2020 has been a rollercoaster year for many different professions, but teaching has probably been through more peaks, troughs and corkscrews than any other.
The strain felt by staff during school closures was huge, and the September return required a monumental effort from all involved. But the importance of education and the school system has never been so apparent, and an influx of wannabe educators means that the staff shortages of recent years may start to abate.
So what next for teacher recruitment? Will the profession’s revived respect outweigh the fatigue felt by current staff? 2021 looks set to be a pivotal year, so we’ve looked at three factors that could tip the balance.
Coronavirus: The impact on teacher recruitment
1. Social distancing will require more TAs
Andrew Lynch, from Teaching Abroad, surveyed 1,144 teachers globally across a range of sectors, age groups and backgrounds during the pandemic. Lynch found that the need to provide more socially distant spaces was going to add a different pressure to school leaders looking to recruit.
“While schools are laying out their plans for the 2021 school year, we believe it is inevitable that class sizes will have to be reduced until the pandemic and social distancing has ended,” he explains.
Lynch says schools might try and solve this problem by splitting classes so there is one teacher and two or more teaching assistants. However, warns Lynch, this approach won’t be the easiest to adopt.
The demands for more cleaning and higher supply costs, with teacher absence rocketing, will mean budgets are tighter than ever. Lynch suggests leaders might need to look at contract length to solve the problem.
“With budget constraints and the fluidity of the pandemic, it is highly probable that many of the new assistant roles will be employed on temporary or rolling contracts; providing schools and local authorities with greater flexibility should distancing measures be eased during the school year,” he says.
2. New teachers more likely to go the distance
The new 2021 recruits are being trained in what could be described as the most challenging conditions schools have seen. But that doesn’t mean that the NQTs of 2021 are going to be disadvantaged, says Martin Shevill, senior education adviser at National Teacher Accreditation (NTA).
“It is not an overstatement to describe the 2019-20 trainees as a completely unique cohort,” Shevill says. “They have been dealing with disruption that no one else has faced in their training. Interestingly, this cohort may be developing much faster than they would have otherwise in one particularly important way: their understanding of pastoral issues and the whole child.”
Rather than anticipating issues with the trainee teachers, Shevill feels that actually the conditions of their training might create stronger, more resilient teachers. This, given that current retention rates for new teachers are worryingly low, is a huge positive.
“Across the sector, NTA has found assessments of trainees more reflective than ever,” he says. “[They are] positive about developing new approaches to teaching and being resourceful.”
One clear advantage that the newer recruits have is that mark of all millennials: they know how to work technology.
“Tutors also commented on the contributions they’re making to whole-school online learning, as they have embraced this new normal,” explains Shevill. “There is a chance younger, tech-savvy teachers may play a bigger role in delivery of professional development in the future.”
3. Leadership roles will have a new look
Of course, it isn’t just the lives of classroom teachers that have changed as a result of the pandemic. Senior leadership roles, with lighter timetables to give time to manage whole-school responsibilities, will be required to fill in where staff are unwell or forced to isolate.
“We expect schools will need to introduce new ways of working, with leadership teams spending more time in classes,” says Lynch.
“In the long term, should the pandemic continue, this option is unlikely to be viable and could lead to greater levels of burnout in staff, as teachers work across multiple numbers of classes; especially in schools that have few leadership positions or leadership staff who are already working in full-time positions.”
This will undoubtedly be a tough time for leaders, stretched between covering the classroom and implementing whole-school systems as government guidelines are updated.
Leaders take on extra responsibility with the hope of having an impact on pupil outcomes, but the next 12 months will see them required to carry out more firefighting and troop rallying than any meaningful school improvements.
Heads will need to be clear on what is required from new and existing leaders during this time, and work hard to ensure that morale is kept up while we negotiate the pandemic.
A brighter future
Although the past year has been unfathomably tough and we still have many unanswered questions, the pandemic has shown us that teachers are needed now more than ever.
As we look into the future, there are reasons to be positive, with new recruits looking to enter a profession they can rightly be very proud of.
