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?

I wish some of the government plans were about retention rather than recruitment. What about trying to keep some of us 40 somethings who have decades of experience and are the ones expected to mentor new teachers, lead year groups and coordinate endless subjects (in our own time and for no money)? We (could) still have another 20 years to go.

Sound bites on recruitment are always what we get though :(

Yes, I would like to see 'PGCE mentor' become a paid position with time allocated to it.

I am paid and have time - but only because I have overall responsibility for that.

The backfill funding is interesting - it looks like the training provider we use is doing online on demand training, so my school will get paid but my colleagues will "be able to fit it in" around the rest of the workload. Which is shit.

Yes, Lead mentor is paid and given time. But subject mentor is an incredibly important role which can make or break a student, and it's basically dumped on anyone on the department who can be pressured into it.

We've already had complaints that mentors aren't giving enough time to their students - what time?! The mentors are on a full timetable and have to give up 1 PPA a week to meet with them as it is.

I often refuse trainees in subjects because I know we don't have the staffing to make it manageable.

In my utopia, subject mentors would be given time to do it. But the reality is that everyone is at capacity and we can't magic up time. Ideally you'd be able to timetable it but I can't even guarantee that for ECTs and their mentors.

Who is complaining?

They don't want to actually bother to fix any of the deep rooted issues, they're quite content to just been seen to be doing something regardless of whether it's effective or not. I know in the past there were bursaries and there still are for some subjects; but most mature potential teachers are put off by not only having to pay for the fees, but missing out on a salary. I agree with others retention is more important and often neglected, but if you also can't get the start of the career right there's no hope!

The best thing imo would be to properly fund other services so that schools can go back to focusing on education, and teaching reasonable size classes with appropriate support available for those who need it rather than having to wear tonnes of hats whilst also teaching in very demanding circumstances. Also less focus on the grades children achieve in a class and more focus on how they're improving. A child predicted to fail who then gets an E (I haven't taught since GCSEs were graded as letters as can tell haha) has done bloody well as have their teachers; but as we know, it's seen as a failure.

My (primary) school has always had at least 2 trainees a year.
I've mentored for the last 3 but I refused this year because of the training requirement. It already adds to my workload, I'm not doing even more.
The student I had last year should never have been accepted onto the course either and the uni were very little help.
When they emailed to ask why I hadn't filled in the form to accept the offered student I explained and they said 'Oh we will pay £800 to your school to cover your class while you complete the training.'
Um still no thank you.
What's in it for me?
Still extra work to set cover, complete the training etc.
if the £800 was for me I may have thought about it.

Basically if you look at everyone’s responses the common factor is time. Teachers need more time in the day to do all of the things we are expected to do; mark, plan, set homework, mentor, chase up behavioural issues, detentions, meetings, CPD. Then on top of that actually teach full timetables where we are often dealing with disruptive and abusive behaviour.

They can’t give us more PPA so basically nothing is going to change. Depressingly so. All of the financial incentives etc will make no difference as people will enter the profession but will still leave once they see the reality.

Totally agree with this.
It really needs some serious thought. What is going so seriously wrong?
Our reception cohort this year (of 9) has 2 with EHCP's, one of these in nappies but also another 2 still in nappies. 4 more with severe speech and language / communication difficulties - 1 completely non-verbal.

Can understand that - but wouldn’t it give teachers a repository of pre-made resources that they can (ie do not have to) use to start their lesson planning with?

That's in progress from Oak Academy.

people will enter the profession but will still leave once they see the reality.

This x 100. It’s utterly pointless throwing money at people to come and teach when they just don’t want to stay and do the job, no matter how much the media try to say it’s an easy, part time family-friendly gig.

You can probably cobble together 6500 members of the public willing to have a try, but unless you physically manacle them to the classroom, they are highly likely to walk out again at the next resignation date-probably via the GP and clutching a box of Sertraline.

I don’t think indentured service has been mooted yet actually-‘troops to teaching…manacles to teaching?!’ I can’t see it taking off, but who knows what might be tried next!

The Send system in English school is inadequate, and far too much is expected of teachers to try and help them through.

I have said many times that a one size fits all curriculum is wrong, but some pupils with send do well under the current system.

