Why are so many teachers leaving the classroom? Part 2: Points of View

I'd give it a go.

And that gives us a nice little segue into what we're talking about today.

So obviously, Carl, in your school, you've made adjustments and you're obviously considering the work life balance of your staff in terms of how they manage that and treating people differently.

as professionals being able to manage their time.

There was a report in the TES, we talked about this last week, didn't we? About England particularly having really high levels of teacher resignations in comparison to the OECD average.

So in England, it's 7.2% of fully qualified teachers who resign in comparison to a 4.2% average across the OECD countries.

And what I thought was really interesting about that is that 91% of them in England are resignations in comparison to an average of 55% across the OECD countries.

So that's a really, really high

difference

between the two, which just goes to show that people are just... jacking it in like i've just had enough i can't do this anymore and that are tuning in and listening and that work in the profession this probably doesn't come as much of a surprise um membership of facebook groups because we're the generation that still uses facebook um

to

support and promote life beyond teaching um the membership runs into the tens of thousands there are so many people who have either already left the profession or are contemplating leaving the profession But what is it about England that's higher than our colleagues internationally? What are we doing differently here that's making it so bad? Is it workload? Is it pay? Is it the pressures that come with Ofsted? Is it the accountability? Is it behaviour? Is it unreasonable expectations? And why is it that successive governments haven't got to the heart of the problem.

Why has nobody sat down and thought, right, we need to tackle this retention issue because people are just, it's hemorrhaging, hemorrhaging teachers, left, right and centre.

And I think goodwill is dwindling.

I think teaching runs on goodwill.

And I just think people have reached their limit on goodwill.

And I just sort of going, no, can

you- Can I tell you a story? Can I tell you a story about those Facebook groups that I think reveals that the problem is even bigger than the statistics are showing.

So I was in one of those, which shall remain nameless, Facebook groups a couple of years ago.

Because I think like many, people if if someone came up and said like here's a different career where you could just like sit in an office and not talk to anyone for eight hours but get the exact same pay uh i would take it in a heartbeat without a second thought um so i was in one of those facebook groups and someone posted something some horrible situation some absolutely horrible situation they were in where basically they were they were being targeted for something that they i don't remember the specifics of the original post but something like Oh, no, it was the original post.

It was the original post basically saying, right, this is it.

Someone in their school had been targeted for a reason I don't remember.

And they were asking the poster if they would basically defend them with by stating the truth, like writing a statement saying this thing they're accused of didn't happen.

Or I know that they're basically write a letter of support.

Like, could you support me because I'm being unfairly targeted by management? Right.

I'd give it a go.

And that gives us a nice little segue into what we're talking about today.

So obviously, Carl, in your school, you've made adjustments and you're obviously considering the work life balance of your staff in terms of how they manage that and treating people differently.

as professionals being able to manage their time.

There was a report in the TES, we talked about this last week, didn't we? About England particularly having really high levels of teacher resignations in comparison to the OECD average.

So in England, it's 7.2% of fully qualified teachers who resign in comparison to a 4.2% average across the OECD countries.

And what I thought was really interesting about that is that 91% of them in England are resignations in comparison to an average of 55% across the OECD countries.

So that's a really, really high

difference

between the two, which just goes to show that people are just... jacking it in like i've just had enough i can't do this anymore and that are tuning in and listening and that work in the profession this probably doesn't come as much of a surprise um membership of facebook groups because we're the generation that still uses facebook um

to

support and promote life beyond teaching um the membership runs into the tens of thousands there are so many people who have either already left the profession or are contemplating leaving the profession But what is it about England that's higher than our colleagues internationally? What are we doing differently here that's making it so bad? Is it workload? Is it pay? Is it the pressures that come with Ofsted? Is it the accountability? Is it behaviour? Is it unreasonable expectations? And why is it that successive governments haven't got to the heart of the problem.

Why has nobody sat down and thought, right, we need to tackle this retention issue because people are just, it's hemorrhaging, hemorrhaging teachers, left, right and centre.

And I think goodwill is dwindling.

I think teaching runs on goodwill.

And I just think people have reached their limit on goodwill.

And I just sort of going, no, can

you- Can I tell you a story? Can I tell you a story about those Facebook groups that I think reveals that the problem is even bigger than the statistics are showing.

So I was in one of those, which shall remain nameless, Facebook groups a couple of years ago.

Because I think like many, people if if someone came up and said like here's a different career where you could just like sit in an office and not talk to anyone for eight hours but get the exact same pay uh i would take it in a heartbeat without a second thought um so i was in one of those facebook groups and someone posted something some horrible situation some absolutely horrible situation they were in where basically they were they were being targeted for something that they i don't remember the specifics of the original post but something like Oh, no, it was the original post.

It was the original post basically saying, right, this is it.

Someone in their school had been targeted for a reason I don't remember.

And they were asking the poster if they would basically defend them with by stating the truth, like writing a statement saying this thing they're accused of didn't happen.

Or I know that they're basically write a letter of support.

Like, could you support me because I'm being unfairly targeted by management? Right.