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Secondary school lack of teachers spiralling out of control

452 replies

noblegiraffe · 27/04/2023 18:36

The govt released its targets for PGCE trainees for Sept 23 today and dear god we are in trouble.

The projection is that we will recruit less than half the number of secondary trainees that the sector needs. 47%.

We only recruited 59% of what was needed last year.

Jack Worth of the National Foundation for Education Research tweeted “Without an urgent policy response to make teaching more attractive, schools will face increasingly intense shortages over the next few years, which are likely to impact negatively on the quality of education.”

It looks like all subjects will miss their targets by a lot, except History, Classics (they all head off to private schools) and PE.

And today I hear of PE teachers handing in their notice because they are being expected to teach science instead.

On a thread a poster just commented that their child had to stop learning Spanish partway though the year as there was no teacher.

At my school, A-level students who have lost their teacher have had to continue by teaching themselves the course.

Parents of kids in secondary school, or approaching secondary school age: things are about to get a lot worse than they already are.

And still the government refuse to come to the negotiating table to try to fix this. What exactly is their plan? They don't have one. More and more kids will not have teachers.

https://schoolsweek.co.uk/dfe-on-course-to-recruit-less-than-half-of-required-secondary-teachers/

Secondary school lack of teachers spiralling out of control
OP posts:
Thread gallery
7
noblegiraffe · 10/06/2023 21:01

What has being left wing got to do with anything? Teachers spend the vast majority of their time with the kids, not with their colleagues.

OP posts:
PumpkinPie2016 · 10/06/2023 21:05

It is shocking at the moment. I am a secondary science HoD.

Last year, I was HoD in a good school, in a decent ish area, albeit in a town that is known to be deprived. I didn't have a full team for the whole year - mix of long and short term absences for various reasons and two staff on maternity leave. Could not get supply, of any description, let alone specialist, for love nor money. I lost count of the amount of timetable reshuffles I did to try to minimise disruption. Myself and my TLR holders took on extra lessons, but ended up totally frazzled because of it. In the end, we had to combine classes on some days. It was hideously stressful and understandably, both kids and parents were unhappy.

I made a sideways move to a new school in the same town. Currently fully staffed but even recruiting this year was hard! I am under no illusions that it won't be easy as the department grows, especially as we serve a deprived community, with 40% PP.

I know two good schools locally who are without science HoDs despite multiple adverts. One private school not far away has advertised twice for a Physics teacher with no luck. Several schools locally are advertising posts multiple times, unable to fill them. Not just science and maths either but History, Geography, MFL, English, DT and computer science!

I don't think many people realise just how bad it is.

Countdown2023 · 10/06/2023 22:00

It is telling when a school is advertising hod job and a full-time/part teacher post eg please anyone apply

TizerorFizz · 10/06/2023 22:30

@noblegiraffe Because it’s wearing. It does make a difference if the majority of people you work with aren’t like you and you don’t identify with them. Teaching is never a lone activity. It’s a team game! The best schools have staff that gel and build something great. They buy into the ethos snd support each other. Politics divides. Some people simply don’t like all the complaining and politics that seem to be present in many schools. Or so it seems. Although I do believe some teachers love teaching and do not want to do anything else.

noblegiraffe · 10/06/2023 22:43

Some people simply don’t like all the complaining and politics that seem to be present in many schools. Or so it seems.

That isn't why people are leaving teaching. 'My colleagues are too left wing' isn't coming up in the surveys.

Genuine concerns about the actual job. Workload, behaviour, stress, scrutiny, unrealistic expectations, pay.

OP posts:
ArseInTheCoOpWindow · 10/06/2023 23:30

WA won’t have this issue but the type of stem grad that wants to work with striking left wing teachers is limited. So the best academic schools get the teachers. Longer holidays and a lifestyle choice

We had plenty of stem grads in my school wanting to work with left wing striking teachers. The best academic schools don’t always get the teachers. Because they then own them lock stock and barrel. I know no one who went from state to private and stayed.

ArseInTheCoOpWindow · 10/06/2023 23:33

Because it’s wearing. It does make a difference if the majority of people you work with aren’t like you and you don’t identify with them. Teaching is never a lone activity. It’s a team game! The best schools have staff that gel and build something great. They buy into the ethos snd support each other. Politics divides. Some people simply don’t like all the complaining and politics that seem to be present in many schools.

