Third of England’s teachers who qualified in last decade ‘have left profession’: DfE data

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www.theguardian.com/education/2023/jan/09/third-of-englands-teachers-who-qualified-in-last-decade-have-left-profession

Nearly a third of teachers who qualified in the last decade have since left the profession, according to Labour analysis that has been released as the party attempts to shift the political focus on to education.

With the results of strike ballots by teaching unions due in the coming days, Labour intends to use a Commons vote this week to push their plan to impose VAT on private school fees, which they say would help pay for new teachers in the state sector.

According to a Labour analysis of Department for Education statistics, of just under 270,000 teachers who qualified in England between 2011 and 2020, more than 81,000 have since left the profession, or three in 10 of the total.

Why didn't Sunak make sorting out the absolute crisis in staffing in education one of his New Year promises?

Those more experienced teachers have reinvented the wheel several times over

Yes dept @noblegiraffe though I've seen some questionable things going on around the school but I wouldn't know how many years these teachers have under their belts.

How many years qualifies experience? The ones that have 10+ years in my dept are crap.

There's other crap ones too but at least they take advice and are making improvements! Not necessarily from myself, but from their mentors and SLT.

An inexperienced HOD leading a department of crap teachers must be a very difficult position to be in, tbf.

@Sherrystrull oh I like that!

Great for MCQs.

But I haven't seen anything like that in my dept either, which I guess is why I encourage whiteboards.

I've done true or false like that but kids tend to just guess or follow the crowd.

Is that sarcasm, I really can't tell.

We are a department of 15 teachers, 3 of which are old enough to be my parents and 3 ECTs.

Everyone else has a mixture of experience.

For true or false you can do a countdown such as 3...2...1 thumbs up or thumbs down. Works in ks1 anyway!

I took redundancy and early retirement....i quite liked the jhe job apart from some evil managers and some unruly students...might go back and so supply one day but dont need the money...i did have some trainees that lasted only a few weeks....far too young and liberal and woke...they got eaten alive by some classes and also expected me to do nearly everything for them...clueless.

15 teachers is a big department for a teacher with only 5 years of experience to lead.

@Sherrystrull thank you! I'll try it tomorrow

Not sarcasm.

You've got the crap experienced ones and then the other crap ones who you say are improving but need support.

A department having that many crap teachers would be difficult to manage, even for an experienced HOD. But you are learning the job of teaching, the job of HOD and having to manage a large and difficult department.

@Itloggedmeoutagain yes but it's a shit school so external candidates weren't great and the staff with more years under their belts didn't want it.

It's the school I've been at since NQT and it's changed a lot since I started and I don't see it as my permanent school, but I haven't found anywhere that I'd like to move to. I don't wanna hop around schools, so I'm sticking it out for now.

@noblegiraffe I was just excited when I was approached about the role not realising how difficult it was going to be.

It's funny because I really looked up to the more experienced teachers, because they always sounded so knowledgeable.

Now I understand why I wasn't given their lessons to observe when I was an NQT. The ones I did observe have since left.

They sold you a lemon! Did you not wonder why no one else in the department wanted the job despite their experience?

@noblegiraffe when I spoke to them they just said they're too comfy. They didn't want the extra workload.

I knew it would be challenging, but not like this. My head and line manager promised me tonnes of support. My line manager is one of the crap ones 🙂 only has good grades because she gives herself all the good classes and handpicks the students 🙄.

Anyways I feel like I've hijacked this thread, soooo that's the last I'm gonna say and let everyone else get a word in 😂

I knew it would be challenging, but not like this. My head and line manager promised me tonnes of support.

But you still accepted the job knowing..

My line manager is one of the crap ones 🙂 only has good grades because she gives herself all the good classes and handpicks the students 🙄.

?

How many years qualifies experience? The ones that have 10+ years in my dept are crap.

