Apparently there is NOT a recruitment crisis!

[rollonthesummer]

I'll start off by getting the thread title right!

I have just received a reply from my local Tory MP who I had written to regarding various issues within teaching. I quote...

'Regarding your concern that a lot of teachers are leaving the profession, he (David Laws, minister of state for schools) assures me that this is not reflected in the official statistics that were published this January. He states that what the statistics show is that vacancy rates are declining with the majority of new teachers still teaching after 5 years. Further to this, he states that teacher retention remains stable with 91% of teachers who began teaching in maintained schools in 2008 still teaching one year later and 76% still teaching five years later and in November 2013 there were just 750 vacancies across the country, a rate of 0.2%.'

Bullshit? Statistics? Not a problem!?

Oh good. So the statistics and warnings from OFSTED, Schools Direct, the TES and the Daily Mail are all wrong and all is well.
We can all relax then.

I wonder if 76% retention after 5 years (if accurate) would be considered a success. For example, I'd be pretty shocked if it was applied to medicine. I wonder how 750 vacancies is measured and whether November is the right time to measure.

I also thought that 24% leaving teaching within the first 5 years sounds quite high. It takes years to train for, so a bit worrying that quite a few people teach for less time than they spent at college.

Would love to know what other professions have for their retention figures.

Have they conveniently ignored those teachers who train and never teach?

There are schools round here in total recruitment crisis-can't get anyone, classes taught by supplies or merged into massive ones.

How is it Ed Milliband recognised there was a problem and was trying to work out what would entice ex-teachers back into the job yet the Tories are just denying there's even a problem.

I want to see actual statistics!!

I think the number of teaching vacancies is published somewhere, and IIRC the recent 'peak' years were around 2009 and the number has been falling since 2011. No idea how that compares to the number in UK who have qualified as a teacher.

NQTs finding posts at all has been the big recent difficulty (remembers much in TES on this!)

Are you saying that NQTs can't find jobs?

I'm so surprised-our job paper is full of teaching vacancies. They need to come to my town!!

Well there's a job going at my school come September!

I will have made it through 6 years so past the magic 5 year mark, but sadly not long enough to pay back the bloody student loan!

The HT in our school as told parents that there is a recruitment crisis in our area!

and not just in shortage subjects...

and this is an over-subscribed school with a good reputation in a 'nice' 'leafy' area

If it's changing, that's great, but in 2011 21% of NQTs had not found a post in the year after qualification, and teacher unemployment doubled in the five years after 2007 (source, TES).

82 teaching vacancies in Bucks today. A couple of years ago at this time of year it would have been 15 or 20. A former colleague now Deputy at a nearby school told me they couldn't recruit NQTs for live nor money last year. And the Head of a lovely Herts school told me this week that not only dis they have no applicants at all for a vacancy they had recently, Herts schools are so desperate to recruit the county council is holding all sorts of extra recruitment events. But of course there isn't a recruitment crisis...

rollon in Laws is your local MP we are neighbours. The thing that scares me about our area is the number of Headships advertised.

He is completely in denial if he thinks there isn't a problem.

How can they say they there isn't a problem?!

I'm on a supply teachers group and there are experienced teachers joining on a daily basis-have been full time/permanent for 5/10/20 years and are sick of it-the phrase I've seen most commonly quoted is-'I need to get my life back'.

There is a problem. How can they say there isn't???

I'll presume you aren't being sarcastic.

Lots of the schools near me have multiple vacancies that they cannot fill. There are double the job adverts there normally are this time of year and classes are having to double up with supply teachers and HLTAs are being used to teach long term. Teachers are giving in their notice with no job to go to as they are so miserable.

That crisis.

Lots of vacancies here. Interviews being held for 1-2 candidates as that's all that's applied.
Dd1 needs a French teacher (as she's part way through her gcse ) if anyone wants to come here they're advertising for the second time

As one of those who trained (PGCE Secondary) and has never taught, allow me to present the reasons. When I started retraining, I was 50 but because of an urgent family medical problem, I was 54 when I qualified. Here in the leafy Southwest, where DH has built a business, there have been probably fewer than 10 jobs in my subject (citizenship) advertised since 2010. And when I applied for jobs, surprise, surprise....... I have never even received a reply to any application I have made for a teaching job. I shall be 59 this year, and frankly I have given up bothering to read the ads in TES. But I really enjoyed teaching, and I thought I was quite reasonable at it!

I work in a temp job in Hertfordshire and am soon to be released into the world of looking for jobs - I walked straight out of my last job of 7 years right into this one so things are very different now! Will I encounter a lot of problems finding employment?

I wonder where this MP is getting their stats on vacancies from?

Perhaps he assumes (wrongly!) that all teaching posts are advertised in the TES... It costs a small fortune (about £1000 a week) for an advert in the TES. Many schools cannot afford to advertise all their vacancies through these expensive routes.

Also, there are some serious recruitment issues in particular areas, in particular maths and physics. Finding a teacher (to fill a vacancy) who has actually done their degree in one of these subjects is very difficult as they are an elusive species! It's probably all the interesting and highly paid jobs they could be doing instead of teaching for a relatively moderate salary.

I'm History - there's hundreds of us and not as many jobs. Any recruitment agent in the world will tell you that right now you can live off supply. I'm near the London border so that helps a lot!

We've just advertised for a Literacy co-ordinator for September.
Full TLR, member of SLT, choice of year group to teach, 'Good' school, that was ofsteded last month (so not coming back any time soon). We're in a medium sized city, and ok, so the school is in the most deprived bit, but we just got a 'Good', whereas most of the other primaries in the city seem to be chugging away under the super scrutiny of 'requires improvement'. You'd think there would be some interest.

Four people looked round, four applied, two have been short listed for interview. Two! It's ridiculous.

Getting good history teachers can still be a problem. Last time we advertised we got 5 applications. Two were borderline illiterate. We called the other 3 for interview. One pulled out before the day so we had two. I feel like we got really lucky as only one of the taught lessons was any good. Other jobs have had to be readvertised because there are no suitable candidates. We are a very good school in a well-connected outer London borough.

History always tended to be a field where there were more applications than any other. The last job I had (in 2008, was there for years!) there were 54 applicants and 6 at the interview - also in a leafy area of NE London! As my current position's a temp, I was just pulled in off a recruiter's books. I'm dreading the return to the job hunt!