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

[sunnydaytoday0]

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?

Turning up to your lesson with minimal prep and a textbook, of course it's going to be easier.

What do you mean, minimal prep? You really don’t have any idea. You turned up so well prepped that you could teach the lesson with minimal resources and without any tech, because you knew exactly what you were teaching, how to deliver it and how to get the best out of the students. It certainly wasn’t easier.

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.

Which again, is part of the problem, schools restructuring to save money and losing TLR posts. In a department of fifteen, there should be more opportunities for progression than straight to HOD. In science there should be a Head of Biology, Head of Physics etc to act as 2nd in dept. In my dept a more junior member of staff could become head of KS3 or 4 before considering HOD.

We used to have deputy HOYs as training wheels for HOY but they got replaced by non-teaching staff.

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?

Yes that would be a red flag for me, knowing the position to run a large department was still vacant because none of the experienced teachers (who had presumably worked at the school for quite a while and knew what it was like there) wanted to even apply.

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.

It would be even more of a red flag if it was in addition to this - taking on a HOD job within this context. I'm not surprised the SLT had to start giving out (what turned out to be empty) promises of "lots of support". And now the poster has discovered that the manager who personally appointed them is useless, as well as some of their department apparently failing their students. Doesn't sound good all round.

And promoting an unsuspecting newbie to run a difficult department without support might fill a gap in the staffing structure, but isn't good for the school, or for the teacher (who could end up burning out and quitting teaching as per this thread).

Well fuck.

NASUWT ballot failed as nearly 60% of members failed to respond. I’m so angry. How could so many be so lazy and CBA about this. Can’t imagine that the NEU will have hit it either. What a slap in the face from our own profession.

Clearly not as leftie and militant as some would have people believe.

Speaking as a qualified teacher, that figure doesn't surprise me in the slightest. I qualified 15 years ago, and for the past 4 years have just done supply teaching, because I was being broken by the system.

Thinking of the 5 friends I was closest with while training.
2 are currently on maternity leave, with no plans to go back full time.
1 left completely after the birth of her two kids and is now a SAHM.
1 moved up the ladder and is now a deputy head.
1 quit teaching and is now a librarian.

I'm with NEU. Haven't received a ballot.

Pure laziness. If they didn't agree with the strike they should have had the courage to vote against it. They just wanted other people to strike so they could reap any benefits.

But this news has been everywhere for months. Why didn’t you fix this situation and apply for others? That apathy hurts us all, not just you.

Or they'd worked out that if they didn't want to strike, if they and enough potential strike breakers like them failed to return their ballot papers, the strike action wouldn't even get off the ground. Fuckers.

Ironically if some of those people who were dead against strike action had actually voted no, then the strike would've gone ahead as the minimum threshold would have been met. However that doesn't excuse those who would support strike action who didn't actually vote in favour.

I did wonder if perhaps some had just assumed (or hoped) that the NEU would be more likely to strike so felt they didn't need to vote in favour i.e. allow someone else to lose pay through strike days but everyone benefitting with a higher pay settlement..

It’s awful. What were people thinking not voting? It’s not hard to post a letter! I despair

Agreed. It's not hard to post a letter. I still think a lot of non voters were people who didn't want to strike and in some cases saw it as potentially a good way to undermine any chance of a strike, which is what has happened. A shame that the union can't expel those who fail to vote.

I am no longer a member but when I first joined NASUWT in 2005 it had a reputation as a more moderate union than the (then) NUT and was the ‘rarely strike’ union, at least unofficially. I don’t think it’s a huge surprise that NASUWT members have abstained in large numbers. Based on historical reputations, NEU are much more likely to reach the quorum.

NASUWT went on strike in the Gove era and that was far less of a shitshow than now.

To be clear, I totally agree, and in reality in many schools of that size there will be experienced staff members who act as de-facto heads of subject with no pay. (or sometimes inexperienced in the case of physics).

But I have never been in a school that offers TLRs for those roles, at best one assistant HOD- which many schools have lost now. I've also never seen a school that offers head of KS roles within subjects.

And yes, more and more pastoral roles going to non-teaching staff, who are cheaper. I think it has it's pros, in terms of staff e.g. being more constantly available to support students, and so on. But in terms of progression for teachers and therefore retention, I agree it's not ideal.

But I don't think it's fair to jump on someone with 5 years experience and say they shouldn't be a HoD because IME it's an awful lot better than having no HoD.

Yes. I know. I was there. I am simply pointing out that NASUWT has historically attracted a membership who are less likely to favour strike action. If the NEU vote isn’t quorate then that’s a much bigger deal IMHO.

Well, it's obviously far too late now, but NEU made huge efforts to send out replacement ballots to people who requested one.

Did you not think to chase this up at any point? Or google it? Or speak to your rep? Is your address even correct on the NEU system?

There has been loads posted about when you should have received your ballot and how to get a replacement on social media. At some point people have to take a tiny bit of responsibility for themselves...

BTW, in my region NEU believe they have 54% turnout- which is probably a minimum estimate. Before Christmas we were just under the 50%. We're not a particularly militant region, and have lots of small schools so harder to organise.

I think (hope) that NEU will meet threshold. Our regional president sounds way more confident about this in the last week than he did before Christmas.

I do think the NEU have tried really hard to be organised and go through lots of routes to reach people (although obviously in some cases they have failed) and I know they made huge efforts to send out new ballots to anyone who requested one.

People should ideally take responsibility, I agree.

In the real world though, especially in the run up to Christmas and with kids, a very demanding job, possibly not being very well, possibly other demands on time eg elderly parents or whatever - I can understand them not chasing it. I’m no longer in a union but while I’d like to say I would have chased it I can’t honestly say I would have.

I think if ballots weren’t sent out the unions are more to blame for this than teachers.

It's clear why the government has blocked unions from holding strike ballots electronically.

The ballot would have been sent. However, if it was sent to an old address, or went astray in the post, the union can't be aware of this.

The NEU also made a huge effort to send out a really large number of replacement ballots before Christmas, there was an email address and it would have taken one email to get one.

It was all over social media when to expect your ballot and how to get a replacement, and I know volunteers spent a long time chasing this up. I've even posted about it in the staffroom topic, I think.

What more should the union do? They can't send multiple ballots to each address because then people could return fraudulent ballots...

Fair enough @Postapocalypticcowgirl - but people are claiming that they didn’t receive theirs. I’ve no idea whether because they didn’t bother to update their details or not. If they didn’t the onus is on them. But if it just didn’t get sent out for whatever reason and they didn’t chase it - I can understand that.

well, there have been massive postal strikes, many people never received their ballot papers, and who knows how many of the ones that got posted back actually arrived.

I am still getting Christmas cards