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.

Teacher pay in NI is well below that of the other UK countries. I think they've been conducting action short of strike action for years and went on strike for more pay earlier this year.

Pay and workload are irrevocably linked. Teachers are not willing to work 55/60 hour weeks, planning every lesson endless ways to personalise learning for every student and in huge levels of detail, being micromanaged and at constant risk of being placed in a supper plan if someone doesn’t like you (or if you are UPS!), blamed for children’s behaviour, attacked by pupils, harassed by parents, constantly berated by the press and government as being lazy etc etc for £30/40k.

If you want teachers to do all that and not leave, you need to pay them more. OR you pay them the same but massively reduce the expectations and workload.

I have seen posts on here for teachers in primary in Ireland (I’m not sure if this is all over or particular areas) where pay is much better, they start at 8.30 and kids are gone by 2.30 and them by 3.30. There are textbooks to use which means the planning expectations are much lower, no crazy Deep Dive or Ofsted expectations and is mainly quite a nice job. I feel like mine was much more like that in England in the 90s.

We don't have academies and no OFSTED. I don't think there's as much pointless paperwork. School day is shorter, so I wonder if that gives teachers a bit more time to get their bits done? My DC finished at 1.45 from p1-3 then 2.45 from P4-P7. Now 3pm throughout secondary.

In primary, when DC was in P4-P7, the teachers in the lower school took their class for the last hour some days to free up the teachers, if that makes sense.

I wonder if there's more respect for teachers here too? I'm a midwife and I've started an evening clinic to accommodate teachers as they never ever will miss work for an appointment, my team have been happy to cover it - I feel like there's respect for teachers here (maybe a weird example!).

I have experience of DC attending 3 different schools and it seems to be rare for a teacher to leave or take much time off sick. Maybe some NI teachers will come along who will know better and may say I'm talking crap!!

Definitely, pay for everyone is lower in NI. But teachers aren't leaving like they are in England

It is not as simple as saying Academies/Tories as some posters want it to be.
There has been a massive change in expectations of what schools should provide and a real sense of entitlement where parents insist endlessly on their little darling bring the only pupil that matters and sod the rest

Agree. Even if Labour gets in and reintroduces Sure Start etc., it'll take years if not decades to reverse the mindset that the government is responsible for all parents and kids, and that teachers and schools are ultimately responsible for all parenting matters.

There are longer holidays in Ireland too, aren’t there?

Shorter days and longer holidays maybe good for staff but must be nightmare for working parents.

Also don’t parents have to pay contribution towards books etc. And I seem to think schools don’t have a staffing budget as that is managed centrally. Don’t know if the rest of the funding is as crap as it is in England though.

Between 70-80% of school budgets in England is spent on staff.

I’m a teacher who is seriously considering quitting. Yes, the workload is immense. I’m exhausted all of the time and literally cannot do anything in the evenings as I’m exhausted and spend At least 3 hours on a Sunday planning.

Worse is the attitudes of a lot of parents. Complaining about everything. It’s a thankless task.

We have vacancies we can’t fill. Some of the staff we’ve appointed do not have the skills or experience to do their jobs properly but they are all we can get.

If you are the parent of a school aged child and you cannot afford private education then you should be very worried.

Part of the entitlement culture nowadays. You see it on here, it’s always for someone else to fund, work, pay more tax. I can only work 16 hours because reasons…that same entitlement is being bred into the next generation. The expectation that the state does everything and personal responsibility is non- existent. Parents can’t parent and it falls on to the school.

Teachers will continue to leave as parents demand more and more whilst abusing the people educating their children. Then teachers are hugely underpaid for the responsibility they have. England especially has some of the lowest paid teachers in the western world. They are also micromanaged to death (literally) and have a high suicide rate. I mean who’d want to work in such an entitled education system?

In Ireland schools don't pay the teachers so there's no downside to having experienced teachers.

with no option to WFH

This is a huge issue now. Whilst working in schools has always had its challenges (stressful, workload, hectic etc) it was always sold as family friendly because of the holidays. With just about all of my friends now (excusing those working in customer-facing clinical roles), since Covid, their roles have become much more flexible-with the ability to have some wriggle room in your work schedule to make your work life balance a bit more palatable. Teaching will never be like this as it currently stands and my own kids and their friends-all looking at possible careers- won’t touch it with a barge pole. We can’t hire TAs which used to be known for being a job that ‘worked around the kids’ as it’s completely inflexible. We have had no applicants for the last 3 adverts we put out-mostly the mums at the school who are looking for work, want to work from home.

My DC all have teachers but my DDs 1:1 TA has just left and school have no permanent replacement as yet which is a concern. The pay is absolutely atrocious though so I don’t know why anyone would want to do it!

Just noticed a comment about sure start - we still have it in NI

I left 5 years ago. I miss being in the classroom and teaching but no amount of money would tempt me back, the workload, the politics, back stabbing SLT, completing paperwork which does not improve the education students receive, lack of meaningful support, the number of children who arrive at secondary school and who continue without being able to read independently with no catch up and expectation that teachers get them
GCSE when they can’t even read and understand the questions is terrifying. Children and teachers are being set up to fail.

