What could be done to stop the teacher recruitment and retention crisis?

[noblegiraffe]

The situation in teaching is absolutely dire and parents would be up in arms if they knew the true extent of the effect it was having on their children's education.
So what can actually be done about it? There is an issue with workload because while some is pointless, some actually does benefit the kids. e.g. In maths, the new GCSE has 3 papers instead of 2. My school also introduced a second mock in March as well as November. This has tripled the amount of mock marking compared to previously. In addition, we have to enter each mark for each question for each student by hand onto a spreadsheet which then generates a list of all their strengths and weaknesses. Huge extra workload. But if it was suggested that the second mock and the analysis was binned, there would be a pang of guilt because it is actually useful. Think of the children!

So what can be done?

1. My school should have considered workload before it introduced the second mock. What we didn't have already, wouldn't be missed. If any new initiative is seen to increase workload, then workload has to be decreased elsewhere to compensate. Always. That might focus a few minds on what is really necessary.

2. Ofsted are considering dropping the outstanding rating. This would have a huge impact, but they are being held back by the fact that parents like it. The views of education professionals should outweigh parents in this instance.

3. Scrap any notion that teachers' pay should be linked to individual student results or class results. Unions already advise against it, but Ofsted should ask to see appraisal objectives and any school that has results in there should be not allowed to get higher than requires improvement. Student and class results are too volatile to be used as a positive performance indicator. Cohort results for those with a cohort responsibility I'm not sure about...

4. Cap CEO of academy pay linked to how many schools they are responsible for. School funding should not be lining individual pockets. On top of that, increase base funding for schools so that they have enough money for sufficient TAs, support staff and so on.

5. Way more funding for SEN. Open more special schools, review the EHCP process, better training for teachers and so on (there are people way more knowledgeable than me with ideas about this).

6. Behaviour - do not make having a poorly behaved class increase the workload of a teacher to an unreasonable degree. Centralised detentions. On-call support that actually turns up. An escalating series of sanctions/intervention that is actually followed, and doesn't involve the class teacher doing anything once the kid fails to turn up to their lunch detention/persists in being a pain/is a pain across the school. This should be verified by Ofsted because otherwise SLT will get away with not doing it.

Any other ideas?

Whoever believes there isn't a recruitment and retention crisis obviously hasn't tried to appoint a shortage subject teacher to a bog standard comp or secondary modern recently

Yup. I do cover supervisor work in my local (good) comp (where dh is deputy head). I often cover the same classes over and over again because no replacement can be found for their medium to long-term absent teacher.

After I joined my first school, there were no new teachers in the department for about five years (in a department of about 18!). Even then, for the next few years new staff were down to people retiring or moving. In the last four years there has been an epic turnover and since I left two years ago there are now only two of the same members of staff there. At one point several jobs were unfilled, one was filled by an unqualified teacher (who was teaching A-level!) and they were without a head of department for over a year. A “bog standard” rural comprehensive that used to be a fairly nice place to work, and is now an utter hellhole.
I’m sure on paper the recruitment stats aren’t that bad. But the entire ethos and morale of the department has been utterly changed in three years. Working as a teacher is hard enough without dealing with a chaotic department environment too.

Perhaps do what the most successful schools are doing - invest in quality leadership, trust the teachers and believe in the students. Like this school, for example www.theolivetreeprimary.com

Extraordinary results.

I am fed up of being a teacher today because I can't get my washing machine repaired. such a trivial thing but the utter inflexibility of our hours does drive me up the wall.

They 'could call' any time between 7 am and 6 pm to fix it but I won't even know ballpark til tomorrow morning.

DH is a teacher. No family.

Can you imagine me running that one past the cover man.....

