What Needs to Change in Order to Keep Teachers in the Profession?

t may come as no shock but teachers are rapidly leaving the profession. According to an article by the Independent, there will be 3 million secondary school pupils by 2025 and we will not have enough teachers to combat this. Not enough young people are interested in becoming teachers and this is evident by the fact that teacher training places are going unfilled. This is despite the fact that the government are practically throwing money out of desperation for people to become teachers especially in certain subjects.

So why is this? Well the answer is fairly simple and you only need to look at the existing teachers to understand this. Between 2010 and 2015 around 10,000 teachers left the profession, which is a record high, and around 50% have considered leaving the profession. Let’s face it, the teaching profession has been given a bad name. So much so that what once used to be a desired profession, has now become quite a toxic environment.

When you consider how much time and effort goes into each lesson yet other graduate roles have better pay and scope for progression, is it any wonder there is a teacher crisis. The only redeeming fact is the 12 weeks paid ‘holiday’. To cut it short - teaching must be made more attractive for both people to remain in education and to draw in those graduates. How can this be done?

1. Stop overloading teachers with mountains of paper work

A statement from the DfE states that: ‘We want every child to have access to great teachers that aren't weighed down with unnecessary workload so they have the time and freedom to do what they do best - inspire the next generation.’

This is all sounds great, but then why do we persist that a teacher’s workload is compounded by data-gathering, form-filling, or any of the other myriad examples of endless bureaucracy. All so the Government can continuously compare the efforts of one school to a completely different school.

If the workload is cut down, teachers can get back to the reason why they enter the profession in the first place – to teach and make a difference in the lives of their pupils.

2. Accommodate a good work-life balance

To accommodate the ‘paper work’, teachers have to work more hours than just the average working day, from when the school starts and when the school ends. In a recent report, teachers stated that they worked around 60 hours during the week days and then some hours at the weekend in preparation for the next week. This all done so that teachers give the best lessons they possibly can, but they need the support to keep up this level of work for a better wellbeing which will essentially keep them in the profession.

3. Train to Retain

A quote from a recent article sums it up perfectly;

“If we spent more time developing and looking after the staff that are already experienced in the classroom, they wouldn’t leave.”

MPs have some interesting ideas on how to achieve this, such as capping the number of hours outside the classroom that teachers are expected to work, but there’s no need for complicated brainstorming sessions. The simplest thing that the Government could do to make education a more enticing career is to simply open their ears to the current teachers and listen to what they need.

By simply following these three points, perhaps we would have more teachers staying and joining the profession.

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