South Yorkshire headteacher admits there's a 'staff recruitment & retention crisis' ongoing
Pepe Di'iasio from Wales High School near Rotherham says the education sector is still under plenty of pressure
People working in education across South Yorkshire admit there's still a 'recruitment & staff retention crisis' in the sector.
That's despite all four of the main teaching & leadership unions in England accepting the government's pay offer in July - following a number of strikes earlier this year.
We've been catching up with Pepe Di'iasio - who's the Headteacher of Wales High School near Rotherham - ahead of the new academic year which starts next week:
"We want the very best people in front of classes at the moment, and we're struggling to attract people into teaching.
"Moving forwards, we need to try and get beyond the negativity we've seen over the last six months with the industrial action that's taken place.
"So much about the next year is about making sure we resource the school properly.
"Finances are tight, funding is tight, there is a recruitment and retention crisis across teaching in general, but we're still looking to recruit the very best teachers.
"We need to look at some of the work practices to encourage people into teaching, so the long hours and the challenges we face in the role are reduced.
"Due to our geographical location, we're very lucky here on the outskirts of Rotherham that we can work closely with three of four nearby universities.
"This has allowed us to recruit very well for specialist positions in the school, but that's not the case for a lot of schools in the country, so it's a challenging time for many in education."
By 31st July 2023, all the four main school teaching and leadership unions in England announced that their memberships had decided to accept a 6.5% cash-terms increase.