To wonder why so many teachers want to quit

[ChazsBrilliantAttitude]

Inspired by other threads but I didn't want to derail.

What is going on in education that is making teaching so stressful?

I work in the City and you don't see too many people quitting with stress even though the work can be stressful. Certainly, not the numbers you see in teaching.

Supply teachers are a symptom of the problem.
I wouldn't have chosen to do it for years had the job been compatible with family life.

Well, let's see what spin the government come up with this time to cover their ragged arses and deny the problems again.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-34647833

I am not a teacher, so can only imagine how awful it must be to have your perormance graded on things you cannot control. I work in a challenging job but my performance can only be judged and assessed on things I can control.

I could not do a job where my professional judgement was not valued, where my line manager did not have my back or where I was held up to ridicule in a public manner by every Tom Dick & Harry who has ever set foot in a school. After all I have used a train, a supermarket and a bank - I would never assume that I have the skills or knowledge to run any of those types of organisations, but this is the default mode of some parents and media.

Thank you to those people who take the time teach the 2 most important people in my life - it is appreciated. You are doing a job I could never do because I do not have the skill set required.

The reason supply teachers don't do the marking is because that are not paid the same as permanent teachers. Their pay does not cover the holidays, nor is there any payment into the teachers' pension for them.

The answers, for Nicky Morgan, are on this thread. She's been sent a link to it by a number of people. But she's a political hack, puppet of the big boys, who doesn't have the standing or any interest in making changes. This is not a government that listens. They have no intetest in listening to anyone who is telling them their ideology isn't working (whether that's in the NHS, the courts, local government, education or anywhere else). There is a certain irony that as they're hell bent on dismantling the state elsewhere they are so prescriptive with education. I suspect that historians (if there are any left given the destruction of humanities in universities) will look back without favour at the current lot in power. None of which helps teachers or pupils now.

I didn't do my supply through an agency- I went direct to the school. I paid into my pension. Pay was also better. I did the marking.
I get the impression that some areas have to use agencies.

So they're going to do TV ads for teaching as a career again. It reminds me of the Armstrong and Miller spoofs of teaching ads. I'm puzzled by who they think would make a great teacher, but hasn't thought of it until they've seen an ad on TV for it.

Good point Mehitabel. When I was engaged as supply on year's contract, I wrote to the head asking to be put on a proper contract that would pay my pension. I got it.

However hard-pressed schools are, they really can't expect supply teachers to do the work they can't get fully-paid staff to do.

The government ignored 44,000 responses to the workload survey.

They suppressed the release of the Guidance for Assessment Without Levels document- which, from the leak, spoke great sense.

The panel who wrote the National Curriculum said it wasn't good enough- they pressed ahead.

They flatly deny there is a recruitment crisis.

I don't think they are suddenly going to listen to a thread on mumsnet! However, something must be done. I think if the NUHT collectively refused to submit performance data that might be a start.

Pico2
So they're going to do TV ads for teaching as a career again.

Saw one yesterday. its the same BS that they always are, a sequence of "teachers" all saying how good it is, in clean classrooms, fully engaged children and state of the art equipment.

Would it be this one?

www.gov.uk/government/news/national-teacher-recruitment-drive-gets-underway

The phrasing rips off this:

No older teachers, I see.

My Twitter feed is full of teachers searching for the elusive great teacher who earns £65k as the new advert says is possible.

Wow, just watched the ad. Looks like a great job, think I'll apply! Wait a minute, isn't that the very same job I've been doing for 30 years? Bears no resemblance. A case of huge misrepresentation? You kind of want to warn young hopefuls...

Yes, who is that great teacher on 65k?? Mr Nobody?

Recruitment is next to pointless if you are unable to retain. Something like a third of qualified teachers drop out within 3 years - that is the reality. There's no good having fresh faced 23 year olds in an advert while 59% of teachers are wanting to leave. When people join a profession, they do consider what it will be like in their 40s and 50s and 60s. An actual advert to encourage people to teach - it's so patronising and yes it is just like the Armstrong and Miller ones. Can you imagine other sectors having to advertise for applicants like that? On the continent it is such a highly sought after job that there are competitive exams, longer training periods and high levels of respect. Here, we are a political football, ground down by targets and levels and performance management, to the point that we have no more energy to take a stand. In any case, teachers have no voice because they require a reference from their headteacher in order to find a new job. So you can't make any waves or upset the headteacher or you will find yourself unemployable.

The only outcome for the 44,000 teachers who sat and completed the (pretty long) Workload Survey was that another survey would take place in a few years' time. Why? Why bother asking if the only outcome is that we will be asked again?

Some years ago when teacher recruitment ads were regularly shown in cinemas, I used to shout things like, "Rubbish!" or "Don't do it!" Always got a laugh.

Plus, when you think of someone working in their mid to late 60s (dear god let me not be trying to manage loads of teenagers at age 68), you think of them being able to have a slower role or one where they are respected for their age and experience. Teaching is in fact the opposite. There are very few teachers I can think of in their 60s who are not being hounded out because they aren't able to keep up with the latest government diktat or whose behaviour management is slipping because they can't see or hear as well as they could. Teenagers are brutal - they smell weakness and they descend like birds of prey. Older teachers are expensive. In a country where education cuts are being slashed, and there is the choice of old mother Hubbard with her old ideas and failure to be moment-to-moment modern and managing 30 testy teens on 45k, or 2 fresh faced new teachers on 22k, you can see why some less morally-sound schools might wish to dispose of the former.

Now imagine that scenario at the GP, or in fact many other jobs. You'd prefer every time to be seen by a GP in his 60s with that wealth of experience, than someone fresh out of training.

I wonder why they didn't film the ad in my classroom. Holes in the walls. 32 kids shoved into a room designed for far fewer. Leaks when it rains. Gets close to 30 degrees in the summer.

That would have them queuing up to take a PGCE.

who are not being hounded out
Yes, they are. I've seen it. A few of us are having lunch together next week.

ecause they aren't able to keep up with the latest government diktat or whose behaviour management is slipping
And if that isn't the case, if they are still on top of their game, leadership have countless ways to make their lives impossible. Changing set lists just before exams to deflate the victim's results, for example. Giving them an impossible timetable (teaching 6/6 on a duty day with a meeting directly after school, then timing all observations during that day or the identical one following it), that's another.

because

YY to what iguana and timely said.

I totally agree about teenagers, Iguana.
Or likewise, trying to manage a class of 4 year olds at age 68.
What parent really thinks this is a good idea for their child? (No offence to older teachers.)

Actually, trying to manage any class at that age. I'm less than half that age and can get a run for my money on occasion. By 68 I will be way past it.

The thing is we're not expected to work that long thus saving loads of pension money for the government.

These two are 68.