I know someone who did some research fairly recently into the reasons teachers were leaving the profession. They expected government policy to be the most important factor but found that the quality of leadership in schools was much more decisive. In some schools SLT shielded their staff from as much stress as possible but in others they amplified it and passed it all on to their staff.
The recruitment crisis is really being driven by weak leadership in a significant minority of schools. There are a lot of pointless and onerous tasks being invented by SLT in some schools that serve no discernible purpose. I was at a conference recently and chatting to other teachers made me realise how much pointless stuff people are being asked to do in some schools. One person was saying they have to write into students books when they’ve given them verbal feedback. Who on earth is that meant to be for? We had Ofsted last year and they were very clear that they weren’t interested in that sort of thing. What impact could writing “verbal feedback” in a book have? What use is it to the child?
There was someone else saying they have to have levelled, differentiated worksheets for every lesson if they expect to be judged “good” in an untiered, essay-based subject where all the kids will have to do the same few questions in the exam. Where did this idea that 3 worksheets is always better than 1 come from? It’s sometimes appropriate but it’s insane to be doing it every lesson. Again, Ofsted weren’t interested in the absence of colour-coded, differentiated sheets at our school.
We don’t record verbal feedback, or routinely produce differentiated worksheets, we only mark a few of pieces of work per half term, we aren’t expected to mark classwork and are allowed to use tuck sheets or highlighters instead of written feedback. We went from good to outstanding. So much of this stuff isn’t necessary and when people say “Ofsted like it” to justify pointless, time consuming stuff it makes me really angry. They really don’t care.

I'd be interested in seeing that research- do you have a link?
I'm really not surprised by your summary especially re Ofsted. I do wonder sometimes how much training slt are actually given in how to manage their staff and workload.

I don’t have a link. It was a masters thesis that they were telling me about.

Greta post Dumbledore

What do you teach ? A few pieces of marked work per half term is at least one more than we are expected to do! (and we feel overstretched)

The testing and marking and feedback culture has gone out of control.

I read (as genuine advice!) in a book the other day that best practice when oral feedback is given is that students then go back to their desks (primary age!!) and show understanding by writing up and acting upon it immediately. presumably in green pen or purple or whatever.

We can blame the cult of Hattie for that one...

History. Only one piece has to be marked in depth but we’re expected to at least “acknowledgment mark” one of two other piece of work. In reality GCSE and A Level classes often need more marking at certain times but we’re left to decide if/when that’s appropriate.
All of the nuance in research seems to get lost in teaching. It gets twisted and turned into tick boxes. Research shows verbal feedback works so schools become obsessed with creating a paper trail to show that they’re doing it rather than just training teachers to give good verbal feedback, using it as an opportunity to reduce written marking, building a school culture where students behave well and listen to their staff and then trusting teachers to put in place. The evidence that kids are getting effective verbal feedback will come from the progress they make and quality of work not a bloody stamp saying “verbal feedback” peppered through an exercise book. 😡

I think we might be twins.

I agree with every word you say!

We mark twice a half term (minimum) but they both need proper marking (originally we were told the first one could be peer marked or not marked but then data tracking suggested otherwise!) and then feedback which, if done effectively) eats away at teaching. The other galling thing is that the assessments come a week or so before the holiday so we get no holiday time to mark them and always have a week to kill when w have actually finished a unit of work. apparently that's when we can 'be creative' show a DVD

Packaging learning into half term units drives me potty.

It is different at A Level. there are minimum expectations and some deadlines but we are free to set homework and assessments as and when it makes sense and mark them as we choose. there is a bit of obsession with doing everything in class though which I do think stifles independent learning and the luxury of time for students to really think and plan and refine.

We are expected to deep mark every exercise book every fortnight. As a 0.7 teacher, that's 7 classes. The school has a strict homework timetable, so books can only be taken in on certain days. That may mean taking in and marking 3 sets of books in 2 days with no PPAs in between. Marking is expected to have a target and students are expected to have shown evidence of responding to it. On top of that each class has a test or exam at least once per half term.

The marking has buried me utterly. I am out of there at Christmas, never to return.

That is ridiculous beyond belief.

And do the students know more and understand better because of all of it??

I am a hod of my won little department as well as a core teacher.

