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?

And typically, in the scenario above, less than half the time worked is actually of benefit to students

@Suprima
im with you there! 😑

Pay actually had a lot to do with it for me

When I was a young, single teacher- I hated that I was taking home less money than my graduate friends but working more hours, not having a lunch break, no perks like flexi time. Minus the shit hot lawyer, none of them are ill with stress like I was. The holidays ended up looking like normal standard annual leave allowance once my prep was deducted.

I maxed out main pay scale in my late twenties. My leadership responsibilities and all of that admin brought it a marvellous £45 extra a month.

I’m masters educated with a ton of transferrable skills. I am lucky that I can afford to take some time out due to my husband’s wage, and now I’m upskilling as much as I can and going to jump into a new sector where I will be paid fairly for my stress levels.

In primary, lot of my colleagues were the first to go to university in their families and tended to be the most educated out of their friends. They honestly felt like £30k was an insane amount of money compared to their parents or friends on zero hour contracts.

For them, yes it was- but I felt pretty short-changed knowing some friends were (by their own admission) getting paid 10k more to refresh Twitter and play beer pong.

It’s pay and workload. Maybe pay OR workload?

I would much rather work the way teaching was in the 90s when I first started. No lesson objectives, no target setting, ticks/crosses where appropriate for marking, no PMR, no curriculum progression maps, no high stakes lesson observations, you had text books and QCA units of work which were encouraged! The introduction of PPA and mentality of, ‘oh just do it in your PPA’ was very damaging as it doubled the expected workload. I would also force the government to implement a free phonics scheme (Letters and Sounds?!) that schools could use rather than forcing them to buy a massively expensive one off a state sanctioned list of approved ones which could just be removed next year after you’ve paid for it. We have spent thousands on a scheme this year and lots two LSAs to pay for it. Who owns those publishers? The cynic in me says it’s a Tory donor?!

Scrapping all of that (and probably more) would be my preference. I want to arrive at 8.10 and leave at 4.30 in the knowledge of a job well done. I also want a TA all day so I can run interventions to support those that need it. I want to reform/scrap Ofsted as well.

If I can’t have those things and am expected to work 11 hour days, and all of those things are absolutely compulsory and must be done, then it becomes a pay issue. Teachers need to be paid a similar salary to other people working those hours.

Pay or workload…One or the other…?

I worked in state Ed for 10 years but have spent a little longer in the independent sector. If I had to go back to state Ed, I would leave teaching. I have a few friends who teach in the state sector and whilst I think I work hard (and I'm always tired) they are perpetually exhausted. The children I teach are mainly very well behaved and we have support for the SEN pupils. My friends on the other hand deal with massive behaviour issues every lesson and there are not enough resources for children with their variety of needs.

Pay is not an issue for me (I earn what I would earn in state and not a penny more) but appalling behaviour, massive classes and unsupportive management (inexperienced) and parents is why I will never set foot in a state school. I’m an experienced teacher, get good results from a variety of classes (always did in state schools too) and I am the sort of teacher which state comps need. It’s conditions not pay which prevents me going back.

@Shinyandnew1 great post. I started teaching in 1985 and it was a good job then.

We had this but were only offered £30- my friend who also tutored GCSE and A-level at that time said her going rate was £50, and she would do it for the commercial rate.

I refused because I wanted to offer revision sessions open to all, and I couldn't do both.

I taught secondary for 38 years, enjoyed the challenge, rose to a senior position and felt I’d sent students out into the world well equipped.
Sadly, there is no way on Earth that I would become a teacher today. There is huge disrespect for every aspect of the profession, I find this very sad.

Nearly 30 vacancies in my LA being advertised right now, over 1/3 are maths or science vacancies with languages next most common. This is the norm now, at any time of year and I'd expect it to increase as schools start recruiting for September.

Some of these vacancies have been unfilled since September- it seems like there currently aren't enough teachers to fill all the empty posts. And given ITT recruitment was so poor this year (and the drop out rate is anecdotally high, I would love to see some stats on that!), I can't see that changing.

I would much rather work the way teaching was in the 90s when I first started. No lesson objectives, no target setting, ticks/crosses where appropriate for marking, no PMR, no curriculum progression maps, no high stakes lesson observations, you had text books and QCA units of work which were encouraged!

It was a different world! And the question is, have all those changes been worth it? Have they brought about a massive increase in students' achievement levels, commensurate with the increase they have brought about in teachers' workloads?

I would say not!

We now have a mass exodus of teachers fleeing the profession and huge numbers of children with mental health difficulties and school refusers.

I left two years ago after 14 years in the job. I do not miss it.

@Shinyandnew1 I disagree with your point and I actually can't stand this attitude where teachers don't want to adapt to new ways and methods.

I've been teaching for 5 years and I'm HOD with a mixture of ECTs and very experienced teachers (10years+). It's actually the ECTs whose classes are making the most progress, because they are using more 'modern' ways of teaching. The behaviour in their classes is also much better than those who are just reading/lecturing off a PowerPoint as those students are simply not engaged in the lesson.

