Online lessons because schools can't recruit and retain teachers

[Hayliebells]

A school local to me has written to parents to explain that some science lessons will be via pre-recorded online learning, with students in computer rooms, as they haven't got enough Science teachers to teach all the timetabled lessons. This is where an inability to recruit and retain teachers leads, and it's shameful. We really are a two tier society now, with students in private schools in small classes, taught by specialist teachers, and students in state schools effectively teaching themselves at a computer. Pre-recorded lessons aren't even as good as many schools were offering for online learning during lockdown, it's the opposite of responsive teaching. Where's the opportunity to address misconceptions, to answer the students questions? This is not teaching, and only a minority of students can learn this way. Online lessons are standard in countries like Mexico, for families who cannot afford private schools. They have schools made up of computer suites, with students sat learning via online lessons all day, and staff just there to supervise. This is not just the future of schools in the UK if we carry on as we are, it's happening now. How anyone can think this is OK is beyond me. The government should be ashamed.

It's certainly true that the private sector is affected, but it's also true that the strongest private schools are going to be affected least and last - so it's still a two tier system, but the upper tier is increasingly small. At our school, for example, we're finding teacher recruitmemt harder (and support staff recruitment much harder than that, incidentally), but we're still in a situation where every lesson is taught by a subject specialist (apart from a once in a blue moon short notice one off lesson where we have to use a non subject specialist). That's a very different situation from what is happening in a lot of the state sector.

(FWIW I don't think pay is the main issue, even if that's what the strikes are ostensibly about.)

I work in an indie and when we advertise for staff it is always teachers from state who apply. Our classes are a bit smaller, pay is in line with, or just below state teachers’ pay and our days are significantly longer with expectations we will do many more parents’ evenings, reports, clubs etc. However, the main difference is the children are (generally) well-behaved and no one fears teaching any groups. We still teach a huge number of children with SEN but we can teach, not lion tame!

State teachers come to us and think it is like a holiday camp as there are no discipline issues. We still work incredibly hard but if a kid steps out of line, the head can suspend and permanently exclude. This is a big difference between state and my school.

Why would anyone want to be a teacher nowadays?

The starting salary is around £23k which isn't enough to pay rent and bills on a 1 bed flat near me (not an affluent area and I imagine it's the same in most of the country). Maybe they could manage if they got a guarantor and lived off food bank parcels or community fridge schemes. Definitely no money left over for a meal with friends or days out. A one week holiday is out of the question.

Why would anyone get into £30k of student debt (and that's just the tuition fees on an undergrad degree) to work in a job where they can't afford to have any quality of life?

"Well where I live you can rent a one bed flat for a fiver a month so why don't they just move to a cheaper area?" Because if everyone moves to a cheaper area, it's no longer cheap because landlords will increase the rent like they have everywhere else.

The salary alone is a barrier for people accessing teaching as a career. Yes, there's a salary scale they go through but it's going to take quite a few years to get to the point where they earn enough to house themselves and have any kind of basic quality of life.

That's just the salary aspect. Like PP have said, teaching isn't respected. Everyone knows teachers are underpaid, overworked, having to deal with constant abuse from pupils and parents. Why would anyone sign up for that?

Pretty much every graduate career is a better option than teaching is right now.

We need to make teaching an attractive, prestigious profession again.

Controversial opinion: I think we need to discuss paying teachers different rates. STEM teachers can earn significantly more outside of teaching, so teaching is less attractive. Other subjects teaching pay is greater than non-teaching pay, so makes teaching more attractive.

It isn’t a coincidence that science and maths are the hardest subjects to recruit. They have been falling behind recruitment targets for new teachers for years. I have a PhD in physics,I choose to teach as I do love it, but I know I could be earning a shit load more elsewhere. If I stop loving it, I am going to go.

Pay in demand subjects more. Pay shortage locations more. Pay more expensive areas more (not just London weighting). 1 national payscale is too clumsy.

