It made sense. I had been tutoring students individually for a while, and enjoyed it. But it was also ridiculous, because pretty much the only thing I’d been sure of when I left school was that I didn’t ever want to go back into one. I applied late, expecting to be rejected, and within a few weeks was part of the 2010 intake for the postgraduate Initial Teacher Education (ITE) course at the University of the West of Scotland.
And from my first (awful) lesson, in a school that doesn’t even exist anymore, I loved it. I finished all three placements, nailed my observed lessons, and did a passable job on the paperwork. I’d learned the basics, and convinced enough people – myself included – that I could cut it in the classroom; now it was time to really get started, which meant completing ‘probation’.
Teachers in Scotland are guaranteed employment in the first year after ITE (which is technically the second year of training before becoming a fully qualified teacher) and there is a financial incentive available for those willing to be sent anywhere in the country.
I was sent to Arran, as was another probationer from UWS, and we lived together for the first year. The school was a five minute walk away. The pupils were everywhere, and so were their families. It rained for what felt like 100 days in a row during the winter. Bar tabs were paid at the end of the week.
The first year of teaching is incredibly tough. Getting really good at the job depends upon the ability to master a dizzying array of routines, techniques and outright manipulations, all of which are unique to each individual and, by definition, can only be established through experience. In those first months, with very little of that scaffold yet in place, the sheer effort and perseverance required is enormous.
Some people don’t make it, and that’s ok. Teaching isn’t for everyone, and it’s not something that anyone should do if their heart isn’t in it. It takes too much of a toll to carry that sort of weight around, so if a few people discover in that first year that, actually, teaching isn’t for them, well that’s just something we need to make an allowance for – because it’s better than the alternatives.
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But I did make it, partly because the more I taught, the more I felt that this was something I could be really good at, but also because I was incredibly lucky: I had an amazing and supportive boss, taught in a wonderful school, and enjoyed a fantastic quality of life in the kind of place I had always hoped I might end up.
Then, to top it all off, that probationary position turned into a permanent job, which meant that my early teaching career was defined by stability – and that is how I became a very good teacher.
It is impossible to overstate the impact of job security at the start of a teaching career. In those first couple of years you feel more confident in your ability than was the case in those rabbit-in-headlight months of probation, but you still find yourself watching ten and twenty year veterans, who can seemingly glide through the day, and wonder how the hell they manage.
I was the same, but avoiding the personal, professional and financial stress of jumping between temporary contracts, or scrambling for supply work on a day-to-day basis, gave me the room I needed to work out what being a teacher really meant.
Which brings us to Scottish Teachers for Permanence, a new group that is “advocating for job security and stability for over 4,000 teachers in Scotland”.
It’s a campaign that shouldn’t be necessary, especially in a country where we can still hear the ghostly echoes of government promises to close attainment gaps and increase teachers numbers – neither of which, by the way, are going to happen.
Official data certainly seems to back up teachers’ complaints about the opportunities available to those at the start of their career.
Top-level figures show that the chances of securing full-time, permanent work following probation have plummeted, falling from 57% for the 2016/17 cohort to just 29% for those who qualified in 2022/23. It is an incredibly striking decline.
And it actually gets worse when we start looking more closely. If we examine the situation for primary teachers who qualified in 2016/17, we find that 57.6% had secured full-time employment within one year, and 72.1% had done so within seven years. The figures for secondary school teachers from that cohort are almost identical.
Not too long ago, permanent work was by the far the most common situation for a post-probation teacher – but things have changed dramatically in just a few years.
Since 2019/20, temporary work has been the most likely employment scenario for primary school teachers in their post-probation year. The situation is better for secondary teachers, where permanent employment remains the most likely route following probation, but the numbers lucky enough to secure those jobs have still fallen sharply in recent years, while the proportion forced to turn to temporary contracts has increased.
At both levels, the number of post-probation teachers recorded as ‘other’ has increased: the figure for secondary teachers is now 18.2 percent compared to 11 percent in 2016/17; at primary level, it has risen from 11.6 percent in 2016/17 to 38.3 percent now. This category includes those teaching in private schools or on a supply basis, but it also captures the numbers who have simply left the profession.
Breaking down the data by local authority makes the changes even more striking, highlighting negative trends and huge variations across the country. In some parts of Scotland, the figure for post-probation teachers in permanent employment is zero. As with the other data, we can see that the situation is far worse for primary teachers than those seeking to work in secondary schools.
Scottish Teachers for Permanence have now launched a website as part of their campaign, a key part of which is a collection of personal stories by teachers struggling with the lack of secure employment.
There are nearly ninety of them so far, and even a cursory scroll through makes for a difficult read.
One talks about missing out on one of the limited permanent positions in their area by just a single interview point. Having been unable to find supply work, they say their confidence is “shattered” and their future “uncertain”.
“I refuse to give up, but the mental toll and frustration with the system are overwhelming, especially with a mortgage and dreams of starting a family.”
Another refers to their “successful probationer year”, contrasting that experience with the subsequent struggle to even find supply work. Since May of this year, they have been working in an office job.
“I feel disheartened and anxious, clinging to a career I love while watching my former classmates leave teaching.”
The published stories aren’t even the entire picture. Those behind the campaign shared further testimony with me for this article, and the picture these comments paint is horrendously grim.
One said that they were “not told the truth” about employment prospects, and points out that in early October – when their comments were recorded – they had not had a single day of teaching work during the current academic year.
“I don’t want to leave teaching,” they added. “I have worked hard for this and I am good at what I do, but I cannot keep taking the knock backs and uncertainty as it is no good for anyone’s mental health.”
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Another said that they feel like their whole life is “up in the air” and out of their control, and that despite being a positive, goal-oriented person, they are “just feeling so down and angry”.
Their testimony ends: “Thank you if you have read this. I am a heartbroken teacher and am desperate to be in the classroom.”
I read these teachers’ stories and my heart breaks for them, not just because of what they’re going through, but because I know exactly what it is that they’re being deprived of at what should be a crucial, and difficult, but fantastically exciting time.
I worry about what happens if fewer and fewer new teachers enjoy anything vaguely similar to the stability that made such a huge difference for me, and how that will ultimately impact on the quality of education that we can offer.
And I worry about what this does for our ability to attract applicants to teaching. This is about our kids’ futures, and we should want the very, very best people – the ones who are too good for things like politics – to be drawn to a career in the classroom. But what are they currently being offered?
Lots of people have the drive to help others that underpins teaching, and it is a hugely rewarding career, but a huge part of its appeal is the stability that it is supposed to provide. I’m quite happy to tell you that the money (compared to what I had been earning) and the holidays were a significant part of my decision to be a teacher, but the expectation that it was a secure profession (after all, they’re always looking for teachers, aren’t they?) was also a massive factor.
I took a chance on becoming a teacher – a career that would last twelve years and give me the opportunity to meet and help thousands of students.
Being a teacher made me feel like I was really doing something worthwhile. It made me feel good about myself. And I know for a fact that I made a difference.
No matter how tough things ever got, there has not been a single second that I have regretted my decision to apply to that ITE course back in 2010, and I couldn’t begin to list all of the wonderful, life-changing moments I enjoyed as a teacher.
I loved it, and I was really good at it, and I hope I get to do it again.
But I don’t know if I’d take that chance today, and that breaks my heart as well.
