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?

My GC have just moved primary schools because the teacher in my GD's class was just not up to scratch, doing as little as she could get away with and obviously not bothered about what they were doing. Children were being bullied and having accidents which were not reported, reading books were not changed. The Head was aware that this was happening but nothing was being done about it.

The new school is much better, although both the teachers we have are young and relatively inexperienced they are enthusiastic and intelligent. Their funding is better than some schools as they have children with special needs and many for whom English is a second language. The parents we see in the school do seem to care about behaviour, in general this seems to be better than at the other school.
I'm guessing that perhaps the new school recruits more carefully.
It must be an exhausting job with all the admin that they are expected to do now, certainly not a job that I would want to take on.

They are most probably calling a higher level teaching assistant an ' unqualified teacher' with the requisite low pay. They won't be doing what a teacher does, they will be teaching a class prepared by a qualified teacher, with possibly the work marked by a qualified teacher. Maybe that is the trajectory teaching will be going? Unsurprising considering all of the above- underfunding of schools, poor recruitment and retention. There is an oversupply of humanities teachers, so I'm presuming it's money in that case rather than inability to recruit.

HLTAs and unqualified teachers do all the planning, marking and assessment for the classes they take IME.

There is an HLTA qualification that good heads will put TAs through if they want to make use of their teaching skills, but head teachers can call anyone an HLTA if they want to. That’s wrong, they should at least have to gain proper HLTA status.

I didn't realise that ( left schools years ago) . I bet they aren't paid to do that. That is outrageous! Not only are they deprofessionalising teachers, but they are simultaneously getting people to do the job of a teacher on the cheap.

I expect that your very extensive research, which you have been far too humble to site, will have turned up that many private schools aren’t charities? It’s generally the very small independents which have this status. They do not charge market rate school fees and operate as not for profits, reinvesting the small amount of profit back into teachers/ staff and maintaining buildings and playground, that receive no state contribution. Often these ground and facilities aren’t even vaguely flashy or exceptional- it’s the tiny class sizes of motivated learners that are. What I think you are actually alluding to, though these are essentially very separate issues, is that education is currently VAT exempt as is medicine. Charging VAT on education (or medicine) is highly unusual, most countries do not charge VAT (or their equivalent) on private/school fees.

As to your point about Labour lacking balls (or backbone), on that we can agree wholeheartedly, if they were any good at numbers - they would realise a meaningful tax of the super rich is what is required to fix the education. Instead of sly and low brow swipes at the middle classes, sadly this is the petty, crabs in bucket, polarised and post-factual society we live in.

@DramaLlamaBangBang I'm a HLTA with qualified teacher status (20 years).
Took on a role here five years ago
as 1-1 SEN support which I loved.
Now covering whole classes unsupported and delivering lessons for £11-something an hour.
I'm leaving end of this academic year.

When I was paid as an unqualified teacher I was planning and marking for those classes.

This was standard across my academy trust.

(I am actually qualified teacher but that's not the point)

Blimey I don't blame you! That is shockingly bad pay for such a huge responsibility. How on earth can that be justified? What is the difference between a TA and a teacher now then ( apart from pay)? Are teachers just doing admin and stats that used to be done by a course manager or head of department? What is the NEU doing about this? Nothing I presume.

I think it it “suits” to blame, just like in the NHS. At some point, all politicians decided that you needed managers to check up on professionals like doctors and teachers rather than just trusting them. And those suits get paid more to do fuck all basically. How did anyone ever think that was going to work out well?

Personally I also think all kids need to aim to get to Maths and English GCSE level (although I think the English GCSE could be adapted to be more relevant to today’s life and processing verbal information in today’s world and the same with Maths!)

All people need a certain amount of financial awareness to now success in life and critical thinking skills or we end up with tons of people in debt/cannot manage their lives/conspiracy theories and failed democracy. But that does not mean the content is not updated!

AI will be the future of our classrooms. But what will fall through the gaps are things like safeguarding, pastoral care, instilling work ethic, spotting individual learning styles etc

Yes, unqualified teachers do the same job as teachers but for less pay because they aren’t qualified to teach.

This was Michael Gove’s bright idea because he thought there were loads of brilliant engineers and scientists who wanted to teach but didn’t want the hassle of getting a teaching qualification so this would allow them to go straight to the classroom and spread their brilliance.

Actually it’s now just ‘can’t get a qualified teacher? Let’s just get anyone we can and stick them in front of the class. If they’re willing to give teaching a go, why not?’

