teacher recruitment | Schools Week

Does anyone know how many teachers we need?

There is a crisis in recruitment, not helped by low pay, the tangled and defragmented employment process and the Department of Education massaging the figures. And there’s no sign that this shortage will improve Teacher vacancies have rocketed, with more and more teachers employed without a degree in their subject and more and more leaving […]

Factory-farmed teachers will fail our children

The new-look training courses are trying to turn out fully-formed teachers in a matter of weeks, when what they need is time to think and support as they develop. We can’t dismiss the great educational thinkers of the past The increased focus on competition in education has produced a conveyor belt of quick fixes in […]

Reality bites: What school crises should teach Gibb

When Michael Merrick, a teacher at Cardinal Newman, shared pictures of his flood-devastated school, it was a sharp reminder of the day my own classroom was destroyed by a roof collapse. Standing in the doorway, watching as debris floated by and pupil work melted into the newly-formed lagoon, my heart sank along with it. It’s […]

There will be 1 million more pupils by 2024 – but here’s why we won’t have enough teachers

As pupil numbers rise, schools say they are perilously short of teachers – Kevin Courtney explains why. Much is made, quite rightly about maintaining a world class education system in this country. Essential to achieving this is a motivated well-paid teaching profession. Yet teacher recruitment and retention are both at dangerously low levels with many […]

The overriding strength of the Cambridge history PGCE

Last week the Cambridge history PGCE almost disappeared in a puff of neo-liberal neglect. Its stay of execution is welcome: teacher training needs such a model of excellence, rigour, curriculum, mentoring and reading lists. he National College for Teaching and Leadership-imposed cap on university PGCE places kicked in before Cambridge had the chance to interview […]

Teacher recruitment could turn from a serious problem into a crisis

The government risks making a bad recruitment situation worse through its reforms to teacher education. Under its “school-led” policy, the infrastructure is becoming increasingly fragmented, undermining long established, and often genuinely schools-led, training partnerships On December 9, the education select committee will take oral evidence as part of its inquiry into teacher supply. The witnesses, […]

Proactive approach to retention

As leaders we need to be creative in our approach to recruitment, but we also need to look carefully at retention. With compulsory EBacc and Progress 8 at secondary, the demand for specialist teachers is soaring. Similarly at primary, we’re all looking for teachers of reading, writing and mathematics who are excited by the ambition […]

5 Ways Schools Can Work Together On Recruitment

Recruitment: is it a “challenge” or even a “crisis”? Or have we never had it so good in terms of vacancies filled? Is it the best time ever to be a teacher, as schools minister Nick Gibb has recently said, or are ministers sleepwalking while school leaders scratch their heads to find ever more inventive […]

The recruitment crisis won’t be solved by an ad campaign

The ongoing teacher recruitment crisis took a new turn earlier this week with the government launching an ad campaign to draw more people into the profession. This was widely criticised by the National Union of Teachers (NUT) who suggest the advert not only creates false expectations of teachers’ salaries but will do little to reduce […]