Teaching recruitment the biggest crisis facing UK schools says Yeovil academy staff
A new report has found schools are having to drop subjects from their curriculum
A school business manager in Somerset says recruiting teachers is the "biggest risk facing schools at the moment".
Mark Payne, from Yeovil, has told Greatest Hits Radio: "it's affecting the life chances of students across the country."
Teachers in the UK are taking classes outside their specialism and some schools are dropping subjects entirely because of teacher recruitment and retention issues, a report has found.
"We’ve certainly had issues recruiting science teachers with multiple adverts having to go out and only getting one applicant to try and fill a post," said Mark Payne, "certainly that’s a major issue for us and for other schools.
"If you’re unable to place a teacher in front of a class, clearly you have safety issues.
"If that teacher doesn’t have the right qualifications for a particular subject, outcomes for those students will not be as good as they would be otherwise, so it’s affecting potentially the life chances of large numbers of students across the country.
"The risk to education and the risk to schools being able to achieve, to fulfil their function which is to educate children.
"It is, I think, the biggest challenge and the biggest risk that schools face going forward."
The Education Committee has called on the Government to invest in programmes to boost recruitment, training and retention in the teaching profession in a report published on Friday.
"While there have been welcome increases in absolute teacher numbers, these have not kept pace with pupil numbers, and there is broad agreement from witnesses that there is a crisis of teacher recruitment and retention in England," the report said.
Recruitment targets for initial teacher training courses were missed in 10 subjects in 2022/23, according to the committee, with maths, physics and religious education among the subjects affected.
It added: "We have significant concerns about the negative impacts of subject specific teacher shortages.
"These include compromising the quality of teaching where subjects are being taught by teachers without subject expertise and the reduction of subject provision where schools do not have sufficient specialist teaching capacity.
"We also heard that lack of specialist teachers can have an adverse impact on take-up of certain subjects."
The committee recommended bursaries developed by the Government to address subject specific teacher shortages be expanded and increased, and that programmes allowing for alternative routes into the profession are reinstated.
A DfE spokesman said: "There are more teachers now, record numbers of teachers in our schools, with over 468,000 in the workforce, a 27,000 increase since 2010, and 59,600 more teaching assistants since 2011.
"To continue attracting the best and brightest, we offer bursaries and scholarships of up to £30,000 tax-free in the subject areas where they are needed most, including physics and maths, and opening new routes into the profession, such as through teacher degree apprenticeships.
"Last autumn the Government delivered on its commitment, giving all new teachers a starting salary of at least £30,000. We are also taking steps to support teachers' wellbeing and ease workload pressures, including plans to support schools to reduce working hours by five hours per week."