State of the Region Survey highlights ongoing recruitment struggle in the region
This Autumn, schools in the North East have been providing feedback to Schools North East through our termly State of the Region survey.
Since October, we have been collating the data for the Autumn 22 State of the Region survey. Responses came from 147 schools from every local authority area of the North East, covering all types and stages of schools.
State of the Region
Schools North East is passionate about giving the schools of this region a powerful platform to air their views and a collective voice lobbying on the issues that matter the most to the North East. The State of the Region survey provides crucial feedback to create that voice.
Every term, the anonymised results gathered from our schools are shared with our region’s MPs, Ministers across government departments, DfE, Ofsted and the media – national and regional; to ensure that those who make the key decisions that affect your students, staff, and communities understand the realities of what you face every day.
Initial findings
The survey results cover a range of core issues such as staff attendance, recruitment and retention, staff wellbeing, senior leader wellbeing, student absence, student wellbeing, finance and school priorities. We ask the same set of core questions every term (as well as additional questions where relevant) to get a snapshot of the situation in North East schools, and to see how situations develop across the year.
Difficulties with recruitment and retention has been a key issue for schools for some time, and results of the survey conclude that this has been exacerbated by the pandemic. In December 2021, we highlighted the challenges in finding sufficient supply staff to address significant staff absences. While the majority of schools are now able to access supply staff to adequately cover staff absences, 43% are not.
For over 80% of these schools, there were challenges around both quantity and quality of supply staff. This contrasts with the situation In June 2022 when two thirds were unable to access adequate supply staff.
Two thirds of schools said that they are struggling more broadly with recruitment for permanent staff. In June 2022, this was 55%. So, while the impact of staff absences is less disruptive, the longer term challenges of recruitment appear to be worsening. The challenges for these schools are particularly acute around teaching assistants, with 74% saying they were struggling to recruit teaching assistants.
On retaining current staff, 43% said there were significant challenges; especially in respect of teaching assistants, with 57% struggling to retain them. 36% were also having significant issues in respect of teaching staff. The graph below shows how the number of vacancies currently compares with Autumn 2019.
Recruitment and retention of Teaching Assistants has also been a key issue for schools nationally this year with concerns raised in the media that teachers could receive a higher salary with jobs in supermarkets. The National Network of Special Schools (NNoSS), powered by Schools North East, found that loss of these staff is a growing and critical concern for special schools.
These recruitment and retention issues are also being exacerbated by the significant financial challenges schools currently face. NNoSS reported in a recent poll they found that a quarter of special schools, hospital schools and alternative provision sites said they would have to cut staff and almost a third would have to pause further recruitment due to squeezed budgets. The NNoSS poll showed that special schools nationally were worried about not being “adequately staffed to guarantee the safety of pupils or staff”.
Look out for the full findings of the Autumn State of the Region Survey, which will be released shortly.
The summer 22 survey findings can be accessed here: https://mcusercontent.com/12a4bd639231413c724e87521/files/15d8ae23-efa5-3746-ecc4-4bdf4ff1f9ce/Stakeholder_briefing_State_of_the_Region_June_2022.pdf
To learn more about the impact on Special Schools click here: https://www.tes.com/magazine/news/specialist-sector/school-funding-special-schools-warn-over-critical-support-staff-cuts
For more information about joining NNoSS click here: http://bit.ly/3CLYFFn
To help support schools in recruitment and retention, Schools North East offers free webinars to Partner Schools. Non Partners can also join at a small cost. Our next webinar will take place on December 8. For more information about the webinar click here: https://schoolsnortheast.org/events/event/recruitment-the-legal-regulatory-and-practical-requirements/14321/
To book click here: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZMld-ytrDMvGdIZLuIGqp1gCKmRvWBHIWq5
We love to hear good news from North East schools, to share your news with Schools North East please tag @SchoolsNE on Twitter or apply here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeGgTpbLixAqIprwSS2JXd_AFcKYD5Ahtug_ol7BdHDfgHRsw/viewform
