Teaching shortage in the news

[rollonthesummer]

I saw this in my half awake fog this morning

bbc

and thought-'ooh, are people actually accepting there's a massive recruitment/retention problem at last', as usually there's some comment like 'a spokesperson from the DFE says that there has never been a better time to enter teaching' but then I saw this was in Scotland.

I thought-from reading comments on here-that teaching was a lot better up in Scotland-less pressure to double mark etc but if Scotland are recognising there's problems, then surely it's a big issue!

Why don't they realise there's a problem, and rather than saying 'Let's give unscruplous headteachers the power to pay brilliant people more (which only in reality ends up with them paying most people badly), just stop 50% of the mindless unnecessary shite that the job entails and the fact that you are only ever one observation away from capability proceedings, and people won't be leaving in droves!

What's going to happen with it all, will it implode!?

Can a teacher come from eg France to Scotland and teach without doing the probationary year?

traditionally primary school teachers did a BEd - so a degree in education/being a primary school teacher rather than a first degree and then a post grad qualification in education. i wasn't aware the trend had changed that much for those coming into the profession now but am glad to hear it has tbh.

Think another issue is the removal of return to teaching courses. Having taken 5 years out when I had kids I felt I needed a short refresher to cover some of what had changed in that time (including stuff like interactive whiteboard, afl etc etc) nothing was available so i haven't ended up back in the classroom. I am teaching but 1:1, I think there are a far few people who just never come back after having kids and it would cost far less to offer them a refresher than it does to recruit overseas or offer bursaries to new trainees

Very true geogteach - I did a return to teaching course.

good point geo - it's a bloody nightmare just going back after a break and there being no support whatsoever. interactive whiteboards is a good example! i went to work in an FE college for a couple of years in a role that wasn't teaching but required me to give presentations to staff sometimes and the whiteboards were baffling. luckily in the college you could book a training session on the intranet - in a school i'd have been lucky to find a teacher who wasn't so busy and stressed that they could spare me five seconds to show me how to turn it on.

I have just returned to teach in England after an 8 year break and it has changed a lot. Fortunately I am under allocated so am able to get the bulk of the work done at school, but I am having to bug people a bit to show me how to do x,y,z on whichever computer program. I love being in the classroom though. I also wish there had been some sort of return to teaching course available, but I am doing ok really.

As long as you have a BA / BSc and a post graduate teaching qualification, or equivalent. The awarding body is the GTCS and there is a lot of information there on what is required.

One difference with teacher training here is it is 2 years - one year studying / placements and the 2nd year in school (allocated, only some limited choice as to region) and paid on a slightly reduced timetable. Then you apply for jobs.

I came from England - BA and then PGCE and 7 years in private schools and had no problem bring registered and got work very, very quickly.

HoneyBadger, I think as being a teacher ceased being a life-long career, those entering the profession wanted the flexibility of a first degree so that they could change jobs more easily.
When I started 30 years ago, most teachersin primary intended to stay in the job until retirement.
Now it's very rarely the case that you meet someone who's been a teacher for a continuous 20 years FT. Part-time or burnout around a decade or less is more the norm.

thanks mischief.

it makes you think it's also a shame there isn't more ways forward or ways to use those teachers - ok they can go part time but that's not always the answer and many (again can only speak for secondary) find for various reasons (which i could explain if needed to but won't bore unnecessarily) you end up with a full time workload on part time hours and pay. if they could afford it i guess they could start from scratch and go into education psychology or social work or some such and use their skills that way.

i paid to retrain as a counsellor but it was actually still schools, young people and the deficits in how we train young people about their own minds and taking care of themselves that interested me but no place in schools for this kind of thing in england at least. i spoke to MIND and they said they struggle to be allowed in for free to talk to young people about mental health. PHASE/PSE/whatever it's called now or in your area is kind of hodge podged into the timetable where it will fit and mostly developed and delivered by non specialists with little time or resources to do it justice. pastoral care and positions are tokenistic - here's a responsibility point and one extra free lesson a fortnight to allegedly be responsible for a whole key stage or some such.

it would be nice to see more diverse positions in school and for those positions to take the pressure off of classroom teachers. true pastoral roles, school counsellors, genuine experts in behavioural issues, specialist 'school' social workers, more curriculum flexibility and the trainers required to deliver those other options and respect given to options other than traditionally academic routes (and that too would take pressure off of teachers who didn't have pissed off, bored and resentful kids in their class being forced to do things they had established years before they didn't want to do but were being forced to do) etc.

sorry long post and positively la la land type thinking compared to our rigid approach.

and frankly not packing 30 kids into a 4m square room elbow to elbow with no room to move your chair without bashing into someone would help. what a way to spend over 6 hours a day?

Which is why, after years of being a class teacher, supply is such fun!

but given classes can be covered by a non teacher now there won't be much of it around for long. i've seen a lot of 'cover supervisor' posts advertised for schools - pay is not far off a LSA and pro rata despite being full time and doesn't require a teaching qualification. i 'think' the last time i looked into it/tried to get my head round it they only have to get a qualified teacher in if they know the absence is goign to be over a certain length of time.

I'm primary and in Sussex, and mos schools round here go for a real teacher.

I'm going to have to clean my keyboard, far too many sticky keys!

I got supply work easily enough

primary/secondary divide again i think.

i trained in sussex

I think secondary use cover supervisors.

All secondary schools round here use cover supervisors. They're usually a couple of pay scales above an LSA/TA - around the same as a HLTA or slightly above. Even the grammar schools use them.

In our school though, 2/3 are studying their degrees to become a teacher, so it's like extended training for them.

If they're short-staffed, why don't they stop 'picking off' the older, highly-experienced, well-paid staff?

possibly because management have not, for some time, been head'teachers' or someone looking after the best interests of a school but managers of a budget or business with very different objectives and values.

might also have something to do with why teaching and learning and the environment and atmosphere within schools has 'changed' so much.

in the time i was teaching i saw a lot of what i called 'young yes men' being promoted very rapidly and a lot of highly experienced, excellent people managers, educators and pastoral leaders being sidelined into roles with a ton of work to do but no power to effect anything. that was 2001-2007 ish.

sorry that should be 'affect'? brain not in gear.

£25k to train tax free. They're getting desperate. I predict a lot of computer based learning coming in, particularly in maths.

I have emails from a teaching job site. A week after we started in September, daily I get adverts for teaching jobs. There are tons coming up. I know an NQT who has just started and horrified that he has to finish at 7:30 every night, work at home, then work all weekend. Young people don't want to do this job. They want to go out with friends on a Saturday night. The job adverts are almost screaming that the teacher has said 'Sod this for a game of soldiers'. And if you have a family it's even worse.

I agree re young people-it's a mug's game. It's the NQTs crying in the toilets at my place at the moment. The rest of us are plotting escape routes!!