I have not managed to get my first teaching job 2 years after qualifying

[theirt5]

I qualified as a primary school teacher in 2023 and still have not managed to get a job in a school yet and therefore have been on supply ever since. Can I ask whether this is a usual occurrence or not?

If you’re not getting invited to interview, it would suggest a lack of strength in your application. Have you got someone who could look at it for you to give some advice?

That's horrendous, the poor children stuck with a lazy/unkind teacher.
I'm intrigued which one was appointed, I'm kind of hoping the lazy one?

You've only applied for 15 jobs in two years? That makes me trend towards you being too picky about where your applying.

Have you asked anyone to critique your applications? I've recently become involved in recruiting, and I was surprised at how poor some applications were. Good people who just didn't put across a good case for employing them.

What are your parameters? Where I am that would be very unusual for an ECT.

If you’ve only got 1/15 interviews then your application isn’t working. Is there someone at a school where you’ve done supply who would have a look for you? Are you getting good feedback from your supply?

poss chat to your agency too about wanting something longer. Have you completed your ECT this way?

I think I’d also want a reason for your supply other than ‘couldn’t get a job’ as it does raise questions.

happy to look at your application if you want to DM me. (Regularly hire staff, always get an interview for applications)

Primary schools are closing due to falling roles, so recruitment is tougher with more teachers than vacancies.

It’s not unusual, but don’t give up. What is your specialism? Would you consider secondary?

I know of two recently graduated teachers who had to supply before getting teaching jobs. One was made redundant after a year (managed to finish her nqt though so that's one good thing) as the school was reduced in size and it was a toss up between two temps as to who had to leave. She now works as PPA cover as she's not managed to find anything else.

The other is an ect and has applied to several schools in a broad area and has only had two interviews. She's found a lot of schools specifically state they don't want ects and the ones that do allow them get inundated. She's really defeated knowing she'll have to start the next academic year supplying as well as she's not managed to pick up a teaching job.

The shortage is definitely in secondary because they tend to ask for two specialisms and a lot of people don't have two subjects they're willing/able to teach. When my school puts out a position (I'm a TA by choice. Teaching just didn't suit me in the end) we get a good 30/40 applicants. They interviewed 5 people for the last job that went up and sent 3 home after their lesson - they didn't even get to the formal interview part of it all 😨 it's brutal tbh!

A bit off topic, but given there’s such a problem recruiting decent teachers in London, how are school results in London typically higher than the rest of the country?

Have you got a a good final report from any teaching placements? I used quotes from this to back up my comments in my application and it was positively commented on by a school that offered me an interview.

Interesting. I thought all the teachers were leaving and the profession was in crisis! Maybe its very area dependent?

Many schools go directly to supply agencies for short term contracts - in my school we currently have 3 such staff. If the permanent teacher doesnt return the supply would be offered the job (if they are doing well already)
Ask your supply agencies about longer term contracts.

The previous secondary sch I worked for was now. To be very “rough”. We struggled to fill posts

If you are not even getting interviews, then the issue is your application/personal statement. Maybe there are mistakes in your letter.

Years ago TES had a wonderful paid service where they would go over your application and correct it and give feedback to improve. Such a shame this no longer exists, but maybe there are other places that do something similar.

What do you mean 'all the teachers'? What a strange sentence.

It's definitely the case many people are leaving and not enough come into the profession, but it also depends on the area and subject. Some places have fewer schools and fewer vacancies. Secondary struggles a lot more than primary with retainment than primary as well.

Where are you applying @theirt5?

There is a decline in pupil numbers in areas of London for instance, so teachers will not be replaced.

https://schoolsweek.co.uk/admissons-watchdog-saves-falling-rolls-schools-from-closure/

Lambeth is one of the worst affected boroughs in the country on falling rolls, with 1,000 fewer children starting at primaries than a decade ago.
The borough predicts it will have a £23m deficit across its 68 maintained schools by 2026-27. Government data forecasts that unfilled primary spaces will rise to 36.9 per cent in the same period.

Swathes of primary schools across the country have already closed over falling rolls, especially in London where a falling birth rate and an exodus of families has led to a collapse in pupil numbers.

Depends where you are. In Central Scotland it’s hard to get a permanent job in primary and I know a few who have just finished their probation year and are now unemployed. It seems very unfair and a difficult situation to be in. Supply is the way to go, while you keep working on your applications. Good luck

It's a complex one but thought partly it's the population and partly the effect of various initiatives in the past.

https://educationblog.buckingham.ac.uk/2020/07/29/why-are-schools-in-london-so-successful-by-barnaby-lenon/

If the advert says “visits to the school recommended”, are you booking in a visit even if you have been there on supply?

