Government slammed for 'sluggish and incoherent' response to teacher shortage crisis

[noblegiraffe]

A damning report has just been published by the Commons Public Accounts Committee into the critical teacher shortage in state schools and the government's failure to address it, choosing to spend millions on teacher recruitment programmes (which, despite this, have miserably failed to meet their targets), and comparatively little on supporting the current workforce.

www.tes.com/news/school-news/breaking-news/dfes-sluggish-and-incoherent-approach-teacher-shortage-crisis-slammed

The government has stood and watched as teachers have quit teaching in droves, simply issuing platitudes about how it remains an attractive profession despite all the evidence to the contrary.

I wonder if we'll now actually see any effective action taken to remedy matters.

I've had student teachers take my classes, have had to give feedback, do official observations. I've had zero training about how to do this. I know some student teachers moan that their mentors treat them like the kids, but then that's what we know how to do.

I think another issue with the PGCE/training year is that we all went through it, it was shit for us too, and workload and respect don't really get much better on the other side.

can't I understand what your saying but trainee doctors, social workers nurses paramedics and gasmen also have to get things right immediately! Patients, in particular only get "one shot".
"I've had zero training about how to do this. I know some student teachers moan that their mentors treat them like the kids, but then that's what we know how to do."
Interesting I'm a mentor I had to do a course which was the equivalent to points towards a Msc/degree and I also have to attend an updates and do three pieces of reflection on my mentoring of my students. I'm not allowed to carry on being a mentor which is an attractive idea at times unless I submit these to my employer.
I felt I was treated like a kid as did/do many of my fellow trainees again if I treated my students like this they complain to their university.
Many teachers told me and my fellow trainee that the PGCE year was actually the hardest year your ever do, "just get through it and it will get better".
Although our work load was less its exceedingly time consuming and stressful to prepare 15 hours of lessons a week make resources come up with activities differentiate write objectives using the terminology required by your school, not use fill in the missing words activities or print resources in colour etc when you don't have much idea because you lack the experience or been given any ideas about what to actually do. In my free periods I was being encouraged to observe other teachers from other subjects, come up with stuff for the twice weekly after school staff continuing development sessions I had to attend, as well as do two assignments including an original piece of research.
The younger trainees who were still living wont parents and didn't have many responsibilities e.g. cooking a meal, shopping washing, housework, husbands, children, elderly relatives, pets etc were complaining that they couldn't fit in to a week everything we were expected to do in and marvelled that anyone with any of the above managed at all.

Did you complain to your university?

I complained to my ITT, as did my fellow trainees, they listened took notes appeared concerned but nothing really changes.
In my profession I train/mentor students and as I work as part of a large multi discplinery team I see other students from other professions being trained/mentored, all are training, some on the job, some are "super numery", all are studying as well at either undergraduate or post graduate level. It is difficult to juggle working and studying and outside of work commitments. But the level of support I experienced whilst doing the PCGE was non existent in comparison with the support I see in my field. As I said above I've since spoken to other PGCE students training with other providers I hear similar comments/concerns. Im not bashing teachers, God knows I know how hard your job is, I have every sympathy for you all but if trainees are to succeed which ultimately means at the very least doing their NQT year but preferably staying in teaching beyond that then something has to change. Perhaps you do need training in being mentor, do trainee teachers need more training from their universities/ITTs? My MIL was a teacher (now in her 90's) she said went to a "teacher training college" I think she trained for three years, sh said never saw a classroom/pupil for the first year, they practiced teaching in each other, does teaching training need to adopt a similar model? Or do ITTs need to be more fussy not less? How could they vet prospective trainees better? We had a TA on our course she left after 6 weeks!! I accept there will always be this who drop out on the simple basis that teaching is not for them, but many drop out because they feel they are drowning.
Although Im out of it now I'm genuinely interested in how this issue could be addressed.

To clarify, I wasn't the students' mentor, they were given one of my classes so I had to feedback and observe. In secondary, the student can't be given just their mentor's classes or they wouldn't get the right range of experience. I assume the official mentors have some training.

The official mentors don't get paid and don't get any extra time for their duties - maybe this needs to change.

I certainly felt that mentors need to be given extra time for their duties, I frequently struggled to see one and when I asked for helpplanninp lessons she said she didn't have the time to help. I always felt due to the eye rolling and sighing I was taking up her precious time with my queries.

Well, my answer would be the Finnish approach : it's funny how research and data show Finland are the successful country which is most culturally similar to ours and yet nothing they do is adopted here.

I also - to an extent - blame society's unremitting focus on maths and science. It's backfiring. All these students who now feel they should do STEM need more teachers (who barely exist). Then , when they have got through university with their shiny STEM qualification, the last thing they got that degree for was to teach. They are promised stellar careers and big bucks salaries as the future when they take up STEM : why on earth would they teach?

Meanwhile the British film industry need tens of thousands of future employees (admittedly some of these need IT and tech skills) and someone on another thread on here is attempting to suggest an Arts degree from Oxbridge may not be worth very much!!

I think maths and science are hugely valuable to society - but we are running the risk of turning them into an elite, without the foundations to support the growth : it's yet another poorly thought out policy.

EvilTwins I was wondering how you were getting on after leaving. I always enjoyed reading your posts. I can’t believe they just removed Drama from the curriculum.

Noble - you’re spot on - it’s so short sighted. They focus on getting more people in and forget about retention. I think the whole thing would be improved with no league tables and an inspection system which was supportive and focused on improvements. Run by people who are current serving teachers. The ridiculous stress is just utterly pointless.

Piggy I don’t think they will ever adopt any aspect of the Finnish approach because they are ultimately fearful of giving control of teaching and learning to schools.

Yes maybe squeeze although actually Finland is very centralised!

