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?

You know what "mate", I tend to agree.

I agree so much, I think what the scientists have said, pump money into "what we know works", is good advice rather than splurging 3 billion... On a scheme we don't know works.

1% extra income tax which Labour ruled out to win election?

Or - 20% of tax receipts goes to welfare state excluding state pensions. 23% of working age population economically inactive. What about making welfare support time limited? e.g. paid 100% of your previous earnings (up to certain limit) for the first 3 months, then 75% another 3 months and then fully stopped after 9-12 months.

Ex teacher with 20+ years experience here too.

There are too many children (and parents) whose behaviour is impacted by generational trauma.

Society and schools are riddled with people who are either hypo-stimulated or hyper-stimulated. There are so few children who can regulate. We are expecting kids to learn when their sympathetic nervous systems are activated.

We need to tackle this as a matter of urgency. Bring back children’s centred with focus on wellbeing socialising and communication (for parents as well as kids).

Reading through this thread worries me as my son wants to study primary education next year at uni. There’s no way I can discourage him as it’s his life but my goodness who on earth would go into teaching after reading this. :(

🤷‍♀️ who isn’t struggling. Higher, middle, lower, everyone is struggling. Look at where the most money go and why councils go bankrupt. BBC panaroma.

So you think teachers who work in grammar schools should be paid more than those working at schools with huge nos of students/catchment areas with deprivation?

That teachers who teach the lower sets get paid less than teachers who teach the higher sets?

You’re correct but 1/3 of children live in absolutely poverty. They’re parents don’t have enough money to provide what their children need.

Try not to worry. My sister has just retrained to be a teacher in her 50s (30 years in banking). Loves it. (Apart from some SLT twats.)

Oh and be wary of who is put in charge of schools. So many PE teachers in SLT! Just because you can lead a rugby team does not make you fit to run a school!

@LeedsUniPlanning no that is basing pay on students performance. As in any job your manager can rate your performance and that influences pay. It’s just like any job

@noblegiraffe explained that their isn’t enough mentors at the moment to train student teachers.

The way they will recruit is to drop fees for pgce's or rather charge it and you get 1/3 cancelled each year with the balance wiped after 3 full years post qts. Ideally they then pay off student loans at £5k per year (so from year 4) over and above what the person pays themselves. This should be used for all medical sector degrees, social work etc. too.

They also in addition need to bring in a bursary for trainee teachers non repayable non means tested.

I agree withbthis. If you are training to be a key worker why do they have to pay? Many won't pay their student liability off anyway with the ridiculous interest rates added on top so why not have essential services free? Then they have to stay in the profession in the state system for 5 or whatever years or start paying it back.

It is becoming a job that is not attractive to British graduates any more.

I suspect it will go the same way as nursing and (to some extent) medicine more generally.

The bad pay offered by these jobs and the lack of flexibility means that they are generally last choice so anyone who can get something better does.

British trained nurses move towards home and community jobs, or private nursing. British trained teachers move towards private schools or working overseas - lots of demand in south east Asia/the Middle East and it's better paid with less work.

The gaps in the U.K. are filled by foreign trained workers. So nurses in the U.K. are often from Nigeria or the Philippines. A school near me recently did so badly in the gcse results its whole maths department (4 people) resigned and they were all replaced by teachers from Africa.

Unsurprisingly there were significant cultural issues.

Also, historically many people worked in education for the term time working. It meant you didn't need to pay for holiday childcare, although you would need wrap around.

With the development of remote working, many women and men who are responsible for looking after children can move back into the general workforce when their kids are at a much younger age. I'd be happy doing wfh in the school holidays with an 11/12 year old; I wouldn't have been happy leaving them on their own for the full six weeks of summer at that age.

So a big supply of the people who were choosing to work in education for essentially childcare reasons aren't there anymore.

So I think that the private schools will still be able to get teachers. British trained teachers will slowly migrate to lower workload schools/schools with a reputation for better behaviour/drop down from HoD to "just" teacher.

The crisis will be focused on the schools that have a reputation for badly behaved students and high workload.

There is usually a big over supply of primary teachers compared to secondary teachers so I suspect secondary will see the sharp end before primary really does.

