Training for jobs that simply don’t exist

I think the issue is that for certain subjects and primary school they are oversubscribing at PGDE level.

So many people are training for jobs that simply don’t exist. They then become deskilled as they languish on supply lists for general supply in unfamiliar schools and eventually leave the profession before they got a proper foot in the door. Schools are far from welcoming and supply staff are expected to ‘teach’ with absolutely no access to ICT/pupil info/introductions and little awareness of the school behaviour policy. It’s failing the pupils and the teachers.

The 3 year NQT plan worries me as it will create a potential blockage for skilled, experienced staff and also create a backlog of NQTs. Will it be that at any point a department could have 3 NQTs at different stages? Or do they only get an NQT every three years in which case… where are the newest NQTs going to go if we are reducing the available schools by a third?

We need to find places for the thousands (yes, thousands) of competent, unemployed and underemployed teachers before we prioritise the employment stability of newcomers.