I taught abroad, in a country where education is valued and teaching is a respectable profession. High workload and very little annual leave, but a good salary and very few behavioural issues. Parents were proactive and enthusiastic.

I have teacher friends in the UK and comparing the two is like comparing planets. They get hit by primary school kids every single week - and the parents blame them! They get called the c-word, spat on, filmed and put on TikTok - and the parents blame them! This isn't a minority of kids, nor is it a SEN issue - this is now the majority in the class. And the working hours are long and the pay is dismal.

I wouldn't do their job for all the money in the world. It's abhorrent and I don't know how you shove the genie back in the bottle. Throwing more money at it isn't going to help. You need to change the parents - and how the fuck do you do that?

@Shinyandnew1 TAs and school admin jobs used to be so popular, mums at DS’s Primary would be queuing up at the door if there was even a hint that the current admin was thinking about leaving.

Not any more. Partly pay, partly not being able to WFH and partly having to deal with parents

At my school we have a teacher going on maternity leave being replaced by a TA. The TA is coming from a different school so the parents are not aware that their children will not be taught by a teacher.

It's not just teachers we're missing.
TAs are leaving in droves for better pay and conditions. They have to do so much for the pittance they are paid, teaching small groups, supporting sen, interventions, the job has completely changed but the pay doesn't reflect this.

So now I'm going back to my oversubscribed, high level of sen class with no other adult in the room at all.

But the DfE doesn't think tas are good value for money and aren't essential.

One of my good friend is a teacher in London. She is doing supply teaching as she is desperate to leave the profession and is actively looking for a new job.

Just before Christmas the school she was teaching at at 16 teachers off sick on the day she was there...

In the past few months she has had racial abuse from pupils, her car tires slashed in the school car park, a pupil threatening to slap her and constant disrespect and no help whatsoever from Heads.

Why would anyone want to stay in a role where they are treated so poorly and badly paid?

Entitled, lazy parents raising lazy, entitled kids...

Yes we have all the teachers we need here.
We don’t have enough social workers or carers or nurses or GPS though.

Pay and workload are irrevocably linked
I disagree. I don’t think you could double teacher salaries and have them come flocking back to the profession. Most teachers leave for more manageable hours, not for a higher salary. Many of them go part time and survive on a reduced salary in order to make the workload manageable.

It takes a very specific type of career-focused person to want to work 70 hours a week to the exclusion of their family and all else, and that kind of person doesn’t typically choose teaching as a career. Teachers on the whole are regular people who want to live a normal life, raise their kids and spend time with their partner and friends - and you can’t do that if you’re working 70 hours a week. The holidays in particular attract a lot of parents who want to be available to look after their own kids - in fact teaching used to be touted as an ideal career for mums. But what actually happens is that you barely see your kids during term time because of the heavy workload, and having the holidays free doesn’t compensate for that.

What actually needs to happen is reduced workload for the same salary. Halving the current workload would allow it to be done comfortably in a 40 hour week. Teachers could have a normal life and would accept being relatively low paid because they have a fulfilling job with lots of holidays. Lots of parents would become teachers because it’s basically a normal job with extra holidays.

It's a nightmare in high schools in my area. Lots of schools have many long term vacancies in maths and science that there is no chance of filling. Even subjects like history and geography are being taught by non specialists.

Pay is acknowledged as one of the reasons we can't recruit new teachers. No more money in school budgets to pay for these teachers as well equals fewer teachers. Fewer teacher equals a higher workload for those of us who remain.

My middle son in P1 had his teacher off for 3/4's of the year, no fault of her own she'd broken her leg, but instead of changing things around so the youngest children could have some stability he had 4 different teachers and his eductation really suffered, he fell massively behind.
In P2 his teacher was great but went off on Mat leave again noones fault, luckily they had a teacher take over the rest of the year who was also very good so he came on a lot.

My oldest, her teacher last year was off sick for 3/4's of the year, and this year her teacher- a young woman in her first year of teaching- has been off now for about 6 weeks.

This is just the teachers I know of so i'm guessing it's a problem in the school in general. I really feel for teachers, it's such a difficult job and I think they desperately need a pay rise and the school system needs work.

We are missing teachers in some key subjects. I’ve also never known so many experienced staff to be leaving. They are getting other jobs too, not retiring.
Behaviour, Ofsted and workload are key. However pay comes in to it as well, especially with increased wfh in other sectors. Literally every friend and family member I know has wfh for at least 3 dates per week. We are paying out commuting and petrol costs that they aren’t.

My daughter’s school is struggling to find science teachers and has done for some months now. One of her teachers covering has admitted to the class it’s not her specialised subject so is struggling. One of my other children is at sixth form and for one subject he has to go in after school has finished to be taught because they are short on teachers. It’s annoying because he has a lesson in the morning then nothing until 3.20, but there’s nothing that can be done if they are short on staff, we’re grateful they’ve tried to find a solution but I do feel for the teacher in question too - she also teaches my daughter and has said to the class “oh no I still have another lesson to teach after this one”.