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?!

Whenshewasbad - people who talk about others behind their back are exactly the people I wouldn't want to be working with. I bet the manager was pleased to see them go

Oh nooooo, don't ask that!! It's been answered upthread.

@GooodMorning what solutions do you think the average teacher would have control over and the authority to implement them? My time is directed often with tasks that don't directly improve the learning of the students and creating documents that have no real audience but Ofsted. I am told what to mark and how often and I have no authority to change that. I am given a behaviour policy to work with and cannot deviate from it.

It has to be ok for teachers to discuss the stresses of the job with each other. I am walking away from the salary, holidays, students who show respect as it's not enough. The solutions to the big problems have to come from the very top down.

people who talk about others behind their back

No one talked about her behind her back. We weren’t allowed to say the new reporting system was shit. It was an absolute bag of shite by the way.

We had to complain about the shit computer system behind her back. If she heard us complain the bloody thing had crashed for the 5th time that day she would pull us up for a poor attitude.

She was very odd. In the real world, when things go wrong, people have a moan.

@Shinyandnew1

I’m sure someone will come along and tell me I’m wrong, but there aren’t too many other jobs I can think of where experience is now seen as a bad thing to employers. The more experienced you get, the less heads want you because you are expensive. In my group of friends and families, there are doctors, dentists, nurses, midwives, radiographers, physiotherapists, IT developers, council workers and all have said that experience in their field is not seen as a bad/limiting thing. In teaching, it is increasingly likely to lead to you being put on competency proceedings and managed out. I don’t think anyone can say there is ‘job security as long as you want it’ in teaching any more-maybe there was in the past.

If your face doesn’t fit (usually because you are UPS), it isn’t too long before you are facing a surprising left field ‘unsatisfactory’ lesson observation which brings with it more frequent lesson observations and book scrutinies and drop ins, then a ‘support plan’ is put in place which means more of the same. I have seen this happen to a surprising numbers of teachers over the age of 50. These were very good and very experienced teachers-ones I would want teaching my own children. They were replaced with NQTs who were…cheap.

And are more likely to unquestionably conform with ridiculous tasks which only add to SLT’s performance management and classroom teachers’ workload not to the quality of education pupils receive.

@GooodMorning

Whenshewasbad - because complaining doesn't help anyone. If this was a thread about solutions, action and building on the good things already being done, I'd be all up for that. Complaining only serves to put people off and bring people down (in my opinion)

I don’t think it makes a difference to moral to have threads about difficulties in teaching but I do think, as I said upthread, it’s tone deaf and it turns people off the cause. A better solution would be to list exactly how children are being failed in the current set up, and I think 50% of the profession leaving will force that conversation.

@GooodMorning absolutely no one on here has said teachers have it worse than any other sector, or work longer hours etc. But we also have a right to walk away, because ultimately this is a job and yes, we have lots of perks, but job security is no longer one of them which is adding to the stress. Because when you know you have a gcse class and 3 have mental health conditions which has caused lots of absence and means this will bring your results down, it's your head on the chopping block. Or, as someone else said, God forbid you get old and expensive.
You can continue with the mantra of "this is the job, like it or lump it" but accept that more are walking than retraining as teachers.
One brother is a nurse and my best friend is a doctor. They work incredibly hard and they have many perks to their jobs. I wouldn't dream of telling them that their work stresses aren't valid because other professions also have stresses.

I think a lot of the negative thoughts I have about teaching (and I rarely mention them to friends or family, let alone posts online, so don’t think that constitutes moaning) are because I KNOW what teaching used to be like, so know that huge amounts of the stuff we have to do now, could simply vanish and children’s learning would not be affected in the slightest.

I know it doesn’t have to be like this.

@PelvicFloorTrauma

Sonic - do you happen to be a civil servant working in the education department? You seem very invested in the narrative that teachers are well paid and to be on TWO threads simultaneously during work hours is a bit of a red flag. Wouldn't want us to think that you are slacking off from that arduous desk job, right? I mean anyone working in the corporate world on £60k is killing themselves, right? BTW I work as a state school teacher and I was a qualified lawyer (I worked for a silver circle City firm for a number of years) then I was a City/ legal head hunter so I have perspective on both worlds.

🔥 👏

pumper would it not be better to solve or avert a crisis by listening first??

Do you have school age children? You seem actively to want the shit to hit the fan.

@GooodMorning I assume you get paid for the days you work this week ? I don't. And was just pointing out to the people who say 'well teachers get such long holidays'. That we don't. I assume you get to choose when you take your holidays ? I don't.

