Nearly half of teachers plan to quit in the next 5 years

[freebritknee]

I saw this from a survey carried out by an education union.

Unmanageable workload is a significant factor.

This is madness how have the unions allowed the state of teachers employment to get this far where nearly half of them want out?!

@noblegiraffe MPS point was admittedly a bit more controversial, but I've offset that with the PGCE refund

@FrippEnos

Tippexy

Because that is a pro-rata'd salary

Except that it isn't,

Its a salary based on contracted hours.

Except it is. Teachers aren’t paid for the majority of the school holidays. The £55,000 average salary cited above is what their average salary would work out at, were it indeed a 52 week a year job.

Making teacher pay dependent on results is a terrible idea. Results depend entirely on your cohort of children and would not support inclusion.

TLR are there, but you will need to do more work. Your choice.

There may be TLRs in some schools. I am in a small school-there is a head and a teaching deputy who are on the leadership scale-there are no TLRs. We are in such a bad financial situation that we have had to make redundancies, the building is falling to bits and have no idea how we will be able to pay the increased energy bills. No money means no TLRs for any subjects or responsibilities and no SEN allowance for the senco.

I didn’t pay any tuition for my PGCE.

Charging people £9k to train to teach while giving them a £28k bursary to train to teach seems stupid to me.

It must be nice to be so confident they will get other work easily, or not need other work.

No @Piggywaspushed, it wouldn't but publishing is ultra-commercial and sales driven, so if you were an English graduate who hadn't got a job in publishing (at very low pay rates) you might think that teaching was your next best option.

I’d add to the list - parents stop thinking school will parent your children for you. No we can’t tell them to stay home in the evenings and give punishments if they don’t, we can’t sort out that they don’t like the fact you have a new boyfriend etc. The amount of staff taken up with ridiculous issues that have nothing to do with school.

Don’t just train and have lots of TAs, have all sorts of support staff, my DDs school is getting a mental health worker. Pay them more than minimum wage, make sure you are also attracting men into the role. Schools need more men in support roles especially in deprived areas.

That's not the point that was being made xing. Lots and lots of people study English at uni because they want to be teachers first and foremost. They love their subject.

I don’t think it’s a matter of they are confident of getting work elsewhere easily or don’t need to. If you are not respected, undervalued, overworked, micromanaged and only getting negative feedback then personally I would prefer to work in a less stressful environment for reduced pay. They are human and have limits. My OH left teaching after decades during COVID due to all the factors discussed and took a significant pay cut - his health is definitely worth the challenges.

@FridayBluezzzz

"mental health worker"..... and what actual expertise will they have? not a lot. I've seen MH pastoral roles and they pay a pittance. Mental health professionals would never work for such little pay. I am sceptical on what these workers can actually deliver in terms of "mental health support". None of it is ever evidence-based and some "advice" given from these workers in schools is totally wrong.

@noblegiraffe fair enough, but I can't change the world in one fell swoop. Although if wishing made it so.

I taught in comprehensive schools for 17 years and left, exhausted and burnt out. Declining behaviour, ever increasing micromanagement and a general culture of not feeling trusted to do the job without being checked upon endlessly.

Now I am teaching in an independent school and it could not be better. As @teacherwife and @Dizzyhedgehog have mentioned, I'm now trusted to get on with the job I am very experienced at, without all the crap. It's really busy, I was still shattered at the end of term but it's been enjoyable again. The school gets great results without having to constantly analyse data, and is not a selective school. Far too much report writing for my liking but everything else is more sensible. Behaviour is not an issue, which is refreshing as behaviour management was such a huge part of my job previously. Hours are just as long and I have to work on Saturdays but it is more than worth it to enjoy the job again!

@Tulipblacksmith this was a Government backed initiative that developed during the pandemic. I'm struggling to find you a link, but essentially it was an edict that every organisation needed a MH coordinator.

I am a career changer into teaching - I'm leaving after 10 years at the moment I'm calling it a self-funded sabbatical (luckily I have savings from my old life) but I don't know if I'll look for another job in teaching. What's driven me out is anxiety really, especially post-Covid. The students are anxious; their parents are anxious; management are anxious; I'm fed up of waking up at 5am worrying. I wasn't particularly anxious 10 years ago! My school (independent) is okay on the whole but hybrid learning can get in the bin and I don't think that genie's going back in the bottle. It's too convenient for well-heeled parents.

Teaching really affects your ability to parent decently, especially the evening work, which knocks on to poor sleep. Something not fully appreciated about teaching is you need to be physically and mentally tough and energetic to do it. That's why it can unravel quite quickly.

I love my subject and believe I am pretty good at teaching it to teenagers. Quite a few of them are working in related fields.

I wish I had a solution, although I think massive investment in SEN and mental health would help a lot. And smaller schools. And (a mad dream this) some kind of consensus about the purpose of education.

Making pay results driven is an awful idea. It is currently used tacitly via data driven PM targets which inexperienced staff accept because they don't know any better. Results are so dependent on class and cohort. Progress isn't linear or predictable on an individual level, hence target grades being BS.

My pay isn't that bad. The amount of time I spend dealing with non education based stuff in school has quadrupled since I started teaching 12 years ago.

[quote 100problems]@Tulipblacksmith this was a Government backed initiative that developed during the pandemic. I'm struggling to find you a link, but essentially it was an edict that every organisation needed a MH coordinator.
[/quote]
The mental health lead training?

