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?

In what specific ways way is it “meaningless”?

manontroppo
It depends how it's done to me.
If it's a (good quality) standardised set of resources and content so there's consistency across all classes and I'm free to deliver it in my style, which is fairly traditional, I'm all on board. I like the booklet approaches I've seen.

If it's standardised PowerPoint that's very prescriptive and I'm expected to use a Kagan structure here and this resource there and act like a cover supervisor following instructions from the central PowerPoint then I'm not on board.

I was pulled up one year in a series of learning walks for being a a traditional teacher instead of using the (non standardised) materials because my lessons would be better if I did X,Y,Z which were more rehashes of old, ineffective techniques. Nothing in whole school policy saying I had to do them, just someone in the department decided their way was best. If that sort of approach was standardised then if hate it.

I think eventually it will affect private schools.

My youngest has just left a large private London secondary. It wasn’t perfect but they had outstanding teachers, especially in maths and stem. No supply teachers and school never closed due to covid.
i am so grateful.

Teachers there do have degrees. I am friends with a couple and they say that the focus is now on getting teachers with oxbridge degrees which seems like an odd priority which I don’t really agree with. The school can offer higher salaries and poach teachers from other high-performing schools.

It’s an incredibly privileged and unfair system from which my kids have benefitted. But of course private schools will eventually be affected too. And we need the whole population to be be receiving a decent education or society will collapse.

I would like qualified teachers please. Yes good teachers need to have charisma, empathy, good subject knowledge etc. But I would like them also to know about learning styles, research into education methods and whatever else relevant is taught in PGCE.

I don’t want unqualified doctors or accountants either thanks.

Yes as above - huge difference between a set of textbooks/resources and the teacher choosing their own way of delviery /sessions and teaching by numbers powerpoint you see with all the tasts built in and no room for autonomy at all.

I've got an Oxbridge degree and did consider private at one time. I had a school chase me after I withdrew my application as they were so keen! I think it still counts for a lot (and shouldn't) on their list of staff. Many parents like to think their kids will eventually end up at an Oxbridge college or high ranking uni so like to think their staff have come that route. There's also a misguided belief they will have the "best" teachers that way... (I often think of the Dons who just read 20 year old lecture notes and had no interest in teaching!)

all the sanctions to get non complying kids out the classroom

I would imagine this is the Tory dream-cheap TAs delivering PowerPoints on a screen that each school has paid a large annual subscription (to a few state sanctioned companies who are getting very very rich) to access.

The non-complying students are a huge problem though. That would be boring as hell for many. There are huge numbers for whom that ‘delivery’ method set-up won’t work for, so if that’s the plan-who will have those kids? They can’t all sit in the head’s office all day! Do you give them an expensive SEN teacher, this saving no money? If teachers wanted to teach large groups of pupils with high needs, they probably would already be in an alternative provision. Exclusion is fined heavily, what else?!

Yes that is my complete fear for the future of education. It won't be the TOry MP kids in these powerpoint by numbers schools will it? Education for the masses... and lose all the lovely teaching skills.

You're right on the other end there are problems. The local school here used to pride itself on its isolation rooms/ and afterschoo/sat am detentions where it used to put all the kids not complying100% but beyond that we have a real shortage of SEND schools and provision for those who don't fit that mould.

I am worried we are deskilling the profession with cookie cutter teachers/powerpoints coming out of these training providers - that don't actually know how to teach....

Quite. There's so much bollocks in teaching. "New, better" ways to do things that you're forced to do, that often turn out to be just a passing fad and solely an opportunity for someone to write a book and talk about it at conferences. Then you get the stuff that did actually work 25 years ago coming back into fashion and favour again and many experienced teachers look at each other knowingly and whisper "remember when we used to do this, when we first qualified?" A text book is just a paper bank of resources, there is nothing wrong with it as a learning resource and has many pluses. But nah, books aren't trendy so no.

In some countries, parents are expected to buy text books for their children for school. It's an accepted part of getting an education. They can hand them down to younger siblings or friends when finished with, or donate to school for less well off families. There is such waste now with printing booklets etc. Also, when I was at school in the 80s even in primary we had to buy our own equipment - fountain pen, rulers, rubbers etc. Now, it's just expected that school will provide it ALL. It costs a fortune< and because it:s given free of charge the children, and many parents, don't value it. Some of the old ways of doing things just DO work better. Just because it was done years ago doesn't mean it's not actually the best way to do something.

Hmmm. This isn't returning to old methods though. Yhis is prescriptive teaching where every class is looking at the same slide in the MAT at the same time doing the same activity.

Its the opposite of actual old fashioned teaching. It's following a script.

Not sure where the misunderstanding its just shared textbooks came from!