What gelled myself and my colleagues was hated of this government, I’ve yet to meet a right wing teacher. I know they exist, but everyone l ever worked with were very left wing, and would unite and ‘gel’ around this. It’s what made us a team.

ThrallsWife · 11/06/2023 07:51

@TizerorFizz You have it backwards.

The very vast majority of teachers will tell you that they love teaching. I do, have done it for 20 years now and can easily see myself going for another 15 before considering something else.

What grinds people down are behaviour and ridiculous expectations.

Behaviour won't get better until you get teachers to stay in teaching again. At the moment the kids are so used to someone turning up for a day or a few weeks, promising they'll stay, and then letting them down. The kids do not have trust in staff in most schools I have worked in for this reason and behave accordingly; you see that they are completely different with the staff that have been there for 3+ years, regardless of that staff member's ability to teach.

A decently-led school backs teachers over parents, so that's not that much of an issue. The best heads I've known have put the phone down on parents with the words "These are the rules, if you don't like it then maybe we are not the right school for you".

How do you get the best heads and leaders? You take experienced staff who fancy the challenge and train them up, ideally in-house. Kids and staff respond much better to someone who already knows them well than a fresh face. They already know the ins and outs of the school and its vision.

Here is the catch: Because of the ridiculous expectations of the government and, increasingly, parents, any of the above rarely happens.

The pressure to get results which increase year on year regardless of circumstances or the sheer impossibility of this, statistically, and which are tied in directly with the job of the head and some SLT, means that pressure is put on students and staff to get the results by any means necessary. Keeping as many kids in lessons regardless of disruiption, so that even the disruptive kids get, perhaps, a grade 1. An expectation of before- and after-school revision, with some thrown in at lunchtime and therefore little to no prep time for teachers. Persistent scrutinies fo work and pressure on teachers do squeeze more out of the kids. Nothing ever being enough. And because there is no funding or time for training, managers don't know how to manage. Some staff are pressured into management jobs without the passion for it and SLT roles change sometimes yearly to plug gaps - why is a behaviour lead one year suddenly in charge of teaching and learning?

The expecation that schools teach everything. Instead of tutor time being about ensuring students are equipped and nipping any social issues in the bud, tutors now have to teach - usually PSHE, reading (because parents read less and less with children) and extra Maths in the mornings. Schools are expected to show formal lessons to teach skills like resilience and team work when those skills should partially come from home and partially from social times.

But social times are cut short, because schools need the time to squeeze in extra lessons and because financial constraints mean that they need more students than a school can physically hold. So you try to get 1200 students through the canteen in 40min and they barely have time to see their friends before they need to move back into lessons and schools have to actively teach something you cannot teach in an artificial environment. And as for resilience, and over-emphasis on mental health now means that students must never experience failure and increasingly they don't try a second time at all.

The over-emphasis on mental health happened under Blair, too - I remember sports days where pupils were handed a meaningless certificate for participation and where we weren't allowed to celebrate winners lest some others feel left out. We went back to common sense for a bit, but now it's taken off again and this generation's issues are taken even more to the extreme.

Now students are permitted to leave or skip lessons if they experience anxiety in them, now students frequently have toileting issues because they couldn't possibly wait 20min to go (in secondary; I'd have more understanding for a 4-y.o.), now students are in school with weighted blankets, annoying fidget toys of which they have a choice of 10, now staff are called in to mediate between students when they fall out with their friends. There used to be a time when most of the above would have been preposterous to even suggest.

Yes, part of that is a SEND issue, too, which brings us back to ridiculous expectations: that schools educate students who should not be in mainstream, and that both teachers and other students are frequently in situations, which are neither safe, nor are they fair on students who miss out on teacher support when said teacher has to deal with student X 20min in every lesson. Lack of money means no LSA support, so more work and more of a feeling that you fail the rest of the class because of this one student, or sometimes 5.