What a secret joy it is to collect in books when I feel like, do assessments when it suits me and the children and give them feedback in the manner I choose. Shhhh..... don't tell SLT. I am too happy.

Piggy- I suspect that there are lots of us in teaching thinking the same thing.

Sweetchild- what a waste of time! 😡

Meanwhile in primary, it is the norm to mark every book between every lesson of the same subject - so daily for Maths & English, at least once a week for everything else...

Yes, they write less that a secondary pupil would, but the relentlessness of marking a couple of pages of Maths + a set of exercises or half a page to a page of writing, plus another subject on average each day, can really get you down....

At least the marking no longer has to have two comments, 1 positive 1 developmental EVERY day, following a change in policy...

Bonkers.

The thing most likely to drive me out of teaching is inclusion (will probably be hammered for this, but genuinely).

I have three autistic children in my class this year. It is absolutely impossible to teach. Two, god love them, do their absolute best to get on, but they're barely coping, they're not flourishing. A child deserves to go to school without stress... and the simple fact of the matter is, that over ten people in a room stresses them out!

The third is impossible to have in a mainstream class and he is disrupting everyone I've had to evacuate three times this week. He stims verbally from 9am to 3pm. If I get through this year it'll be with an addiction to over the counter pain relief for the grinding headaches.

I rarely manage to see everyone's books during a lesson, I am so busy with 3 children. I rarely get through a teaching point without retrieving someone from doing a runner. It's ridiculous.

And do the students know more and understand better because of all of it??

The students are currently picking up some great 'independent learning' skills due to the fact that two of the nine teaching positions in the department are being covered by supply. They are getting no marking whatsoever.

When the parents see their children's timetables at the start of the year and breathe a sigh of relief when they see the list of teachers, why is that? Why do other parents come out in a cold sweat when they see who their children will have for the next year? I can tell you what parents never end up thinking - "I'm so glad Tarquin has Mr X for Physics as his formative comments in exercise books are so useful".

For the first time in 20 years I am not enjoying the job. We are micro managed in everything and nothing is ever good enough.
This is a conversation we have all had ...
‘You want to know why little Johnny failed his exam? He’s a lazy fucker that’s why. He skived school, when he was in was in the inclusion hub, argued and didn’t take his headphones out and wrote nothing in the exam’
‘Sorry what? It’s my fault? So intervention, 1:1, setting work for inclusion, speaking daily to his mother, working with TAs. That wasn’t enough’

Haven't RTFT so not sure if it's been mentioned, but why on earth can't we use textbooks for all subjects? I teach English and we make every lesson ourselves! On top of that, can't we sack off differentiation in setted subjects? I grew up on the continent and they have streamed schools, with different exams (like foundation and higher, but with more levels) and I am pretty certain nothing was ever differentiated. Makes me so sad to have to prepare children for an exam they haven't a hope in hell of passing...

Our English department uses textbooks. Not for everything, I don’t think, but I’ve seen piles of textbooks in their classrooms. I couldn’t function as a teacher without decent textbooks. I think any history teacher who even attempts going completely without them is either a bit bonkers or works in a school where the management are lunatics.

Absolutely agreed about text books or high quality structured resources in primary too that have been checked and edited to university standard. Instead we’re turning to twinkl and much as I love it I’ve found a few mistakes. Mind you I found some in my y7 dd’s revision maths homework. Human error, fine, but text books from a reputable source would not have that.

Maths textbooks at the moment are uniformly terrible. My favourite ones are 17 years old and are held together by penis graffiti. Back when people had the time to actually write proper textbooks and not chuck them together because the government had changed the syllabus at short notice yet again.

Ha ha ha

Not read the whole thread but basically pay us a decent wage for what we do and the hours we work. Why would graduates in subjects such as science, ICT etc want to go into teaching and earn less than half the salary they could elsewhere? That means the best will walk away.
I’m too of the scale and can barely survive as a single parent. Got a small 3 bed semi and an older car so not living beyond our means.
Not even getting started on workload, government policies, lack of resources etc etc...