I also do teach in a private school, as I was fed up with not having the right equipment, class sizes too big to be safe (34 in a practical subject is too many, Scotland limits to 25!). And a big one for me, I can teach in specialism, as my subject knowledge is valued, unlike state where I would be asked to teach all 3 sciences, where I do not have that knowledge base.

"Why would Rishi care when his daughter goes to Wycombe Abbey?"

I'm no fan of the Tories, and of course am desperate for a Labour landslide as soon as possibly can. But I hate this kind of reductive argument. It's not an explanation nor is it a reasonable assumption.

I've never had an issue with drugs but I still care that the state provides good quality medical and psychological support for heroin and crack addicts 🤷🏻‍♀️

The problem is way bigger than that and we ought to grapple with it

I think discipline is the biggest issue, that along with parental attitude is the main reason I left teaching (maths). This needs to be addressed urgently and I believe the only way is a no tolerence policy across the board. We also need more SEN schools so that other children in the class can learn without disruption from those that are struggling to focus on topics that are way beyond their capacity.

I agree with the pp that said we need to go back to segregation on the basis of ability - it is pointless teaching simultaneous equations or pythagoras to a child that is never going to grasp algebra in any form. Trying to teach something that is that far beyond a child's capacity to learn is counter-productive and is partly to blame for poor behaviour. That child would be more engaged and better off spending much more time learning practical life skills such as how to manage their money so they can at least function in the world after school ends.

Online learning of the future is much more nuanced that most people seem to think. I now work in home education and find that some of the more advanced online systems are excellent at picking up on errors and misunderstandings and adapting to suit the individual child. For maths this is much better than using a class teacher who does not have time to diagnose and tailor that sort of individual attention to a single child in a large class. The teacher can see the progress through the software immediately and can address it. I therefore think a combination of online and face-to-face time is the solution. Children watch a lecture, complete an exercise at a computer and then smaller groups arranged by ability are used to address common issues. This is more like a university lecture and seminar system that caters for large numbers of students with a lower staff pupil ratio, however it can only work if we resolve the behavioural issues first.

It’s not just a pay issue. Behaviour of many students and parents nowadays is absolutely appalling and it’s only going to get worse. Kids are no longer disciplined and most are brought up to be entitled shits. Workforce entrants these days are horrific and they get worse every decade. Teachers are at the coal front of this behaviour, who the fuck would want to put themselves in this position? Money won’t fix this.

Not in UK but same here and not just public schools. For senior secondary, many have not had specialist teachers for years, just an unqualified Joe thrust into the situation and doing their best. A colleague at work has a child in senior years at a private school. They literally have teachers for half their subjects as there is no one out there to recruit, so they have gone to an online centralised distance learning model. For subjects such as chem/physics/bio they are making deals with uni’s to send kids there for a block of days to do required prac work under appropriate instruction. While I imagine the uni’s are not thrilled, they have little choice really as otherwise they get lumbered with first year entrants that can’t light a Bunsen burner, don’t have requisite practical skills.

None of this is limited to the UK and for us it seems to be agnostic to which party is in Government.

It makes complete sense to me. The opportunity cost of teaching, say, computer science (with a computer science degree), is much higher than teaching, say, English (with an English lit degree).

If schools cannot reduce that opportunity cost, it's only natural they will struggle to employ in specialist subject areas that have substantial market demand in the private sector.

But is it still a controversial idea?

It's sort of acknowledged by the government already through this type of policy change - www.gov.uk/government/news/salary-boosts-for-new-maths-science-and-computing-teachers

They need to take it further to cover senior teachers as well I guess.

Another thing that may make a difference, is the social status of the job. From how I have seen some parents behaving with teachers in DD's old school (state primary), it seems they don't respect teachers as much as some other cultures (I am Asian, and respect for teachers is ingrained in some cultures). I don't think any government policy can change this though! It's a cultural thing.

"It’s going to lead to negative effects on children’s lifestyles, as parents scrimp and stretch to afford private education because state schools are so bad."

Possibly, that only applies to a fraction of a fraction of the population. I wouldn't spend any time worrying about it.

