Like many of his colleagues, Draper says rising stress levels made it untenable for him to remain in post. Photograph: Andrew Draper/Guardian Community View image in fullscreen Secondary school teacher Andrew Draper, 50, worries that staff shortages will mean even bigger class sizes. I simply value myself too highly to do this job, and I look around myself every day and think, ‘Why are you all still doing this?’ And soon, I expect, hardly anyone will be.” skip past newsletter promotion I can cope well with high workloads and am resilient. I do not struggle with behaviour management unless it’s an extreme situation I know how to engage learners. “My pay will mean I can no longer afford a flat and will have to move back in with my family, but at the new school there will only be 15 kids per class, which is my main motivation.
Lucy says her job change will leave her with an effective pay cut, as the area she is moving to has a higher cost of living. I’m very leftwing and chose the state school sector to do something good, but I now believe that, unless the government dramatically increases education funding, they should focus on giving kids who want to do well better options. “It’s a stressful and depressing way to see young people grow up. I have had students swear at me, wreck display boards, throw things at me.
“They come to school without equipment and I am expected to provide pens and pencils multiple times a day with no budget. Pupils at my school – which has a mixed population of affluent and poorer families – frequently refuse to work, ignoring basic tasks such as ‘open your book’. I found the attitudes to learning genuinely shocking. “I don’t feel that I am a teacher I’m babysitting until 3pm, as pupils’ behaviour leaves no room for teaching. Lucy says five other teachers at her school who have only started their teaching careers within the past two years are also leaving. Class sizes of 27 to over 30 mean there is no chance for individual feedback or one-to-one time with pupils.”
“I fully support the teachers’ strikes, and not everybody at my school does. So, while ‘teacher’ is still my job title, I will be part of the statistics for teachers who leave state education,” she says. “I’m moving to a private school, something I never thought I’d do. Lucy, a history teacher at a large comprehensive school in the south-west, will also be striking on Wednesday, although she is about to leave the state school sector just one year after qualifying. Similar issues are being experienced by teachers in secondary state education. Then you get grilled when some kids haven’t reached age-related expectations. “Some of them have autism, but there is no additional support, it’s always just me in the classroom. In his class of 27 children, a quarter have complex special educational needs, he says. The school’s inability to provide for children with Send (special educational needs and disabilities) due to a lack of expertise and lack of support, coupled with really high pressure and high expectations that the school governors pass down.” “Being verbally abused and in some cases physically abused by eight-year-old children. “For me, it was the way I was being treated, as well as the absolutely obscene workload: clocking up 50 hours a week and then having to do reports and other non-teaching related activities in your own time,” Max says. The latest workforce survey by the Department for Education (DfE) found that 40,000 teachers resigned from state schools last year – almost 9% of the teaching workforce, and the highest number since it began publishing the data in 2011 – while a further 4,000 retired. Many cited unacceptable, growing demands on teachers, stress relating to Ofsted inspections, and low pay as their main complaints, pointing out that unfillable vacancies mean class sizes balloon while the quality of lessons suffers.ĭozens of respondents highlighted their struggles with increasingly poor pupil behaviour post-Covid and rising numbers of children with additional needs, at a time where school budgets are already stretched to the maximum. Max is one of hundreds of teachers who shared with the Guardian why they had decided to quit or are considering doing so.