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

THIS
My daughter also does online schooling. She is just 10, and takes complete responsibility for logging in for her lessons and completing her homework and submitting. I rarely get involved, though I'm around if she needs me, and she never misses a deadline or class.

That online schools can work for motivated and/or bright pupils with engaged parents is not an argument for them working for the full student population.

Covid era education was an interesting experience in seeing the sane events viewed from two ends of an extremely narrow telescope.

From the teaching end, I have never worked so hard - in the first lockdown, full time in a face to face bubble while simultaneously delivering online materials to a different year group at home. In the second, delivering online lessons - live and recorded - all day and marking and returning the output as fast as possible to maintain motivation, answering parental e-mails late at night as they were working with their children after the end of their own working day.

From the parental end, at the end of that incredibly narrow telescope presented by the inline interface, they saw generic lesson delivery, little personalised help, little technical support for children working on any one of many shared devices, clunky ways of showing understanding and completing work, almost no adaptation for SEN, no practical hands-on equipment provided for Science,DT, Art etc etc.

So massively inefficient- one end working exceptionally long hours but this still appearing far less than a normal school day for parents.

Yes, and the entire public sector is going down the shitter.

What's your point?

Couldn’t agree more strongly.

As well as learning, schooling is about people, personal contact, real world friendship, peers, socialisation.

Which is another reason why the blight of misbehaviour matters so much.

Online schools sound like a giant human void.

Exactly. We need to tackle both. Get people in the door and keep them.

Pay and conditions need to improve.

I think up until very recently, recruitment has been an issue in low-attaining and inner-city schools, and leafier schools have managed so parents have cared less. Now, it seems to be hitting everyone as: behaviour has deteriorated since covid across the board, the increase in SEN demands (and decrease in funds for support), schools judged against progress 8 rather than number of GCSEs (for children who are frequently hot-housed on 2 subjects for SATs and struggle to maintain the momentum when managing 9 in yr11), the increase in parent WhatsApp group egging each other on and creating a hostile relationship with school.

I could go on, but our school is a lovely comprehensive in an affluent area and never really struggled with recruitment before (although we did struggle to get a maths teacher for a year). We currently have 8 teaching vacancies for a September start, which is massive for us. None of them have been filled and only one of the vacancies had 1 applicant (who retracted her application).

The title of this thread is England is running out of teachers and there is plenty of evidence of that, not just anecdotal either.

My take, and I’m aware it will sound conspiration theory, is that they are doing the same to teachers than they have done to the NHS.
Dumming down the whole system where you end up with more and more teacher associates (like you have physician associate) who aren’t trained properly. The result is poor teaching so a population who is less critical/less able to get the top jobs.

In the mean time, the wealthiest will go to private schools, get a proper education and will get all the nice cushy jobs.

Like it was 100 years ago.
Like with health where the wealthiest will have good health because they can see doctors and have a prescription. When the others have to wait, might not see anyone for long time etc… (Note we already have threads on that line too)
Because everything has to be monetised and ‘part if the market’. But also because it creates a neofeudal society that they benefit from.

As for how do they manage that? Yes wages is one. But stupid systems where teachers have to spend hours filling paperwork, follow guidelines etc..another. Reducing SEN provision and funding in general (harder to manage classes). Opening academies that aren’t under government control(just like many surgeries are now private btw).

It’s just that the NHS has become obvious and affects everyone.
Whereas schools… it’s ‘only’ parents that can see what’s going on and even then, they often don’t know what’s going on in schools (aka what should they be expecting vs what’s happening)

Well said. We had a teacher off sick this week and the supply agency had nobody left to send us. If you can't get supply teachers it really is desperate.
Of the eight friends I qualified with thirty years ago I am the only one left teaching in the stare sector, one other is teaching in a private school. They were good teachers but it wore them down and they've left education for good. They wouldn't return whatever the salary.

I've been saying for ages that we'll end up with no qualified (emphasis on the word 'qualified'!) teachers in this country very soon, and it looks like this situation is now accelerating. Whatever "solution" the government come up with (if they ever do), you can bet your life it will be the cheapest of the cheapo ones, with a sticking plaster placed over the wound, and good luck with that.

So many reasons why this situation has happened - poor leadership in schools, lack of funding, increasing emphasis on teachers filling in pointless bits of paper, Ofsted (useless), teacher required to have multiple roles of social worker, police officer, administrator and teacher for pathetic pay, some (emphasise 'some') parents unsupportive, behavioural/attitude issues not being addressed, lack of specialist support staff where needed - the list goes on and on.

