Teacher recruitment targets missed AGAIN. Don’t ask who is teaching your kid maths or physics

[noblegiraffe]

The latest figures are grim - only 64% of the target for maths teachers was met, which is bad enough, but in physics the figure was 43%.

www.tes.com/news/dfe-misses-its-own-teacher-training-recruitment-targets

If you are considering emailing a teacher a petty complaint (and from MN there are plenty of you about), do consider that it might be the straw that breaks the camel’s back for that teacher and whether your child not having a teacher at all would be worth the satisfaction.

The system is in crisis and looking at the manifestos, none of the parties really appreciate the scale of the problem.

[SpruceTree]

I have 3 children at Secondary school. Any teachers reading this - most people think you are amazing and do a really difficult job. Thank you.

[AHippoNamedBooBooButt]

I have a degree in maths and work as a teaching assistant in a secondary school so I am prime candidate to train to teach (the HoD asks me every year) but there is no way I would do it. The pay is not worth the hours put it or the abuse you get from parents who think they know better.

[Piggywaspushed]

I was being a bit controversial. Really , I hate teachers being pitted against each other. Each subject is demanding in its own way.

[Elladisenchanted]

Piggy I agree that English teachers have the heaviest marking load but I teach the science trilogy and you end up with 6 papers per pupil after the mocks. A fair amount of the questions are long answer type (mini essays) where you have to hunt the marks and some pretty tricky maths questions. An extra ppa lesson would be lovely! Plus in my school we don't have a lab assistant and due to timetabling constraints and limited lab access we only have single periods so the pupils don't set up or properly clear up practicals so we end up staying behind to clear up after them.
(Although truthfully my planning is definitely easier!)

[courderoy]

Yep so you can have even less planning time to teach a subject you don’t know. Desperate!

[noblegiraffe]

In my school they did it by making the remaining teachers teach outside of their specialism.

[Piggywaspushed]

It's shameful, isn't it?

[courderoy]

Although i’m not sure how you make 0.5 of a history teacher redundant

[courderoy]

Yes - or non replacement.

[Piggywaspushed]

Out of interest how would reducing PPA help? Was the other suggestion to make people redundant?

[courderoy]

We had our schools finances reviewed recently. We were told that we should save money by reducing ppa.

Enough money in the system to make the job better for everyone would be a start

[noblegiraffe]

cant one of my colleagues went from primary teaching to secondary maths. They just applied for jobs. It might be a bit trickier with science because of practicals and the secondary curriculum being something you’d need to learn.
You’ve already got the teaching experience of maths up to GCSE Foundation level and the background to easily pick up the rest.

When job adverts go out and literally no one applies, you’d actually be a strong candidate despite not being secondary trained.

#teammaths

[Stupiddriver1]

My ex biology teacher SIL was told she had to teach maths as the school were so short. She really didn’t want to and didn’t feel confident enough. School said she had no choice. So she quit teaching. School were then short on a biology teacher and a maths teacher! 🤷‍♀️

[cantkeepawayforever]

(One possibility would be to go part time in primary and volunteer at a secondary for at least one of the free days, as I appreciate that until I have 'been there' it's hard to tell whether it would be possible - but I am not really in a position where I would want to go back to uni for another year. As I say, I am old.....)

[Piggywaspushed]

I am probably seeing this through my own filter as in my school, retention is worst ( by a long way) in English, recruitment most difficult in MFL and English.

There have definitely been practices in my school such as some extra payments for scientists and rapid promotion, which haven't been so readily available to the rest of us.

[cantkeepawayforever]

Personal query:

I am an upper KS2 primary teacher, with a very strong science background (Oxbridge degree and PhD) and top grade A-levels in Maths, Further Maths, Physics and Chemistry. I am old, so these are not 'top of my mind', but I can still e.g. help my own children with A-level Maths.

If I were to think 'teaching science - or even Maths - at secondary sounds like a possible way forward (there are things in primary, like the daily marking / display workload and also the very high level of workload around pastoral care / SEN documentation / social service-type issues, that I am starting to find very difficult) is there any mechanism to do this? Or do I have to go back to do a secondary PGCE?

[noblegiraffe]

I am not sure you can recruit teachers on one more free, though

Would it help for retention? One more free a week amongst current teachers wouldn’t be sniffed at.

[noblegiraffe]

I guess Biology teachers are needed to prop up the lack of physics and chemistry teachers at KS3 and GCSE. Recruitment by stealth to fill the gap.

[FlamingoAndJohn]

At my school we had no physics or chemistry teachers. So we didn’t do physics or chemistry at all!

[Piggywaspushed]

Well, I shall have my momentary grumble that Biology teachers get a hefty bursary when they are the easiest teachers to recruit...

[Piggywaspushed]

I am not sure you can recruit teachers on one more free, though : that wouldn't exactly work. teen was suggesting a lot more than one extra PPA I think!

Ah, I see about the %s. Quite proud that a mere English teacher spotted it! I did wonder if, in our Orwellian world, the English target was a target of getting at least 79% of the target...

[noblegiraffe]

Giving physics and maths teachers more free periods would not go down well amongst teachers of other subjects

My school once gave English teachers an extra PPA because of all the marking. There was a bit of grumbling but no major outrage, tbh. Obviously that got scrapped when the money ran out.

I think teachers are more aware of the reality of the situation than they are given credit for, if Heads said ‘look, we cannot recruit maths teachers as things currently stand so we need to offer a sweetener otherwise the whole school is doomed on progress 8’ then again, there’d be grumbling, but the world would still turn.

[noblegiraffe]

I think it’s a mistake, Piggy. The schoolsweek article has English at 110% and computing at 79% so I think they read the wrong line.
Doesn’t say much for their maths skills if the editor didn’t pick up that 79% isn’t exceeding a target!

[Piggywaspushed]

Noble , can you explain this paragraph? How does this mean English did well?

However, recruitment for biology exceeded target at 166 per cent as did history (127 per cent), geography (119 per cent) and English (79 per cent).

[Piggywaspushed]

Giving physics and maths teachers more free periods would not go down well amongst teachers of other subjects... obvious but true.

In my experience (controversy follows!) science teachers do less intensive planning than , say, English teachers. Lessons are standardised. Lab techs set up equipment. They also do a good deal less marking. Clearly, none of this is a compelling recruitment strategy!