Again, it'll be particular subjects - there's already a massive shortage of physics and maths teachers (because they have a lot of other options employment wise that are better paid and better conditions).

I suspect we'll see increasing numbers of non-specialists teaching year 7 and 8 in maths and science - most secondaries already have a primary trained teacher in them for at least one nurture group of kids that can't possibly keep up with the secondary curriculum.

When do you expect teachers to mark homework? In a regular school day, I might be expected to mark 30 sets of English, Guided reading and maths, plus either topic, RE or science. That’s 4 different subjects every day - 120 books. Add homework into the mix thats a further 30 books.

It would require a huge injection of cash, but it sounds like what would make the most difference right now is getting the non-teaching stuff sorted so teachers can focus on teaching and that might stop so many of them leaving, and hopefully give them time to train the new teachers coming through.

More, and a wider range of,state-run SEN schools.
More money for ed psychs, SALT, paediatric mental health, therapists, etc.
Money to repair school estates and ensure there are enough spaces for specialists to help students regulate in small groups, spaces where students who are persistently low-level disruptive can be sent (with people to supervise them) so they don’t ruin lessons for the majority.
Money for family liaison officers, school nurses, in-school caterers/kitchen facilities to deal with all the poverty-related issues, social worker liaison, etc.

PPA can now be taken from home-meh, maybe good for primary

We still aren’t allowed to do this in my primary, no matter what the new rules are :(

Pretty much anything they do to improve retention, will cost money-more teachers, more PPA, more special schools, more funding for SEND.

Cutting the curriculum by 1/3 would be free though. There is so much pointless crap shoved into the primary curriculum (I’m sure secondary is similar) and it’s making teachers stressed trying to get through it and kids miserable never being given a chance to consolidate things properly before moving it on. We need kids happy at school, not stressed and this would be a good place to start. Let’s hope this review isn’t just lip service. I really don’t want a whole new curriculum either, just MUCH less of what we have got now.

You’re absolutely right OP which is why many private school parents are putting in the effort to get places at top state schools, looking at private tutors, online schools and home schooling. It is because the system is broken that many parents chose private school.

It’s a shame that the govt are not addressing the underlying problem first because this is what will impact the majority of children.

In my school the classes have been split into ‘children who can work independently’ and ‘children who need extra support’. I have the second class. Out of the 31 children one has 2:1 support, another 3 have extra support, out of the rest about 5 are willing to listen and learn.
The other class are able and can listen, follow instructions etc. They have engaged parents.

Why should both teachers be judged the same?

I'd like an absolute crack down on behaviour and disruption; at least that way that burden is off the teachers and the class gets the benefit. I appreciate there are reasons for the bad behaviour, but until it is culturally unacceptable and teachers are held in high professional regard (because if you don't respect them there are huge consequences), we won't solve anything in my view.

Yes, absolutely this has to be done with carrot and support. But a backstop of stick is essential and that's not there at the moment.

They also in addition need to bring in a bursary for trainee teachers non repayable non means tested.

These are the current bursaries available to train to teach. They are non-repayable, non-means tested and also non-taxable. So £30k is actually £30k in your bank account.

You earn more as a trainee of e.g. maths or Physics than you do as an actual teacher of maths or Physics (ignoring tuition which is just added to your student loan).

So your cohort has no impact on how you do your job? It is just down to your performance?

A "good teacher" is the same wherever they are?

How smoothly the day goes?
How engaged students are..if they are on time, have the right equipment with them, even own the right equipment?
If they have somewhere to do homework?
If they have the same cultural capital?
If they value education?
If they are hungry?

Remember, you don't get extra time or resources if you have any issues...the timetable, terms, exam dates are set.

The pastoral issues can be greater in some areas...eating into your PPA time.

And you think it fair and equitable to pay a teacher performance related pay?

Someones performance can be judged only on their own individual behaviour and the cohort they are teaching will not matter?

What criteria would you judge on that the cohort did not impact? The only fair one I can think of it do they turn up?

Poverty is no excuse to not potty train or brush their teeth.

Sorry, that was to @mirrorxxx

Or check their homework and speak respectfully about their teacher.