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.

@Lulaloo I applied for both TA and midday supervisor jobs. They wanted references either "from your last headteacher" or "from another employment where you worked with children". I realise they want to feel confident from a safeguarding perspective but how do you even get considered for a position in a school when you're changing career or perhaps moving from self-employment, as I was?

I applied for teaching post grad qualification and was declined as my law degree "wasn't relevant". I wanted the do a post grad with a view to teaching english / drama.

I've moved on to a different career now

You can do a 12 or 16 week SKE course in English to get access to a school direct qts/ pgce training programme with a Law degree sadly there is no SKE in Drama though

I haven't rtft but wanted to add that three of my colleagues resigned to finish at Christmas. They are not retiring, they have just had enough. I am thinking of doing the same and love being in the classroom.

The pay has been eroded significantly over the past 12 years but, more than that, is the absolute disdain in which we are held. I never complain about the pay or the hours - my choice etc But my god I am sick of giving everything I can to the children in my class only to face parents who treat me like staff. I don't even expect a thank you just not every single decision questioned and quizzed. When it comes to behaviour management, forget expecting support from parents. Those days are gone. You'll be told that you got it wrong, or that it's your fault.

My husband works in FE. He's one of the few experienced teachers with a teaching qualification. He does it for an easier life compared with the nonsense that working in a school involves. However, he has taken a £20k pay cut to do so. FE pay award <2%. If they can't recruit school teachers who start at the same pay as FE top scale, how will they get teachers for the colleges?

The obsession with shorter and shorter training times and the eagerness to hand the training over to academy chains with their narrow, evidence free opinions, while disparaging HE's role also doesn't help. Other nations think we're a joke - they treat the training of teachers in the same manner as other professional roles and therefore engender respect for the profession. 12 weeks of poverty tourism because your geography degree is getting you nowhere does not a professional make.

The MATs are terrified of experienced teachers who know their policies make no sense educationally and are actively harmful to children's development. One of the first things they do when empire building is make life difficult for experienced staff and move in their little clones in cheap suits. And before folk say that the school needs fresh blood, it most often needs the funding and legal back up that is only afforded to academies.

I must say that I have not been impressed with the quality of trainee teachers at our school this year. Are they making it easier to train as a teacher? You used to need a good degree in a NC subject, at least ten days of experience in a school and to pass tests in Maths, English and ICT. I guess they're lowering the bar to hit recruitment targets but it's counter productive if standards fall and doesn't engender faith in our profession.

Every day I feel more and more like a babysitter, with parents asking to withdraw their dc from things they don't like, refusing to allow their child to be sanctioned, refusing to believe their child has done anything wrong, parents questioning why we have to teach certain parts of the curriculum 'that they'll never need', parents questioning the suitability of a book choice. Yesterday, I was told that we need to run a club on a Friday (the only day we don't have any running) to help out working parents.

I can’t blame any new graduate not wanting to become a teacher. They have recent experience of how disrespected and over-worked teachers/lecturers are. It’s the pits. My DH was a teacher and it made our lives so tough. He was so tired and underpaid. He’d be marking during holidays, dinner, bedtime, covering so many teachers on sick leave, with no remuneration or recognition. Combative parents now tell you what to teach their children and what mark their children deserve, when some of their children are in dire need of better parenting and 1:1 reading and homework time.

In the case of Uni’s, it’s students paying such a fortune, that they think they deserve high marks when they don’t even nearly exhibit the standard. But they still get through! It’s all beyond broken.

The last straws for me as a uni lecturer:

1. I was told to F* off during a lecture when I asked a group of students to stop singing and playing music loudly on an IPhone. Refused to leave Reported it: Nothing. I don’t want to ID myself, but these are your future healthcare professionals. 2)I had one student who turned up to one of my lectures, submitted v little course work, failed most final exams, caught doing drugs on uni property and still passed on appeal and got a degree. Some degrees are not worth the paper they’re printed on and this just flies in the face of any academic standard.

In my time I saw honest people work their arses off for a II.2 and be proud and I’d be proud of them.

Leaving education on was the best thing we did. We’d never look back.

This is gibberish.

Well, the DfE hold all the cards here. They have the power to make the changes needed, especially since so many schools now depend on them directly for funding.

The current dearth of trainee teachers is a direct result of government policy to restrict pay, indulge in an unhelpful and demoralising inspection regime and use teachers as political footballs for over a decade. It is the same across the public sector to be honest.

My DP is on the SLT at a secondary school he has consider quitting on a number of occasions and certainly wouldn't encourage any graduate to consider teaching at the moment.

Anyone with a baby or toddler at the moment…..I’d feel really worried about the prospects of them getting through education to the age of 18 with the system we gave today….the drain of teachers is just so rapid that the system won’t be able to exist as it is today, in 15 years time.

Honestly, I really think they won’t be able to staff schools with qualified teachers. I agree with a PP that there will be a move towards using TA type qualified people to deliver info prepared by a teacher. That is essentially what this country will be able to afford and recruit.

I could have written every word of this post!

100% So could my DH. Especially your points regarding promos (the word fiefdom is overused, but…) and parents not participating in their own children’s discipline at school.