Ah so you’ll be SLT soon. They’re the only ones I’ve ever come across with this belief. Experience = rubbish

Tbf it is bloody difficult to recruit heads of science these days, especially in less appealing schools. Imo it is a hard department to lead at the best of times, because of the range of qualifications being taught (particularly if there is a sixth form). And yet a lot of schools are getting rid of either second in science or head of chemistry type posts that a) make the HoD job easier and b) give people confidence to step up to being a HoD.

I've been in a science department where they couldn't recruit a HoD for a year and it was horrible - all the work got pushed onto classroom teachers for no extra pay, but if anything didn't get done we would have someone come and complain to us.

I do also think some of the science GCSE textbooks are particularly badly written/inaccessible and they don't actually cover key content points. So as much as I think a good textbook can be a great tool, there are certain sets that I don't think are very useful at all.

The thing is as well, I get that 5 years in people still have a lot to learn, BUT equally I think a lot of people want some progression by that point and if all the intermediate steps are taken out, then that has to be HoY or HoD. In most jobs you'd expect some opportunities to progress in that time frame...

And what is the threshold for becoming a HoD? 10 years experience? 20? Half the science departments I've been in didn't have anyone with that level of experience.

I think it's possible to be a decent HoD with limited experience BUT I actually don't think HoDs (or schools) should dictate how teachers teach. I think that's part of the problem.

Oh and to add, physics teachers especially often have loads of responsibility pushed on to them from day one - so then it feels pretty natural to want the level of eg curriculum planning and assessment and support of other staff you're doing to be recognised in a formal way.

It sucks to one minute be told you don't know what you're doing because you're only 3 years in or whatever and then later have that same teacher come begging to you for a resource because they couldn't possibly independently plan a ks3 physics lesson.

........ I think it's possible to be a decent HoD with limited experience BUT I actually don't think HoDs (or schools) should dictate how teachers teach. I think that's part of the problem......

This with bells on.
It's one of the reasons I left

I haven't read the full thread yet, but I can't believe what I read from @PollyEsther on page 1.

You're a trainee, and you're complaining that you can't afford a dog walker and gardener?!

I worked in industry for 10 years, then to academia. I returned to industry a couple of years ago for similar reasons that others have quoted on this thread. Qualified, experienced professionals have my absolute backing and the balance needs to be addressed in order to retain good teachers.

When I first started my career, I could barely afford my rent. I learned my craft, worked hard, took my dog out twice a day and didn't have time to care about my garden.

Your argument denigrates that of experienced people who really do have a cause to feel aggrieved.

Instead of quitting teaching have you thought about teaching abroad? It’s much better! You can look on the tes website at all of the international opportunities.

If you read one of my previous posts, you would have seen that I said I didn't know how bad these people were (or that they were bad at all!) before I got the job.

I used to look up to them. It was only after I became HOD that I realised the full extent of the challenge.

You've been teaching 5 years and are HoD toma team of 15 staff, many more experienced.

To be honest I’d be wary of why the school needs to ask someone who only finished their training 4 years ago (would be 3 now under the 2 year ECT) to run a large department with lots of more experienced teachers. Why didn't those teachers want the role? I suspect they knew exactly what it would be like and thought ‘not a chance.’

I taught secondary for 11 years and left in the mid 2000s primarily due to poor management and pupil behaviour. I went to reach in an adult prison. Behaviour and management in the education area was vastly improved, even with the cat A and restricted prisoners, compared to a bunch of 13/14 year olds!

@Postapocalypticcowgirl what you're saying is bang on.

A couple of years ago our school even got rid of second faculty leads for all departments which means there's even more responsibility on the HOD.

We've tried pushing for head of bio, chem and phys in my school in addition to the department lead role, but our concerns are falling on deaf ears.

@Abraxan you're absolutely right. I said earlier, I knew it would be a challenge but not to this extent.

Despite some bad apples, I don't think my department is entirely rubbish. We have plenty of amazing staff who are excellent teachers and are just trying to survive with the current conditions like most teachers across the country I imagine.

I'm not dictating how people teach if what you're doing works. But if it isn't, maybe try something new? Their methods may have worked for the cohort they had 10 years ago, but it isn't working anymore.