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?

I also am told frequently "Well of COURSE you should be working lots at home after work; that's part of the job."
It's so hard as teaching is all I've known, but do other professions put in so many extra hours outside of their contracted ones?

Generally, the parents I have contact with are respectful and grateful the work teachers do.

However, teachers have regular observations and jump through ever higher hoops to progress. I can't think of any other profession who subjects workers with 25 years plus experience to have 3 observations every year to not get a pay rise because you hit the ceiling 13 years ago.

I agree, we have to modernise education just like we'll have to modern healthcare. Use humans only where necessary.

@menopausalmare Totally agree. 21 years in here and still on M6 and no pay portability if move schools.
My fault for only returning pt after mat leaves.

Which is all the time for children, then.

Well, I’m sure this will sort the teacher recruitment and retention crisis.

All we needed was a revamped Ofsted with a Nando’s chilli rating of doom!

I can see advisors and publishers sharpening their PowerPoints as we speak! We can expect a whole swathe of expensive courses, seminars, webinars, Mocksteds and learning walks to get schools whipped into shape for when the new Ofsted shows up.

‘How to be exemplary purple in inclusion and belonging’-only £295 per delegate!

Each of those new areas will need need evidence in schools so I would expect schools will have coordinators for each one (at no additional pay!)-it’s hardly going to lower the stakes for schools! 10 areas, 5 grades. 10x5=50. I can see some schools printing banners with 48/50 written in purple.

They had a real chance to plan something better, but no…

It really isn’t. I don’t mean teachers don’t matter- my goodness they do- but I learned loads from those funny cards we used to work through on a Friday afternoon, and my DSs learned loads from audio books and video games.

They both read for pleasure now, as adults. They got language from talking and listening, but audio books were huge for them. As was the need to read instructions on their DS games.

Some tasks need intensive, I’d say one to one teaching. Others don’t- independent, self led learning.

Some DC need a lot of input. Others need it at specific moments.

But they were doing all that at home! You're talking about replacing what happens in school. If you think children will be inspired to learn by sitting in a room with an iPad and some kind of behaviour manager lurking around you are deluded. Or could they learn the skills a parent teaches them from some kind of app as well?

Any suggestions that primary schools would be fine with personalised technology instead of a teacher, have never taught computing to a class of year 1s!

Young children need to be outside with fresh air and daylight and not on screen, or they risk long term myopia. It is in the Covid data! They need smaller class sizes, more attention, better social & emotional development opportunities etc.

As a society, we decided most parents need to work full time which translates to less time to parent which translates to more taxes but more work for teachers. Therefore, those taxes parents pay need to go to schools.

An hour lesson and they've all just about logged on...!

Christ no. There's a million human interactions between teacher and student that is not directly content led but that supports learning and development. There's an argument that the brightest and most motivated could self teach at KS4-5 but otherwise no.

I’m a career changer going through ITT now. I don’t have all the masses but:
it’s costing me ££££££ to retrain - I’m doing primary so it’s not attracting a bursary, and I have to pay course fees and, of course, not have a salary for a year. I’m lucky in that an great aunt left me a legacy and this is funding my year, but many others would not be in this position.

teachers have a huge huge workload and, with no TAs to speak of anymore, have to do more and more of the ‘prep’ work themselves. After school you print and chop resources, then do marking and pointless training meetings. In times gone by you would have slid the resources prep onto the TA (I was a TA for years! Am now expert with a laminator and chopper!). Hours are long - at my current placement school teachers are in for 8am and usually don’t go home til 5.30-6pm (although as a trainee I choose to bigger off)

observations - most teachers find these super stressful - I was a solicitor (before I burnt out and took the TA role) - we were never observed and monitored in the way that teachers are, it’s crazy.

parents and children - these actually aren’t an issue at my current school, but I’ve seen issues before - parents emailing at 8 or 9pm and getting stroppy when they don’t get a reply within 10 minutes. Children being rude, disrespectful and dangerous (I’ve previously worked with 9 and 10 year olds who bite and kick when they don’t get their own way - don’t think anyone should have to put up with that at work! A colleague had his ribs broken by a 9 year old a few years ago)

I’m still training because, ultimately, I love working with the kids and that 10% of shit was doesn’t put me off the rest of it. But I do understand those that want to leave. My course started in September and we have already had 10% of students drop out, with a couple more who I think (from what they have said) going to drop out before Christmas.

Education is not the they it was when we were kids - it’s changed hugely and the most stressful parts of the job happen outside of the ‘teaching’ part I think….

I think a big part of the problem is parents being told "you know your kids best" when actually they don't know them nearly as well as what they ought to. The sheer number of parents who respond to phone calls home not believing that their child is capable of doing something and it must have been the person behind them etc just astound me.

Or Y9.

They will simply be Snapchatting each other, frankly. Or adding to their Instagram stories...

My recently graduated grandson has been applying for teaching jobs in the SW.

He’s now got a job, but they were inundated with applicants. 🤷‍♀️

Indeed. The number of kids who can't log into websites with the username and password in their planner is unreal.

Not at all. It's definitely got worse since Covid; seems like some parents thinks education is now optional as they managed it at home.

Not the case where I am. I'm involved in teacher and headteacher recruitment.

Average 4 applicants per teaching vacancy. Often this is a readvertisement because applications were low or didn't meet the criteria of the job.
My last recruitment round, we interviewed 3 and ended up employing the third choice. First candidate offered had accepted another job, second didn't want the job…the third accepted.

Headteacher applications usually between 2 and 6 per vacancy. Again, some have to be advertised a second time and some a third.
I did have 9 applicants for one headship, but shortlisting discarded the three applicants from abroad ( one not a qualified teacher, who wrote a ‘nice’ letter but didn't fill in the application and two with no national curriculum knowledge) another from an independent school ( again no current curriculum or Ofsted knowledge) and two supply teachers with no leadership experience. Didn't leave a very big shortlist!

The SW has always been popular - Bath, Bristol, the West Country.
It's the location.

Too many teachers in our area (not a busy city).

It's a combination of lack of funds, meaning all cover - ppa, supply etc - is being done by TAs, not even HTLAs any more.

And the fact that falling numbers on roll mean that in primary we are over staffed. We lost 65 y6 last year and gained 32 nursery. It's a pattern repeated in all local primaries in the consortium.

So our HT would love seasoned staff to choose to walk due to the demands of the job - frankly quite crazy levels of workload compared to when I qualified in 98 - as it would mean they didn't have to make one teacher redundant every other year for the next 5 years.

I live in the south west and I'm always surprised that our local dentist/GP can't recruit. Apparently no one wants to live here. I wonder why teachers like it and dentists don't?

It's not true. My SW area struggles to recruit teachers and TAs. We are also struggling to get headteachers. It's a recruitment crisis.

My first job was in an outstanding school (still outstanding) in SW London. They still haven't managed to replace me as they've had no applicants. I left in 2019.

There is certainly a recruitment crisis in the South West. I think the only area of the UK where teacher recruitment is okish is the North East, probably because a teacher's salary will go much further there.