Anyone worried about teacher shortages?

[blackcatbabe]

Schools are struggling to recruit at the moment, particularly in the South East. Anyone particularly worried about this in their kids' schools?

ok thank you

Y11's did THREE mocks for EVERY subject this year. Imagine the teaching hours wasted on this bright idea. The stress loaded onto the pupils that really want to achieve or can't handle the pressure?
Imagine the marking load for these as well as the rest of the classes the teachers are responsible for.
Two assessments every half-term for every subject in KS 3,4 and 5.
Texts for English that are irrelevant and of no interest to pupils.
A curriculum designed by old ,white ,privileged men historically designed to help other white , privileged men to get to Oxbridge.
But if you're shit at Maths ,you can do it until your eighteen!
Let's remove The Arts from the curriculum!
Let's remove BTecs so those who don't thrive on highly academic situations can't thrive.

Data driven teaching.

I've marked gcse papers before and had very similar thoughts- how in America they would already have "passed" by virtue of doing assignments and in class tests and not have to learn 2 years work to regurgitate in an appropriate manner through exact hoops to try and pass the exam.

My son got grade 8 in many gcse at school so had big aspirations! Went to a different school for a levels and the teachers were abysmal and he tanked in both grades and confidence. His physics teacher was out of retirement and had an accent so thick that my son struggled to understand what he was saying. Teachers always stressed out.
He took a year out and is now trying to get into university in Berlin.

Especially for boys who aren’t mature enough at 16 to knuckle down for GCSE’s.
My son scraped 4’s and 5’s at GCSE, so couldn’t have stayed on at sixth form, but grew up significantly at college doing Btecs and is now doing extremely well at uni. He’d have missed that opportunity with the new model.

LondonNQT
I don't disagree with you and share your concerns about unqualified staff in schools.

Not all unqualified staff are equal though. I think of people I know who are unqualified and teach in the independent sector. I'd rather they taught my children than some of the recent crop of NQT/ECTs in terms of subject knowledge and passion, but then I also know they'd not be effective teachers in the state sector because they're used to teaching small classes of generally engaged students with parents who expect them to pay attention in class.

A lot of the issue in my opinion isn't about whether schools should have the option to appoint an exceptional unqualified candidate (and then probably put them through assessment only QTS). It's the fact that a LOT of the unqualified teaching staff used in many state schools are not actually exceptional in their field. They're a cheap way of employing someone to cover supervise centrally planned PowerPoint. That model is terrible for children.

Is it actually any better in private schools? From what my teacher friends tell me the pay isn’t much better and the pensions are often worse. They are also recruiting from the same dwindling supply of teachers in the profession with fewer and fewer people doing teacher training.

My pay jumped £8k for the same job when I moved to private and we have the same pension. I get 18 weeks holiday.
I think people kid themselves that indie schools are no better but sadly most are.

As a senior teacher I echo this. The situation is terrible at the moment. Serious concerns about budgets leading to cuts and redundancies. There simply isn’t enough money to educate the children properly. At the same time there are an increasing number of high needs children coming into mainstream schools, with less staff to give them the support they deserve. This puts huge pressure on staff. Schools are also seeing an increase in parental complaints and aggressive behaviour. Something has to give - it can’t go on. If you’re a parent, do what you can to recognise the situation, support your school and don’t complain!

Even if the pay isn't much better, look at the per pupil funding.

I imagine the facilities, resources and class sizes that the massive difference in funding pay for make a difference.

I've taught in private and state. How it feels as a teacher depends entirely on the management and how gracefully and humanely they deal with the many many challenges.

Of course the state sector has got massive issues but things are not rosy in private either.

The school I worked in did indeed have smaller class sizes, well maintained buildings etc (but they had to - parents notice!) However, they are only ever about a dozen sets of fees away from financial disaster.

The proper public schools are somewhat insulated by their endowments but they also have issues - one being the extent to which they are reliant on foreign custom.

The grass is rarely greener!

Yes! Teacher here. We cannot recruit for some subjects, loads of supply (who aren't teachers - some have never worked in a school - not blaming them - this is 100% an agency problem) . Behaviour is mad because kids have supply for 4/5 lessons some days. Staff that are there are picking up extra lessons, planning, support - no additional pay - (not overtime)just have to do it. This leaves no time to do your own job.

Parents are unsupportive of anything we do to try and support behaviour - constant arguments that their little darling would never do that leading to behaviour getting worse as there is no sanction. Also unsupportive if uniform despite it being in place for years and years. Why can't they wear red trainers and leggings for school?

I'm getting to the end of my rope but just hoping that something will change as I (used to) love my job but this isn't teaching.

The school I worked in did indeed have smaller class sizes, well maintained buildings etc (but they had to - parents notice!) However, they are only ever about a dozen sets of fees away from financial disaster.

And I get that, but in terms of day-to-day experience for a state school teacher, well-maintained buildings with smaller classes would be a massive improvement on working conditions.

It's pretty depressing working in a dirty school where things are just broken wherever you look. Radiators not working, blinds missing, holes in the walls. Some of our classrooms now don't have enough chairs and desks because of increased class sizes.

