6500 extra teachers....

[noblegiraffe]

This was one of Labour's main headline pledges. They were a bit vague on the details - is this 6500 more than the amount of teachers that are currently needed, or 6500 more than the Tories managed to recruit, which was well below the amount currently needed? I don't know.

Anyway, where are we at?
Teachers were awarded a 5.5% pay rise as recommended - good.
Ofsted single word judgements scrapped immediately - good.
PPA can now be taken from home - meh, maybe good for primary
Performance related pay scrapped -good

The situation:
Teacher trainee recruitment targets were massively missed again for this September so schools will continue to have unfilled vacancies next September.

The projected fall in pupil numbers due to decreasing birth rates won't be as big as expected so more primary teachers will be needed (and this will impact school funding as fewer pupils meant there was going to be potentially spare cash in the system).

Potentially more pupils in the state system from private could be balanced out by returning private teachers to state schools. That will take some time to shake out.

PGCE mentors are now expected to do 20 hours of training this year to be a mentor, and lead mentors 30 hours, regardless of how experienced they are. This is putting people off being mentors so PGCE providers are struggling to find placements for what few trainees they have.

Workload for teachers is increasing due to lack of funding, and lack of teachers, so they have less time to devote to training teachers. The lack of experienced teachers available to train them is also a problem. At the same time, the demands of training new teachers on schools has increased (e.g. the NQT year is now two years of support and reduced timetable and schools also need to provide PGCE students with 4 extra weeks of intensive training and practice).

This is an extremely urgent issue, and a key government pledge, so why all the airtime about anything to do with education is being taken up with bloody VAT is beyond me.

The impact of the lack of teachers in the system is huge. Inability to recruit teachers means kids have supply and cover teachers which affects their learning, but also their behaviour across the school as they become disaffected in those subjects. Experienced teachers are not only having to plan lessons for the supply teachers and sometimes mark for them too, they are having to pick up the pieces and fill in the gaps when they teach the classes the next year. Heads of Department are spending huge amounts of time fielding legitimate complaints about the quality of teaching. Advertising for positions that cannot be filled is expensive.

What do Labour need to do to turn this around?

Maybe I should have put 'VAT on private school fees' in the title. This thread only affects the 93% instead of the hallowed 7%.

Although, to those parents who have been posting prolifically on MN over the past couple of months about how you are taking your kid out of private to put them into a state school - this is now your problem too. What do you think should be done about it?

Create more alternative provision.
Reinforce age limits for online content and social media.
More responsibility expected of parents for their child’s toileting and behaviour in school - that includes absent fathers.
Each school to have a family mediator so that teachers and Heads aren’t the first point of contact and getting bogged down with parental
issues all the time.
More slack in the curriculum.

Why is performance related pay bad?

I’m an ex teacher and I’m worried about the future of education in England. I have no idea what the answer is. Long term increased PPA time, smaller class sizes and less reinventing of the wheel would help aling with getting rid of fads. But I have no ideas how you would get there from the present situation.

@PepperSauce Because so many variables are out of a teacher’s control. You also don’t get to choose your classes.

It's bad when the performance being measured is not that of the person denied the pay progression.

Because when there is no money in the system it isn't used to reward good or steady performance, it is used to depress teacher pay.

Teacher performance isn't really something you can measure, so you can easily say 'this class didn't meet their target grades, therefore no pay rise for you' when that class was, for various reasons, never going to meet their target grades.

As things are, still being a teacher after another year deserves a reward, as that is a major achievement.

Because it’s based on the performance of children. As a teacher you have no control over what is happening outside of school which has a massive impact in the lives of students. All these things have negatively impacted the results of children I have taught include months in hospital not being expected to live, in and out of care, being sexually exploited, involved in terrorism, drug problems. All of these thing understandly impacted on their school performance but there was not much I could do about it and support services are limited and extremely stretched.

I genuinely can’t think of one realistic change they could make that would even touch the surface. I’m a secondary school teacher and the problems are so vast and all encompassing that it is difficult to see it ever getting better. Your post is spot on and thank you for the small rant about VAT! The relentless posts really wind me up.

