Secondary school lack of teachers spiralling out of control

[noblegiraffe]

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/

@ArseInTheCoOpWindow spot on. I would add to that we need to value the educators of our children, from Earky Yrars through to HE. Get rid of the 'them Vs us' mentality of teacher bashing. Celebrate and value the education of ALL children and thereby fund appropriately.
Abolish Ofsted and replace with local inspectors who are allocated several schools in their area to work long term WITH schools/colleges/ITPs, supported by innovative thinkers and academics to introduce new pedagogies which are centered around the child.
Move the burden of proof away from paperwork and onto pupil and parent feedback and judge success based on children who are happy, engaged and exquisitive. You can easily gauge this through a series of informal observations throughout the year + online surveys etc.
Empower Head Teachrmers to implement a curriculum that works for their school + community rather than a National Curticulum which just saps innovation and creativity. Obviously there will be mandatory levels of English, Maths + digital skills but outside that let teachers teach what they want.

I’m a science tech who regularly gets asked why I’m not a teacher. Chemistry applications are up this year as The Royal Society of Chemistry is paying an additional bursary, husband suggested I trained for the 2 years just for the money. I work with a fab team, but we’ve had non specialist teaching part of the science curriculum for year 7. Those classes are miles behind in content and achievement of those that have full time specialists.

out of our 3 ECTs one is qualifying only to leave for a non teaching job…… We’ve recruited and then had people withdraw. Recruitment in all departments is tough.

Who is voting IABU and why?

FFS auto correct 🙄
Inquisitive
Early Years
Teachers

Quite simply they need to reduce workload. Teachers have never been bothered about being high earners. For many it’s a vocation and a way of life. But workload has become excessive to the point where no salary would be enough. Teachers are leaving in droves because of it, and usually leaving for jobs that pay the same or less but have a 40 hour work week.

It used to be the case that teaching didn’t pay loads but it was cushy with good holidays that fitted around parenting, and you got a good pension. Now that contract has been broken - it’s still low paid but no longer has the non-financial payoffs to compensate. Workload has increased way beyond the workload of a normal job, and as soon as new teachers realise that they bugger off.

Funding.

Funding to allow teachers more than 3 free periods a week to plan the 22 lesson they teach, to mark the work and deal with the mountains of admin.

Funding to pay for support staff so that your average teacher isn't dealing with the mental health issues at one end of the building whilst the few and far between pastoral staff are dealing with the carnage from a fight at lunch.

Funding to fix the toilet leaking into the office next door to me. Or to replace the laptops that overheat on your lap as they have to always be plugged in. Or so we can stop reducing or food budget to feed students, students who get less and less at home.

Funding to pay for the payrise teaching and support staff deserve. To attracctbwpople to the profession. It doesn't matter if some people think we get enough and should be happy, the fact is we are paid significantly less than 12 years ago for doing significantly more. Every year is my hardest year to date. I work more and more hours with less to show for it. From September a person in Scotland will be paid more than £16000 a year more than me on the same paypoint. That is simply insulting.

Recruitment is also being shafted because graduates can get jobs where they work from home.

So not only are they looking at more pay elsewhere, but reduced commuting time/costs.

Flexible working in schools is a joke. We lose a lot of women around parenting age despite the holidays because trying to get part time work with a reasonable schedule is incredibly hard. Schools won’t recruit part timers because they need to fill as much of the timetable as possible so only advertise full time. When they do allow people to go part time in secondary it’s with ridiculous strings attached like not having any full days off but a patchwork timetable, or not being allowed to apply for promoted posts, or in primary still being expected to plan and assess for the days not worked and having the same responsibilities including subject leadership as full timers.

This needs to be tackled.

But the first thing the govt needs to start doing is treating teachers like professionals and an asset instead of like naughty children who need bringing into line, and sort the bloody pay negotiations.

I meant to quote a PP there who asked what can the government do to solve it.

I'm a bit bleary eyed 😂

DD's y11, having to teach herself some subjects, can't recruit maths teachers looking at overseas recruitment but having to pay more due to visas etc, the stress on teachers there to cover and keep things going is immense so lots off sick. It's grim. The constant supply teachers and changes meant my DS couldn't cope and they couldn't meet his needs as they just don't have enough staff- so we have withdrawn him from school. Have employed some amazing teachers to teach him who have left schools and set up on their own and he now does his learning online - and we are not paying vast amounts discussed on a private school thread recently . To have small class sizes and outstanding teachers who are going to turn up for every lesson and actually have time to get to know him has been great and he is making far more progress than he did at school - and so much happier and the teachers appear to be so to.

There seems to be vast numbers of both teachers and children unhappy in schools and leaving - we just need a complete rethink.

