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?

That's what general taxation is?

Parents SHOULD be doing the basic job of, feeding their kids. It’s not the school’s job to do that. More should definitely be expected from parents.

When Tax is no longer enough. Everyone should pay.

The state should ensure that 4.3 million children aren't growing up in poverty.

How? With what money?

So you want to increase tax and use some of that to increase funding for state schools.

OK. I think Labour ruled it out though,

This was supposed to be a good thought provoking thread until you posted this:

"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. "

This was unnecessary. So - this is still not my problem. My DC moved to one of the top grammars in UK, no issues with teaching, turnover is super low. It's the problem of a poorer child whose place they took instead of staying in the private school and who was forced to go to comprehensive in grammar area.

But to try to answer your question - I think standardisation would be good. There should be centrally available lessons plans and materials, a few options for each topic suitable for different sets, but I can't comprehend why each teacher of e.g. physics has to plan e.g. Newton law lesson in their own way and look for materials. If you have a portal with a few versions suitable for different abilities you save enormous amount of time and actually ensure some consistency of learning across different types of schools.

Then parents who can’t afford have children should have birth control. It is a system that is absolutely not sustainable. Giving everyone free & unhealthy breakfast is not the key to solve the problem.

The birth rate has declined dramatically, we need as many babies as we can get at the moment.

Quoting myself!
And in any given class, I have students working from EYFS up to upper KS2. This is impossible when 1 student is being toiletted using both support staff, and no students are able to work independently. That's just one example.
Money makes the difference. Pay us what we are worth. Over 20 years as an excellent highly experienced SEND teacher, and it's shameful what I am paid.

This

That’s why a small fee from everyone, lifting the whole system better is the key! That will solve low birth rate too! Otherwise we will end up with a society irresponsible people having more and more kids whilst responsible people are too scared to have kids! A small percent of responsible people won’t be able to lift the whole society up! We need to create a society that everyone benefit together.

With what money?

Certainly some sort of student loan forgiveness would be a good idea particularly now that those professions require a degree. 5 years might be too short a time though.

Retention is a bigger issue than recuitment. People would just leave after 5 years instead of before.

3 billion has just been issued for a scheme that scientists are sceptical of.

Carbon capture.

Maybe a little caution and waiting and some of that money pumped into education.

Everyone uses state school system shall pay a flat monthly fee for access. These fees shall be completely contribute to educational purposes.

Indeed!

I don’t understand why their can’t be performance related payrises just like in pretty much all other jobs

But if you could recruit when you had a vacancy, and recruit from a quality selection of bright ECTs you wouldn't have understaffed departments and teachers PPA dwindling because they are pulled into cover.

Sort recruitment and a lot of the retention will be sorted too.

I think the future of the planet as a liveable habitat is a fairly urgent problem too, tbf.

How would you measure this in teaching?

With what money. You are failing to understand how much middle income households are struggling right now.

So everyone? Even those who cannot afford to because they are on their knees/disabled/ill/carers/have fled domestic abuse?

And if you say"no,of course not" what income level is enough?

Don't be daft. We've got families choosing between heating and eating and now you want them to choose between heating, eating and educating their kids?

The entire country benefits from an educated population. The idea that free state education is just some sort of perk for parents needs to go in the bin.