@GooodMorning

Whenshewasbad - because complaining doesn't help anyone. If this was a thread about solutions, action and building on the good things already being done, I'd be all up for that. Complaining only serves to put people off and bring people down (in my opinion)

Yeah! Cos teachers have the solutions. That's part of the problem. Had you actually read the complaints from teachers here you'd have seen it is the shit we have no control over, the ever changing political crap that makes the job a misery. The solution, as I have said, others have said on this thread, is nothing short of a root and branch change in the whole system.

More money in schools, more pay, will not fix anything. Will be a sticking plaster only. The behomoth is fucked. The edifice is crumbling. The teachers that have held it together for decades are no longer able to do so. Because they can't do the job they love, the job they are supposed to have been hired for, stress levels, disappointment, are high.

That's why so many teachers are leaving, that's why recruitment is losing pace.

Stop assuming you know better than the people who actually have the experience. You are wrong. As so many teachers have pointed out across this thread.

Piggy, I both have school aged children and I am a teacher. I do want shit to hit the fan.

Because when you know you have a gcse class and 3 have mental health conditions which has caused lots of absence and means this will bring your results down, it's your head on the chopping block.
Every time we have a data drop, I get asked about why I am predicting a student (who has a target of a 5) a grade 1. This student has less than 30% attendance, has not yet completed a single formal assessment, and is unlikely to sit exams. There are reasons. They are good reasons, and it's all outwith my control.
If I could predict a U, I would... but I am not allowed. Instead, I have to keep pointing out the same information over and over and over again. When this student fails to meet their target, I will be asked to explain myself - it's not unreasonable to ask for an explanation, but to have to give it 6 times a year when nothing is changing seems like a massive waste of everyone's time.

@Pumperthepumper

Piggy, I both have school aged children and I am a teacher. I do want shit to hit the fan.

Astonishing but honest.

It’s not astonishing, education has been in the pit for ages. It needs something massive to force change.

@MrsHamlet oh god yes. Student has 30% attendance, is seeing CAHMS (so we know it's very bad) but I still can't predict a U. And if they don't get that 5 as predicted back in year 7 from FFT I need to justify why. Because OFSTED will ask.
Micromanaging is the biggest issue to me. Not pay, not holidays, but the inability of OFSTED to leave us alone to do our jobs snd get the students learning. All the other stuff is an utter waste of time and means I have less time for the students. It's all gone a bit mad.
And as more experienced teachers leave there are fewer to train the new ones, causing everyone more stress. And causing more to leave. It's a v viscous cycle. The biggest losers are the kids. It's sad.

@Piggywaspushed

pumper would it not be better to solve or avert a crisis by listening first??

Do you have school age children? You seem actively to want the shit to hit the fan.

Sometimes it has to come to that before anyone will listen. At the moment its kept running on good will of teachers. Same as NHS. Sometimes you have to let things fail before anyone listens. Shouldn't be that way though.

Retention and recruitment are both massive problems. Mostly because the job has become terrible for several reasons and people are hearing about it. So they either don’t sign up in the first place, or they sign up thinking it can’t be that bad and quit when they find out that actually it is.

Full disclosure: I used to teach myself. And I quit for all the reasons that have been repeated ad infinitum. Excessive workload that was so heavy it prevented me having a normal life. Then on top of that they started asking me to cover other things unpaid “for the kids, because we need those things covered but we don’t have the money to pay anyone”. Then they increased class sizes so they could reduce the number of teachers (cost cutting), the kids were squashed in without sufficient facilities and my workload increased again. Then they put an unqualified TA in the classroom next door to me and wanted me to provide her with teaching materials and supervise what she was doing - effectively teaching two classes at once, because it was cheaper than paying two qualified teachers. Then they drastically reduced SEN support (more cost cutting) and expected me to provide support on top of doing my own job. Then they asked me to adjust my lessons to use fewer resources like pens and paper and books etc because those cost money. Then they asked me to fiddle the results so things looked better on paper. I didn’t feel I could do the job properly any more under those circumstances.

That’s before you even consider stuff like lack of future prospects to progress my career and earn more (they could barely afford to keep paying me at my current level), the hassle of Ofsted, the stupid pointless paperwork, verbal and physical abuse, antisocial behaviour, and poor behaviour in general. And problem pupils were never removed, not even if they were physically mature males who threatened to rape or kill me.