I don't know, it feels like a death spiral. You can't increase PPA time when there is no slack in the system (in fact my school recently reduced PPA time to the bare minimum so everyone is teaching more).

We need tiered, specialised, education and an admission the comprehensive system is not the best way of schooling.

There is also an alarming retention crisis. People are resigning in droves because of conditions and impossible expectations imposed upon them. Many excellent teachers now feel that they are constantly being set up to fail.

In addition to this, anecdotally, a number of those with 15-20 years experience are now being ‘managed out’ because they are much more expensive for schools than an inexperienced NQT. This is very short sighted: not only can the government not attract trainees, but the profession is losing the experienced teachers and the stability that comes with longer serving staff. This needs to be addressed.

Less ridiculous paperwork and more PPA time to do the job that needs doing. Also, sadly teaching isn’t the respected profession it used to be. Graduates come out of uni with massive debt now too and they know their earning potential is higher in other industries. Particularly STEM graduates.

What is making the job impossible for me is the massive rise in SEN in a mainstream setting. I have classes now with 50% of the pupils having some form of additional need. It is impossible to adequately prepare lessons that are appropriate for all of them. We keep getting told - just do this for pupil a, just do this for pupil b etc. It’s too much and it’s not fair on me or the pupils.

I'm an ex teacher. Left last year after nearly twenty years.

Workload broke me.

I don't have any ideas, sorry.

The workload is way beyond what most people can cope with.

I was a maths teacher.

I have to say, despite the Ofsted single grade thing going, I'm in a school that is due Ofsted this year and SLT seem to be just as panicked as usual about it. Plenty of 'preparing for Ofsted' stuff being thrown at us.

My dc are constantly complaining about disruptive behaviour, 90% boys. It must be soul destroying to try and teach 25 kids while 5 are pulling in the opposite direction.

Way more support for SEN needed and more power to get the disruptive kids out of the classroom.

The problem isn't Ofsted/an inspecting body holding teaching accountable. The problem is the system isn't fit for purpose. Too many SEN and challenging behaviour children in mainstream school and too many non-academic children expected to sit through boring maths and science lessons when they could be doing vocational courses. Academic results shouldn't be the gold standard, happy, well balanced young adults fit for employment needs to be the gold standard.

Oh, if you think the curriculum is too crammed (fair point) you can contribute to the call for evidence to the curriculum review team https://www.gov.uk/government/groups/curriculum-and-assessment-review

Although I am hoping with every fibre of my being that the outcome of this review is simply 'cut trig, quadratics and exact trig values from Foundation tier maths' and not some massive overhaul that will do nothing but increase teacher workload.

Some teachers would do a good job no matter what. Some teachers, like in another posters, never looked at kids paper sheet homework before bin them, deserve to not to have pay rise.

More money for schools so they can have support staff to support teachers. To reduce the workload pressure. Both TA and admin based.

Make it an attractive option for graduates? Money works.
1)PGCE year free so you are not adding an extra year of tuition to your student debt

2)Maybe a reduction in your student loan amount if you stay in teaching for 5 years after completing your PGCE? Maybe 2k per year of teaching, plus interest one you hit your 5 year anniversary? Would something like this work?

If you want a really left field policy, free university education for anyone who spends 5 years teaching/nursing/working for the NHS/policing etc.

I'm sorry for your experience, which is one echoed by many ex teachers.

The workload really is unsustainable, I genuinely only cope because I am part time.

That's what annoys me about the new expectations being put on PGCE and ECT mentors. The (previous) government identified an issue with lack of support during training leading to high drop-out rates, so their solution was to increase teacher workload. This should never have happened.

Everyone use the state system should pay a small fee to contribute into the service. This will benefit everyone. To use your sort of language, only creates division, rather than solving problems.

And in specialist SEND schools, class sizes are also increasing. 10 years ago I would have had maximum 8 students with 3 full time TAs. Now, I have 14 students with the equivalent of 2 full time TAs. ENF doesn't count for anything anymore, students aren't getting their entitlement to SALT/OT/PT provision, they are miraculously signed off those services at the end of Y7 and leaving it up to the class team to deliver these much needed services.