Teachers leaving and long term sickness

[Jennybeans401]

Middle moved school last year due to bullying. She settled well into the new school and things have been okay for her.

About 5 weeks ago the lovely, long term TA left the school. The TA worked in dds class, dd liked her a lot and she provided a lot of stability. The class has a lot of children with SEND requirements. The HT hasn't replaced the TA, dd said the class was difficult but she loves the class teacher so tried to get on with it.

The class teacher took sick leave 2 weeks ago, she seemed very stressed and now the class just have a TA from Reception teaching them (no other TAs to support this young lady). The class is very disruptive now, dd can't concentrate and doesn't understand the work anymore.

I spoke to the HT yesterday who said they don't have any other options but to continue like this until the teacher is back.

AIBU to think of moving dd again if the problem doesn't get resolved?

@HereAndNowAgain private schools are also having issues with teacher retention/recruitment

And the leaders still do nothing 🤯

This would be quite unusual, even in an academy. Are you sure this TA isn't a HLTA (Higher Level) and that they are working completely unsupported by other teachers or maybe the leadership team? It's really not good at all, but as others have said, it's reality in schools. I don't know how any future government is going to wave a magic financial and motivational wand over this either.

I wonder if a newspaper published a list of MPs and whether their children were privately taught or at an 'elitist' schools (like the ones in London where you have to live within 1/4 mile in multimillion pound houses, but school is technically not a private school eg Tony Blair's children?? or grammars) and maybe even those who lead the teaching unions and academy CEOs or equivalent to get an idea of who exactly in positions of influence actually have any skin in the game to improve the situation.

Exactly @Blahblahaha it’s not just Tories who send their children to private schools or state schools in wealthy catchment areas

All those who told teachers to stop moaning and leave if they don't like it, well we have. And here are the consequences.
I taught primary for 22 years and will not be returning. I'm currently a supply TA but quite honestly am just fed up with the whole system.

Yes I left too after 15 years. I could no longer work 100 hour weeks and feel like I was paying my own children enough attention. The work load is unsustainable. I now work less than half the hours and earn triple the pay. It’s not about the money though, it’s about my health. Teaching is incredibly difficult and even after sweating blood, it’s still not enough and you get constantly criticised.

The worst teacher shortages are in secondary where there are way more men than primary.

The problem isn’t men not wanting to be primary teachers, historically there has been an oversupply of primary teachers. The problem is that it’s now so shit they can’t even get women to do it anymore.

I have 7 children in my class with EHCPs. I haven't got a TA so all the interventions come down to me. While running a usual school day with 30 children in a class. I also run lunchtime clubs most days. There are many children in my classroom with emotional problems which can disrupt the lesson. A few weeks ago a child kept shouting out because I referred to a whiteboard as just the board. I said sorry I misspoke but she kept going on and on so in the end I told her that she was being disruptive and I got complained about.

I work in a school where we are not allowed to reward behaviour 🙃 that also makes it tricky.

@HereAndNowAgain . I think MN is powerful and I think you get a feel for common opinions held by many posters. There are threads which highlight typical views held by MNers.
I think many posters want to blame teacher recruitment and retention on politics. I am sûre that has something to do with it but there are significant reasons in addition to politics explaining why, post Covid, there is a huge problem with teacher retention and recruitment.
Many posters on here want the experience they had at school to be repeated for their children. It's like Julia from Motherland saying that she wanted her children to be brought up the same way that she was - by her mother. Lots of posters want the same selfless female teachers at primary school that they remember. But those teachers don't want to do it anymore. They want to be working from home and picking up their own children from school. So many posters do not acknowledge that the reasons why teachers are leaving, and it's not just a question of money, need to be addressed
The Government has invested a lot of money in Oak Academy. I think the future will include a lot of online classes for older children

It's not just that teachers don't want to be selfless anymore. The job has completely changed and the workload is just ridiculous. It doesn't matter how much teachers care for their pupils, they are just not capable of doing everything that is demanded of them.

Add to that changed attitudes from parents, worsening behaviour, cost of living etc and the job is just not worth it.

I still think that's because such a hatchet job was done on him by the MSM.

I don’t know a single one of my DC’s friends (all leaving university and planning careers) who want to teach. Loads of them also have mums who are teachers, so it wouldn’t be unreasonable to expect a few to head in direction, but not one wants to do it.

