More funding needed for North Yorkshire schools amid staff worries

It's thought many are leaving the profession within years of qualifying.

Author: Karen LiuPublished 12th Jul 2021

There is a worrying increase in the number of teachers leaving the profession despite only qualifying two to four years ago.

It is a concern of Anne Swift, who is a former primary headteacher in Scarborough and a National Education Union representative in North Yorkshire.

She said:

"The numbers of teachers who leave their schools within a very short time of qualifying and getting a job, we're seeing a massive rise in the number of people that leave within two to four years so that also presents a problem in schools that you end up with staff who are very young and inexperienced teachers.

"The impact of the pandemic in terms of school budgets has been considerable. The Government are expecting schools to help children recover from this but the system was already underfunded and so the pandemic has just highlighted those inequalities.

"Our kids are in some of the biggest classes in Europe, our teachers are the most overworked, they work much longer hours than other staff do across the world, not in teaching time though as our teaching time is similar, but in all the other work that needs to be done. No wonder people are exhausted.

"We've also seen as well that because of the underfunding very often the first staff that get targetted for redundancies are support staff, and they're the very people who make such a difference to individual youngsters in supporting them in their learning and helping them with their emotional and social needs as well".

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