And then, let's finish on funding. Schools have less and less money, proportionally, to fulfill all of the current expectations on them. They have to not only pay their staff, but also pay to feed kids who are not fed at home, pay to entice kids to be in school (attendance rewards), pay for frequent behaviour issues due to the above (several thousands a year on fixing vandalised toilets and doors are now normal), pay for new equipment (part of which frequently gets stolen, curtesy of tik toc trends), pay for equipment for kids whose parents refuse to let them carry so much as a pen on them, pay for trips and fund them for kids whose parents cannot or will not pay, fund clubs, which are expected as part of the ever-increasing expectation that we use school as full-time childcare, pay for energy on business rates, pay for refurbishments of things like roofs which they can then only get done during certain times, increasing the price etc. etc.

Teachers don't strike because they're left-wing. Teachers don't leave because they're left-wing. Teachers leave because they can have a much easier life on the same pay, if not more, without being ground down and made to feel like a failure daily because of all of the above.

AmenAmin · 11/06/2023 08:00

I used to teach. If someone said to me ‘ here’s a teaching job, as long as you ensure good progress we won’t check what time you leave or monitor much’ I’d be back. It used to be like that. Pupils made expected or exceeded progress, I left about 3:30 to see my own children (caught up in the evening) and people didn’t formally monitor me. Just popped in occasionally in a friendly way. No behaviour issues left the room, no parental issues so no one looked for any.
I can do that well, teach and get on with people. I cannot jump through all the hoops and paperwork of an academy trust.

Saltovinegar · 11/06/2023 08:29

Excellent post ThrallsWife

noblegiraffe · 11/06/2023 08:34

Yes. The idea that teachers are the reason why teachers are quitting, or why people don't want to be teachers, given the vast and well-documented issues with the job is just an attempt at teacher-bashing.

OP posts:
Countdown2023 · 11/06/2023 08:38

@ThrallsWife good post 👏

thatsn0tmyname · 11/06/2023 09:03

Well said, ThrallsWife. Please send a copy to our latest Minister for Education.

Appuskidu · 11/06/2023 09:07

An excellent summary, @ThrallsWife .

Suggesting that the recruitment/retention problems in education are caused by teachers moaning is laughable.

Tadpolle · 11/06/2023 09:19

ThrallsWife · 11/06/2023 07:51

@TizerorFizz You have it backwards.

The very vast majority of teachers will tell you that they love teaching. I do, have done it for 20 years now and can easily see myself going for another 15 before considering something else.

What grinds people down are behaviour and ridiculous expectations.

Behaviour won't get better until you get teachers to stay in teaching again. At the moment the kids are so used to someone turning up for a day or a few weeks, promising they'll stay, and then letting them down. The kids do not have trust in staff in most schools I have worked in for this reason and behave accordingly; you see that they are completely different with the staff that have been there for 3+ years, regardless of that staff member's ability to teach.

A decently-led school backs teachers over parents, so that's not that much of an issue. The best heads I've known have put the phone down on parents with the words "These are the rules, if you don't like it then maybe we are not the right school for you".

How do you get the best heads and leaders? You take experienced staff who fancy the challenge and train them up, ideally in-house. Kids and staff respond much better to someone who already knows them well than a fresh face. They already know the ins and outs of the school and its vision.

Here is the catch: Because of the ridiculous expectations of the government and, increasingly, parents, any of the above rarely happens.

The pressure to get results which increase year on year regardless of circumstances or the sheer impossibility of this, statistically, and which are tied in directly with the job of the head and some SLT, means that pressure is put on students and staff to get the results by any means necessary. Keeping as many kids in lessons regardless of disruiption, so that even the disruptive kids get, perhaps, a grade 1. An expectation of before- and after-school revision, with some thrown in at lunchtime and therefore little to no prep time for teachers. Persistent scrutinies fo work and pressure on teachers do squeeze more out of the kids. Nothing ever being enough. And because there is no funding or time for training, managers don't know how to manage. Some staff are pressured into management jobs without the passion for it and SLT roles change sometimes yearly to plug gaps - why is a behaviour lead one year suddenly in charge of teaching and learning?

The expecation that schools teach everything. Instead of tutor time being about ensuring students are equipped and nipping any social issues in the bud, tutors now have to teach - usually PSHE, reading (because parents read less and less with children) and extra Maths in the mornings. Schools are expected to show formal lessons to teach skills like resilience and team work when those skills should partially come from home and partially from social times.