Broken windows that don't open or no blinds in a heatwave is pretty crappy for staff and students. We effectively can't teach or learn for a good proportion of the school year, now.

It's very tempting to go back to retail, financial services or any sector with a lunch break and air conditioning.

Yes, I also find it depressing to look at broken stuff and I think it sends a subliminal message to the students that that's what they're worth and that's bad. Cancelling Building Schools for the Future was an awful decision.

Have you worked in a private though @noblegiraffe? Some of them are run by tinpot dictators with the added bonus of everything having to be lovely and shiny for the parents.

State school parents aren't the customer.

I'm concerned that TAs are teaching Sex Ed at our school.

I truly fear that the "teaching by numbers " with centralised powerpoints and scripted lessons that some MATs do will become the norm.

It will simply become exam factories with no actual teaching required just bodies. Which I think birbalsing for example was moving towards with wanting to indoctrinate train new recruits into her method.

Its actually frightening.

I guess this is regional as well. Where I am in London, pay in independent schools is similar and many are leaving the teacher pension (or have already left). They do get the holidays!

Here is an article the GDST wrote when they were pulling out of the TPS (obviously from their point of view but has interesting stats): https://www.gdst.net/news/parent-faq-gdst-proposed-changes-to-teachers-pensions/

I'll be honest, I live near a few independent schools and I had always thought I might move over as I got older / more feeble. But with the change to the pensions, I feel that is an option off the table.

I work as a TA in a primary school. This year we have had six students, all doing primary teaching degrees. Only one of them actually met the required standards to pass the placement. But when told this, along with the evidence of her own eyes, the university tutor said the other five would still pass. The work ethic was dreadful, the subject knowledge appalling (primary school remember, so not rocket science) and they seemed to lack any real desire to teach other than wanting to be able to travel during the holidays. The tutor said that despite passing them, she doubted that even in these desperate times, any of the five would secure a position. Our school is seriously reconsidering whether we want to be a training school any longer, as we don't want our name associated with these poor teachers.

We have had the same issue this year, incredibly poor quality students, non-existent work ethic, inability to use initiative, high expectation of spoon-feeding. They made so much extra work for our poor teachers

I am in education but as a childminder of 28 years experience, with my older brother being an ex HT SEN. My eldest dd has just finished her PGCE Maths and has secured a job for September. Her degree is Psychology with a strong statistics basis. Her dh is just finishing 1st year ECT in Maths with a combined sciences degree but specialising in Engineering for the most part. They are both late 20's and have worked in other areas whilst doing their degrees distance learning. My younger dd, mid 20's, works as an Early Years TA in an independent school and is starting a work based foundation degree in September in Early Years with a view to moving onto a Primary Ed with QTS degree, again worked based, once the FDA is finished. All three of them are under no illusion about the work load and stresses involved with teaching but still wish to follow that career path currently. Eldest dd is likely to apply for Ed Psychology training at some stage but will wait until their 4 children are older.
Education has been under funded for years at all stages, whether it is EYFS, Primary, Secondary, FE or University and although it is now at crisis point I cannot see the issues being resolved within a short period of time as it will take years to bring the funding up to a decent level so that the sector can train, recruit and keep dedicated staff in the future.

It will simply become exam factories with no actual teaching required just bodies. Which I think birbalsing for example was moving towards with wanting toindoctrinate train new recruits into her method
I actually think her school will be one that doesn't do that.

It wouldn't be my choice of school, but to be fair to her the curriculum there is deeper than many schools. They also seem to value staff having excellent subject knowledge and whilst the curriculum is very standardised throughout the school, staff and visitors have remarked that teachers can put their own personality into the lessons, relationships are warm and their outcomes are excellent.

I can't see MCS appointing any warm body to stand in front of a PowerPoint.

Ah perhaps not. Im not actually as familiar with her exact school - however we have a copy locally (another one of "strictest" schools.) They like to train their own staff in their methods but it is identikit teaching, slant, shared powerpoints etc. I think the idea is that they can be trained to deliver their way then the resources are centralised.

Similarly I saw a content creator job for a MAT the other day. Where they were employing a teacher to create the centralised lessons. It did occur to me they could end up paying teachers to create the lessons...
Then hlta/Equivalents to "deliver". As long as they have PowerPoint, all the sanctions to get non complying kids out the classroom ( no excuses) .who needs a teacher?!

The very corporate style trusts might try to emulate some of the MSC approached, especially on behaviour but in my experience they don't get it right in many places because the staff (as a collective) haven't got the subject knowledge to bring the standardised stuff to life.
A strong teacher with good subject knowledge would still do well at having their classroom culture but the revolving door of short term supply, new staff, cover supervisors etc would struggle.
Chicken and the egg sort of thing because standardized material is helpful when you aren't sure which bodies are in front of a class that day

I don't see how standardised material is any different from the good old textbooks of yesteryear, and surely it frees up a good teacher to teach, rather than break their backs over endlessly recreating materials and resources?