How are you supposed to measure outcomes without learning objectives?

Teaching with just a whiteboard pen and textbook only works if you have a top set class with good concentration levels and genuine interest in your subject.

I could bang on about atomic structure to a top set year 11 triple class for an hour, but my bottom set would run riot.

🤦‍♀️ You're 5 years in.

Reading off a powerpoint isn't old-fashioned teaching, it's just crap teaching, and it would have been crap when people first started using powerpoint too. Which wasn't actually that long ago.

I know what I want my children to learn and can tell if they have by the end of the lesson. They don’t need to waste time copying down or sticking in a learning objective beforehand.

I don’t teach by reading off PowerPoints either. I didn’t have a computer or a whiteboard in my classroom either when I started teaching.

I didn’t have a computer or a whiteboard in my classroom either when I started teaching.

So no one apart from your top set must have learned anything until the invention of powerpoint?

I’m frankly amazed I wasn’t sacked.

I teach all students without a PowerPoint and often without a board pen. God knows how they learn anything.

I'm Lead Practitioner.

Some ECTs are great. Others aren’t. Some ‘modern’ teaching methods are good. Some are fads. Sometimes more experienced staff are lazy. Sometimes they’ve just seen it all before (without reaping benefits in line with effort) or they just don’t have the time/energy/inclination to work 50+hr weeks to keep up with the initiative(s).

I think it’s naive to just dismiss those that look back at when they felt teaching was easier. There’s probably things that they got right then even if some of it was also terrible.

Workload is often crazy in schools. Other workplaces are usu more flexible. Pay has been eroded. We can’t just (at policy/SLT level) continue to plough ahead with the progress narrative if it is alienating/not attracting teachers. Without good/experienced staff, as a profession we lack so much and students/remaining staff lose out.

I totally empathise if you’ve personally come up with a lot of resistance/cynicism but we should be championing a way forward that facilitates well-being, where colleagues don’t burn out and therefore students, communities, teachers and support staff all benefit.

Teaching with just a whiteboard pen and textbook only works if you have a top set class with good concentration levels and genuine interest in your subject.

Well that’s funny, because I did it successfully for years with students of all abilities and both they and I mostly enjoyed it. You need to get out of your comfort zone and learn to engage with them.

My last post was a reply to @gimmeabreakplease … somehow quote didn’t work 🙄

Anyone else amused at a teacher of just 5 years' standing, lecturing others who've been doing it for a great deal longer?

I’m in that statistic. Secondary. Workload and behaviour were my reasons. The few lovely kids doesn’t outweigh the daily battle and isolation.

I also still don’t understand why every teacher in every school has to plan, deliver and mark a completely unique lesson. Yes, yes I KNOW ‘every class is unique, blah blah’ etc etc but children up and down the country are learning the same national curriculum but all delivered in a million different ways. Children aren’t that different.

One Nordic country (can’t remember which one but a high performing one) has a single national set of lessons with accompanying high quality resources. Teachers spend longer training but this curriculum is taught in every school the same way coast to coast. SEND kids get taught exactly the same but with additional support. Their educational attainment is up there in the highest scores in the world.

Surely that model would give uk teachers their weekends back and improve morale?

We need more nurture and SEMH support for those pupils that can’t cope in a standard classroom and much smaller class sizes overall.

But unfortunately all the academisation push-through has done is make education all about how cheaply it can delivered. Rather than how valuable it is for the pupils and staff in those communities. It’s only going to get worse. Im
glad I left.

Dear lord, 5 years and think they know it all, and then they wonder why experienced teachers leave when they're managed by people who have been in the game less time than some of the kids have been in the school 🤣

I teach with a bloody superb newish teacher. 3 years in. Retrained late after having been in business and other jobs. She's the best student I've seen through in 20 years teaching and mentoring PGCE/NQT/ECT and even she isn't arrogant enough to think she knows it all.

Until you can summon up a lesson from your head with just pen and paper/board you aren't there are a teacher. I challenge every trainee to do a no tech lesson. Because not only do you need to be able to do it, I can guarantee your explanation, modelling and scaffolding will be a damn sight better.

I'm not saying you have to have a PowerPoint or that using only a whiteboard and pen is wrong.

I'm saying it isn't the only way of teaching and it doesn't work for current cohorts. It works when your kids can keep up and are interested in your subject.

But my bottom set students couldn't give a flying fuck about half the science curriculum so I can't rely on my pedagogy alone. Most of them have appalling reading ages too so that goes the textbook option. So if I want every student in my class to actually learn something, I need to prep a PowerPoint beforehand that's engaging, uses imagery, plenty of modelling etc etc.

I'm also not negating the notion that it was easier to teach in the 80s. Turning up to your lesson with minimal prep and a textbook, of course it's going to be easier. I can't throw a textbook at my kids and expect them to understand it if they have a reading age of 10.