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 agree with @BuckFadger It's all very well saying that some children need to be taken out of academics and moved onto a vocational path ( usually ither peoples children, not their own) but the fact is that people aren't giving up their £100 an hour plumbing jobs to teach teenagers how to become plumbers. Part of the failure of TLevels is because employers simply don't want to offer the requisite work experience. Apprenticeships are suffering similar problems ( as well as the onerous levy paperwork and pointless form filling for everything else). There simply aren't enough apprenticeships, especially at the higher levels because employers would rather recruit staff from abroad ready trained than take on an apprentice and train them up. We seem to be utterly shit at education in this country. Fiddling about, teachers being treated like the lowest of the low by governments, parents and society in general, yet the default for all society's ills is ' they should teach this in school' I was a teacher, my dad was a teacher. My DS volunteers with Cubs and demonstrated skills that I think woukd make him a great teacher. I've told him not to do it, unless he's going to use it as a route to teach in another country.

Having worked abroad in a school setting, the behaviour here is appalling. Sanctions set are not a good enough deterrent for bad behaviour.

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.

Funding a full time TA for each class would be a very good start.

The amount schools have to waste on supply agencies because they can’t recruit teachers. The amount they’d save with better conditions would pay for the extra support staff

Inability to exclude or expel.
No real comeback to any poor behaviour, children who tell a teacher to fuck off or throw a chair etc are given Lego to play with and a biscuit.
Lack of back up from some parents.

We’ve already got t(e worst government imaginable. Incompetent and self interested. The likely change will be much, much better.

This doesn’t seem to be the case at my DD’s school — at least two pupils have been expelled this term. And they’re certainly not being given biscuits for poor behaviour!

They seem to come down on them like a tonne of bricks, but the behaviour is still totally out of control. I don’t get it.

Causes?

Parents allowing children to think that the universe centres around their wants.

Solutions?

Mandatory parenting classes for badly behaved children? Perhaps having their time taken up would focus the parents' thinking.

Perhaps not.

Yep. From the same tree as all those “ new doctors “🤣

My DP teaches primary and he agrees with every word of this.

Bring teachers out of retirement.

I'm 58. Retired at 55. I only have 1 friend I trained with ( 1984-88) who is still teaching and she teaches forest school 3 days per fortnight. She only sticks with it because she has no parental contact, no reports to write , no meetings. She is 60 this year and will claim her pension after her birthday in November. If you offered any of us a million pounds a day none of those of us who have retired would ever come back . The only time I will set foot in a classroom again is to collect my grandchildren. My friend's daughter is completing her first year as a teacher. She will definitely leave her current school at the end of this term and is considering other careers. When she started in September she was so keen and enthusiastic. After only 2 terms in a Primary school that has gone.

Snap. The writing up of every petty argument/friendship issue is ridiculous. I spend my lunch break writing up details of everything I have dealt with as we have a number of parents, who for want of a better word, interrogate their children on every aspect of their day and write lengthy e mails on how their child is being bullied. They never ask their children about the positive aspects of their day just the negative. The list of things they complain about include, eye rolling, poking tongues out ant each other, expressing an opinion which happens to be the opposite of their child’s so it is bullying. This is KS2. There is no acceptance that these are normal childhood behaviours and a learning experience that school will guide them through. Instead it’s straight to formal complaints, meetings and in a few extreme cases complaints to governors. A complaint has yet to be upheld in a parent’s favour because they are quite frankly pathetic.

I don’t know whether to be relieved I’m not the only one thinking exactly this, or despair. They are your children - not your besties - PARENT THEM.

Forgot to add that there is also no acceptance that their children are just as bad and also eye roll, poke tongues out, say unkind things. Nope their children absolutely do not do that ever.

"My child always tells the truth!"

We got this from a parent whose teenager had told the entire class that their mother was "a slut". Unfortunately, my line manager refused to pass on this little snippet.

They will do what they already do - massive classes, plodding through generic worksheets, supervised by office staff in the school hall/gym, maths taught by simply plugging kids into online programs.

