I don’t know honestly, I don’t think people who are not teachers/know a teacher realise how bad it actually is. If you child is being taught by a teacher who is a. Qualified and b. In the subject being taught you don’t know how lucky you are. RE the budget, schools areshort on a few bits? How about they actually pay their teachers?!

I understand, however, that there are too few jobs for all the teachers in Northern Ireland. Why can't we attract the Northern Irish teachers over here?

I think that only private schools will be able to employ teachers in the future due to the shortages.

LA schools will only have qualified teachers as the Head, Deputy Head and perhaps Heads of Year. They will employ support workers to do the lessons and try to keep control. I think the children will mostly just watch videos of Disney movies when this time comes.

Perhaps schools will just become entertainment centres where the students spend all day on Facebook.

From the trailers the documentary series on BBC 2 next week will highlight the extreme issuesschools are facing - we have no subject specialists teaching yr 7, whilst other (GCSE and A level) classes have my dept colleagues teaching them, they are not subject specialists (we run 3 subjects within my dept) including a SLT line manager who has no subject experience and is checking answers to questions aimed at yr 9...

Part of the problem is how they recruit would be teachers - the only thing you need is a 2:1 these days. I think all teachers should work for two years as a teaching assistant then if they are suitable they can get a bursary covering the cost of a pgce. So much money is wasted on people who don't last a couple of years as a teacher because they had some romanticised view of how it would be. We should be actively recruiting people with life experience (even if they only have a 3rd!) helping TA's upskill as they have proven classroom capabilities.

I did apply a few years back and was told that my degree wasn't accepted for primary teaching (secondary I was offered but turned down) despite wanting to specialise in sen and having 15 years experience.

But you've just been given all that lovely money for little extras...

(sarcastic)

It worries me too. Surely education should be top of the agenda- they are the children who will be the workforce and society of the future.

It's a massive issue, department of 10 and we've had 2 supply constantly for the 6 years I've worked there. Both teaching up to GCSE, thankfully subject specialists but the quality of supply is poor. I think the quality of NQTs and student teachers has drastically reduced and anyone is able to pass their training year.

Education needs to stop being a political football and the nobbers in SLT need the boot. Parents need to start supporting teachers.

Education in NI is a different beast - it feels like there is far more respect for teaching there, and the selective system means that more parents have to be supportive of school.

There's a surplus of teachers in the Republic of Ireland too, but jobless teachers both sides of the border tend to go to the Middle East or Asia now. It's gotten around how badly teachers in the UK are treated and how disrespected the job is. A friend in nursing has told me it is the same there. They used to have a lot of Irish nurses but they have stopped coming. Throwing Brexit into the mix, which has made a lot of us already here feel very unwelcome altogether, is it any wonder Irish teachers are avoiding the UK? Ps apologies for any typos; I can't feel my fingers.

Interesting, i didn't know you had to have a 2:1. I have been teaching for 20+ years. I have a 2:2 but I am ( I think!) a good teacher. It has saddened me watching colleagues leave in their droves, watching the goal posts constantly changing and watching people's health deteriorate at times. I am tired of fighting the constant battles, but have recently moved to the independent sector where problems still exist, but are fewer. My teenage DD wants to be a teacher, sadly, I am trying to put her off.

I agree.
One school in my area has 1 or 2 experienced (read 3 years plus so hardly masses) English/Maths teachers to the departments and the rest are topped up by a revolving door of teach first trainees/NQTS who leave at the end of their time.
Another had a department entirely staffed by teach first (other than acting head of department being teach first plus 1).

There's some schools where people are on SLT by 5 years in the job but they toe the line and their face fits the MAT image. They've not got criticism thinking skills and are a load of yes people who lack the capacity (In my opinion) to provide robust leadership and challenge.

I'd love to go back to work in a struggling school but the thing stopping me at the moment is that I love my job and I'm not inclined to take direction from senior leaders who are 4 years out of university who've hardly walked the walk.

There are teachers available in NI too but schools simply do not have the finances to employ them. I’m in NI and we have classes at the max, very few resources and, as is the case throughout the UK, immense workloads. It really is a national scandal.

Private schools don't necessarily have qualified teachers either. Nor do they necessarily pay their 'teachers' much better either. The job is just easier because the behaviour of the students is usually better, and that is because they are able to be selective about their intake.

I can't understand why there isn't a scandal about it. The public don't know the half of it.

A couple with two children have them in school for at most 20 years out of 60 years adult life. Take out those without family, absent parents, those with children in private education, and the % of adults with school age children in a state school may be as low as 20%. Take away those who just accept it as a fact of life or who voted Tory, and you are probably below 15%.

Then there are all the other issues that take up more attention, even if they should not.

Also in Scotland. I gave serious consideration to training as a Primary School teacher. But I don't have the maths (I have a Standard Grade 3). Fair enough, I could totally see why they wanted that for PS.

So I thought about secondary. Turns out they want min SG 2 for that too, even if you want to teach English or History. Which sounded bonkers on the face of it to me.

But if teachers are actually expected to teach outside of their subject specialist area to cover shortages, it makes perfect sense. To the degree that I'm suprised they only ask for a SG 2 and not Higher Maths, English and a science all at B.

Doubtless that would only increase the shortage though ...

@Theimpossiblegirl - no money for ‘little extras’ in Scotland! ☹️

My school (primary) has nearly enough classroom teachers (1 long term supply) but could not afford/find any PPA teachers so the children are taught for 10% of the time by a person who has no teaching qualification. If a teacher is ill, the school can't afford supply so a TA will cover. I was off ill for 3 weeks and my class was taught by a TA for that whole time. The same when another teacher was off for 6 weeks after a car accident. The TA's are lovely and fantastic at their job but they are not teachers and there were massive gaps (not surprisingly) when I came back. I love my job but the lack of money for basic resources or teaching staff is making it very difficult.

I’m a fully qualified teacher with 10 years experience. But I choose not to teach. The hours were too long and the salary too low for the amount of effort and professionalism required. Pay me £50k and I’ll happily come back and work my socks off. But if you pay peanuts you’ll get monkeys... it just isn’t worth my time. Thousands of other teachers have made the same decision.

If a teacher is ill, the school can't afford supply so a TA will cover. I was off ill for 3 weeks and my class was taught by a TA for that whole time.

That's appalling. Did the TAs get a pay increase during the time they were acting as a non-qualified teacher rather a TA?

butchyrestingface no pay increase for them. The added stress is not fair when their pay is already so shockingly low.