the training money then leave because it’s not as easy as they think.
I don’t think the money/hours is the whole problem in teaching, it’s actually decent compared to most jobs.
I think it’s because it’s something that requires a level of training but doesn’t have as many people actively setting out to do it (like medicine) so would appeal to a lot of people who are already working in other areas and can’t afford to retrain. That’s where the recruitment focus should be I think.

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.

Undoubtedly. But if nobody's going to address the other factors that make people avoid or quit teaching, the only other thing you can really do is to try paying them enough money to make them disregard those other factors. It definitely would be better to address the other factors, but nobody is really showing any signs of trying to do that.

At the age of 37, and having spent many years working in the private sector, I decided to retrain as an English secondary teacher. I had to get my GCSEs, a levels and a degree in English. I'm about 3 months away from qualifying for my QTS (and then I have another 2 years for my ECT). I have secured a permanent job for September, however I have a love hate relationship with teaching.

I love my subject, I love teaching students who want to learn, or who at least try. But the behaviour from some students makes me want to quit. The observations. The paperwork. The taking work home. The worrying about students who I can't really help other than hope they turn up to class and listen... It's draining. I'm tired. I honestly don't know how long I'll stay in teaching once I've qualified, but I'll give it my best shot.

Teacher of nearly 30yrs. It's soul-destroying. The majority of kids don't want to learn, there are more than ever before who have additional needs yet less support. SLT are in cuckoo land. The conditions are dire for those who want to.learn and for staff too. Lack of meaningful parental engagement is adding fuel to the fire. Over packed curriculum doesn't help either. I'm going early. No real plan, not loads of cash stashed away. Need to preserve my sanity. On our third teacher in our drop this year.

Daughter is about to choose GCSEs. A load have been crossed off the options list because they can’t find any Welsh-speaking teachers to cover them. :(

For me it was never about the money. But Gove’s 2014 curriculum has really come home to roost. 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? Even for my highers it felt completely pointless, let alone differentiating it to my children with SEN who were still learning naming and action words, let alone temporal language. Gove has a lot of answer for.

@Imperfecto

I agree with you. I worked in a pastoral role in a secondary school (some years ago now) but have a fair idea of what I’d be getting into on the student side. (Though appreciate things may be exponentially worse!)

As a parent I’m horribly aware of this. It’s an absolute disaster and even in a best case scenario I can’t see it being turned around significantly while my child is going through the system. I never thought I’d use private school but I’m considering it for secondary. I’m beyond angry at the state of education currently.

This is becoming an increasing problem as experienced teachers quit. Who is going to train the newbies?

The government is now introducing the expectation that any PGCE mentor needs to complete 20 hours of training. 20 hours! For an unpaid role which generally isn't allocated any extra time despite the workload. People are going to rightly refuse and trainees won't be able to find placements.

The curriculum is ridiculous. The expectations for ks1 is shocking. To achieve greater depth in reading or writing at the end of year 2 is what I would consider to be GCSE level. I've taught for 20+ years and despite teaching some very clever children have never taught anyone as articulate or as capable as on the exemplification videos.

It's true.
I'm a teacher in a top school academically.
Yet behaviour worse this year than ever before.
SEND and pastoral issues increasing exponentially.
A teacher for a core subject leaving at Easter right before exams.
More teachers leaving/retiring this summer, who aren't being replaced. Instead current teachers are expected to teach more outside of their specialism.
I don't feel valued anymore as an expert teacher in my field. I'm just a body in a room/someone to fill all the gaps in the timetable.
We haven't had a successful trainee/pgce student in at least 5 years.
I'm planning my exit in the next 6-12 months.

This is exactly what we're seeing at the school I work at. Loads of CVs coming in for PE teachers, but we're struggling for Maths and Physics.

20 hours to be a PGCE mentor! I have been on a few day courses over the years and that was plenty. PGCE students need hours and hours of support to plan and learn the job. It's a massive job for a full time teacher already.

It is also the starting salary.

Remember the 2019 Tory manifesto commitment to raise the teacher starting salary to £30k to make the job more competitive?

They have now ticked that off as a commitment achieved. However, given the huge rate of inflation of the last couple of years, that means that that £30k uplift is now worth far less, and in fact the starting salary is effectively at the position it was before the uplift that was supposed to boost recruitment.

Economics, Sociology and Psychology make up over 10% of A-level entries (around 150,000) students and rising and there's no official training at all essentially - the subjects (being "non National Curriculum") aren't even separately listed in the ITT targets but are lumped under 'Other'. Psychology is at number 2 in the top 10 A-level subjects (Maths is first). Sociology and Economics (as of last year) are also top 10.

Such a bonkers system.

I only afforded training as I took an "unqualified" post and the school paid for me to train on the job. I also already had a house and a DH in a secure mid career job.

No one is better than anyone else. No one

This attitude is at the root of the problem. Children thinking they know as much as adults, and having zero respect for authority.

Yes, some people are 'better' in that they have far more knowledge, which is kind of required in education.

You can respect someone and treat their position in the world with the respect it deserves. It doesn't make them better than you.