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?

So many TAs I know are using food banks.

Because all the money is going on salaries

@Democracymanifest No - because there is no money.

So so miserable. It must trickle down to the kids.
But interesting to know school is expected to
provide everything. We are given a list of provisions to get, which includes glue, pen etc.

@ExpatAl So many of our kids are living in incredibly difficult circumstances. They come into school hungry so no chance they are going to be able to come in with stationery. My heart breaks for them.

Terrible situation. It’s shameful.

No, this is definitely not true. My school is not understaffed, we have a subject specialist in front of every class & a minority of parents are rude, argumentative and don't support school, blaming us for issues which are clearly caused by poor parenting.

Can it all be down to poor parenting? I don’t think all parents are stellar here but kids behave, parents are respectful. It must be something to do with assumed authority, expectation.

I've always wanted to understand this so forgive me, but why are the needs so much higher than 10 years ago?

I don't know about England, but I saw this from a teachers' union in Scotland
in secondary schools there were over six times as many children with additional support needs in 2018 than identified a decade earlier @labamba007

OFSTED are an absolute shit show. A close friend of mine is a teacher and at their inspection there were lesson observations, 1to1 talks with senior leadership but teachers were only given group sessions. The school has a truckload of issues due to the attitude of the senior leadership team but they learnt about none of this because the teachers were not given a suitable environment to openly speak.

I know a few teachers and I get the impression OFSTED are one of the reasons that our education system is falling apart.

So many less special school places, which results in many more children in mainstream who shouldn’t be there. This also means that they are getting the focus of the support, and rightly so, meaning that children who would have had support a few years ago now get nothing. Add to that a reduction in support staff and you have very limited support for a large number of children.

More pupils are surviving difficult pregnancies/births and early deliveries.

Fewer special school spaces, so mainstream schools now have children with extensive needs who would never have had to be forced to accept a mainstream school place 15 years ago.

A much more narrow, (yet overfull and boring) curriculum with little scope for fun or consolation and more focus on results, revision and attendance, with ‘mental health’ as a token piece of government lip service/bolt-on, without giving schools the flexibility, funding or external health support needed to do anything to actually help.

I also think that more people with SEN themselves are having relationships/children, then in the past and often having children with similar needs to themselves.

Why would you presume that? It was part of all the info during the last strikes, for eg, but people kept banging on about teachers thinking they’re special and wanting big pay rises. However - the NEU doesn’t represent TAs, so you wouldn’t expect them to advocate for their pay and conditions routinely.

In our family's case our GC are not officially classed as SEN but were in care through lockdown before being adopted by my DD. Although my GD went to school throughout she learnt absolutely nothing, could not read, write or interact normally socially. Fortunately, as they are adopted, the school does get extra funding if they need it, but many children's education suffered through lockdown for various reasons. There is some government money to cover this for all children but it seems to be being swallowed up due to the poor funding in general.

Exactly. And nhs staff ..

No fan of OFSTED but all staff are asked to complete an anonymous written feedback questionnaire.
Staff always have the chance to feedback.

Well, yes and no. It’s always been pretty easy for me as a member of a core subject team but if you are the sole teacher of, say, A level German any comment you make about support for A level German from the SLT ceases to be anonymous. Similarly with comments about teaching in the report.

I know of at least one school where staff weren’t given the questionnaire. I’ve taught in a school where the headteacher went through the results and bitched about the staff responses while making it clear they knew who it was. And I know where staff have complained en-masse in the questionnaire and Ofsted didn’t even mention it in their report let alone do anything about it.

Also, Ofsted are the enemy of schools, so when Ofsted call, teachers tend to band together and protect the school. Hard to be open with such a despicable organisation.

Oh, I know. But vital that staff make their voices heard.

Why, when nothing happens?

I work with schools, some locally are tiny. Even the report singles teachers out if there are only two classes - EY/KS1 and KS2.

I know it does, I have worked where staff feedback has led to poor leadership judgements and removal of leaders.

The statement of action, to be agreed by the DfE, had to include staff health and well-being, relationships, regular systems for staff feedback to governors, LA and/or trust. Accountability beyond a couple of days of inspection.

Agree with this. Teachers aren’t given a 1:1 session with an Ofsted inspector to talk about their views or to air their grievances in secret anyway, any 1:1 meeting is just a grilling by the inspectorate on whatever their current agenda is!

No they dont- because if you put negative stuff, YOU suffer if the school is downgraded. That happened in the previous school staff fedback negatively and head made sure to make us suffer, lots of people left. At the end of the day many lie because saying the truth is just shooting yourself in the foot. Plus if Ofsted wants to downgrade your school anyways, that is just handing them what they need.

Not to mention the school I was at where we got a paper questionnaire and SLT took out the negative ones so Ofsted never even got to see them.