I think it has more to do with having invested a load of money in staff that runs counter to Finnish ideas ,so carrying on headlong anyway!

Finland did actually change everything itself in the 60s which required investment and a teething period : that level of commitment and risk taking is a pre requisite.

Goodness knows why they keep sending fact finding researchers out to Finland and Canada and Japan and Singapore if they never like what they hear!

Yes it’s centralised but there is trust and freedom within that. There are no exams until the end of schooling, no league tables, no inspections.

I think they send people on fact finding missions because they are trying to find teachers with a shittier and cheaper deal who end up doing a better job. And they can’t find that yet.

Funny that!!

The problem is not only recruitment but that some recruits are dire. I appointed 2 years ago after 3 adverts of no applicants we got 2 applicants at the third time of trying. The person arrived at 8.30 left at 3.30 and boasted about not taking work home. Lesson planning was weak and marking non-existent. Eventually managed to get rid of them but took time and energy-how would you feel if this was your kids?

cauliflowersqueeze I'm loving what I'm doing now.

The totally crazy thing is that the students I am teaching on my course now are making really brilliant progress but I have had 0 meetings, filled in 0 spreadsheets, had 0 learning walks, 0 lesson observations, and am only doing work which directly impacts their learning. It's like a cloud has been lifted.

It makes me very cross that they just ditched drama at the school. I built that department up over 15 years. Nothing more flattering than being referred to as "natural wastage"

Evil good for you!!

When the whole thing implodes and they realise how important it is to have a great drama department you can chime in with “I told you so!”

How fabulous - and liberating - to do exactly what you want with no pressure!
These academy chains are truly toxic.

Finland is a really interesting model. One of the big reasons for their PISA success was the way they were able to improve the performance of the lower ability pupils.

The biggest reform they made in the 70s-80s was to enforce mixed-ability teaching for the first 9 years of schooling (up to age 16). But at the same time the teaching style was fairly universally very traditional, and continued to be so until fairly recently (and possibly still is today). This is something that is hardly ever mentioned in articles about Finnish education, yet it seems to me to quite important, given what we know about how lower-ability pupils are more likely to struggle with constructivist methods.

I suspect if we wanted to emulate Finnish education, we would also need to emulate their teaching methods, but the beliefs among influential educationalists in this country, including much of ITT, appear to run directly counter to that.

Some sources below:

www.cambridgeassessment.org.uk/Images/207376-finnish-fairy-stories-tim-oates.pdf

Finnish Mathematics Teaching from a Reform Perspective: A Video-Based Case-Study Analysis – 54a53c180cf256bf8bb4c7db.pdf

Analysing Mathematics CurriculumMaterials Microsoft Word – HemmiKoljonenetalFinal.docx – WG11Koljonen.pdf

Schools observation Week – Jyväskylä – fi-reportswen.pdf

[Page 313-314] untitled – Changes in Nordic Teaching 06.pdf

link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10763-009-9177-8?LI=true

Interestingly, I have found three other links in the past to blogs and reports produced by progressive visitors, which deplore the lack of progressive practices they have observed in visits to Finnish schools, but these have unfortunately ended up deleted by their authors.

Have you read Cleverlands , kestrel? It is really interesting!

Finland have just ballsed up their education system haven’t they? Dropping down PISA, fallen out of favour.

There are signs that they are dropping, yes. They aren't allowed to say that some of this is about the challenges posed by immigration but that's the theory.

I'd still much rather work there, though! And they are still turning people away who apply to be teachers!

Piggy No, I haven't read Cleverlands yet, although I would like to - I've been trying to keep my book buying expenses down lately. I've done a bit of "looking inside" on Amazon, though - it looks interesting.

I don't think anyone knows what's caused the decline in their PISA results - but I would love to know how far the system has shifted in the direction of 'progressive' teaching methods, assuming it has. One of the more fascinating things about the stuff I found when I was doing my online Finland "research" is the way a number of their own education academics complain about how teachers on the ground have used their autonomy to resist adopting progressive ideas. (They then insist that Finland's success has been in spite of using traditional methods, despite there being, of course, no evidence for this. It's like a cult belief.)

There's a good example of this in this very interesting blog: civicsisaverb.wordpress.com/blogging-in-finland/

Finland binned teaching subjects and now teach through topics, a totally shite approach IMO because you either end up not teaching stuff because it doesn’t fit any topic, or you artificially shoe-horn stuff in to try to make it relevant.

www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/finland-schools-subjects-are-out-and-topics-are-in-as-country-reforms-its-education-system-10123911.html

Depends a little bit that one on what you think education is for : I think those approaches are alien to us because we have such an testing driven culture. I think Finland takes a longer and fuller view of educational success.

I did conclude after reading Cleverlands that I would most like to teach in Canada : there are some pressures on Finnish teachers that wouldn't suit my way of doing things.

But the I can't go and teach in Canada because they don't need us : in fact they have a surplus of teachers. Funny that.

I’ve seen teaching maths through project work piggy and it’s not great! How successful do you think teaching French by learning about the European Union would be?

Fortunately for them, the change in Finland's teaching approach was grossly misreported (which in fact I have found to be shockingly typical for nearly all newspaper reporting on Finnish education).

Pasi Sahlberg writes about this here:

theconversation.com/finlands-school-reforms-wont-scrap-subjects-altogether-39328

A quote: What will change in 2016 is that all basic schools for 7- to 16-year-olds must have at least one extended period of multi-disciplinary, phenomenon-based teaching and learning in their curricula. The length of this period is to be decided by schools themselves.

This only started a little over a year ago, so it looks like there hasn't been time yet for any kind of surveys or reporting on how schools are choosing to implement it, or how the majority of teachers view it, at least not ones available in English.