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?

Yes, but that's an outcome of so few people wanting to do it (and as a pp pointed out us having enough trained teachers in the country to solve the problem, they just wouldn't go back with the state of schools).

If it was a valued job with a reasonable workload, decent pay and functioning external services such as CAMHS it would be competitive and standards of trainees would rise again.

I shouldn't have to waste my time trying to mentor the patently unsuitable though

VAT on independent school fees will push an estimated 90000 kids our of independent school, meaning we need about 90 more schools at a cost of £2-3b each. VAT will bring in c£125m or so.

Is Labour's view right that it'll fund new teachers?

Isn't the real issue that maybe teachers don't feel valued, their career opportunities might be more limited than in standard businesses or some are just not cut out to teach.

Teaching hasn't changed in over 100 years yet look at business, it's unrecognisable. What are we teaching our kids? How are we teaching our kids?

Education needs a complete review, not just costs etc but the fundamentals. Rishi said nothing cos his party can't deal with complexity, they F it up all the time....

@Bagzzz Most private school staff train in the state sector then move. At our place we have a mixture of PGCE then state then private (rare but good generally), people coming from teach first and then unqualified teachers with good degrees that the school puts through training. I think the private sector can more easily accommodate the latter because HODs have more time to train them/bank of resources, often they are the only inexperienced person in a department and the kids are a bit more forgiving behaviour wise, if the person knows their stuff subject wise.

I hate the way that due to finances, older teachers are often completely discredited. Does this happen in many other professions where older (expensive) staff are hounded out due to their cost? You wouldn’t walk into the dentist/operating theatre/cockpit and want the least experienced, cheapest person available, so why is it ok in teaching?!

Teaching hasn't changed in over 100 years

On what basis do you say this?

Well this would be the same stat for all women wouldn't it? Do a third of women become stay at home parents?

I agree with lots of what has been written.
Why on earth would Sunak care?
It is 100% true that experienced older teachers are hounded out because amongst other things they are too expensive.
I know plenty of teachers who no longer work in state schools and who can blame them? Shitty parents, vile pupils and completely useless/spineless SLTs often to blame.

It's yours and DPs choice, its your wedding so you coukd tell them all youre sorting everything and you expect them to work with you.

Have to admit, if I had much time again, I'd elope to Gretna Green, then come home and have a party - as close to Black Tie as poss so I could get great pics.

Can people give me examples of the paperwork/bureaucracy they are having to do? I am secondary SLT and genuinely can't think of paperwork we ask staff to complete which would cause them this stress but perhaps I am being dense. Staff retention and wellbeing is really important at our school so would be interested to compare with others.

All this.

Also everything @Quinoawoman said at 21:02

You're SLT but you can't imagine for example the reams of additional evidence teachers may have to pull together because of a long-held belief that Ofsted inspectors want to see everything written down? There's just one example.

We don't ask teachers to write anything down for Ofsted....

Great, but you're question was..

Can people give me examples of the paperwork/bureaucracy they are having to do?

No, that's not what I mean

According to stats collected by the unions, half of all teacher leave the profession within 5 years.

And the stats for teachers thinking of leaving within the next 5 years, that is almost all.

Well yes but that's why I want to know... We are not asking out staff to do this, and I have worked at the same school for a long time so am genuinely interested in what paperwork teachers are being told to do and why.

Teaching hasn't changed in over 100 years

spat my gin out at that one. You’ve not been near a classroom in 100 years. Clearly.

According to stats collected by the unions, half of all teacher leave the profession within 5 years.
@Nimbostratus100

Any link?

Reasons teachers are leaving:
Workload (untenable amounts and most of it unnecessary)
Low pay
Workload (ridiculous hours)
Lack of respect from pupils
Workload
Lack of respect from parents
Working conditions
Workload
Toxic atmosphere of excessive criticism
Constant guilt at not doing enough
Workload
SEN children thrown into mainstream without support - unfair on all concerned
And finally, workload

Policeman leaving
teachers leaving
nurses leaving
midwives leaving
doctors leaving
nhs allied health professionals leaving
i see a pattern here 🧐🤔🤔🤔

In primary you are expected to be a subject specialist (in smaller schools you can be the subject lead for two or three subjects) and to create multiple policy documents stating impact, implementation and intent in the way a secondary HOD might. So that's one huge raft of paperwork.
Lesson planning
Data - presented in multiple forbade

Don't worry. I'm sure the government will step forward and pledge more money 🤣🤣🤣

and ofsted

Can people give me examples of the paperwork/bureaucracy they are having to do?

The latest incarnation of Ofsted has caused huge amounts of paperwork to be written by subject leads in Primary. Each lead in schools across the country have been spending hours inventing the wheel from scratch writing curriculum progression maps to prepare for Deep Dives. It wasn’t enough for us to say that we teach the National Curriculum!

Whilst in secondary, it is probably more likely that a head of maths actually spends most of their time teaching maths and hopefully has some sort of qualification in it (even a GCSE?!) so a Deep Dive would be familiar territory for them, it’s not like that in Primary. Subject leads are allocated pretty randomly, come with no additional money, and can change yearly. I have led art, music, science and geography. My own degree was in none of those subjects. I don’t even have a GCSE in 3 of them. In smaller schools, teachers can lead 3/4/5 curriculum subjects. The levels of stress with Ofsted approaching, expecting to be able to grill teachers ‘robustly’ in their specialisms, take them on learning walks, expecting very small children to remember what they learnt last year in your subject and how it relates to this year is awful and really not a priority at the moment when absence levels mean we are barely able to cover classes.