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.

It's meaningless to be honest, because they could give notice tomorrow and leave at Easter. Just because someone says they have plans to stick around, doesn't mean they will!

Absolutely-I’m just astonished the school would think it was sensible to share that information with parents! Was it a newsletter that went home sharing this information about staffing? It sounds completely crazy!

63 vacancies in my LA being advertised over the Christmas holidays, which feels like a lot given schools around here don't normally advertise in the holidays.

For those saying it's not about the pay, I would say to some extent it is- at least early career. I left a school a few years ago for various reasons, but my new job is in a cheaper town. I have been able to buy a house, which I could never have afforded on a mainscale teacher salary in the old town. It's not a very commutable town either, and the rental market is a bit of a nightmare there. My previous school (secondary) really struggles to recruit and we had people unable to take up posts due to housing. It's not only housing that puts people off working there, but it is a factor.

There's a cheap city next to my LA, and I've heard a lot anecdotally they don't have quite the same problems with recruitment that my LA does- even though it's a place historically you'd probably choose not to teach in if you could avoid it! But they've got a big uni which historically had a good PGCE program, which also probably helps.

Anyway, my school did have periods with gaps last term, but AFIAK we have managed to replace the staff who left at Christmas or come up with plans to ensure all classes are covered. Fortunately those who left were in more popular subjects!

It's interesting on this thread that parents are saying there are no gaps except maternity cover. It's not so long ago that you could (relatively) easily hire a primary teacher with QTS for a maternity cover, as there was a surplus.

It’s such a mess. I am a qualified teacher and taught for ten years. The whole system is an absolute mess. My daughter is in an SEN school and I’m almost embarrassed to say she walked into a spot. She has epilepsy but is otherwise an absolute delight - is verbal, toilet trained etc. I’ve taught pupils in mainstream who are non verbal, in nappies, violent etc. When their parents finally get an ehcp approved no SEN school will take them as they ‘can’t meet their needs’. These children have to be educated somewhere surely? SEN schools can cherry pick the ‘easiest’ children as there are SO many SEN children and next to no places.
I wouldn’t teach now for any money. I was barged out of the room and called a fat c*nt by an 11 year old when I was 36 weeks pregnant, I have written reports and have had them ripped up in my face, I had a photocopying budget of £150 for an entire year and no books so had to project the work onto the board for kids to copy. I could go on and on.

I wonder if it's a private school trying to reassure parents?

More likely, it's something OP has informally been told and is reading too much into. "No-one has plans to leave at the end of the year" could simply mean "no-one's seen a job they fancy yet". I didn't tell my old head I was looking until I'd actually started applying for jobs and it was likely she'd get a reference request. I was looking for at least a month before my first application, because I was being picky about where I planned to apply to.

It's not just primary schools it's all schools, it's all services all at breaking point but people will still keep voting the Tories in.

Agree with this- plus even if you have a compliant class who are trying to learn, a cover lesson from a non specialist just isn't the same as a committed specialist teaching you their subject.

I also wonder how many parents are aware that non specialists e.g. PE teachers have to teach out of specialism and fill gaps. This isn't a dig at PE teachers, many of whom do a pretty good job of teaching e.g. KS3 science (better than I'd do at KS3 PE). But I still think parents don't necessarily know.

I left teaching afew years ago, the pay was fine. But the constant additions of more and more paperwork meant working 70 plus hours a week. The level of detail they wanted in planning, evaluations and assessing far outweighed the time taken to teach the lesson. The red tape around every display required in the room that took hours, and the academy leaders basically wanting blood, nothing was ever good enough. I walked out and got signed off for a month. I’ve never looked back, retrained and now have a better life- if a lot less money!

HoD of Science is such a hard job IMO- responsible for 4 different GCSE courses, often 4 different A-levels + additional level 3 courses, having to deal with shortages among your staff and potentially not having any specialist teachers in e.g. physics. Often one of the largest departments in the school. A core subject all students have to take, but not prioritised like English/maths is. Having to manage support staff. And a very expensive subject to deliver well.