I expect the government’s new plan will be that you don’t need a degree to teach, to fudge the recruitment figures. Of course they’ll sell it (to the Daily Fail) by saying there are loads of fabulous scientists, mathematicians etc waiting in the wings, who would make amazeballs teachers but who for some inexplicable reason couldn’t do a degree and will solve the teacher recruitment crisis. In reality, you’ll just get a load of school leavers.

Yup - teaching apprenticeships.

Ita already happening that a significant proportion of kids are being taught by TAs it's already happened really. But for all noblegiraffe and others posts nobody hears it!

Even my DD says that she'd never be a teacher.
The shit you have to put up with from parents sometimes is unreal. The lack of support from SLT because they're scared to put consequences in place for behaviour.
The crap parenting we have - complaints that their precious gems are in a detention to begin with. Dad's shooting their mouths off to female teachers.
It's a shit show already, but the shit will hit the fan in a big way soon.
I'm only in this job for the school holiday childcare until I can find a WFH job. I'm not choosing teaching as the hill to die on.

Why would no degrees be such a bad thing though? Teaching apprenticeships could work well. Lots of people I know didn’t go to university because they couldn’t afford to, or were in difficult positions at that time but they are bright and could make great teachers. Obviously there would need to be minimum standards but a teacher with a sports degree can teach primary school - hardly superior to a primary teacher with an apprenticeship. Likewise someone with an English degree can teach RE alongside it at secondary, their degree won’t be too helpful towards that. So surely there’s ways to recruit teachers without them getting into masses of debt?

The point of the degree is that it is a gateway. It shows that the person has successfully studied and got a higher qualification, with all the transferable skills that involves.
A key thing about a good teacher is that they are able to continue their learning, keep up with research, adapt their practice accordingly. A degree shows they have a level of education and understanding to be able to do that.

I'm a T.A (1:1 behavioural) and in our academy school the T.A's cover lessons such as music, computing and R.E when teachers do their PPA. They use an external company to provide sports coaching for P.E lessons during PPA. Last year we had supply teachers but now the T.A's do it. Those who do cover get a slightly higher rate of pay for those hours.

This.
Lol at the idea that there all these qualified talented young men dying to be teachers. If they apply, they'll get their hand bitten off. And the % of men not completing initial teacher education (or in secondary shortage subjects, taking the generous bursary but never working as a teacher) is much higher than for women. Over a dozen posts by InnocentSongs making the same, bizarre, irrelevant, ill informed point.

We need Important Young Men to rescue the teaching profession 😂 !! We simply cannot manage without them!

It’s not illegal to have an unqualified teacher teach a class. There’s is a pay scale for unqualified teachers. But schools don’t tend to fair well if they have long standing unqualified teachers when it comes to ofsted.

Many TAs though are actually qualified teachers so it might be that the TA is covering as a teacher now. Even a young 20 something TA might have not secured a teaching role after Uni so might have decided to get some work as a TA to build up their experience and knowledge. I’ve known a few TAs who are qualified teachers and who have stepped up to cover a teacher absent as it’s less disruptive as the children know the TA. But generally TAs shouldn’t be permanently teaching classes if they are not qualified to do so. Some TAs have an HLTA status meaning they can permanently cover a certain % of lesson for things like PPA - often subjects like PE, PHSE, Music, art etc but not maths and English.

There isn’t a shortage of supply teachers though - I know many who are struggling for work but it might be area dependent. Mainstream schools don’t often replace TAs. They would need to if a child has an EHCP and that TA was employed specifically for that. I’ve taught many years without any TA support, even with a number of send children as without an EHCP they won’t necessarily have specific TAs.

You could escalate the situation to the governing body/ofsted but if staff are already off with stress that would just make things worse.

Our teacher recruitment is looking awful this year. Literally trying to get a warm body who is capable of teaching basic ICT... Trouble is it then becomes a cycle of resignation as one person leaves, workload increases for remaining staff so another leaves and so on.

Let? There's no let. They madethis happen. They designed the rules that allow it to happen. They don't give a shit about it happening. This government are not on the side of education: never have been, never will be. There is nothing that they have done since being in office that has had a positive impact on children, only negative

Exactly. And people are still moaning about teachers striking!!

I'd be interested to know how many TAs are actually qualified teachers - none that I know are. They're great TAs but they have, maybe a few GCSEs, if that and, perhaps an NVQ.

@celticprincess not many supply round here, but lack of budget is probably the issue