Some schools are paying private tutors hundreds and hundreds of pounds a day for online lessons/tuition/resources/intense revision sessions because they don't have a single specialist subject teacher in school any more.
I work in a top school and the staff turnover the past few years is ridiculous. We are struggling to recruit. We've had to get a teacher for a core subject from abroad this year.
Even good schools are struggling with pupil behaviour when it wasn't an issue previously. Due to the lockdowns/home learning but also endless supply/inexperienced teachers.
We have not had a decent trainee teacher in years. They are immature, don't have the subject knowledge, lack social skills, mental health problems, unprofessional, you name it.

Many schools are plugging the gaps with unqualified teachers and TAs but it's not always an easy option.

My DD school has already sent out communications to parent regarding the difficulty they are facing recruiting science teachers and my other child is on his 5th language teacher since starting year 11. One of his science teachers used to run between two classes teaching both at the same time and he came in on Monday to be told she’s left…if this was her own decision then I can’t blame her. He’s dropped grades and we’ve had to pay for tutors to get him through his GCSEs but I doubt he will get the grades he should be getting owing to all the disruption he and his year group have faced.

Who'd be a teacher these days though? I hear so many horror stories. Thing is, we could do all we could to successfully recruit enough teachers but if there aren't enough resources for them to do a proper job, if they aren't fairly remunerated and if they have to endure dreadful treatment from pupils and parents then they'll soon leave.

The societal issues that cause poor behaviour from pupils and parents alike would take an age to fix, if ever. Of course, some challenging behaviours are caused by mental health problems, ASD, ADHD etc. These areas need more NHS funding along with more specialist training for educators, more specialist school places, more TAs....I really do sympathise with teachers having to deal with things that aren't 'naughty' but still disruptive. Having to see children in the most awful distress but not being able to do a thing about it. Then there's the children themselves, not getting their needs met and not getting the education they deserve. Being forced to sit for hours in an environment which is clearly unsuitable.

Recruitment is one thing, retention is quite another.

It’s desperate - I have a Y9 and a Y10 and I’m counting the seconds until they leave school. They have endless supply teachers - it’s a fucking mess.

Behaviour is shocking and the “my kids can do no wrong” brigade swells by the day. I left teaching 3 years ago and no pay rise on the planet would tempt me back 😩.

Not only are there not enough trainees coming through, the ones that are want to be cosseted through the whole process: not do any of their own planning; barely teach lessons; only want positive feedback. My training and 1st year were probably the hardest 2 years of my entire career (and I was blessed with 2 non sleeping babies in later years), but I learned my craft. And I learned to be resilient.

The only, only positive I can for low rates of new teachers is that they might start to value the older expensive ones. Especially as we are struggling to recruit in our dept for the second year running. And until recently, we have been a bit of a glut subject. But that's probably hopelessly optimistic.

My son's history lessons are being taught by an English supply teacher. It does worry me.

I’m a science teacher >10 years - PGCE student teachers have to be supervised during their training year esp. for science practicals so they don’t become useful as such until they reach end of first year because there are two bodies in the lesson. The PGCEs get assigned to other teachers’ classes (no year11) and slowly progress from watching to teaching bits of a lesson and if they are any good they’ll be teaching classes for the entire lesson by Christmas. They still need to be observed and monitored and have decent feedback throughout. It’s hard work - the main reason for the high drop out rate. Forgive me if someone else has written this - it’s taken me ages to type!

Hopefully the likes of Oak Academy and AI will come to the rescue.

The minorty of kids and parents make life unbearable for teachers. No amount of money will solve that.

Hopefully the likes of Oak Academy and AI will come to the rescue.

Like they did during the pandemic?

Surely people have learned by now that kids need teachers.

Agreed ! I work
in an inner city comp. A level students sat all day in study area as no teachers tof business or computer science.
The cover teachers are useless the kids are demoralised, parents call me up desperate for their kids exams which are looming.
Not one applicant, its a sorry state to be in,..

Shout out for the science technicians. Worth their weight in gold but we really struggle to recruit good ones (as they get paid a pittance).

But no-one wants to be a teacher. Just read the threads on here about why teachers are leaving. It is mainly because of the kids and parents.

Right now!!!! I have been made to teach maths!!!!

I can barely add up!!!

lessons are planned for me thank god!!!

And I think this is a really key issue - schools need to start being more flexible and offering part time hours, looking at different ways of working if we are to retain teachers. It is not only pay that can make the profession more attractive.

We've seen the same. The general quality of trainees is appalling. We have managed to fail one but it took massive safeguarding concerns to be able to do so. The universities usually push back so hard if we try to fail the ones who genuinely do not have what it takes to be a teacher that it is impossible to do so.

Agree. I'm in charge of initial teacher training at my school and the quality of trainees is dire. Despite this the vast majority end up qualifying.

The universities make it very difficult for schools to fail trainees. They have to be seriously bad! However, if these teachers didn't qualify there'd be no teachers at all!

Unless something changes, we are going to end up with less qualified teachers - the whole profession is being devalued. This is the main reason I'm striking at the moment.