Leadership

How to avoid a looming staff shortage

Despite government efforts to the contrary, the number of teachers entering the profession is dropping each year, while those leaving only ever seems to increase. We ask: can anything be done to avert the crisis?

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      string(308) "qualifiedin order to be permanently employed in schools.In December, Labour education spokesmanTristram Hunt said there are now 17,100 unqualifiedteachers in state-funded schools – a rise of 16 per cent inthe past year. In academies and free schools, the numberstands at 7,900 – a rise of 50 per cent ..."
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      string(4657) "qualifiedin order to be permanently employed in schools.In December, Labour education spokesmanTristram Hunt said there are now 17,100 unqualifiedteachers in state-funded schools – a rise of 16 per cent inthe past year. In academies and free schools, the numberstands at 7,900 – a rise of 50 per cent since Gove’slegislation in 2012.Labour pledged to reverse this decision if theycame into power, and even threatened to fireunqualified teachers if they hadn’t at least beguntraining for Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) by the endof the next parliament. We can assume however, withthe Conservative majority, that schools will continue tobe able to hire teachers without QTS to teach in theirclassrooms. At the moment, only 3.7 per cent of teachersare ‘unqualified’ – could, as Nicky Morgan suggests,‘nuns, great linguists, computer scientists, engineersand other specialists that inspire their pupils’ be a viableoption for schools struggling to recruit?Another possible solution is to take advantage of thewell-qualified, English-speaking teachers who want towork here and hire teachers from overseas. Teachers fromthe EU automatically have QTS status. However, this doesnot necessarily make them a desirable hire, especially iftheir language skills will adversely affect communicationor if their understanding of the UK curriculum is limited.As a result, some schools are reluctant to hire teachersfrom the EU. This is perhaps understandable from theschool’s point of view, but it does mean recruiters arehaving to recommend EU teachers take voluntary or TAroles as a way of acclimatising with the school systemhere.Another spanner in the works is that agencies can nolonger apply for work permits for non EU teachers – thishas to be done by the school employing them, placingKnowledge trails1. Keeping new teachers teaching – Thedemands of a teaching job are oftenoverwhelming for someone just enteringthe profession. Chris Wheatley and PaulStone discuss what heads can do to help.library.teachingtimes.com/articles/keeping-new-teachers-teaching2. Holding on to your talent – Take care toretain and reward your star teachers, saysJody Goldsworthy, and your efforts will berepaid many times over.library.teachingtimes.com/articles/holding-on-to-your-talentan even greater administrative burden on the school.The upshot of all this is that if the full time placementdoesn’t work out for whatever reason, then the teacher’sright to work is revoked, and they have to go through thewhole visa application process again – and meanwhile,the system loses a qualified and potentially experiencedteacher.What can we expect from the newgovernment?In their manifesto, the Conservatives recognised theneed to attract more teachers to the profession. Theypromised to introduce bursariesfor the most in-demand subjects,in addition to encouraging thegrowth of Teach First. They alsorecognised the need to keep thebest teachers on board, pledgingto cut time spent on paperwork,pay good teachers more, andfurther reduce the burden ofOfsted inspections (no specificshere as of yet).Any initiative that makesteaching more attractive is to bewelcomed – perhaps especiallythose aimed at reducing teacherworkload and encouraginga healthier work-life balance,which may serve to attractformer teachers back to theprofession. However, too manyinitiatives related to entering theprofession will only serve to further confuse and alienatepotential candidates.There are jobs out there to be filled, and providingclear, objective advice about the many routes intoteaching, ensuring extended support to NQTs to getthem through their first few years, and smoothing theway for qualified English-speaking teachers to work in UKschools would go a very long way to filling them.http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/unqualified-teachers-state-schools-puts-430000-british-schoolchildren-risk-claims-labour-1481316http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/unqualified-teachers-state-schools-puts-430000-british-schoolchildren-risk-claims-labour-1481316http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/labour/11558998/Labour-threatens-to-sack-thousands-of-unqualified-teachers.htmlhttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/labour/11558998/Labour-threatens-to-sack-thousands-of-unqualified-teachers.htmlhttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-32174423http://library.teachingtimes.com/articles/keeping-new-teachers-teachinghttp://library.teachingtimes.com/articles/keeping-new-teachers-teachinghttp://library.teachingtimes.com/articles/holding-on-to-your-talenthttp://library.teachingtimes.com/articles/holding-on-to-your-talenthttps://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/manifesto2015/ConservativeManifesto2015.pdf"
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Leadership

Can schools avoid the looming staff shortage?

