Wales' education: Teacher pressure sparks staffing fears

Increasing pressure on teachers could lead to a “crisis” in staffing, a teaching union has said.

One head teacher said experienced staff had already quit the profession over long hours, among other issues.

The National Headteachers Union Cymru said below-inflation pay awards were compounding the problem.

Education Minister Jeremy Miles told Wales Live he did not “have the resources” to increase pay beyond the 5% rise offered in July.

Louise Jones, head teacher at Maes y Morfa Primary Community School in Llanelli, Carmarthenshire, said she regularly spoke to colleagues about concerns over the retention of experienced teaching staff.

She said they were concerned about the demands of the new curriculum, speaking Welsh, having the right digital skills and a new code of practice.

“The teachers that are leaving are the best teachers because they’ve done it for so long,” she said.

“The salary doesn’t compensate them for what they do and the hours are long.

Ms Jones added that teachers were not just learning supporters, but responsible for supporting with health, supporting with counselling and wellbeing, as well as also being obliged to support with healthcare, nursing and brushing teeth.

“Everything that used to be done by other professionals is now being pushed into the direction of teaching.

“We’ve lost teachers, not necessarily in this school, but in a school a stone’s throw away.”

She said prior to Covid she would have had 27 applications for a learning support assistant role and the most recent recruiting round, this has dropped to five.

Laura Doel, head of the National Association of Head Teachers Cymru, said that while recruitment and retention had been an issue in Wales for a while, below-inflation pay awards were compounding it.

“We know from speaking to our own members that below-inflation pay awards continue to compound the recruitment crisis.”

Ms Doel said that, anecdotally, they had also heard that teachers were not staying in the profession after training.

Gareth Evans, the director of education policy at University of Wales Trinity St Davids, said teacher retention and recruitment is an issue across Wales, and in fact the UK.

He believes there is a looming crisis, if not one already.

“Education isn’t immune from challenges facing the rest of the public sectors; shrinking budgets, scarcity of resources, fewer staff, the cost of living crisis, pay awards well below inflation, throw in legitimate work flow concerns related to the new curriculum and I think a hangover from Covid with it, and I do think we have something of a challenging situation on our hands.

“It’s perhaps little wonder that teachers are in some cases reconsidering their positions and those seeking to become teachers are potentially looking for other jobs, but I don’t think it’s all doom and gloom by a long stretch and we must remember the positives.”

Mr Evans said the positives included competitive starting salaries, strong career development opportunities and having the power to change a child’s life for the better.

“I think really what we need to do in Wales is change the narrative.

“The Welsh government, trade unions, and even teachers themselves on occasion are all guilty of perhaps selling a more negative picture of the profession when I think we could all do a slightly better job of selling the positives.”

Cameron Stewart leads on recruitment and retention for teachers education in partnership with Cardiff Met and said there was a big difference in what is happening at primary schools and secondary schools

“Primary recruitment is very strong secondary is a different picture altogether unfortunately, we have some subject areas that are recruiting really well like P.E for example, but some of our science or our modern foreign language pathways are numbers are not where we need them and not where our profession needs them.

“And in Welsh medium, this is far lower in both primary and secondary than the demand requires.”

Mr Stewart said it was a positive move for the Welsh government to change the grade from a B to a C.

“It’s much needed to tackle the crisis that we are facing in our secondary schools and in our Welsh medium provision and personally I feel there will be no impact on quality.

“I have had to turn away people in the past who didn’t have the grade, who would have been great, so thinks it’s a positive step forward and actually aligns us with the entry requirements for England.”

The Welsh government said official figures showed teacher recruitment and retention remained stable.

It has also announced “more incentives” to join the profession, including reducing GCSE grade requirements from a B to a C in English or Welsh and Maths for teacher training.

The Welsh government’s new incentives include paying eligible student teachers a larger amount after their first term rather than at the end of their induction period.

It said it also recognised there was more to do but added there was a significantly lower “leaving rate” among secondary teachers in Wales compared to England.