Where I work, the salary paid to an entry level adminer with GCSEs is equivalent to the starting salary of a teacher. No contest for less stress and non-remuneration of overtime

And just to depress everyone even more, the Ofsted 'culture' is now firmly entrenched in adult education, too. Tutors fill in endless electronic or paper forms, questionnaires, feedback sheets, students fill in questionnaires, feedback sheets (with duplicated questions - why?) and students are expected to record their learning each week ad infinitum. These are adults, studying the subject for enjoyment, not for a qualification would you believe, but if the Ofsted Grinch plans to visit then even more paperwork appears.

Of course, just to add to the comedy scenario playing out the Ofsted inspector then proceeds to give advice about flexibility - which is highly comical when they are always right, even when they're wrong, clearly have terminal tunnel vision and are completely intransigent. Inspecting a secondary school or adult education centre - well, 'one size fits all', according to them - this is how stupid these people are. Education is a total mess in this country, bit like the NHS....but of course it's easier to pretend it ain't happening.

@TiredButAlive if you want classroom experience sign up with an agency or work as a cover supervisor. You will be thrown in at the deep end but if you can do that you can do anything...
Most of the schools where I live use cover as a bounce into teaching training. It shows those that can or can't cope in a classroom.

Rubbish. You may be talking, but it isn't out of your mouth....

Just privatise all education, abolish OFSTED and the national curriculum, let schools teach how and what they want, give all parents education vouchers equal to the current funding per pupil, let schools charge what they want but tax them heavily on whatever they charge that exceeds the value of the vouchers.

I am an ECT. I don’t know one new teacher from my course and on my ECT programme who is staying. That is old, young, experienced, not experienced. Some have dropped out already, some won’t see the year and others are doing their “2” and going abroad.

New teachers have an excessive workload as is, the disastrous ECF add to it. The pay is poor. It’s very poor. 28k starting salary when you’ve studied for four years and you’re in debt for four years of uni? Rubbish starting salary. Anyone with a STEM degree would be bonkers to go into teaching. It’s not competing for good post grads as the salary is poor.

Oh, the workload is ridiculous as is the scrutiny. Book looks each week, I’ve had learning walks every week and this week gone, I had three from MAT bods. On top of prepping a nativity, Christmas fete, open evening, parents evening, etc. Top it off, there are often no consequences for incredibly poor behaviour nowadays and what a parent says goes.

I’ll be trying to make two years but within one term I’ve already developed serious health issues through stress.

Make sure you're in a union. Take care of yourself. Console yourself that for FE teachers, £28000 is around the upper limit.

Someone moving to work in a private school should definitely NOT assume that they'll have a good work life balance or reasonable workload.

DH taught in a top boarding school (Rugby Group) for many years. He worked hard but loved his job. Six years ago we moved back to my home country, but already then under new leadership, the obsession with form filling, box ticking and bureaucracy had started to creep in. We hear it has only got worse. I keep an eye on TES jobs, and as a physics teacher he could walk into a job tomorrow in the independent sector- I often see jobs re-posted presumably for no, or poor, applicants. I would love to move back to England and always loved the idea of giving my DC a British education, but sadly it seems to not be what it was, and since we both in sectors that are being decimated in the UK (I'm in healthcare), it makes no sense for us to go back.

I think I just got PTSD from reading that.
Everything you say is so true, especially the magic phone call.

Phone home to tell mum Johnny isn't in today, mum is at home, Johnny is sitting beside her on the sofa playing Fifa. Mum says Johnny has a tummy bug (he doesn't) SLT say thats ok then despite everyone knowing its a lie.
Johnny rocks up late the next morning clutching a redbull and a new vape, SLT roll out the res carpet for him and use praise and positive language to keep the little hooligan contained until lunch.

And yes, I often teach concepts that I can barely spell when covering for colleagues.

Luckily I leave in 2 weeks and will never return.

I was a teacher in a state school but left when I had children as I actually wanted to see them grow up. I now make more tutoring for a few hours a day than I did teaching. I saw all this coming. Knackered teachers and no TAs, appalling behaviour in schools and no money. We live hand to mouth so our children can go to an independent and it’s like a different world. Every teacher is a specialist in their subject, classes of 15, sport every day and most Saturdays for those who are enthusiastic about it run by sports coaches. Problem children get kicked out so behaviour is pretty good. I’m so sad at what has happened to our education system but I don’t want it to take down my children with it.

Problem children are the main problem with state education in this country. As long as nothing is done about it, there will continue to be more and more problem children.

Well we can't kick 'problem children' out and they know it, and their parents know it.

Behaviour policies lack teeth and parents challenge any attempt to implement it. She didn't do it, it was someone else, it happened because she's sad and detention just makes it worse, it happened because she's very clever and school isn't challenging her, it happened because she is struggling and school isn't supporting her, she doesn't play up for Mr X just be more like him, she can't attend because she can't get home after, human rights, ridiculous.

We can't kick them out. We can't refuse to take a pupil if they apply and there is space. Even if there isn't, parents appeal. Services that used to support us with extremely challenging children are very stretched and the benchmark to get help is getting higher and higher.