16 Jun 2015

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      string(300) "... be enough new teachers to meet the demand from schools. How has this happened? And what can you do if your school has vacancies to fill? Recruitment expert Professor John Howson examines the current state of the job market and gives his advice for leaders looking to staff their schools."
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      string(392) "... Oxford Brookes University anda Norham Fellow in Education at the University ofOxford. He is a former teacher, lecturer, civil servantand entrepreneur.Knowledge trails1. Can schools avoid the looming staff shortage? – Despite government efforts to the contrary,the number of teachers entering the profession is dropping each year, while the number ..."
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      string(5336) "work in schools where they are valued and offered careerdevelopment, as indeed do all teachers, and although it looks like an expense, it canpay off with reduced recruitment costs. If you haven’t worked out the true costs ofrecruiting a teacher – advertising plus staff time to draw up the job description, short-list and interview candidates – then it is worth doing so and comparing it to the cost ofinvesting in staff development.Another albeit small point is to ensure the recruitment documentation puts theschool in a good light. At TeachVac, we regularly see adverts and job descriptions thatdon’t match. The tendency to ‘cut and paste’ often results in incorrect dates and otherhowlers if someone doesn’t proofread the online documents in exactly the same way asif they were the printed word.41Vol 7.3School Leadership Todaywww.teachingtimes.comLeadershipSkillsRecruitmentThe government might also consider pension contribution credits for trainees,especially as they now spend so much of their time in schools. I have always been surprisedthat the teacher associations haven’t been more active in demanding this as a policychange. It might be paid for by tightening the rules on which non-state-funded schoolscan also join the Teachers’ Scheme. After all, with portable pensions and other changes inlegislation, it doesn’t seem necessary to offer the Teachers’ Scheme to those working in theprivate sector, even if it would reduce the money the Treasury received in the short-term.Help, I’m looking to recruit!More schools are now weighing up their expenditure on recruitment, and this iscausing changes in practice. TeachVac offers a good first line in recruitment. Becausewe match vacancies with candidates looking for vacancies every day, a school caneasily check the level of interest after, say, 48 hours and consider then whether to moveon to either paid advertising or the use of a recruitment agency. With advertisers nowoffering subscription rates for annual deals, schools can afford to bargain. They shouldalso do the same with agencies. After all, we are used to the rack rate in hotels bearingno relation to the actual room rate we pay, so haggle for the best deal. However, youcannot do better than TeachVac’s free offer with no strings attached.Schools also need to consider whether teachers and trainees are increasinglylikely to sign up with an agency so that they only have to fill in one application formand can tell the agency the salary they want. With the heavy workload many traineesand teachers face, not having to spend weekends filling in lots of different applicationforms makes sense. Multi-academy trusts might look to use a common application formacross Trusts in order to save the candidate’s time. After all, the detailed questions cancome at the interview stage.Finally, it is worth considering what the applications for teacher preparation coursesare indicating for the 2017 recruitment round. Although we are only halfway throughthe application cycle for courses to train as a teacher, for 2016-17, applications areslightly ahead of where they were last year. Nevertheless, despite more applicantshaving been offered places, there still seems, if past trends are repeated, insufficientapplicants to fill all the places in some of the key subjects that have been under-recruiting in recent years.Why does this matter? It matters because pupil numbers that have been risingfor several years in the primary sector are now starting to pick up in the secondarysector. By the start of the next decade, school rolls will be substantially higher thannow and will eventually surpass the totals reached in the early 1970s – the last timethe secondary school population peaked. This meanseither more teachers or a new approach to teaching anda greater use of technology in instruction and learning.The days of the 2x4x8 model of education (that is amodel based on the two pages of a book, four walls of aclassroom, eight periods of a school day) may finally becoming to an end.Professor John Howson is Director of TeachVac, aVisiting Professor at Oxford Brookes University anda Norham Fellow in Education at the University ofOxford. He is a former teacher, lecturer, civil servantand entrepreneur.Knowledge trails1. Can schools avoid the looming staff shortage? – Despite government efforts to the contrary,the number of teachers entering the profession is dropping each year, while the number of thoseleaving only ever seems to increase. We ask: can anything be done to avert the crisis?library.teachingtimes.com/articles/can_schools_avoid_looming_shortages2. Interviews and insight – Many heads admit to mistakes in recruitment but, as Jody Goldsworthysuggests, carefully structured interviews can minimise the risk of a repeat.library.teachingtimes.com/articles/interviewsReferences1. National Audit Office (2016) Training new teachers. [pdf]Available at: nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Training-new-teachers.pdf [Accessed 5 April 2016].2. Department for Education (2015) Initial teacher trainingcensus for the academic year 2015 to 2016, England.[pdf] Available at: gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/478098/ITT_CENSUS_SFR_46_2015_to_2016.pdf [Accessed 5 April"
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Leadership

