Why are all our teachers quitting?

From 2021 to 2022, straight after the pandemic 40,000 teachers in England left the profession before retirement, the highest number in a decade. Figures from the Department of Education also show unfilled teacher vacancies were at a record high and sick days taken were up 50 percent on pre-pandemic levels.

But why?

In this three-part podcast we will hear true accounts from staff on the front line spoken at the most frightening time of their careers. To maintain the anonymity of the people and the schools included in this research, the excerpts you will hear have been re-recorded with other people’s voices, but these are their words and their stories.

In the first two episodes of this podcast, we explored how and when the research was conducted and what that research revealed. In this final episode we highlight four key areas that contribute to low teacher retention levels and examine the impact of how teachers were seen, purely as a source of labour, not as people going through the same crisis. We end with a discussion on what needs to change, both at a policy level and generally in attitudes and expectations of teachers.

We would like to sincerely thank all the teaching staff who took on this project during the most stressful time of their careers. We hope their voices have been heard.

Host: Judith Koch

Interviewees: Dr. Dinah Rajak, Dr. Sarah-Jane Phelan and Dr. Jenny Hewitt

Dr. Sarah-Jane Phelan

Dr. Jenny Hewitt

Dr. Dinah Rajak

Producer: Elisa Kennedy and Judith Koch

Music: Thanks to Universfield and Ashot Danielyan for the use of their music from Pixabay