More and more leakage from the teaching profession
#Fail Teaching
More and more leakage from the teaching profession
#Fail Teaching

More and more leakage from the teaching profession

Yesterday I reflected on the Education Support report on teacher retention. In fairness, the report was more solution focused than today’s education headlines.

In fact, the sector’s frustrations have been referred to as a “backlash” towards the DfE’s attempt to put a positive spin on the latest school workforce figures. These figures do not make for positive reading. A record 40,000 teachers left the profession last year, 13% of those were in their first year of teaching.

The DfE data release (DfE, 2023a) shows that almost 40,000 teachers left teaching for reasons other than retirement in the last academic year (2021/22). The “Didteach” crowd. That is the highest number since records began in 2010. Now add near further 4,000 who retired.

There is a growing concern as the high and increasing proportion of new teachers who continue to quit each year. More than 1 in 10 teachers fail to complete the first year, nearly a quarter of teachers (23.9%) within three years, and almost a third (31.3%) have walked away within five years – despite improved rates of pay for new teachers. It is not only about the pay. As Jack Worth sagely commented:

It’s not necessarily about the money… it’s about being compensated for the hours worked.

Jack Worth

Yes, we have more teachers: 2,800 more than 2022-23 the focus of the DfE’s press release. But we will most definitely need them if the bucket keeps leaking like this! But wait – pupil numbers across all schools have also increased. 73,800 more pupils are being squeezed into the same number of classrooms! So bigger class sizes. If only a smidge, it is where the pupils are being accommodated. And there are also more classes than ever before with more than 30 pupils. Being taught by fewer and fewer subject specialists, in fact around 13% of teaching hours in EBacc subjects were taught by a teacher without relevant post A level qualification.

The outlook remains stark! Teacher vacancies have doubled in the last two years. Recruitment teams are actively seeking improved terms for their clients. It is a seller’s market. I know, as a few great teachers former colleagues have turned poacher come gamekeeper.

Furthermore, at Secondary level, the figures show the extent to which subjects are being taught by non-specialists. Around 13% of teaching hours in EBacc subjects were taught by a teacher without relevant post A level qualification. How the irony that approaching half of computing lessons are taught by non-specialists. This coding crisis was reported back in 2020.

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#epicfail

(Computing 45.9%, Physics: 27.5%, French 21% and Chemistry 17%).

This has led to a number of organisations, union chiefs and representatives and causal teacher bloggers calling out the government’s spin. It is good to know that Gillian Keegan acknowledged that “there is more to do”.

If you are looking for a stark statistic to go with that morning coffee: The government is only on track to recruit 79% of the primary teachers and just 58% of the secondary teachers it needs in 2023/24 (McClean et al, 2023).

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