Mr Bach said the situation was “untenable in the long term for schools. They come to rely on agency staff, who are not only incredibly expensive for schools whose budgets are already stretched, but offer no stability for the children, especially in primary schools.” But there was no agency option for Jewish studies teachers, so when there were gaps, existing staff had to work beyond their contracted time, he said.
The national problem of retaining teachers was highlighted only last week by the School Teachers’ Review Body, which recommended a 3.5 per cent pay rise for the profession. Maintaining the supply of teachers, it reported, had become “more difficult”.
In England and Wales, around 10 per cent of qualified teachers have been leaving the profession each year. Over the past five years, the rate of teachers leaving early has increased annually.
More than a quarter of newly qualified teachers leave teaching after three years, and 31 per cent after five. The government had missed its target for recruiting graduate teachers for a sixth successive year, the STRB reported.
“Jewish schools have become ever more popular over the past 15 years,” Mr Bach said. “However, we need to take responsibility as a community for ensuring that we have the personnel properly trained to staff them.”
How the workload in the end became too much for one teacher
David Lightman took the plunge four years ago at the age of 52. He had been mulling a change of direction and, finding it tough after launching a consultancy in graphic design and marketing, he applied for teacher training as an “insurance policy”.
Taking a Postgraduate Certificate in Education in English and media studies at Goldsmith’s College, London, he was surprised that, despite all the publicity encouraging people to enter the profession, the process was not easy. “You spend most of your training year in school teaching, for which the college gets money, but you have to pay £9,000 a year for the privilege of spending very little time in university.”
Even as the husband of a senior teacher of 30 years, he found working in schools “eye-opening. Seeing how schools function now is quite a shock to the system. Regardless of where you are, teaching has become a second arm of social services.”
Teachers have to face the fallout from troubles at home and various pressures on children. “I truly believe young people today have more pressure than they ever had,” he said.
His first job was teaching English to state-school pupils, mainly from families of recent immigrants and his biggest challenge was trying to engage parents who often hadn’t enjoyed a traditional education themselves. On one occasion, he had to deal with a year-seven student who threatened another pupil with a knife in class. “It was basically silly, I don’t think he would have used it, it was showing off.”
Keen to teach media, when a job came up at Yavneh College in Elstree, he took it last September. It was a different environment from his first post. Engaging parents was no problem and pupils “weren’t shy in making their opinions known if they think you are in the wrong and they are in the right. But they’re a nice student body.”
Yet he had arrived with “a certain naivety”, thinking a Jewish school would be immune from the social issues evident elsewhere.
As the sole media teacher, he did not have the back-up of others in a faculty. “I was teaching B-Techs as well, which are tremendously important because they give students not necessarily adept at exams an opportunity to get good qualifications. But they are very admin heavy. I was going to school at 7.30, leaving at 7, Monday to Thursday, and working through the evening after that and every Sunday as well. The workload in the end got to me.”
When a “dream job” came up in his former industry, he decided to quit teaching this summer.
“I have nothing but admiration for my teaching colleagues. But I worry because I don’t think it is a profession that’s as respected as it could be. If you can get the right subject at the right school and you are prepared to give it a good go, it can be very rewarding. But don’t underestimate how hard it is.”
Passionate professional who loves what she does
Miri Ickowicz, 26, graduated this summer from the London School of Jewish Studies’ Schools Direct scheme, which enabled her to qualify on the job as a Jewish studies teacher at JFS.
“I love people and interacting with people,” she said. But she did not enter the profession straight away. After a degree in health and social care from the Open University, she went on to a two-year course offered by the Association of Accounting Technicians.
“I thought to have a practical job, where I could work from home because I had a little one. I love maths so I thought I’d train to be a bookkeeper or accountant.”
But alone with the ledgers did not prove fulfilling. “I did it for a bit but it did my head in, because I had no interaction with human beings.”
Her experience of taking cheder classes at South Hampstead Synagogue convinced her that teaching was her forte. She found a Jewish-studies job in a Jewish primary for a year and then, after maternity leave for her second child, she saw an advert for JFS — “I thought: ‘that’s so me.’”
Although she comes from a more Orthodox background as a product of Menorah High School, she wanted to teach a broader mix of students. Joining in February 2016, she “loved it straight away. It was a challenge and certain year groups were more challenging, mainly year nine — they were at that awkward age, they are not GCSE but they are not ex-primary school kids, either.”
When she joined the LSJS training course last autumn, she increased her days from three to four.
“It is always better to be qualified at something if you are doing it,” she said. “I thought I had room to grow.”
The part-time course included talks from experts on various topics from behaviour management to adapting to children’s strengths, visits to other schools and exercises within school, such as “following a student around one day to see what their day would be like”.
Qualifying has given her “more confidence”, she said. “Last year, before I was qualified, I had those days when I was not sure. Now I know I am doing it right. There is still more to learn but I do know I am on the right track.”
It has helped her to push pupils more and get them to think more deeply. The sixth-formers she teachers are “amazing”, she said, and parents are generally “supportive”. Sometimes, she will invite pupils home for a Shabbat meal. “There is so much potential, especially once they reach year 10 and 11.
“People said to me that, now I was qualified, I could teach English or history and asked if I would be interested. I said it’s not just about the teaching, it’s about the fact that I love what I teach. I am passionate about Judaism.”
Aspiring to rise higher in the profession, she certainly doesn’t regret her change of career. “I enjoy it, I am excited. You don’t get the same satisfaction with numbers, do you?”