My school had 15% of teaching staff hand their notice in do far for a summer exit and we're not even at the deadline yet. That's not even including the auxiliary staff such as LSAs, catering and cleaning, many of whom are also leaving.

We are a very popular school in a naice area. The house prices in our catchment area are astronomical and my school is frequently mentioned on MN as parents attempt to get their kids in. So, the days of the middle-class parents being able to stick their head in the sand, are gone.

Out of the 15% of staff that are leaving, only 2 vacancies were filled. None of the other roles has applications. Maths was filled by someone who is clearly not a great teacher, but he was the only applicant. He's not a newly qualified so there'll be no money to support him and help him improve. MFL are going into their third year without a single applicant and now have 3 posts going (out of 5) because the staff are too burnt out dealing with the cover and go elsewhere. It's definitely a buyers market in maths and MFL at the moment. The classes have basically been babysat with oak academy for 3 years and we can see from tasks set that on average, only 2-3 of the kids out of a class of 34 are engaging with the work.

All the LSAs bar one is leaving. They've had zero applications and 5 new starters to Yr7 who require a 1-to-1 according to their primary info. The school have decided to hire students from the local uni to come in as LSAs but again, there's no money to train them. And as they are building their hours around their classes (and won't have their timetable till closer to September/October), it's unlikely there'll be enough for everyone and those that do get one, won't have a single body to get used to, but a revolving door of older teenagers.

We've lost so many members of the catering staff to retirement and again, zero applications, which means KS3 will be on packed lunches for the foreseeable future and those on FSM will need to go get and eat their lunch in the KS4 canteen, away from their friends.

I trust you’re joking. Things are going to get immeasurably worse. Anyone who thinks a Labour government is a force for good needs their head testing.

Some years ago, I worked at a school where there was only one applicant for an English post.

Our HoD (a Camilla Parker-Bowles look-alike in a tweed suit) swept past my classroom en route to the interview, back-tracked momentarily when she spotted me, stuck her head through my classroom door (I was on a non-contact) and said, "Well, let's face it - unless he actually exposes himself during the interview, he has it in the bag!"

Well, we’ll see won’t we? I’d love to know how anyone could be worse than a 14 year government which has seen tax rising to one of its highest levels ever whilst neglecting public services to the point schools are falling down (literally) all the while funnelling money to their mates and families, but you’ve obviously convinced yourself. (And that’s leaving aside the repeated law breaking, both as a government and as individuals).

My primary school DD has had no teacher since Xmas. The school went through a few supply teachers who were flaky and useless, and the class is now being taught by a TA who is being provided with work by the head teacher. The head said he is struggling to recruit and the candidates who are available are incredibly poor, to the extent they can’t even spell properly.

The problem isn’t behaviour (the kids are lovely) or parents (they’re very engaged). It’s literally the fact that nobody wants to teach because of the ridiculous workload.

I was once a teacher myself but left because of budget cuts vs workload. Too much work for too little money. As a pp said, education (FE in particular) has been drained dry of funding. Over the course of a few years my salary was cut by 40% and my workload doubled, because they asked me to teach my own class and also supervise an unqualified teacher on min wage and give her my prepped work to deliver. Because they couldn’t afford to pay for two teachers. The last straw was when they wanted to make me “self employed” so they no longer had to pay me sick pay or pension etc.

If they want teachers to come back then they need to drastically cut workload so it’s possible to do the job in 40 hours, and stop dicking people around and trying to deprive them of their legal employment rights to save money.

I’ve worked in schools where either the parents become more entitled and extremely rude or they are totally disengaged

They are either fighting hard for their kids in a resource-starved school or have given up fighting for them.

I think the understaffing came first, not the entitled parents.

No. We should stop the unfair privilege/advantage of wealthy kids getting a better education than everyone else.
No private schools. Everyone in together, the standard of education overall would rise.

Absolutely spot on!

Not necessarily.

Respect for the profession, address the curriculum, sort out OFSTED, provide improved public services to support vulnerable children and their families.

All doable…it will take time though, given the absolute dire state public services are in.

Oh you've missed the fact they are going to be given a £2500 golden hello.
Which if they are in the SE would pay a couple of month's rent max once it's taxed.