Just how severe is the teaching crisis in primary & secondary?

[Colleenmaith]

And how will children be affected? The school my dc attends has a number of vacancies advertised..

Is the school primary or secondary? Lack of certain specialists particularly science/IT/technology is always the big problem in secondary.

https://www.nasuwt.org.uk/article-listing/the-teaching-profession-is-in-crisis.html#:~:text=%E2%80%9C40%2C000%20teachers%20left%20the%20profession,having%20too%20few%20teachers%20left.

“40,000 teachers left the profession last year – almost 9% of the workforce. 73% have considered leaving their current job, citing pay as a significant factor. Schools cannot function without teachers, and children cannot thrive without the care and expertise of their teachers, yet we face having too few teachers left.

^ This is how bad it is and no amount of recurring new teachers is going to replace the numbers that we have lost in recent years or the wealth of teaching knowledge.

They are in primary, we have not been informed of what teachers they have yet, back to school Tues & all positions have not been filled hence the delay. My youngest is going into juniors & I'd like to be able to at least give her teacher a name...

Absolutely not & experienced teachers are badly needed expecially after covid..

A lot of high schools around here can't run the Computer science GCSE at all, as they can't keep or recurrent the teachers and in 7 years I've yet to work in a fully staffed science department that isn't supposed by teachers working out of department to at lest teach our lower year groups.

https://www.rte.ie/news/2024/0814/1464981-no-applications-in-82-of-schools-for-vacant-posts-asti/?fbclid=IwY2xjawEy5ZlleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHT1qS9Hr1MW7JGYTz_VvreGBUvBEFszTUvuOku8witZ8oH6k6S-ZW1I1nQ_aem_PN-5pO4Mj1VJzaA0PoDr8w

@MigGril I'm in Ireland & it sounds like the situation is every bit as bad here as it is I the U. K..

I think it depends where you are. My local authority in London has no teaching vacancies listed at the moment, so I can only assume that the ones listed back in June have been filled.

One of the biggest problems with recruiting experienced teachers is they normally have a 3 month notice period. So if you are recruiting for September you need to be advertising before Easter. But you can get teachers leaving last minute due to health reasons, leaving you short of staff come September. Of course they can recruit new teachers with little experience, but there even seems to be less of these around at the moment as well.
I'm more familiar with high school, we will more likely recruit training teachers who we have had with us on placement if we have been happy with their work.

I do wonder if this is a Dublin issue - due to cost of renting etc. I’m in a large midlands town and I don’t see any teacher shortage at primary level. There seems to be a fair bit of competition for permanent vacancies. I know a few mums who have retrained as teachers (for better work life balance) and most of them started on temporary contracts where they could get them and wait for permanent vacancies in their preferred location.

To add, it’s not just the cost of renting in Dublin. It’s the literal scarcity of rentals, regardless of your budget. I’ve heard a lot of super depressing stories about how bad is right now, 80 people lined up for some crappy place etc

https://www.rte.ie/news/education/2024/0821/1466087-teacher-shortage/

Seems like Norma Foley is finally waking up!

I've been teaching (primary) 20 years now. If I had my time over again I would choose another career for sure. The last few years have been horrendous for our profession.
A lot of classes are now "taught" by teaching assistants which, IMHO, is not OK.

@Youthiswastedontheyoung you are so tight, my eldest last year had a string of different teachers to cover absenteeism, there was no structure to the work whatsoever & a lot time was spent on the yard, doing art or "movie time"... It's not fair at all.

Are you in Ireland though?
It's just that the term 'teaching assistant' isn't used much here ime.

I think it varies from area to area. We're not seeing huge problems in my authority (except in the supply sector) and in fact a lot of schools are making redundancies.

I think there's a few things compounding the issue though that'll make it seem worse than it is.

• Experienced teachers find it hard to move schools because they become to expensive. So people who maybe want to stay in the profession but want a change of school are unable to do this.
• Teachers that are made redundant don't get their redundancy payment if they have a job to start in September, therefore they're not applying for the jobs that need to be filled.
• teachers have quite long notice periods which can make coordinating the movement of staff tricky.

Oops sorry I've just noticed which section this is in. Apologies. I've no idea if the issues I mentioned apply to Ireland or not.

@ohfook thats actually really interesting. I didn’t know any of that. Teaching in the U.K. is a completely different kettle of fish.

I know this is in Craicnet, but unfortunately you're getting a lot of uk centric responses.
In Dublin I get the housing cost/availability is a huge issue.
Interestingly, my eldest just sat his LC (results tomorrow 🤞) and quite a few of his friends have applied for teaching courses - both primary and secondary. Let's hope it's a good sign for the future.

Teachers get a permanent contract and then get a 5 yr career break and head to Dubai

I can't remember the source but read recently that there are teachers without jobs in rural areas and jobs without teachers in cities (particularly Dublin - though that's the county not just the city). Housing seems to be the snarl up. I suspect there are shortages in some key secondary subjects where industry will pay much better for graduates with certain degrees. But it may be that the country has enough teachers but that they're not all in the right place for the jobs.

I lived/worked in Dublin for over a decade. As a person who works in the tech industry, I was not impressed by the quality of STEM Education in secondary schools. There were some good teachers, but a lot of poor ones (having said that, the quality was MUCH compared Northern Ireland, where I'm originally from).

In the well known tech company I worked for, there were several people I knew who left the industry, and went back to teacher training as a career change. They'd made some money and wanted a career change. Nice change for them, and a great addition to the schools they join. Assuming they are good teachers, then I really think they would be a great addition to the pool.

Honestly, in Dublin, it's dire. There are no qualified teachers available. As far as I know, the opposite problem exists in Galway and in the West of Ireland generally. Lots of teachers, often trying to move closer to home, and very few jobs.
I genuinely think that parents aren't aware of how bad it is. I know I might sound like I'm catastrophising, but there are a large number of schools with either unfilled vacancies or with unqualified teachers in classrooms.

https://m.independent.ie/irish-news/school-principals-must-inform-parents-of-severe-staffing-challenges-as-teacher-shortage-reaches-crisis-point-union-says/a411155495.html

This sounds extremely serious. If things continue will schooling as we know it change? Will online teaching become a thing? I am really worried.

https://news.sky.com/story/uks-first-teacherless-ai-classroom-set-to-open-in-london-13200637

Hope this isn't the direction we're headed

Teaching is a thankless job. Working with the kids all day and then when they go home you have meetings, marking and lesson planning. Only get paid for 10 months and you use some of your pay on your classroom. You get blamed for everything wrong with the kids. You deal with behaviour problems, chairs thrown etc. With no support from the rest of the school staff or the parents. You get the high school vibe with teachers stabbing other teachers in the back. Its awful. If you want a promotion then you have to go into a non teaching role and have to learn the business side of the school.

I trained as a teacher. One school was amazing and the rest were awful. I now work as a teacher aboard, in a country where teachers are more respected and paid better