Often the TLR is lower than English/maths HoDs- I don't know why anyone does it.

I’m not sure how the government, useless as they are, can be blamed for aggressive undisciplined pupils and parents who expect teachers to potty train their kids.

O God another teacher moaning when you get 13 weeks a year off.

This post in the last ten minutes on another thread is pretty typical of what posters think about teachers.

I would say that the aggressive pupils we have, have SEMH needs and would be much better suited in a specialist provision only there aren’t any spaces any more and it is made extremely difficult for us to access any funding for them in mainstream.

The pupils we have who are still in nappies either have significant SEND and aren’t coping in mainstream (see above) or their parents haven’t been able to toilet train them as they are both working full time to pay the bills and the kids are being passed from pillar to post with relatives and neighbours looking after them- so there’s no consistency in the toilet training.

The government could easily be blamed for both of those.

I think this is definitely true. Most of my colleague with children work part-time and their husbands earns well. I'm also in this position and it's the only way I've been able to afford to continue teaching. I also work 7-6 on the days I'm in school and the entire two days I'm off which allows me to spend time with DS at the weekend. But it means I'm doing a lot of unpaid overtime.

See the post I made upthread and the one just above it.

My post focused on the social aspect of it the post just above focused on the curriculum aspect.

I think a combination of these things (a direct result of govt policy) were responsible for all of these.

DH is a headteacher- no teachers missing at his school but he is reducing ancillary staff to save money. TAs are going from 15 to 6, office staff from 4 to 1 and catering staff from 8 to 2.

Teachers will now be assisting with more of these tasks in order to ensure that resources are used efficiently- I.e. dealing with absences, light food preparation from frozen and photocopying etc.

Yes a new one.
Hers went on may leave at Christmas

Assuming that this is state and school teachers are employed under STPCD, they can refuse to do admin tasks, let alone food prep. He might find if he continues down this route, he won't have a full set of staff any more.

I accept that school budgets are under huge pressure, but expecting teachers to help with food prep (when? how?) is ridiculous.

I think at least some of the social issues do come from the lack of available early help (as that isn't funded any more).

In terms of extreme aggression, I think the issue is not so much that it happens (there was a child having violent outbursts in my primary school in the 90s) but the fact that it is extremely difficult to put extra support in place, due to lack of funding, and that it's extremely difficult to exclude (due to LAs not wanting the hassle of finding appropriate external provision etc).

I think the lack of CAMHS also doesn't help in some cases.

Whilst this wouldn't solve all the problems, proper funding for SEN and alternative provision would be a huge help.

I wonder if those teachers who are being asked to help prepare food and chase up absences will soon be looking for new jobs.

you have got to be kidding

teachers are going to be making food on top of teaching duties?

Is he trying to get teachers to quit at the end of their contracts?

The teachers having to serve up frozen dinners for the kids thing keeps coming back. Didn't happen.

You do realise teachers can point blank refuse to do these things- and there’s not a thing he can do about it.
its not part of their contract.
He’s in danger of them working to rule.

When??

When will teachers have the time to chase up absent children?

We have three office staff and they're swamped. I don't know how one person can be expected to do the job of four to the same standard.

Will progress expectations change to reflect the lower numbers of TAs? Of course not. The teachers and remaining support/office/lunchtime staff will just be under even more pressure.

I wouldn't have time to do any of that. I spend breaktimes either on duty, dealing with children or setting up for the next lesson and lunchtimes phoning parents and preparing for the afternoon and marking to get away at a reasonable time. I give myself a 15 minute break where I don't do anything and am often too tense/rushed to actually eat anything.

I start work at 7.30am and finish at 5-6pm and get a 15 min break at lunch.

If i were at his school and even if I were willing to do the extra tasks (I already do my own photocopying), I simply wouldn't have the time.

This is absolute nonsense.

No teacher is making microwave meals rather than marking their books.

@MrsHamlet not sure about the extra tasks but marking books isn’t as common in Primary school as it used to be