Let's address the actual problem instead

Tbf I think @SummerWinds means home ed, not higher ed! I don’t agree that remote learning via recorded lesson is a good idea there either tho. Certainly not as the main or only source of learning.

Shortly, AI will be able to do this.

I think children should be taught by (human) teachers. However, I can easily imagine a situation where children will sit in a classroom on a personal device and be given feedback by AI with just a human supervisor in the room. I think we are very nearly there in terms of the technology and the DfE will be rubbing their hands with glee at how cheap that will be.

www.schoolmanagementplus.com/features/in-focus-i-used-to-think-computer-science-teachers-would-be-safe-from-ai/

You will note that was a teacher planning a lesson for sixth form.

The model assumes that children will be motivated to engage with the platform.

An awful lot of teaching at the moment involves getting the kids to actually do the work.

Plus, what happens with all the other things that kids do at school? The sport, the drama, the music, the human interaction with both teachers and other children? School is not just all about learning algebra. Increasingly, in fact, that's what parents are choosing to pay for in the private sector - among the parents we see coming to us, there's a recognition that a properly funded education, free from government and Ofsted control, is about so much more than getting your three As and your university place. We have more demand than ever before, from people dissatisfied with what they're getting from the state sector, and worried about how things might go in future. (Of course, that's only unfortunately open to a small percentage who can either afford fees or access bursaries.)

Is there a link to this?

I would think at least local press would have picked it up.

I disagree. A lot of people could scrape together 10-15k a year if they cancelled literally everything else. Middle class parents will bankrupt themselves to pay for private school if state school becomes unviable. They will cut all treats and days out, cancel extra curricular activities like sport and music, stop going on holidays, work evenings and weekends for extra cash, reduce the quality of their diet, maybe downsize their house or put their home at risk by remortgaging. Kids and parents lives will be shit, the people who made a living from providing tourism and hobbies and treats will lose their income. And state schools will become solely for the poor, so won’t be a nice place to be at all.

@Eudaimonia5 which careers do you think pay significantly more to a new starter? 23k plus 5 weeks holiday is pretty typical for a graduate

I think you’re wrong to make this state v private. Our state school in a nice area has great teachers and sufficient staffing. It’s far more nuanced than that.

Behaviour and parenting. I say it time ans again but those who are not teachers disagree.

They don’t see it. They are almost certainly the same parents who believe everything their kids say. They’re a nightmare to deal with as a teacher.

I left teaching, a job I loved, and most of my friends are either done or looking for an exit. Education in this country is fucked.

Our state school in a nice area has great teachers and sufficient staffing.

Even if it does now (which I am dubious about tbh), will it next year given that the number of trainees currently is just 59% of what is actually needed for secondary schools hiring for September?

It’s £28k starting salary btw. And despite that and the holidays, graduates are choosing to do other things.

@Commah thats £15k for one child! Most people don’t have one child. We couldn’t possibly afford £30k a year! We have no choice but to use state education. We are not “poor” just not wealthy enough for this government clearly 🙄.

@noblegiraffe absolutely - and even those who are persuaded into the profession soon leave. The drop out rate for NQTs is horrific 😩.

Chances are that at least one of your child’s teachers is not a subject specialist, and you won’t know about it. The recruitment issue has been going on for a while now.

They don't care though. Why would Rishi care when his daughter goes to Wycombe Abbey? She'll never have this issue, or being taught by someone not qualified in the subject, because its the only person they can get
Because wealthy people need educated people to staff the businesses and services that make them wealthy...

Chances are at least one of your child's teachers is not a teacher, let alone a subject specialist.

My friend works as a cover supervisor in a large secondary school. He is the only maths teacher some students have had, including one class he has taught all the way up to Y10. He isn't a qualified teacher and actually failed his own maths GCSE back in the day.

A couple of years ago, one of the kids I know that attends a local school was stressed out about his Spanish GCSE oral exam. Not surprising given that, in the 5 years leading up to that point, his class had never had a Spanish-speaking teacher, just covers who didn't speak the language.