This year has certainly started with a bang as far as teaching advertisements are concerned. The TES carried more than 11,300 job notices during January. In addition there was a First Appointments supplement, where many local education authorities were advertising the benefits of their areas to trainee and newly qualified teachers.
Many of the posts advertised will be new, created as a result of the extra money some schools can already predict will be in their budgets after April. A large number of secondary schools are faced with rising school rolls. More pupils means a need for extra teachers. With secondary pupil-teacher ratios at their worst for many years in a large number of authorites, schools would also like to employ extra staff to try to improve that situation.
Those secondary schools which either have links to teacher training establishments or are part of a local school-centred initial teacher training initiative should see the benefits of developing good relations with trainees. Many students will be job seeking this term and any school expecting to find a pool of newly qualified teachers to pick and choose from in the summer is heading for serious disappointment. As January is a time when most southern hemisphere teachers arrive in Britain (their school year starts then) there can be little help expected from that part of the world.
John Howson
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