I did work in a school, Do you? If didn't work in a school how would that affect your response?

Shouldn't we have enough options as every student isn't exactly the same? Then everyone can feel that the work they put it leads to a something? Then failure is part of learning not just their current experience which is that school is way too hard.

That is what I thought I had posted.

But there shouldn't be a "right" to feel successful in school, being successful should be based on the effort put in. As should being able to fail.

We had a former soldier who trained as a teacher once he'd retired - an utterly useless teacher who wouldn't take advice from anyone.
He was also very inappropriate with female staff. Didn't realise that barrack room "banter" is no longer acceptable.

Five years later he still hasn't got a permanent job.

Cheers dits.

The projected fall in pupil numbers due to decreasing birth rates won't be as big as expected
I presume that's at primary?
DC is a secondary teacher. Their Y7 intake next year is down 20% due to birthrate. Fortunately they have had an influx from private school (not necessarily due to VAT) which is much needed to boost numbers and retain budget.

I think nationally there's a bulge currently going through secondary, it's definitely primary where the falling birth rates are causing concerns - that's why Labour announced that empty primary classrooms would be converted into nurseries. Not sure how the not falling as much as expected pupil numbers would scupper those plans.

Because only a certain amount of progress can be influenced by the teachers. Surely you can.see.the reasons for this?
Even within one school, it is very different getting good grades from a motivated, top set gcse group in a subject they have chosen compared to bottom set maths. Then you can factor in home life, behaviour, whether parents get their children to bed at a decent time, whether they have a suitable place to study and revise, whether there is trauma at home, how much money there is to buy resources and enriching experiences, whether there is enough to eat, what kind of diet parents provide to eat, whether home is warm.enough....
Facing all this, is it any wonder that a teacher might think twice about teaching challenging students in a challenging school when to top off the terrible behaviour, non existent ppa time and crumbling buildings they will also get their pay docked because the children don't get the grades they could if they worked hard, had well supported lives and behaved in a way conducive to learning.

I can't help but notice that another bloody VAT thread started after this one has got double the number of posts.

Quite. If these private school parents maybe spent less time moaning on Mumsnet and more time writing to their schools telling them to budget better and offer reductions in fees, maybe cut their cloth accordingly by upping their class sizes by one or two pupils or not spending money on huge overpriced facilities, then they may get somewhere. FE colleges have to pay VAT. Where is the perpetual outrage over that?

Labour can’t turn this around without telling the entire population/admitting that

1. they all have to pay more tax
2. the schools are in a mess and it’s a hell of a lot worse than the shiny message that the schools try to put out
3. extra tax isn’t going to fix things quickly
4. the kids need to damn well behave
5. parents need to damn well parent
6. SEN provision is broken
7. CAMHS is broken
8. there is a limit to school resources and what can be fit into the curriculum

Labour won’t do that. Some bits they could happily say, but they don’t want to raise the tax and for the other bits they’d then have to fix them - which they can’t do. And admitting it’s all broken would mean being held to account later for not fixing it.

Hear hear

Mentors should be given time for this, in addition to PPA. But they rarely are (myself included). Often, it results in hasty lunchtime meetings, rushed, ineffective, valueless.

And saying that the NHS is broken has got them in trouble because it has pissed on people within the NHS who are doing a good job, and has dented confidence in the service it provides.

BUT they made 6500 extra teachers a headline pledge. They've admitted there's a problem with teacher supply and so they have to be seen to be doing something about it. Recruitment figures for next year will have to look better than this year so they are going to have to get their arses in gear if they want to make an impact.

I agree with pps that retention is always overlooked though. Experienced teachers have suffered the biggest loss of pay since 2010, as well as being overburdened with the extra responsibility of holding a creaking system together.

Kids look around them in the classroom. They see the daily poor behaviours - disrespect, disobedience, lack of work ethic. They see their teachers struggling for the time to see them when they have an issue, feel the tension in the air every time someone from management walks into the room. Children of teachers see them leave the house by 7am and not return until 6pm, only to work more. They see their parents cry with exhaustion and due to the way they are treated by pupils and parents. My own children also see that, despite my years of experience and a role in middle management, we still struggle financially.

Honestly, as a young person, you see all that, would you consider teaching as an attractive career?