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?

It's not really. I'm merging 3 cases I've had in the last 5 years into 1 example, but the majority of expulsion-worthy behaviour comes from trauma.

It’s not just the word I didn’t use though, is it? I didn’t ant all imply or suggest ypu would be scared of them. That would be weird.
Can you answer the question I asked?
What’s your solution to the recruitment and retention crisis? Because making terms and conditions worse doesn’t seem like a very good plan.

But then they had to pass a degree. Because a degree was (and is) a requirement

LaurenOrda - can I just ask what your suggestion is to keep teachers in the job and to attract more high quality graduates to the job? If we remove one of the good things about the job - the pension, what do we replace it with to make it an attractive profession?

We used to have a range of vocational subjects for those that wanted them but they were all taken away by gove,
And even the ones that were left have a defined amount of math and science.

It's not that unusual, that kind of thing happens and teachers have to deal with it.

@LaurenOrda ,

I would bet you a sporting £10k that you never get paid to teach in a classroom.

As someone who has actually gone from managing a front office department of 20 with a multimillion pound budget in the City to teaching, I can tell you it is extremely hard, and that is teaching in the private sector, which in many ways (although not all) is the easy option.

Firstly, you have to do a PGCE, which involves both classroom work (the easy bit) and learning to teach in a school. You have to cope with going back to being extremely junior and having all your lessons critiqued, a painful process when you are used to being in charge and on top of your work. If you have a big ego, you can forget about it,

Then there is teaching itself. It is hard to describe to someone who has never done it. The best way is trying to imagine that a bell rings 6-9 times a day and every time it rings you have to give a presentation to an audience, who will have absolutely no compunction in losing interest, trying to distract others and, if you can’t nip that in the bud, being openly challenging and ignoring you. You don’t really get that in a business environment.

Add to that the potential of complaints from parents, micromanagement by extremely poor managers (SLT are ex teachers and, in general, extremely poor managers of adults), duties including standing out in the cold, watching children eat, sometimes going on trips (to be fair I have nearly always avoided these but there is a lot of pressure to go) where accommodation is a tent or a basic room etc etc and it is nothing like a corporate environment.

It can be, at times, a fantastic job. I loved my 10 years doing it, on average. But it is a uniquely hard and demanding role.

@Newbutoldfather a noble attempt. I think you are sadly wasting your time as she has decided teaching is an easy career with a brilliant pension. I’ve read all of your replies @LaurenOrda - I’m on maternity leave before you tell me I have too much time on my hands and need to get back to teaching. You come across as very condescending and entitled. Probably a perfect candidate for SLT to be honest. You’re digging your feet in over an issue you have no experience of (going to school yourself doesn’t count) and every time someone with actual teaching experience replies you come back with how successful you are. Very tedious. If you have no realistic suggestions on how to improve recruitment and retention there is no point in you being on this thread. Go and be rude somewhere else as we all put up with enough bad manners on a daily basis.

I find the whole 'you can't possibly understand unless you're a teacher' thing nonsense.

@LaurenOrda You'd have as much understanding of what teaching is like as I would have about your high powered, 100 hour week, all nighter job.

Just because you went to a state school sadly doesn't qualify you to know what it's like being a teacher. I've been in hospital a few times but that doesn't mean I understand what it's like to be a nurse.

While you're at it - doing away with teachers' pensions - why don't you slash the holidays too. I'm sure the prospective teachers will be queuing up to start training.

@LaurenOrda ,

Riddle me this!

How are bankers being paid for their ‘talent’ when you get hundreds of applications for every job.

And how are teachers fairly or overpaid if, when you advertise for a Physics, Maths or Chemistry teacher, you often get none to a handful of applicants (many of whom are hopeless).

I thought if there was too much demand for labour, salaries should go up until it is balanced? But I am not an economist, only someone with a mathematical physics degree.

Combattingthemoaners

Given the posters attitude I'm not sure that she would pass the PGCE, at least at the school mentor end.
and you are right about being SLT material. but I'm not convinced that she could play the game long enough to get past the nepotism, but then bad attitude is what a lot of HTs seem to like.

I'm not swapping. Firstly I suspect I'd loathe your job. Secondly, given your attitude, I wouldn't want to be responsible for putting you in a classroom. I suspect my students would be unimpressed. Also, you'd need to be able to teach three languages to replace me. Any other posters want to put @LaurenOrda in their classroom?

I have a sneaking suspicion that she doesn't actually want to be a teacher but is just here on the wind-up.

I'm glad you are optimistic about some of the changes. I don't think the government has a clue.
The increases to NI and minimum wage means the 5.5% will be swallowed up by inflation in no time. They may manage to manipulate the price of goods in the official inflation calculation but our salaries will have a lot less buying power than they do now.
Schools are crumbling. There's talk of reducing public sector hours to four days a week whilst teachers are burning out averaging 50-55 hours a week and nothing is even mentioned.

The thing to do about all this would be to encourage private schooling, not demonise it.

Most of what our lovely ministers have said on social media about private schools is divisive nonsense. Why charge a sin tax on people who are saving the state money? If they must pick on people (which I don't agree with personally) surely taxing rich parents full stop would be a better way to raise money and not harm the children affected by the VAT rises. Taxing parents who earn too much to receive child benefit would raise a lot more money. The extra funds raised from the 'child benefit in reverse' would allow schools to fix the rack concrete and all the other issues with school buildings.

