Primary school teachers, year 2 and on 6th teacher already

[Applecrunchinghellfire]

DS is in year 2 in a small school (approx 100 children). All was good whilst he was in reception but since then it’s been change after change.

He started in year 1 with 1 teacher who left after 3 months, then the next teacher left after 3 months so they rejigged the school and he had his reception teacher for the rest of year 1. Year 2 a new teacher started which was going well then instead of recruiting for maternity leave for an older class; they’ve taken the year 2 teacher and now we have year another new teacher.
is this the norm? My ds is very unsettled and struggles with change anyway but I’m wondering if this is what happens at other schools?
today ds came home saying they had a supply teacher and he’s managed to cut his hair whilst sat at his desk and the teacher didn’t notice!

It’s not normal but it’s not that uncommon either. There is a shortage of teachers. Working in a small school is intense and it’s much harder work because there are less adults. So it’s hard to attract staff. I do supply teaching now because being a class teacher is too hard. I can’t begin to tell you the situations I have walked in to. It’s completely normal now to go to a school that can’t recruit and there to be nobody who has a clue what is supposed to be taught. They can have had a different teacher every day for a fortnight. Whereas five years ago that would never have happened.

It is very area dependant. In my area it is really difficult yo vet a primary teaching job in a 'nice' village primary school. We have at least 20 applicants for each position, but they don't understand what hard work it is! My dd did 3 years in a school witj only 3 classes and no onsite SLT. Every lunchtime she was forced to 'volunteer'. But the b8g thong was that people with SEN kids seek out small village primaries.My dd taught a classcwith over 90% SEM snd some very profound cases

Hmm not normal! High staff turnover usually means poor management (toxic leadership, perhaps?). My school has high staff retention due to an excellent senior leadership team. I have been there 17 years, and most staff ‘leaving’ have been for maternity leaves.

Unfortunately teachers are regularly treated very poorly by management, parents etc, they are paid poorly for the hours they end up doing and are practically expected to do miracles. I feel sorry for a lot of them and I feel it is unsurprising that so many end up broken and leaving. Hopefully the leadership team will put something in place to help support the teachers better in future, but there's only so much they can do.

🧟 thread

Also, to be fair, it probably took just seconds for your child to be silly with the scissors, there isn't likely to have been much the teacher could have done. In year 2 he really should know better.