Oh crap, look at this graph of secondary teacher numbers

[noblegiraffe]

This isn’t good. What the hell is going to happen? Clearly urgent change is needed, but all that is happening is sticking plasters.

Blog about the figures here: www.nfer.ac.uk/news-events/nfer-blogs/latest-teacher-retention-statistics-paint-a-bleak-picture-for-teacher-supply-in-england/

It’s all doom and gloom: “10.4 per cent of secondary teachers left the workforce last year, compared to 9.4 per cent in 2010-11. The overall average also masks variation by subject: NFER and DfE research shows leaving rates are higher still among maths, science and modern foreign languages teachers”

“Fewer working-age teachers are being retained, while the number of teachers making it to retirement has more than halved”

How much worse can things get?

Thank you for sharing @noblegiraffe. I’m really worried to read that. I don’t blame teachers for leaving. Too many people don’t share my belief that state investment in educating the next generation is for the benefit of everyone including the right ch, not an irrelevance if you’re privately educating / don’t have school age kids

Including the rich sorry for typo

Teaching broke me. I'm not surprised.

Yeah Wolfie it just about broke me too. Unsupportive head and SLT, appalling behaviour, endless things to do and no time to do them.

Feel sorry for younger kids now :(

Vocation innit? Like HCPs, Firefighters, Police Officers, sorry if I left anyone out. The Government just expects many of us to carry on regardless, but public sector workers are voting with their feet.

Of my many friends who are teachers, I don’t know any that plan to stay in teaching beyond the next two years.

Changing specs
No time to plan long term planning
Changing policies and no training to implement them.
Mark this six ways by last Tuesday.
Data. Dear god the data.
And don't give little snowflake a detention for telling you to fuck off. He has ishoos don't you know?!

Ah yes, but according to the MN massive, we are lazy, child abusing layabouts.

This tells a different story.

God only knows what is going to happen but massive change needs to happen and now.

Frightening.

It's breaking me.
Think about it - who on earth would walk away from 14 weeks holiday a year, public sector pension,etc if it wasn't absolutely intolerable?

It won't though will it? Far easier to blame teachers than face the alternative.

Having just supported my son through his PGCE year I can't say I'm surprised.

Setting aside all of the other huge issues contributing to the retention crisis I have to say that the treatment of the PGCE students is quite awful too.

My son was fortunate to receive a small bursary and his student loan but he's had to pay rent and living costs, travel costs to his placement schools (1st one was an hour and 45 mins drive each way and the 2nd 45 mins drive each way). Public transport wasn't great so he had to pay to run a car. As you all know the PGCE year is full on and he could not cope with working a second job as well.

Having finally completed the course he has a job to start in September which means no wages for 3 months.

He said today only about half the students who started have actually finished the course.

If we are serious about attracting new teachers we need to look at paying properly. At least contribute towards their costs eg travel, books etc and if they secure a job they really should be paid something over the summer. How do we expect them to survive on fresh air?

We need to value teachers far more throughout their careers, including at the very start.

It's very true. We've become the whipping boys for society's ills, and one only has to look at the threads on here to see the prevailing attitude towards teaching and teachers to realise recruitment efforts are a drop in the ocean of what's needed.

Hours are too long. Workload is too heavy, mostly because of all the pointless admin. Behaviour is worse every year and teachers have no disciplinary powers (and pupils know it). Anyone who has other career options and can get out, has (or is planning to). The only way to fix it is to reduce workload to a more realistic level and implement more effective disciplinary measures. But that won't happen.

Did your son not get the £20k payment to train?

Secondary jobs are hard to come by so a newly qualified person may end up working in primary instead for a while then just stay there

I'm coming back in September - these threads are making me regret it already.

The hefty bursaries are for shortage subjects only. And they still can't fill the courses.
No bugger wants to train in secondary maths even when they are being gifted £25k to do it. THAT'S how bad it is.

pury I'm sorry I don't quite understand. Can you explain, are you not in the UK?

Yeah, year 8 kids turns as he leaves the class, "Fuck off miss, you're a fucking crap teacher." Boy was I glad I knew I was leaving at the end of term and no longer had to try to teach him German two hours a week.

pury I have never heard that. Still, I teach maths where anyone with a pulse is welcome to have a go.

Iheart nooo, it’ll be fab and the kids will be great! You’ll be wondering why you ever left!

Secondary jobs aren't that hard to come by if you're willing to move, as an NQT.

Compared with a decade ago, when we got 30+ applications to jobs, now we get 4/5. And this is a relatively 'naice' school and area.

Maths and English are particularly hard to get staff for.

@MissMarplesKnitting

Oh if only. Those bursaries are only available to teachers training in very specific subjects, or if you do the Schools Direct or similar route.

He did the traditional PGCE course. Worked 4 days a week in school, 1 day in uni until his last placement where he was in school 5 days a week. He was teaching a 60% timetable, which is way above what he should have been working but they were short staffed. After school he was then in the uni library until 9pm every night, lesson planning and marking and all day at the weekends. All of this for the princely sum of £4000 bursary because he has trained to be a history teacher and not maths, science or geography which do attract the higher bursaries.

They could at least have paid minimum wage for his hours worked. He was in no way supernumerary. He taught classes, planned lessons, marked exams, attended parents evenings, ran A level revision classes. No wonder so many dropped out along the way. They were thrown in at the deep end and it was a case of sink or swim most definitely.

Really fortunately, my son loves his subject, and was able to cope. He is loving being a teacher, enjoys the interaction with his students and making the lessons interesting for him, but he's young, has no commitments - so no one to complain that he's working long hours etc. How he will deal with this if these 14 hour days are still expected 5 years down the line when he maybe has a family if his own I have no idea. He is just outside of the M25.Next year he will be on the lowest pay band so just over £23000 for the year. His rent alone will be about 60% of his take home pay.

It seems that teaching is becoming a temporary, short term career until you become exhausted and burnt out. There isn't even compensation for the long hours and high pressure in the form of decent wages. It's not difficult to find the causes of this crisis in retention is it?

The PGCE is bloody awful. Long hours, pointless admin, constant scrutiny. It’s a test of endurance as much as anything else.

The problem is: that’s excellent preparation for teaching. Any PGCE student heaving a sigh of relief that it’s over will probably be disappointed in their NQT year.

I have only stayed in teaching as long as I have because I’m part time. The DfE is saying that schools need to offer more opportunities for part time teachers, but schools really don’t like them. Reduced contact time is the only thing that makes the job doable.

Arthuritis
He is just outside of the M25.Next year he will be on the lowest pay band so just over £23000 for the year

Not an unreasonable starting salary for a history graduate outside of London/M25 though - law graduates outside of Central London start on similar if not slightly less than £23,000 pa.

Many graduate training schemes start in September and there isn't a shortage of people wanting to become history teachers - or primary school teachers.

The graph is mainly based on a forecast - Tes do have a habit of publishing forecasts (with scary headlines), when in fact the reality is much less scary 6 months down the line.

When I got my first job teaching Science (late 90s), there were 71 applicants. For a job in an inner city secondary. Another world.