Recruiting staff in a profession at breaking point

18 May 2016

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      string(338) "... workforce crisis in primary schools.Because of this, the government needs to act now on the recommendations madein the report to ensure that the predicted shortages in the workforce don’t underminethe quality of provision – and to avoid a crisis in our schools which would impact on theeducation of thousands ..."
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      string(337) "Recent policy changes are having an effect on the way teachers are recruited. As a result the numbers of students applying for teacher training has fallen by 17 per cent compared to last year, whilst primary school pupil numbers are forecast to rise by 8 per cent by 2015. The result is a potential workforce crisis in primary schools…"
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      string(3023) "bursaries for primary ITE, especially in demographichotspots.Both government and Ofsted need to find ways to support and challenge theprofession without damaging morale, as they have done with their recent raft ofpolicy changes.Training should be more closely linked with employment opportunities in order toensure a better match between supply and demand in the teacher labour market,as has been proposed for the School Direct programme.In view of the importance of school leadership to a successful school system,the government should work with partners, and specifically dioceses, to ensurea school faces no more difficulty in recruiting a new head teacher than it doeswhen advertising any other teaching vacancy. This specifically applies to smallrural primary schools where there areoften problems recruiting a new headteacher. In particular, the Governmentshould work together with faithgroups to solve the problems ofleadership in small, faith-basedprimary schools.The government should closelymonitor the effects of the pay freezeon teacher recruitment, particularlyin those parts of the country wherethe market for graduates is mostdeveloped.It should be ready to take measuresto ensure that, as the wider economyrevives and demand for graduatesincreases, teaching does not return toa situation where there are not enoughappropriately qualified teachers for allschools.Schools should only be allowed toemploy teachers without the correctQTS for limited periods of time, duringwhich they should be encouraged toobtain re-certification.The government should take intoaccount the true cost of differentroutes into teaching when assessinghow to allocate places betweendifferent training routes.The government should make clear the basis for the calculation of training targets,and their relationship to likely job opportunities. This is vital in order to allowtrainees incurring debt to train as a teacher to be able to assess the risk involved intaking on additional debt to that already incurred as an undergraduate.The government should make clear the extent to which the training targets arecomprehensive in relation to secondary subjects, and how much supply is expectedto be sourced through other routes, such as re-certification.The government should ensure that across all teacher preparation routes onlycandidates with the highest qualifications and personal attributes to become asuccessful teacher should be allowed to train.Professor Howson warns that a ‘perfect storm’ of falling teacher training applications,low staff morale and rapidly rising pupil numbers could be set to create a futureteacher workforce crisis in primary schools.Because of this, the government needs to act now on the recommendations madein the report to ensure that the predicted shortages in the workforce don’t underminethe quality of provision – and to avoid a crisis in our schools which would impact on theeducation of thousands of pupils across the country.■■■■■■■■■■■"
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Leadership

Is a workforce crisis looming in primary schools?