I don’t doubt the truth of the title. I just doubt that teachers’ pay is a substantial part of the problem.

But that is my point. The technology wasn't in place in covid and I agree that the idea of "zoom classes" sounds awful. But the online schools that are emerging now are massively interactive, with opportunities for the kids to chat, break out rooms, polls, question boxes, all running sometimes simultaneously to the actual lesson. They also run social trips, camps, holidays retreats, after school clubs. My daughter gets tonnes of interaction and because she is not as tired as many school kids at the end of the day, she also attends after school in-person clubs every day of the week in the local area, meaning she has masses of interaction with other kids and a wide circle of friends and out of school interests.
I accept that online schooling is not accessible for everyone - a parent has to be home - but it should not be dismissed as a non-viable alternative in a future which will be increasingly technologically- based

My kids grammar school did exactly last year.

Near end of summer term in the regular newsletter to parents. Said if there are any parents/friends or family out there who could teach maths, even on a short term basis to get us through to October half term, please contact the school asap.

The wording was pretty clear in saying 'anyone who could teach maths' not we are looking for a maths teacher i.e an actual qualified teacher.

I think part of the issue with sakary is that it refkects tge value socity pkaces on a job.

I disagree.
In this case, it reflects the value THE GOVERNMENT places on the job.
Just like with doctors and nurses.
Schools don’t have a lot of choice when their budget has been regularly trimmed so only bare bones are left.

I think that’s a really unfair opinion to have.

Covid was a huge adjustment for everyone.
The entire world was going through something that it had never been through before.
There were new rules and they were constantly changing.
People were concerned about their health, the health of their loved ones and the future.

I am not a worrier and found covid easier to deal with than many people but I found working as a teacher incredibly stressful.

I was expected to work from home and create online lessons and use teams to contact students, neither of which I’d done before.
I was having to speak to 30+ parents and students every day, me worrying about my vulnerable students and parents taking their anxieties out on me.
I was also expected to go into work to look after the vulnerable ones.

I was doing this on top of being a single parent and trying to help my DC with homeschooling (no key worker place available).
I had family members who died/were seriously ill.
I was also living in a one room temporary accommodation and barely had any space to work from.

To say that the teachers who were struggling were lazy is such a slap in the face when myself and all of the other teachers I know, worked twice as hard and ended up getting sick/burnt out from it all.

Badly behaved children, violent and disruptive children who won't or choose not to listen.
Zero discipline at home.

Private /selective schools probably fare better in this regard.
Only a masochist would want to teach in a school where there was zero discipline.

Kids who actually want to learn are better off going to private schools these days.

I don’t doubt the truth of the title. I just doubt that teachers’ pay is a substantial part of the problem.

Not the main part, no, but if salaries were significantly increased, it almost certainly would persuade more people into teaching. They just might not stay very long...

Based on what evidence?

@Disillusionedthesedays you also need a child that is pretty independent and ready to put the effort in.

In a class, if the child is getting disengaged, the teacher can spot that and try to bring them back (actually it used to be a time when teachers were judged exactly in that). You won’t get that in an online course, even if there is a parent lurking in the background.

But yes I could see how this would be ever so attractive to the givernment. So much cheaper isn’t it?

Well, if it's one teacher at a London Comprehensive saying it, it's got to be gospel truth, hasn't it? You have to laugh, don't you? 😂

But the online schools that are emerging now are massively interactive, with opportunities for the kids to chat, break out rooms, polls, question boxes

Oh my online lessons during covid had all that stuff. But it's irrelevant if the kid never logs in because their parent can't, or won't make them. Or if they log in to be present, then spend the entire lesson doing fuck all.

A huge amount of work at school is based around getting the kids to do the work. If the kid isn't in the room with you, that reduces your ability massively, and you are then reliant on parents to get the kids to do the work. So many threads on MN during covid were parents saying that they couldn't get the kids to do the work. And so many responses were 'don't worry, the schools will catch them up when they go back.'. Yeah, we didn't.

It’s a view.

What is the evidence for the contrary view?

In our primary there was one lazy teacher in the year group during COVID. Luckily the other two teachers weren't and set work. So savvy parents would get hold of the work, their children then did that work.

It wasn't ideal but they made it work.

The very obvious fact that schools are struggling to recruit enough qualified teachers, especially in certain subjects.