So if teachers are leaving in droves

[BlastedPimples]

and recruitment is very low, what is going to happen? It can't continue like this surely and education levels will suffer enormously.

Massive classes for the teachers that remain?

Huge recruitment drive to entice more people into the profession?

Entice teachers out of retirement?

Recruitment from abroad?

The countries with the best state school systems tax lower earners way more than we do in the UK.

Are you up for campaigning to significantly increase income tax for those earning 20k-50k?

Totally agree ... it will go the same way as the NHS and dentists, less and less funding so that those that can afford to go private, state schooling is mainly done online form home or large community halls, school buildings are sold off and made into flats. Sounds crazy but possibly not a million miles away from where we're headed.

It’s clear to everyone on here that you’re lying about being a teacher. No one who was a teacher could be saying the absurd things you are.

Politicians keep focusing on recruiting new teachers. The focus needs to be on retaining teachers. Otherwise we keep paying to train people who don’t stay because working conditions are untenable.

Yep-this. There is no shortage of teachers in England. There are loads of us, experienced, qualified and loved our jobs for the most part, we just don’t want to do it any more because it comes with so much bollocks.

1. Stop giving schools their own budgets and pay teachers their to their pay scale centrally like they used to, so schools aren’t forced to hound out expensive teachers and hire TAs to replace them to balance the books. This means that good teachers can go through threshold, UPS teachers can move school without facing a pay drop and part time teachers can do full time if they want, not stopped in doing this because the budget won’t allow it. They can fund pay rises directly as well so this isn’t something that will come out of the school pot.
2. Scrap Ofsted, or significantly reform it to a model where we have a supportive advisory figure linked to an area, who knows the staff well and can help to raise standards-and be accountable for this. As a priority though, scrap one word judgements and forced academisation/job losses as a result.
3. Cut 1/4 out of the primary curriculum for each year group. Give the children opportunities for consolidation and practice, before racing onto the next thing and never doing anything properly. It’s all rushed, it’s not fun and it doesn’t make children learn.
4. If the government wants schools to use things-provide them, FREE. Phonics schemes, curriculum schemes of work, assessment levels. These things should not be an opportunity to fleece school budgets by making them individually pay for something that used to be freely available. Some companies/individuals are making a whole lot of money here at the expense of schools.
5. Fund SEND properly and open a lot more special schools. If there is a nationwide Ed Psych shortage so that EHCPs are taking 50/60 weeks, then look properly at this! It’s a Statutory requirement to do it in 20 weeks, you can’t just ignore this.

2 and 3 wouldn’t cost any money. Things were drastically better in schools under the last Labour government, Let’s hope Labour start with things like that.

They tax everyone more, not just lower earners. And for their taxes they get excellent education, health, infrastructure etc. benefits. Yes, I do think paying more taxes for a better lifestyle for everyone is a good idea actually. This whole thread wouldn’t exist if we were more like those countries.

I was a TA doing 4 days a week. I earned 680 a month. I have wanted to be a teacher for so so long, but all I am reading is how horrendous the job is now and TBH the only reason I’m doing my PGCE in Sept right now is because I can’t find work which allows me to work around my children with a husband doing shifts with the ambulance service

I looked up Australia as they do a tax rebate to lower state burden and was surprised that U.K. is scored near top (2nd)

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/education-rankings-by-country

My issue with the VAT is the extra burden on state schools. As I don’t think those extra teachers will materialise quickly. Especially if funding is low due to movement

That’s not true. Take Finland for example. Their top marginal tax rate for earnings above 150k is lower than the UK marginal tax rate for similar earnings. Their marginal tax rate for earnings above 30k is 50% higher than the UK tax rate for the same level of earnings.

On top of this they also don’t exclude higher earners from receiving childcare support and other similar payments unlike in the UK.

So if we want to replicate their funding model we need to increase the basic rate of tax to 30% and allow higher earners to access the same funded childcare that lower earners currently benefit from.

Are you still in support?

I don’t think the bad behaviour is a class thing. Even if it were why not discipline? Why do parents think they can behave like that? It is a Brit thing. A friend of mine has her kids at an academy which has zero tolerance and she loves it. So two extremes.

Yes, as I said I think everyone benefitting from all the things Finland do well, subsidised childcare in particular, is good for all of society.

We’ve had great experience with state so very lucky but talking to someone who saw some altercation at a secondary recently. I think parents will try to avoid the school if it gets a bad reputation, the VAT thing won’t help

Some people can be pretty volatile and it’s difficult for schools to manage the outcomes of that

The "absurd " thing I've said was

There should be more online classes for students

And that the school system needs to evolve.

Jesus. That's probably the most general, uncontroversial thing that I could possibly write.

How could you possibly take offense to that?

Why exactly would someone lie about being a teacher. I can't
see what I would possibly gain from that.

A great reputation on mumsnet? I don't think people particularly care what job anyone does on mumsnet.

Teaching is a smalll part of my life now. However, I'm still interested in what's happening there.

I'm not working as a full time teacher anymore, however I do still do part time tutoring online. I also do another job, that is not related in any way to teaching. I'm interested in lots of different things

People move in and out of different careers a lot these days. My friend used to be a teacher, then he totally changed career , and now he works in Digital marketing. It's good to try out different careers

I can comment on the offensiveness of it thank you. I found it offensive and I am entitled to say so.

We aren't in the US and I don't think that what happens in the US is very relevant. I'm entitled to say that as well.

The good thing is that you can try teaching for a while, and if it doesn't suit you, you can always leave. Give it a try, if it doesn't suit you , you can move on to another job. It might be great for you!

So the children who would have been at the failing school did benefit from the influx of the nice white parents and their fund raising?

I think this is very confusing, these new parents raise money to fund these projects but having these projects means school funds go to these projects and disadvantage the pupils who don't qualify?

Doesn't make any sense.

That's certainly not all you said.

They certainly had Gifted and Talented programmes in British schools when mine were at school. My mixed race working class children were in them. Shock horror. Maybe they are better run in the UK?

I was talking to a lad this morning who said he walked out of one of his GCSEs because he hadn't had a teacher in that subject for 3 years and there was no point in staying.

That's where we're currently at. Kids not having teachers but everyone pretending it's fine because there's a warm body in the room with them.

Drop to a four day teaching week, move towards use of AI, recruitment from abroad, premiums in shortage subjects.

That is tragic. That poor kid.

I can’t tell if you are intentionally missing the point as a wind up.

The larger point is that plugging advantaged kids into underperforming schools doesn’t fix those schools or help the original disadvantaged children, and inequities in education (often overlapping with racial, class and wealth inequities) are stubbornly persistent. The mechanism by which privilege is protected might look different in the us vs. Uk, but is equally tenacious, which is why I believe the argument that pushing he privately educated into state schools has any broader societal benefit other than the money it might (or more likely might not) raise is specious.

anyways, it is a really excellent and nuanced piece of journalism for anyone interested in educational inequality. If you can bare to look past your ‘entitlement to take offence’ that is.

We need 3 new teachers in core subjects and haven’t had a single applicant

As someone else pointed out the countries with little in the way of private education seem to do very well. Doesn't fit your agenda though does it.

Which areas are finding it hardest to recruit? Is this more of a problem in particular regions?