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?

Will it be like the Care sector? Full of people who are, in my experience, intelligent, but speak very poor English?

I’ve often thought less TAs and instead put in extra teachers with that funding - some with specialist abilities. Decreasing class sizes. Probably not a popular idea - but many current TAs are being exploited. I’d like to see a better paid role for them with proper training.

Issues now that I keep reading about on threads need a different approach. No ones currently winning except the SLT.

I would remove Science as core subject at GCSE. Far too much time spent in what should be an option (and used to be). Could probably find a few others. PE is so unpopular with many children. Must be better options.

Okay that is nice. But this did not happen.

The NEU does represent TAs and other support staff like 1:1s.

I’ve often thought less TAs and instead put in extra teachers with that funding

1. the amount of TAs has been cut to the bone and beyond over the last 10 years. We do not have enough TAs and need more, not fewer.

2. the lack of teachers isn't due to lack of funding but due to a lack of people actually wanting to do the job. The money is there, the applicants are not. That's why Labour's plan to fund an extra 6500 teachers is bobbins.

Sorry, yes, you are correct. They are my union so I should know better…

TAs are being used in place of teachers without training.

TAs are leaving because of poor pay and working conditions. They are being exploited. So no … we don’t need more of the same.

Teachers are leaving because of poor/ toxic working conditions with unsustainable workloads and responsibilities.

I hope Labour do well in their endeavours. They have in the past.

👆🏻this.

Labour is pledging higher salaries and smaller workloads.

That is why so many, including myself, have left teaching.

We really do need more TAs - but TAs that support the teacher/learners in the class and work as TAs used to before the govt decided they should be used as unqualified teachers.

Ideally we'd go back to having to have a qualified teacher in the room but we know we can't staff that now. Its crazy to think how quickly that changed (although is still the case in scotland I believe)

And yes we need to stop teachers haemorraging out/ entice teachers back and that's only going to happen by listening to teachers who are the experts in teaching and learning and in education and actually see what the job is like day in and day out.

We see from threads on here that so often noone wants to listen to the teachers... but it truly is at crisis point. I wont return to school based teaching and I'm Oxbridge qualified, examiner etc etc.

The only way to ensure we have teachers is to bring parenting to the fore front.

The lack of respect, the attitude to learning, the laziness - I’ve heard it all.

My mum says - yes it’s always the mums - ‘I don’t have to if I don’t want to!’

Rarely spoils every lesson when you have a group of feral kids.

The SEN children rarely are the issue in class.

I left schools being a TA for 10 years. I was fed up of being hit kicked and punched and having a leadership team more concerned about their attendance than sending them home.

I have taught English at secondary level for over 30 years. The workload is unmanageable. Also behaviour has become horrendous even in some independent schools. I am 54 and have just made the move into FE to see if it's any better. If not, I'll try to find something else.

And yes we need to stop teachers haemorraging out/ entice teachers back and that's only going to happen by listening to teachers who are the experts in teaching and learning and in education and actually see what the job is like day in and day out.

Absolutely-yet I’ve seen posts on here from posters saying that teachers moaning is driving the recruitment crisis as it’s just putting people off and we should be quiet!

What people also dont mention is that schools became very corporate in the way they operate, I never wanted to work in a corporate world and now it seems I do.

The experienced teachers are pushed out because they are expensive, and the young teachers who come have no experience and either dont sick around, or are very keen to be promoted, so you end up with people on the leadership scale who have not actually taught for long and have very little experience (my last head of year was in her job for 2 years, 2 years as hoy on a very reduced timetable, and then went into an associate assistant head and assistant head straight after that- she was not even a good teacher, but great at bullshitting her way through with good phrases and sentences). Some academ ychains are governed by businessmen, not teachers, again with little understanding of how classroom work. This is not gonna be helped with more money, but rehauling the whole system.

Schools being able to expel problem pupils would be a good start. As it currently stands they can't without Ofsted judging them and they have to provide alternative provision which is madly expensive. Pupils and parents would soon fall into line if they realised that pupils can be expelled and have to stay home if they continually misbehave. Schools have no power at the moment so are constantly dealing with the same old kids who are disrupting learning for everyone.

Paying TAs significantly more would free up teacher time.

More SEN schools, teachers are having to deal with such a range of different pupil needs at the moment they can't actually teach.

but the behaviour management is impossible for most people. This is the problem with parents - they think that because they have a degree, and earn more than a teacher, teaching must be as easy as GCSEs. No idea the harm their bad attitude has on their child's learning and behaviour.

Preaching to the converted.

Those of you that are teachers... do you feel society as a whole value you? I mean when compared with other professions?

No. Not at all. Have you seen the threads on here??? And that's parents.

@GeneralMusings Agreed. No idea why? Doctors, nurses, vets, all of those other in caring professions are (quite rightly) held in high regard.

And the lack of respect from parents definitely filters down.
I would NEVER have spoken to my teachers the way a lot of children see as acceptable nowadays.

Not at all

Yep same as the 20000 police officers tories promised.

No. It's one of the reasons I've taken early retirement this year after 30 years in the profession.

The shit show of teaching through a pandemic with no PPE, no protection except 'open the windows and wear your coats' whilst parents on here and in real life slagged all our efforts finished me off. It was the straw that broke the camel's back. It was such a tough time trying to keep education going in some form for the kids, and no one clapped us. They just talked about the myth that we were all sunbathing in our gardens and just putting crap generic worksheets online.

On top of the workload issues it just felt such a kick in the teeth that all our efforts, all the hours we put in, all the care we gave kids is dismissed and there are always people claiming we do fuck all except moan and have long holidays. The lack of respect and the sense of entitlement that kids and parents have these days finished me off.

@AllAtSeaAgain I remember working in school through Covid well - it was terrifying. Especially as I was pregnant at the height of the pandemic. Like you say, no PPE or anything like that.

@AbFabDaaaaahling absolutely not. The entitlement of more and more parents has got SO much worse than when I started 15 years ago. Increasing numbers of parents also expect us to do things they should also be doing, such as reading most days (some children have never been read to), and teaching their child how to behave. It's soul destroying.