Number of graduates in teacher training in England at ‘catastrophic’ level - DfE figures

[sunnydaytoday0]

When is the government going to do something to address this, with more and more leaving and fewer and fewer wanting to enter teaching despite the governments attempts so far at making it "more attractive".

Will there be anyone left in our classrooms? Will parents be thinking of any of these issues and their implications during strikes?

www.theguardian.com/education/2022/dec/01/number-graduates-teacher-training-england-catastrophic-level

The number of graduates training to be teachers in England has slumped to “catastrophic” levels, with the government missing its own recruitment targets by more than 80% in key subjects such as physics.

The Department for Education’s initial teacher training figures show that just under 29,000 graduates have signed up this year, a 20% fall compared with 36,000 last year, and far below the 40,000 trainees registered during the pandemic in 2020-21.

But the figures are far worse for secondary school recruitment, where they are at just 59% of the DfE’s annual target, well below the 79% reached last year. It means the government has missed its own targets in nine of the past 10 years.

Here we go-this is what we get!

Hopefully Mary Bousted told Kay Burley to fuck off.

My husband is a science teacher with 17 years experience but he's getting out in the next few months. He loves the kids but the constant attritional atmosphere has eroded his mental health. He's 53. He wanted to make it to 58 but he just can't do it.

That is ridiculous. How can people with no training possibly be expected to be able to teach a class in order to learn how to teach a class.
It is completely back to front. How is it even legal?

@Valeriekat I think you would be astonished by some of the people agencies send me for supply at the moment. Cover supervision is so hard. You don't know the students the subject or the behaviour policy. You are often moving from room to room, from subject to subject, in some schools with no access to classroom tech. The lesson plans vary from one sentence emails to 3 page detailed instructions. It's the hardest job and we are getting inexperienced university students to do it.

Why train for a job with a standard 60 hour week and a disproportionately high likelihood of being bullied out in your fifties or whenever somebody on SLT notices you're on UPS 3? It's become a toxic profession.

Im so angry about how education has been deprioritised by the government over the last ten years or so. Children have been so let down. I wish there was something I could do to help more, as a parent I feel very powerless.

Great post. That describes the problem with teaching. And it’s not the actual teaching.

It has crossed my mind to "Get Into Teaching", but the hours they work look horrendous

This.
I am a soon-to-be-ex teacher -not because of the pay but because of the unrelenting extra demands and pathetically weak and incompetent leadership -there are very few schools with good leaders because they are mostly led by people who aren’t great teachers and who were promoted above their ability and out of the classroom. I trained a few years ago after a career in industry and will go back to that.

“That’s schools!!”

Teacher training is being dumped in and expected to do the job. That’s what the emphasis on placements means in practice. Mentors are frequently power control freaks (as so many teachers are) and snobby with it, who demand flattery at every turn too. And for a job that pays little more than retail on starting, with no future guarantees or security, offers nothing but criticism and constantly shifting goal posts.

Education is not about education or training any more in this country but about social control. How can it be anything else in a society where neither education nor work rewards work and achievement, and only genetics and inheritance matters?

They hate older women don't they?

@Valeriekat good cover supervisors are worth their weight in gold. I have done it as a qualified teacher and my best friend is brilliant at it and has just been snapped up by the local grammar after working locally for many years at the comp.
She has never been to uni.
What she does have is exceptional classroom management, she gets work from difficult kids and she at leasts attempts to deliver a lesson. Kids like her :)

Cover is supposed to be that. Cover. But it's generally not it's a lesson. So you need some idea what your doing or confidence.

It might not be the norm for 'nice' schools where retention is good but trust me if your child attends a normal or 'seen to be failing' school they will have lots of unqualified cover be it agency or in house cover supervisors.
And lots of people I know work full time like that, are sponsored by the school to go to uni part time/ in the evenings doing something like 'childhood studies' and then qualify that way in the job.

I know local schools with 'enforcers' who work in the units eg ex army or rugby players. To deal with crowd control and make sure the basic curriculum is delivered. Also they are known in the community so the families of said ' pains' behave.

I know no school local to me. Including super selective grammar that doesn't have some unqualified staff.... in one guise or another!

And actually older women make great cover supervisors as they have some life experience and generally kids. It's not well paid particularly though.

As a parent I respect teachers and the work they do alongside TAs and other support staff. You will not find me arguing with a teacher or tearing them down.

But equally as a parent the situation in schools concerns me. I have 1 in primary. Her teacher is senior leadership and apparently spends a lot of time out of the class dealing with issues within the school leaving a TA or HLTA to teach who doesn't seem to command the same respect. I understand they will be qualified as such but I expect my child to be taught by a degree educated teacher. The other thing that concerns me is the amount of behaviour management that has to be done in order to teach. Some children seem so disruptive that mainstream school does not seem the right place and is detrimental to everyone's learning.

My concern for secondary will again be qualified teachers and by that I mean a degree in a subject being taught alongside the teaching qualification.

My BIL started at an academy as a learning support and has somehow managed to find himself teaching up to English gcse. This is a man who barely knows his their/there/they're. I have an English lit degree 2:1, he has a sports science degree 3rd class. I don't doubt his commitment to working with young people but when he came to top up his degree in order to start teacher training and asked for advice on what modules to take he avoided any that involved actual reading of literature. His case must surely be repeated up and down the country- he's cheaper to pay because he isn't qualified. This is the kind of thing that cheapens teachers and their qualification and their worth. It also affects our children. I can remember my English teachers (and other subjects as well) who were able to inspire pupils who excelled in subjects with further learning/reading suggestions etc whereas my BIL has probably only read the books in the syllabus and couldn't make a similar suggestion to a book or poem to further a child's learning or inspire them.

Of course there are other issues and schools appear to be massively underfunded. They are recovering from covid when lockdowns affected children's behaviour and many have gaps in their learning and social skills.

It seems like such a mess.

Yep, I agree with this explanation 💯!

This has come has a complete shock to me. Everyone is so jealous of those amazing holidays...i thought they'd be queuing up to retrain...what with the equally amazing pay and conditions!!!

Not.

I actually work in one of the ‘better’ schools. It is a leafy independent but is now imbued with all the nonsense that state schools have had for years. So staff are leaving and being replaced by cheap newly qualified teachers who will stay max 2 years and then leave. Sadly the dynamic people don’t stay.

This happened to me! Also in my 50s.

@Janieread I got the distinct impression that I was too old ... despite the expressed need for teachers! Sorry you experienced the same.

People paying fees surely won’t put up with that?

Agreed.

If some 14 didn’t bother to listen in class/do homework 30 years ago it was on them. Now it’s on the teacher for not making it fun enough.

14 year old

My daughters’ American curriculum international school was full of British teachers fleeing the National Curriculum and the paperwork. One of them told me that her life had been turned around - less bureaucracy, she could plan her own lessons and teach how she wanted. The children wanted to learn and were better behaved. She could leave on time and not spend hours marking in the evening - this was done during the free periods built into her week.