A staffing crisis in our schools is driving up cover and workload, undermining pandemic recovery work, and creating a perfect storm of recruitment and retention challenges.
A “deeply worrying”, “shocking” and “unprecedented” annual report from Ofsted has flagged urgent problems with staffing levels which the inspectorate says are “compounding difficulties in education and social care”.
The report reveals that 88% of all state-funded schools are now judged by inspectors to be good or outstanding – up almost 2% from 2021. For secondary schools, 80% fall into this category compared with 89% of primary schools and special schools.
However, the report highlights significant staffing pressures on schools including:
- Continuing high levels of staff absence due to Covid infection.
- Recruitment difficulties, including shortages of teaching assistants.
- Difficulty finding supply staff due to high demand.
- Difficulty recruiting staff with appropriate SEND expertise.
- Difficulty running interventions due to staffing problems.