It comes with about 40+ hours online training (in your own time) alongside planning whole school projects, and brings no additional pay at the end of it. I decided that doing all that, and then being the one responsible for overseeing the mental health of the pupils and staff in the school would have a detrimental effect on my own.

I am a good teacher and a respected senior leader in a primary school. I will be handing my notice in to leave at the end of this year. The other staff and the parents will be surprised because I do a good job and handle stress well. I love being a teacher. But the workload has become untenable. I’m taking a bit of a pay cut for my new job but it’s not severe. Losing some holidays doesn’t bother me in the slightest because I always work during some of the holidays plus 4/7 evenings and 1/2 weekend days.

What would have kept me in teaching?

1. No Ofsted. Almost all the unnecessary workload is caused by Ofsted.
2. Support for SEND with zero tolerance for violent behaviour. It’s horrible what staff and other children have to put up with. Most people have NO idea how bad it is in some classes due to a small minority of pupils with significant and unmet needs.
3. No multi academy trusts. They are toxic and not how state education should operate.

What would have kept me in teaching?
1. No Ofsted. Almost all the unnecessary workload is caused by Ofsted.
2. Support for SEND with zero tolerance for violent behaviour. It’s horrible what staff and other children have to put up with. Most people have NO idea how bad it is in some classes due to a small minority of pupils with significant and unmet needs.
*3. No multi academy trusts. They are toxic and not how state education should operate.

Completely agree with all this. Ofsted changes its mind constantly on what it wants to see. The current focus on recall is pointless - in our already rammed curriculum there just isn't time to continually go over the names of major rivers so that a child will remember them when questioned by an inspector two years after they were taught it.

SEND support is woeful compared to when I started teaching nearly 20 years ago. Then, with good levels of support, you could see that inclusion was in many cases a meaningful concept beneficial to the children with SEND and the other pupils. Now it is just a case of dump every child in a mainstream class with no support regardless of their needs and let the class teacher get on with doing their best with the pupils with SEND with little to no support or specialist training and try to teach the rest of the kids at the same time. In my school we have a non-verbal 5 year old who does nothing but scream constantly and hit any adults or children who go near him. After 6 months we have still not been able to get a single professional into school to see them.

All I can see that MATs have achieved is to divert finding away from teachers and pupils into the pockets of executive headteachers and "advisers".

I have been teaching for 17 years. Aspects I enjoy are being in the classroom (most of the time!), working in a team, seeing kids enjoy my subject. I feel the pay is fine and I work part time which is a massive help for stress relief.

For me the root of the issues is, as several otters posters have suggested, that you never feel good enough. Unrealistic targets for the kids and staff which you are judged against - how much 'value' have you added ffs.

[quote Tulipblacksmith]@FridayBluezzzz

"mental health worker"..... and what actual expertise will they have? not a lot. I've seen MH pastoral roles and they pay a pittance. Mental health professionals would never work for such little pay. I am sceptical on what these workers can actually deliver in terms of "mental health support". None of it is ever evidence-based and some "advice" given from these workers in schools is totally wrong.[/quote]
They’re employed through MIND so I assume qualified

Now it is just a case of dump every child in a mainstream class with no support regardless of their needs and let the class teacher get on with doing their best with the pupils with SEND with little to no support or specialist training and try to teach the rest of the kids at the same time.

And at the same time be judged constantly. The suggestion is always there that no matter who is throwing chairs, kicking, screaming or disturbing others, you should not only be able to manage that (otherwise you are ineffectual as a teacher) but that every child must be making progress all of the time and that is your responsibility no matter what.

I had a class once with 5 children with statements (as were) in. They had very significant SEN and 4 of them went on to leave mainstream over the next year or two to go to a specialist provision. The idea that my pay should have been directly linked to their progress is just wrong. That would suggest that Mrs X in the class next door who didn’t have any high need children in, would get a pay rise but I wouldn’t, simply due to the cohort!

@veronicagoldberg

Why is it the unions' fault?

It is the Union's fault because they have done nothing to support teachers complaining about work overload.

@SonicBroom

In ordinary times there would probably be a general strike over pay

The average classroom teacher earns what would be the equivalent of more than £55k gross in the private sector. We were discussing it on another thread. Teaching is not poorly paid.

I think you will find that that is the average teaching salary not the salary of an average teacher.

I have been a teacher for 19 years. It's fine right now because I'm very strong physically and mentally and able to deal with the demands. Emotionally? I'm utterly drained and burnt out. Management is cut throat. I just got looked over again for promotion while a fucking idiot who's permanently off sick for sketchy reasons got it. Got verbally abused by a parent last week. I'm just about strong enough to hold fast til retirement. What keeps me there is reasonable pay and pension. I couldn't start again from the beginning. Financially we'd be fucked. Have to keep going!

@TheMoth

Ah the holidays. And how much more we'd be paid if we didn't have so many. And yet there are lots of jobs out there with quite a bit of leave, and decent pay, but people keep quiet about that. Dh earns the same as me and gets 6 weeks. But every evening and weekend is his own. And he can pick his times. He also gets to wfh if he appointments etc. Paramedic friend of mine gets 10 weeks a year, so he tells me.

Apparently I'm on my Easter holidays. I've worked since 8, marking mocks. Need to feed the kids but then I'll be spreadsheeting.
Planning tomorrow.
In school to teach revision sessions (unpaid) wed and Thurs.
Off over the bank holiday.

Why on earth are you going in to teach unpaid revision lessons? Don't do it!