But social times are cut short, because schools need the time to squeeze in extra lessons and because financial constraints mean that they need more students than a school can physically hold. So you try to get 1200 students through the canteen in 40min and they barely have time to see their friends before they need to move back into lessons and schools have to actively teach something you cannot teach in an artificial environment. And as for resilience, and over-emphasis on mental health now means that students must never experience failure and increasingly they don't try a second time at all.

The over-emphasis on mental health happened under Blair, too - I remember sports days where pupils were handed a meaningless certificate for participation and where we weren't allowed to celebrate winners lest some others feel left out. We went back to common sense for a bit, but now it's taken off again and this generation's issues are taken even more to the extreme.

Now students are permitted to leave or skip lessons if they experience anxiety in them, now students frequently have toileting issues because they couldn't possibly wait 20min to go (in secondary; I'd have more understanding for a 4-y.o.), now students are in school with weighted blankets, annoying fidget toys of which they have a choice of 10, now staff are called in to mediate between students when they fall out with their friends. There used to be a time when most of the above would have been preposterous to even suggest.

Yes, part of that is a SEND issue, too, which brings us back to ridiculous expectations: that schools educate students who should not be in mainstream, and that both teachers and other students are frequently in situations, which are neither safe, nor are they fair on students who miss out on teacher support when said teacher has to deal with student X 20min in every lesson. Lack of money means no LSA support, so more work and more of a feeling that you fail the rest of the class because of this one student, or sometimes 5.

And then, let's finish on funding. Schools have less and less money, proportionally, to fulfill all of the current expectations on them. They have to not only pay their staff, but also pay to feed kids who are not fed at home, pay to entice kids to be in school (attendance rewards), pay for frequent behaviour issues due to the above (several thousands a year on fixing vandalised toilets and doors are now normal), pay for new equipment (part of which frequently gets stolen, curtesy of tik toc trends), pay for equipment for kids whose parents refuse to let them carry so much as a pen on them, pay for trips and fund them for kids whose parents cannot or will not pay, fund clubs, which are expected as part of the ever-increasing expectation that we use school as full-time childcare, pay for energy on business rates, pay for refurbishments of things like roofs which they can then only get done during certain times, increasing the price etc. etc.

Teachers don't strike because they're left-wing. Teachers don't leave because they're left-wing. Teachers leave because they can have a much easier life on the same pay, if not more, without being ground down and made to feel like a failure daily because of all of the above.

👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼Brilliant post.

Fatpotato · 11/06/2023 09:29

To the person who said a teacher retiring at 58 would get a full final salary pension scheme: anyone under the age of 61 will not now be able to retire with a full final salary pension as the scheme changed. They have to wait until they are 67, and then it is a career average pension.

CurlyhairedAssassin · 11/06/2023 09:33

Oh, @ThrallsWife , that is every problem of our modern education system listed in a nutshell. Superb post. I am not a teacher but have observed first hand working in 2 different schools (secondary then primary) for the last 14 years everything you describe in your post and it’s heartbreaking to see it getting worse and worse by the year. To say I feel for teachers is an understatement. Even as a non teacher I feel the stress and pressure of ridiculous expectations with limited resources so god only knows what teachers must be going through.

I really really fear for our education system. It’s on the point of implosion.

JaffavsCookie · 11/06/2023 09:46

@ThrallsWife yes, every bloody word of what you have written

PrivateSchoolTeacherParent · 11/06/2023 09:48

Fatpotato · 11/06/2023 09:29

To the person who said a teacher retiring at 58 would get a full final salary pension scheme: anyone under the age of 61 will not now be able to retire with a full final salary pension as the scheme changed. They have to wait until they are 67, and then it is a career average pension.

It's a really complex situation. Many teachers who are nearing retirement will have contributions to both schemes (and there are two different versions of the Final Salary section depending on when they started). The McCloud judgement could also shift 7 years f contributions from Career Average back to Final Salary for many. (Of course there would be an actuarial reduction if leaving before NPA, but that's different for each of the three schemes.)

