A quarter of school leaders ‘preparing to quit education’

But heads and teachers could be persuaded to stay in the profession if workload were cut, survey suggests
24th February 2017, 12:00am
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A quarter of school leaders ‘preparing to quit education’

https://www.tes.com/magazine/archived/quarter-school-leaders-preparing-quit-education

More than a quarter of senior school leaders don’t expect to be in education beyond the next one to two years, according to survey findings seen by TES.

However, the overwhelming majority of teachers and school leaders who took part in the poll said they were open to being persuaded to stay in the profession - particularly if workloads are reduced.

In the YouGov survey commissioned by the Education Support Partnership charity and exclusively shared with TES, 27 per cent of senior school leaders said they did not expect to be working in education beyond the next one to two years.

Of the 865 teachers and school leaders surveyed, 43 per cent said they did not expect to be working in the sector beyond five years.

Education Support Partnership runs a free and confidential 24-hour helpline that receives more than 30,000 calls a year from school staff experiencing difficulties.

The charity’s chief executive, Julian Stanley, said the poll findings reflected “what so many tell us when they call in crisis: that many staff working at every level in schools are feeling overwhelmed”.

He said it was “particularly worrying” that senior leaders with “immense experience” were saying “enough is enough”.

Russell Hobby, general secretary of the NAHT heads’ union, said he was alarmed by the proportion of senior leaders inclined to leave education.

“You’re always going to get a proportion that is ready to leave, but that’s high,” he said.

‘Enough is enough’

The poll also reveals that respondents were willing to be persuaded to stay.

In total, only 7 per cent of teachers and leaders said “nothing” would positively influence them to stay in education.

The biggest factor that could influence their decision was workload - 79 per cent of senior leaders and 76 per cent of all teachers and leaders said reducing workload would influence them to stay.

As the profession faces the prospect of a 1 per cent annual pay cap until 2019-20, “better pay and conditions” emerged as the second most important issue - with 59 per cent of all teachers and leaders highlighting it.

And with stress levels running high in the sector, 44 per cent of respondents said better workplace support for their personal wellbeing could help to keep them in the profession.

In a sign that teachers feel undervalued, 41 per cent of respondents stated that a “more positive perception of what it is like to work in education” - including more positive media coverage and more public recognition - might also influence them to stay.

‘Many staff working at every level in schools feel overwhelmed’

Mr Hobby said the fact that a majority of teachers and school leaders could still be persuaded to stay “exposes how badly managed the system is”.

“These are not people who have completely given up or lost the will to work - they’re people who feel they no longer can,” he added.

A workload reduction could be “doable” if the government “[stopped] changing things”, he argued.

However, he warned that squeezed funding - with schools facing a real-terms cut of 8 per cent by 2019-20 - could also exacerbate the exodus of senior leaders.

He said that many school leaders view the next two years as “a time when I’m going to be making lots of people redundant and cutting back on programmes”.

“If there was any sense that you might want to leave, I think [the funding cuts] would really trigger it,” Mr Hobby said.

This week, the headteacher of a school in Berkshire resigned, citing the “bleak” funding outlook as a reason for doing so (see “Excerpt from resignation letter” box, below).

Malcolm Trobe, interim general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said he found the statistics “very worrying”.

“Swingeing cuts” to funding were behind the increased workloads, he said.

Mr Trobe called on the government to boost salaries and to provide more help with bedding in curriculum changes.

A Department for Education spokeswoman said: “We recognise the importance of schools being able to retain good teachers as well as recruit them, which is why we have focused actions in key areas that are of concern to teachers - like tackling unnecessary workload and improving teachers’ ability to manage poor pupil behaviour.

“Our latest Workforce Statistics show that teacher retention has been broadly stable for the past 20 years. We’ve also seen a significant rise in the number of teachers returning to the profession after some time out, with returners having increased by 20 per cent in the 4 years up to 2015.”

The department did not make any reference to school leaders.

@whazell 

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