I was out and about one weekend and I saw a student (fully grown male) who had threatened to wait in the car park and knife me because he hadn’t got the grade he wanted. He had already launched himself at me in the classroom and two other male students defended me and removed him from the room. So when I saw him on a Saturday in the town centre I hid from him because I was so afraid. I waited till he was gone and I ran away. And that made me realise that I didn’t want to be a teacher any more. I wanted to work somewhere where I was safe and reasonable boundaries for behaviour were implemented. Where I could do a proper job with adequate resources and normal hours, where I wasn’t asked to work for free, and I could progress over time and earn more without being made to feel like I was greedy and breaking the budget.

So I quit. I had no job to go to. I was literally so shit scared of this teenager that my husband said just quit, you don’t have to live like this, we’ll manage somehow.

This is just one story of one teacher, but thousands have similar stories of why they quit, and thousands more want to quit. The government are the only ones who can make changes but it would cost too much so they don’t bother. Honestly I think a tax increase to fund education is the only way forward, along with stricter behaviour standards and separate units to accommodate students whose behaviour makes them unsuitable for integration into a classroom environment. It will never happen though.

If this prediction is correct, I’ve no idea how we’re going to manage to have a competent adult standing in front of every class in the near future, that’s been difficult enough this year in my department. We’ve had numerous teachers leave mid-year this year, mostly because they’ve had enough so have left for the private sector or quit teaching altogether. We’ve had one teacher leave because of Long Covid too, which is really sad, they were a great teacher. We’ve had exam classes who have had multiple changes of teacher this year, when their teacher has left to be replaced by short term supply teachers. That’s if we can even get supply, which has been incredibly difficult, often those classes have been covered by any random teacher who has PPA, so they don’t get lessons, they just get a textbook and told to work it out fir themselves. That sort of situation is absolutely unprecedented in my school, recruitment and retention does not normally impact on students much, but it has done significantly this year. If this gets worse, I’ve no idea what we’ll do. Without adequate specialist teachers, students quite simply don’t get an education, an adult may be found to supervise them, but it’s no more than babysitting. IME this exodus has already begun, and we just cannot recruit, teacher salaries just can’t compete with other graduate salaries in London. So please, if anyone fancies re-training as a secondary school teacher, don’t delay! If you’ve ever envied the long holidays, and don’t mind postponing regular life for 6 weeks at a time between those holidays, submit your ITT application today, there’s a guaranteed job waiting for you!

What most of this discussion proves is that SLT in some schools is woeful. There are schools where teachers enjoy their jobs. They even take decent holidays. They are valued as older/experienced members of staff. They even value being part time. However what clearly is an issue is how much more SLT could do if they truly understood how to manage people and schools. They might know something about the latter but little about the former.

I also think teachers in well run schools are mostly happy.

[quote Dizzyhedgehog]@SandalsAndSox We're in Germany. No, you don't have to be bilingual...although it helps.[/quote]
Do you work in an international school? I'm German and would love to move back but having done a pgce the state system doesn't allow me to work there, despite a decade of experience.

Your work life balance sounds lovely. With two small children the English system is slowly breaking me.

I don't blame SLTs. They have no choice but to rule using OFSTED doctrine, or risk losing their jobs from a below par inspection. They are all run ragged, especially after last term and the massive covid shortages. Most are trying to focus on staff well being, with no way of making teachers lives easier.
I think what will happen is class sizes will have to be over 40 very soon, to ensure a warm adult is in front of the kids. Meaning even less time for each student and more stress for staff. Widening the gap between state and private even further.
Maybe we should have all just had parties last year rather than working in covid riddled schools. Seems to what our PM was doing 🤬

I am a recent leaver. I left after 11 years because of student behaviour and because of a lack of flexibility in term time. This latter point cannot be helped but with young children of my own, I was constantly missing things and was not properly engaged with their learning. I find my new job far better - I can work from home, nip out for an hour to attend a school event and make it up later. I don't get the holidays of course, but we have flexible holiday clubs that they can go to for a few hours and I can also work while they watch a film or play for a bit. It's just better for work life balance.
Teaching is a great job but it's not a life long one.

My DD is a teacher. She lived with us until last year. It's a fucking nightmare of a job. She went in at 730am, came home at 6.30pm, and worked on planning until she went to bed at 11pm. NIGHTMARE. She now works abroad as a Teacher and it's amazing. She is in school from 8am until 4pm, and there is no planning to do at home, because it's factored in to the working day.

I used to work in training. The mad thing about schools in the UK, is that there are no set lessons. So every Teacher is making up their own content for everything. What a waste of time. There should be pull off the shelf lessons for every year. This would ensure consistency across the board, and no excessive planning for Teachers. I've no idea why this hasn't been done!!