There was something on Mumsnet recently about a fully-qualified teacher with some years experience being unable to get a job, except as a TA. Then she found that she was being used as a teacher to cover absence, without being paid the full rate.

Bloody hell what an absolute shitshow he has made of the education system! Now you mention it, I do remember something like that.

I agree. I think GCSE is a ' one size fits all' a bit too much. It would be far better if, after 14 children could either do GCSE or do a tailored good quality vocational programme where they could do a functional skills L2 qualification in English or Maths ( with the option of doing GCSE English/maths if they were capable). There are too many ' failures' at gcse because the syllabus is too full and kids who find English or maths at that level too difficult have to resit them. But again, vocational education is expensive, with all the equipment needed, and schools and colleges are chronically underfunded. Again, we do things craply and on the cheap and wonder why it all goes to shit.

@DramaLlamaBangBang I spoke to NEU and they said nothing they can do as school are within their rights to ask me to teach classes, providing the planning is in place.
It's truly unbelievable. I get £11.67 for doing so.
Many staff in our school are off long-term sick so the expectation is support staff cover them/other teacher absences.

Remember

• it’s ’not a proper job’, and those who can’t do, teach
• ‘they only work 6 hours and go home at 3pm’
• ‘they get THIRTEEN WEEKS annual leave’
• ‘they’re all looney lefties who are constantly on strike’
• their lack of discipline is to blame for all the ills in society …except, if you discipline my* child, I will come after you and make a formal complaint against you
• if you are a male teacher in a primary school, there’s something dodgy about you
• school admissions are fixed so that [insert group here] are prioritised

And then people wonder why no one wants to be a teacher…

It's interesting- I sit here finishing up admin work for the day. I just read an email from a parent addressed to another teacher in school, I am copied in as a Key Stage lead. The email is vile. It's worded in such a way that quite frankly I wanna hit reply and say "fuck off" and not have to deal with them. The email response will create a lot of email work and probably be a fucking waste of time to meet the entitled parent, in my free period that I could spend planning or doing whatever else, because parent A disagrees with the said teacher giving the little git a detention for disrupting the class for the full 60 minutes.

The problem with vocational subjects is that the new ones are often ruined by the changes introduced and become mindnumblingly boring for students and teachers, and suffer from the same problems GCSEs do- too much stuff to cover, too litle time, and most of it irrelevant.

A few of my friends teach in 6th form colleges, some of the qualifications they teach are being replaced by the new T Levels-which drain all the fun from what the subject, no time for engaging projects, presentations, important skills, in return you get a lot of cramming, bored students, desperate teachers and more pressure.

So it's not just about offering a choice, but the choice being suitable and well planned. Except no one in govermnent is really up for that, since the specs are being designed by people who are academic and do not simply comprehend you may not have interest or ability.

TAs are used to cover absence and will deliver lessons, but generally they aren’t doing most of the ‘other’ stuff that takes place before/after the school day eg pupil progress, meetings with parents/specialists/social care, staff meetings, planning meetings, moderation, putting up displays, running clubs unpaid, writing reports, inputting data, subject leadership, deep dives, ultimate responsibility for the progress etc

In the school I most recently left, the entire special needs sixth form was staffed and run by TAs.

They did all the paperwork for the BTECs/ other qualifications the students were doing. They write the reports. They had input into the EHCP reviews (Senco wrote them).

They were doing all of a teacher's job and until about three years before the unit had been staffed with qualified teachers.

And they would get paid more p/h in many other jobs with far less responsibility.
So not only is there a teacher crisis, there will surely be a support staff one before long too.

It blows my mind that there is so little prioritisation of schools. Kids are literally our future. One of my cousins is a head of little kids nurseries (I’m a bit vague on details) and the hoops she goes through for very very little funding. This haphazard bullshit of nursery hours and not just nursery all day every day. Why are headmasters put in charge of designing school buildings? Why is it considered ok to hold lessons in leaky cold or too hot portable cabins? At my daughter’s school a tree was planted to shade one classroom which had lots of window.

I think it’s already happening-we have had no applicants for the last two support staff roles advertised. Who wants to work 8.45-3.15 for minimum wage, get kicked at, spat at and sworn at or spend the day changing nappies, with no flexibility in taking time off, when you could go and do any other job for the same money?!

My school have told the kids no money for pens - they're having to use pencils. One glue stick between about four. No whiteboard pens for whiteboards.