红桃影视

It鈥檚 no secret that teacher recruitment is an urgent, severe and worsening problem in the UK. Last year the government missed its target for new secondary school teachers by over 40 percent, the ninth time in ten years it has failed to do so.  One-third of those who qualified to teach in the past decade have left the profession, and a survey by the NEU suggests 44 per cent of teaching staff plan to leave in the next five years.

To make matters worse, Teach First, one of the largest graduate employers in the UK, is now also struggling. Last year it recruited the lowest number of trainees in four years, missing its target by one-fifth. Meanwhile, revealed that the programme is 鈥榣osing bright graduates to private sector pay鈥�. Yet demand was higher than ever; the charity received 3,500 requests from schools, a 25 per cent increase on the previous record.

In the context of the recent teacher strikes, it鈥檚 easy to blame this fall on teacher pay; chief executive, Russell Hobby recently said that 鈥渋t is hard to compete鈥� with other graduate employers, 鈥渁 quarter of whom are now paying over 拢40,000 a year starting salary鈥�. The cost of living crisis has undoubtedly exacerbated matters, and prospective graduates will be attracted by careers with more certain and dramatic salary progression over a job that seemingly only promises real-term .

However, fixating on pay oversimplifies matters; my experience is that working conditions, rather than salary, is what gets people through the door and keeps them there. Teaching salaries have never been competitive; when I joined Teach First in 2015 I certainly did not do so for the money. My salary was around 拢22,000 (including an Inner London stipend), which was far less than what my friends were earning. It went up to 拢28,000 once I became a Newly Qualified Teacher (tThe government to increase this to 拢30,000 nationwide this year), and if I had taken on extra responsibilities I could have been paid more.

In truth though, no amount of money could have persuaded me to stay at my Teach First school after my second year. I was emotionally, physically and mentally exhausted, and while I鈥檓 not one of the ones the Times bemoans for having moved to the private sector (I stayed in teaching, unlike most of my friends), I did move to the private schools sector.  I didn鈥檛 do it for the money but for my mental health. I sold my soul, but I kept my sanity.

Teach First therefore has much bigger, more nebulous problems to worry about than money. There are many push factors in the most disadvantaged schools – the workload, the chronic underfunding, the poor behaviour, the ever-looming threat of Ofsted – but there are also important pull factors to other careers. Flexible working is now a huge attraction for many people; for example, many mothers who may have seen the appeal of school holidays may now prefer a career where they can work remotely and set their own hours more.

I also wonder how much Gen Z, with their more mindful approach to wellbeing and work/life balance than us people-pleasing millennials, will be keen to join Teach First鈥檚 churn-out, burn-out model. Before I joined Teach First, I heard plenty of horror stories about the programme, and soon realised that simply surviving it was a badge of honour in itself. It wasn鈥檛 so much a baptism of fire, but a road to hell paved with good intentions. Social media has exponentially multiplied this word-of-mouth effect; I know of at least a few people who had places on the programme but pulled out after hearing about other people鈥檚 experiences.

Teach First may be calling on the government to offer a 拢5,000 recruitment bonus for teachers who work in the most deprived areas, but this is misunderstanding the problems with the programme. Instead, why not offer teachers a lighter timetable, or a whole day at home dedicated to planning, marking and learning, or use the money to get experienced teachers back into the state sector? That鈥檚 where the real value lies.