The next thing they could do is give all children their state funding for parents to spend where they like. This would allow a lot more parents to send their kids to private school, taking the burden off the service we have. In France, some private schools operate under a government contract and parents pay an extra EUR1500 a year and the kids get a much better education from that. Kids on benefits get a free place anyway if they want it.

Those that think there is too much education or are happy with what is provided can stay where they are and share the teachers who are left - contrary to what the government says, there are an awful lot of parents like that....I am training to be a French teacher. I was chatting with a Dad at football practice recently and his response, with a smirk, when i told him, was 'do you go to France much?' which pretty much sums up the attitudes of many parents and therefore their kids about MFL. We need reform to teach children what society wants them to learn. Why force all kids through an academic education when they don't want or value it? Better to have numeracy and literacy a couple of days a week and let kids do apprenticeships and jobs the rest of the time if they want that. Kids doing GCSEs need to be interested and motivated.

There are so many ways we could reduce the pressure and improve the education offering for our country but we get stuck in old fashioned ideas like everyone has to have the same no matter what they need or want. Why hasn't Starmer and Philipson been taught about equity by the unions?

We need careful, fundamental reform that is planned in detail and thrashed out with stakeholders from all sides. Vindictive taxation cooked up in the echo chambers of a political party conference isn't going to help anyone.

Why don't they start with identifying the real issues - teacher working hours and the suitability of the curriculum would get my vote

oops was that a bit of a rant??

Oh FYI those 6500 extra teachers are over 5 years. Not all in 1 year

@AlmostATeacher

Taxing parents who earn too much to receive child benefit would raise a lot more money.

Do you know how child benefit works? This already happens. I have never rec’d child benefit.

Taxing rich parents full stop.

Are you suggesting rich people (whatever that is) don’t pay tax already?

Sin tax on saving the state money?

Whatever the ethics of private schools do you know how a school budget works? Private doesn’t save the state money how you’ve described. There are many fixed costs with running a school. Whether you have 20 or more in class the heating is still on etc. Schools running in deficit budget are being subsidised whereas some extra pupils = more revenue for the school and less fixed overhead per pupil.

One dad said and therefore is reflective of all parents.

Really, is one dad at football representative?

Whilst I don’t disagree there are massive issues, some of what you’ve posted is either factually incorrect or also “divisive nonsense”.

Why don't they start with identifying the real issues - teacher working hours and the suitability of the curriculum would get my vote @AlmostATeacher

They have, and there's a curriculum review currently underway. You can make your thoughts about the curriculum known here but you'd better be quick as the deadline for evidence is 22nd November. https://www.gov.uk/government/groups/curriculum-and-assessment-review

Thanks very much for posting this link.

The country needs kids to have more than just basic numeracy. Thinking that kids are best placed to decide what sort of academic education they need is batshit.

The level of nonsense in some of your post is outstanding.

Yes i do know how child benefit works - you are not taxed extra but you don’t receive child benefit.

After the tax free allowance, tax is based on a % of salary. In fact you even go into a higher tax band. How are people who earn more not taxed more exactly?

I suspect you have been mislef by the messaging or perhaps don’t realise the figures involved yourself.

Not really, I’m a finance governor and expect I probably know more about whole school finances than you which isn’t just quoting secondary school pupil funding (variable). That has nothing to do with fixed overheads of school facilities.

depending on whether you include the fixed costs

What? There are no ‘fixed costs’ as part of pupil funding. Where have you got that? It’s per pupil with extra according to SEN, PP, certain geographies etc.

Ask a maths teacher

I’ve sat in lessons and I’ve seen what some parents are like and am a parent myself. Are you? To say ‘all parents are like that’ is not true and a terrible generalisation such I wonder why you want to teach at all such is your disdain.

You haven’t upset me. I’m correcting what you’ve posted that is incorrect.

I don’t disagree on the curriculum. It doesn’t suit all children, seems overly onerous and has been messed around with by too many education policies.

Hmmm. Shall I go and work in the school
in the posh area with highly driven educated parents where the children are fairly guaranteed to succeed? Or shall I go and work in the school
on the large council estate with poor attendance, little parent support and a much higher chance of the children not ‘succeeding’. I know. I’ll go where I’ll actually get paid.

Providing all children with high quality subsidised nursery places would help, children entering reception who are already behind remain behind and their attainment gap just keeps growing.

SEND has been ruined, an EHCP is harder to gain than the old statement. Funding is also poor, personally I don’t think SEND costs should come from awpu. We’re not in the UK now, but our son was unable to gain an EHCP, he has a hearing impairment, a physical disability, required heavy SALT intervention, theraplay. He was given a termly visit from the HI service, which actually only happened twice from reception to year 2. Under the old system he would have been almost guaranteed to have gained a statement.

There are thousands of children not receiving an education because mainstream can’t meet need, but specialist provision is either refused by the LA or not available. It is corporate neglect.

Our language around education needs to change as well “I’m rubbish at maths” is commonly heard, yet its just as wrong as “I’m rubbish at reading” or “I’m rubbish at RE”. Being crap at maths shouldn’t be seen as a badge of honour.

Has anyone done the 20 hours of mentor training? I’ve been a mentor for years suddenly need to do this training and I feel like it’s aimed at the students not mentors

No you don’t! The requirement was just scrapped yesterday 🥳