TizerorFizz · 11/06/2023 09:48

@ThrallsWife Agree with quite a bit of what you say. However a lot of this is down to SLT. Government never enshrined in law the “prizes to all” ethos. It was a decision by schools. You have not been able to suggest a child goes to another school and encourage them to leave for decades. I worked on exclusion protocols back in the day! How schools manage behaviour and support teachers is down to them.

Maybe SLTs are poor. I would agree they are undertrained. However moving schools adds to expertise and experience.

As for schools being entirely Labour voting as mentioned by another poster, this is why they won’t recruit from the largest pool of teachers. I don’t see the advantage of this. Around me, it’s a very Tory area. It’s inconceivable teachers all vote Labour.

Schools do not have to be social workers. It’s not mandated that they must provide extra food. Expectations of parents do not have to be met. Why childcare? Get contractors in if you want. Don’t allow parents to dictate to SLT.

SEND provision has been inadequate for decades too. That is the area where more money is desperately needed. However needs have grown like topsy. It’s difficult to see how they can be met.

PrivateSchoolTeacherParent · 11/06/2023 09:48

@ThrallsWife Excellent post, thank you! 👏

noblegiraffe · 11/06/2023 09:55

Fatpotato · 11/06/2023 09:29

To the person who said a teacher retiring at 58 would get a full final salary pension scheme: anyone under the age of 61 will not now be able to retire with a full final salary pension as the scheme changed. They have to wait until they are 67, and then it is a career average pension.

The pension they accrued up till Gove is based on final salary, anything after is career average, right?

OP posts:
Fatpotato · 11/06/2023 10:08

@noblegiraffe it may be but a teacher wouldn't be able to properly retire and receive their pension until they are 67. I know this because I was able to get my pension at 60 due to my birthdate but someone 6 months younger has to wait another 7 years. There was a recent ruling on this so it may have changed but I remember the anger in the staffroom, particularly among those many teachers who voted Conservative. To the writer who suggests teachers are left wing: i taught from the early 80s and the profession was incredibly Conservative in outlook. I remember colleagues telling me to vote for Thatcher because of the opportunities available for share ownership, etc. Cameron/Gove etc changed all that, so if teachers are now left wing, the government can only blame itself.

PrivateSchoolTeacherParent · 11/06/2023 10:14

@Fatpotato Purely on the pension - I agree with you on the politics! Older teachers will now be in schemes with a mix of "normal pension ages" of 60, 65, and 67. They will not get full pension until 67, but in some cases (those in early/mid 50s), and if the McCloud judgment is properly applied, nearly all of their pension will be made up of Final Salary NPA60.

Postapocalypticcowgirl · 11/06/2023 10:15

DonnaDonna0 · 10/06/2023 20:52

@MrsHamlet I appreciate it’s difficult but we all have to start at the bottom and we need more teachers. They don’t get trained adequately then we are just going to keep going round in a circle, although that doesn’t mean the current overworked teachers need take up all the slack. Maybe the government need to go further to get these now ECF’s (QTS in old money) fully up and running

The ECT framework is a relatively new idea, introduced in 2021. The idea was to combat the number of teachers leaving very early career by giving them more support.

The problem was the overall impact on the wider school doesn't seem to have been fully looked at, and I think it also wasn't considered how part timers would play into this.

Being an ECT mentor is a lot more time consuming than being an NQT mentor. Under the old system, it was relatively easy to be an NQT mentor, so a lot of experienced teachers were happy to do it. ECT is a lot more demanding, similar to being a PGCE mentor.

As a result, I have colleagues who've said they would do one or the other not both, or they can only mentor 1/2 ECTs max. I also know HoDs who used to mentor NQTs who've found they can't meet the demand of mentoring ECTs. Also, due to the time needed for mentors, some HoDs want to limit the number of ECTs in their department, because otherwise they can't cover all their lessons!

Therefore it becomes a balancing act for schools- ECTs are cheap, but they are more of a hassle. If someone who is a third or fourth year teacher applies, they are less of a hassle to take on, and still relatively inexpensive.

I have seen situations where HoDs have chosen to readvertise, rather than appoint an ECT- I'm not sure it's always a sensible decision, but I can understand why they do it.

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