1 Oct 2012

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      string(339) "... that has held the area’s youngpeople in a poverty trap.This project has another benefit – North East LincolnshireCare Trust Plus will face a major staff shortage in the nextfifteen to twenty years. Due to its isolated geography,attracting employees into the area is difficult, even in therecession. To provide ..."
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      string(5603) "following day. Literature is givento young people who attend by the emergency care staff,which informs them that they will be contacted – but that it isnot compulsory and it is confidential.A recent statement from the Royal College of GeneralPractitioners complained about young people being “lost inthe health care system”. That’s exactly what we found in thecases of Jake, Patrick and Sally.www.teachingtimes.com n Vol 1.2Inclusion Every Child Journal35Emergency care case study: JakeJake was 17. He was paraplegic and had AutisticSpectrum disorders. He self harmed and used alcohol andamphetamines.Because of his challenging behavior, his family had kickedhim out. He had been sleeping under a hedge.One of our Asgard project workers met him at A&E. AFrequent Flyer, Jake was challenging. But the worker tookhim to the hospital canteen and used a non-confrontational,gentle approach. He settled down and began to talk,agreeing to cooperate with the Asgard team.The worker realised that he was concerned abouthygiene. She took him to the Children’s Hospice and let himuse the bath with a bath lift. She bought him some newclothes and funded bed & breakfast accommodation for himwhile getting him housed.He is now accommodated by the YMCA, attends aspecialist Autistic Disorder service and has a supportive GP.Emergency care case study: PatrickPatrick had cut his finger very badly. It was sutured andneeded close observation. But he failed to attend any followup appointments with his GP. The finger became infectedand he re-attended emergency care. Patrick’s case wasfollowed up by an Asgard worker.She discovered that Patrick had borderline LearningDifficulties and couldn’t remember who his GP was. Shefound out for him and arranged to take him and support himduring his appointment.She also made sure he attended his subsequentappointments and got his vaccinations. Most of all, she actedas a bridge between Patrick and the practice nurse, helpingher to understand Patrick’s needs and helping him buildrelationships at his Primary Care provider. Patrick now worksas a volunteer at the new Primary Care centre, helping theother young people who come there.Emergency care case study: SallySally was living in the YMCA. She had unstable asthma,mainly due to poor inhaler technique, and sought emergencytreatment four or five times a week.Sally didn’t like her GP. She said he “talked downto her”. As a result, she was also poor at attending forcontraception appointments, and had had two or threepregnancy scares.One of the Asgard workers followed Sally’s case after anasthma appointment. The worker helped Sally engage withthe practice nurse and the GP and showed everyone how towork together. Sally now sees her practice nurse regularlyand is no longer seen in A&E.Sally was also successfully treated for Chlamydia. Shenow manages her contraception better – with support fromthe Asgard worker.nnnThe Asgard young people’s employmentprojectThe second strand of the Asgard project fought worklessness– particularly in Grimsby’s East Marsh Ward, which is in thetop 1% of deprivation in the UK with a high rate of teenagepregnancy.North East Lincolnshire Care Trust Plus worked withHavelock academy to give vulnerable 16-19 year olds careeropportunities in health and social care. We are just finishingthe first year of this pilot scheme, where nine 16-17 year oldswere placed in roles in the finance and IT department andthe Trust’s Mental Health service.We needed to find a practical way to tackle theunemployment that has blighted North East Lincolnshire forthe past thirty years. We also needed to address the povertyof aspiration and motivation that has held the area’s youngpeople in a poverty trap.This project has another benefit – North East LincolnshireCare Trust Plus will face a major staff shortage in the nextfifteen to twenty years. Due to its isolated geography,attracting employees into the area is difficult, even in therecession. To provide the care our population requires, wemust have a workforce fit for purpose. Most of all, we need aworkforce that is attached to the locality – many of our staffwho move away and don’t return.We accept that the work placement of nine young peopleis a small number. But the “ripple effect” is notable. If oneyoung person is successful and becomes motivated andpositive, this can spread to their peers, family and friends.All the trainees were given industry-standard training ina range of basic skills – including answering phones, how todress for work, the interview process and completing medicalpaperwork.The underlying objective was to inspire these people andshow them the opportunities of making positive life and healthchoices. We rewarded good work with a timescale of pay rises.36Vol 1.2 n www.teachingtimes.comInclusionEvery Child JournalSome trainees were arranged accommodation. As manyof our trainees have difficult home lives, we used a homeliaison officer to ensure to make sure they were happyoutside the workplace. The trainees’ health and well beingissues were addressed with counseling and self esteembuilding activities throughout their placement.In many ways, the Care Trust Plus has undertaken a‘Corporate Parenting’ role with the trainees. We saw thatdifficult family relationships were acting as a barrier tobehaviour change for some young people. We employed asupport worker to assist the young people unable to gain aplace on the project or who could not complete it.Early difficultiesThere was an exceptionally high incidence"
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Special Needs

NEET diagnosis

2 Nov 2009