It’s that time of year when the kids have just gone back to school, and every working parent who just scraped through the Christmas holidays breathes a sigh of relief. But not, perhaps, for long.
Within days we’ll know whether teachers in England and Wales have voted to join university lecturers on strike, an agonising decision for many in the profession: they understand better than anyone the implications of more missed lessons for pupils still struggling to catch up post-pandemic. But teaching unions are already arguing that much as nurses have done in the NHS, they’re attempting to draw attention to a broader crisis brewing in schools, one that is already damaging children’s education.
Teacher vacancies overall are at their highest since 2010, thanks to a combination of post-pandemic burnout, stressful workloads and low morale, as well as pay. More than one in 10 new teachers now quit within a year of qualifying, suggesting some find the reality of classroom life a brutal shock.
