Recruiting a new teacher is a national problem. One Bristol school has eased their situation by thinking imaginatively and working with the experts
Teacher recruitment. The perennial problem and seemingly getting worse.
Anecdotally there are schools which simply cannot fill vacancies. In some cases they might get just one applicant for a post. This leaves the dilemma – if the candidate is not up to scratch – of either giving them the job anyway or persisting with supply teachers. In extreme cases, we see larger class sizes. None of these solutions are great.
The spin-off is demoralised staff, kids who receive inconsistent teaching (no fault of the supply teacher) and wasted budgets on big supply agency fees.
As a recipe for despondency, it never fails.
With pupil numbers set to rise by 15% in the next 6 years, it can only get worse and the Government has acted with proposals to offer cash incentives for young teachers to stay in education. Read about it here.
In South Bristol, one all-through (primary and secondary) school has responded to their own need to recruit.
Bridge Learning Campus offered a financial ‘golden hello’ as well as opportunities to become a real leader in the school community. They didn’t set about recruiting just a maths teacher or a music teacher … instead they just sought the very best teachers.
Helped by the team here at Local Voice – Ollie Coombs and Becky Day – a Facebook campaign was launched.
The results were staggering – around 110 experienced teachers signed up expressing interest in just 9 days. An open evening was held with another in the pipeline and the quality of applicants has been superb.
We managed to produce high quality leads and advise on methods of follow-up which delighted the senior team at the school.
It was a great example of a school which thought imaginatively about how to solve a problem – and then worked closely with our team to deliver the results they wanted.
For more on social media campaigns, click here.
Does your school need help with recruitment. Call Rich on 07775550607 or contact us here.
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