Does your child have a teacher to go back to next week?

[fuckityfuckityfuckfuck]

My reception child doesn't.
There are 12 unfilled primary teacher vacancies within a 10mi radius of us. Only 1 of those I could perhaps be reluctant to work in due to reputation. There are also another 16 vacancies with later start dates.

Primary has historically been oversubscribed. I know this has been an ongoing issue for a while in secondary maths/science but now it's seeping into primary which has always been more desirable, I don't see how parents can continue to ignore the issue.

Gillian Keegan has warned the independent advisory board to "consider school budgets" when recommending a pay rise for 24-25 so I would imagine there will be even more classes without teachers next year!

As its AIBU... its time parents started complaining to their MPs to protect state education.

Interesting.

Given that most teaching interviews ask about your knowledge/experience of the NC and current practices/pedagogy within UK schools, I wonder how that will pan out?

Great. Talk about actually missing the point.

Isn't MFL one of the shortage subjects? Surely if foreign teachers wanted to work in our schools, we wouldn't have such issues recruiting in MFL.

Ha. Most main scale teachers won’t earn enough to meet the visa requirements, surely?

I think we'd meet them until the next big rise but that's not the main problem. No-one would move to the UK for a teacher's salary. You can make more in other countries where conditions are much, much better. We can't even keep the teachers we do have.

There aren't really any non-shortage subjects anymore. It's worse than some (English, Geography) and better than others (Science, Maths).

Hey, foreigners, despite us being completely unwelcoming and trying to deport loads of you that want to come, now you can come and fill some of the job gaps we have because nobody here is prepared to teach under the current levels of stress and Ofsted, but you can’t bring your family.

The salaries don’t meet requirements for spouses / families- particularly if you have to start on the unqualified route as your qualifications aren’t recognised

@Shinyandnew1

Laughable. And doesn't fit within the new immigration policies. Let's keep numbers down, but recruit loads of teachers.

Sound bites. Too many. Meaningless.

Government departments saying things that work against another department.

Essential criteria set from job descriptions, when selecting teachers for interview, will mean that none of those from abroad are shortlisted. Most simply do not meet the requirements of being a teacher here.

Anyway we shouldn't need teachers from abroad, aren't we retraining retired soldiers! 😆

Anyway we shouldn't need teachers from abroad, aren't we retraining retired soldiers!

Oh yes-we’ve had Troops to teachers, a mums’ army, retired teachers, people with only A levels, so this makes perfect sense!

Maybe it’ll be dogs to teaching next. Or robots to teaching.

If they ban strikes, it’ll be slavery into teaching.

Pay is not the reason so many teachers are leaving teaching.

For me it was escalating poor behaviour from children and their parents, crazy educational expectations, and the demand that I, a class teacher, should also be the one to end all society's ills.

The pay was fine

Excellent advert / marketing Shiny - you could get a job in recruitment

Great. Talk about actually missing the point.

Quite.

Though I currently support in Early years - the stage of life when children are like sponges and development of language is so important. The sector is now so desperate for staff, they actually have already had to recruit staff who have very little English.

My DC's school have recruited a few teachers from the Caribbean in the past few months. They get here, realise they are working in a very expensive but otherwise unexciting town, can't afford decent housing, discover the ridiculous workload and expectations and understandably leave within a term. I guess there might be more success recruiting from overseas for schools in London or somewhere interesting - although the housing and workload issues would remain the same.

Slightly off topic but just seen another clear example of why we have recruitment issues/teachers are leaving in droves.
on The fb group family lowdown which has thousands of members, a mum has posted a class charts note for her child where he has been rude and got in trouble and she thinks it’s hilarious. Hundreds of other posts follow where parents are revelling in their children’s disruptive and rude behaviour. Apparently it’s hilarious that kids are telling teachers they are thick, their lessons are shit and they have dementia. Some of the children being discussed have additional needs but I don’t think that’s an excuse for the parents to be glorifying rudeness and disruption.
many of the examples given would clearly have prevented the rest of the class learning and others were just abusive towards the teachers.
This is the reason most teachers at my school are considering leaving not the pay or even the work load.

@Gymrabbit Lack of respect for teachers (both sadly from parents as well as kids) is another one of the many reasons I'm leaving education after 20 years' as a qualified teacher.
Teachers are very much disliked.

One thing I've noticed on MN staffroom board and from fb is in 2019 when teachers were leaving, it was significantly more to do with behaviour but predominantly work load. I would say this past year I am seeing more and more upset over parents rather than students. There have always been pain in the arse parents since the dawn of time, but I have definitely noticed an increase in unhappiness over the behaviour of parents leading to staff throwing in the towel. The problem is, parents think staffing is a school issue. If their child has supply, they blame the school, rather than understanding that teachers aren't forced to work in their child's school so things have got to change on a macro level to ensure qualified staff are stood in front of their child on a permanent basis.

It's part of it. The low pay related to comparable professions is why there is such a shortage in recruitment, which in turn massively increases workload.

The squeeze on salary budgets has led to a massive loss of experienced, higher paid, teachers to cut costs. This, in turn, leads a loss of expertise which contributes to the decline in standards.

Then the lack of investment, budget cuts, dismantling of LEAs and lack of leadership from the DfE are part of the same phenomenon as the direct cuts to salary- the government has no interest in fixing any of the problems in schools.

@donquixotedelamancha I agree. The salary is not generally enough to be able to support a family on, especially if you're the main earner. Especially true on lower points of the pay scale. I would say in my primary school, all of the teachers are the "secondary" earners for families with children.
Hubby would have made a superb teacher; salary put him off.

Yes to be fair I left a while back, before pay got so squeezed.

However I live in the far south west where pay is generally poor, and the contrast with similarly qualified peers isn't so stark.

Isn't MFL one of the shortage subjects? Surely if foreign teachers wanted to work in our schools, we wouldn't have such issues recruiting in MFL

I'm an MFL teacher. I trained 15 years ago with a cohort which was roughly 60% from France/Germany/Spain. They had all either returned home or were teaching internationally by year 7. Several never taught at all in the state sector, having gone straight to private.

The only answer to improving MFL teaching is training about 10 x the numbers we actually need. But that's the problem - people are just not signing up.

Yes to be fair I left a while back, before pay got so squeezed

@WestwardHo1 and it's got much, much harder in the last ten years. And pay does feel squeezed, I used to feel well paid but according to my union I am £300 a month worse off in real terms than I was in 2010. I've got two daughters to (part) support through university and that £300 a month would be a big help.

FishyTree
Your DH is wrong on several counts.
Allowing sick leave and time off for medical appointments is not flexibility, it is just a normal working practice.
There is no technically about it. Teachers are not paid to work at lunchtime and cannot be directed to do so.

Teachers must take their breaks as they are needed. I need and insist on sitting in a quiet room to eat my lunch.