I work in school HR, it’s not just about the application form. If you make a good impression at the visit, that’s gets you higher up the short list. I’ve been asked to call up people who have come for visits, when they then haven’t put in an application form as they liked them so much,

Also, keep applying for any vacancies that have unusual time of year start dates. The competition will be less.

I think there’s shortages in some places and not others. Are you on the supply teacher network on Facebook? Some people on there are saying their school gets a thousand applications for a job.

I’ve been on supply for a few years now. A few weeks ago I covered for a teacher who was interviewing for an EYFS job. It’s a lovely school and they got six applicants. They decided to interview them all and two didn’t show up. (I only know all this because the applicants were coming into the classroom to teach a lesson).

As a previous poster said, ECTis now 2 years long, which means a whole day of cover plus extra support and mentoring. My daughter’s boyfriend is in a very similar position to yourself.
However the biggest reason I believe, is that schools can rarely afford class TAs these days and they need more experienced teachers to be able to handle difficult classes with high SEN needs and no help. It’s fair on no one.

Are you only applying in your home area? You might have to be prepared to either travel further or move.

I knew someone who couldn't get a job and moved to Spain to work in an English speaking school there. She married a Spanish man and is still there over 20 years later.

Yup.
She was competent and kind. Just left loads of stuff for the rest of the team to pick up. Loads of basic stuff she wouldn't do or did the absolute minimum

I would take a different approach to supply. It gives you a great insight into local schools - be proactive so that schools ask for you from the agency. How do you develop maths or english or reading.. something that you can add to an application. Most schools belong to academies - always research the academy and not just the school. I think applicants sometimed think they are simply applying to a headteacher - true in some cases, but in many cases you are applying to a much bigger organisation. Job specs and application forms are really specific - many explain how to set out the personal statement e g. Under the following headings etc...I do think we are lead to believe that schools are crying out for teachers - maybe in secondary physics but generally it's a tough market for applicants.

My nieces (now) dh did 5 years of supply before switching to another career to get some security for their first mortgage etc.

It definitely depends on which part of the country you’re in - supply and demand varies hugely across different regions. Plus, the shortage of teachers is very much a secondary school issue rather than primary. Primary has never struggled to meet recruitment targets in the same way secondary teaching has in recent years.

As others have said, if you’re not getting interviews, you’re not getting your applications right.

You need to:

• Show with clear examples how you meet each element of the person specification and the essential criteria - saying ‘I am reliable’ for example isn’t good enough - ‘My reliability is evidenced in the fact that I have had no sickness absence in two years’ or whatever. You need to be concrete and not abstract.
• Focus on the varied experience you have gained from supply teaching and how you would apply this to a permanent role. Many people in schools are nervous about teachers who are on long term supply as they think they’re unreliable or not very good. You need to package this as something you have deliberately chosen to gain varied experience and think carefully about all the opportunities you have had to gain a multiplicity of skills and exposure to different ways of doing things that another applicant who has spent years in the same school will not be able to offer. Having worked in numerous schools is actually a huge bonus so you need to sell your supply experience rather than make excuses for it.
• Visit the school before you apply and get chatting to the Head / whoever shows you round. Show plenty of enthusiasm and interact with lots of positivity with the kids and staff. This will leave a really strong impression that will make them more favourable to you and perhaps able to look beyond any lapses in your written application.
• Get a friend who’s in a corporate industry to look at your application before you send it. Teachers are notoriously bad at recognising their skills and selling themselves, so someone who is more used to doing this in a corporate environment will be able to help you reword and restructure to make your skills and experience clear and relevant to the job and person spec.
• Personalise each application to each school. When I was Head of Department, it never ceased to amaze me how many people send in generic letters, sometimes with the name of the previous school they’d applied to still in there where they’d just copied and pasted and not proof read properly. Often they hadn’t even bothered to research the headteacher’s name or title and it was all so lazy. Thoroughly research your school and tailor the application to them and the values and curriculum they teach. Make it clear why you want to work there as opposed to anywhere else, and make that reason about them and not you - again it never ceased to amaze me how many people would say in their applications things like ‘I am applying to your school to cut my commute and get more work life balance’!

I would also strongly recommend that you consider being more flexible on location. I had to teach in an area I didn’t want to be in to get my foot on the ladder after training, and then once I had experience I was able to move to where I wanted to live.

I teach in international schools and I would also strongly recommend that as a way to get on the ladder. Many of my colleagues in the international sector who struggled to get jobs after training went out to British schools abroad for a couple of years - if you go to a COBIS (council of British international schools) school they will do your ECT induction for you - and then either never looked back and stayed abroad or came back and got employed where they wanted to be in the UK. So if you can travel, it’s a great option. I would avoid the Middle East right now for obvious reasons but there are plenty of COBIS schools all over the world and many of them are still recruiting for September.

Good luck!