Happy New Year Tappsters! 2024 is set to be an exciting year at Teacher Tapp, keep your eyes peeled for new features and a new experiment on the app in the coming weeks 👀
BUT, before you are too firmly back in the habit of writing the date on the board each day, we wanted to look at some of the Teacher Tapp questions you answered in the ‘betwixtmas’ period where no one knew what day it was (but thank goodness for a 3:30 notification from Teacher Tapp 😂)
Temperature-checking the profession for 2024
Apparently, 75% of UK workers will be job hunting this January… Does that include teachers? We check on this each year between Christmas and New Year and results show that just under 1 in 5 of you will be job hunting (or retiring) in the coming year, roughly the same proportion as in recent years.
How about morale? Is that higher or lower than last year? After a covid-slump, it seems things are starting to look up a bit. 28% of you said morale is higher than a year ago… the highest it’s been since 2019.
But before you get too excited that everything’s looking rosy, our third end-of-year temperature check shows a more worrying trend… Fewer of you agree that ‘conditions in your life’ are ‘excellent’ than at any previous point in the past five years. And yes, that’s even including the covid years 😔
Message to the Minister
So with that in mind, what are some of the things that you think could improve the profession in 2024?
It’ll be no surprise that if a teacher were made education secretary, funding would be at the top of the priority list (as it has been since we started asking in 2018). Teacher recruitment also remains a priority. However, one change from 2018 is prioritising SEND moves up to third place.
Whilst improving children’s behaviour might not be directly within the gift of the education secretary (although we might like to see her try 🙈), this is certainly another item high on teachers’ wish lists… Up a little from 2021 and in-line with pre-pandemic 2019.
On a lighter note…
Lots of you wrote to us last year suggesting we check on what colour exercise books “should” be for different subjects. It turns out that the results were pretty conclusive:
- English books should be yellow;
- Maths books should be blue; and
- Science books should be green!
If you could only have one colour of exercise book for all your students, the most popular choice was blue (closely followed by purple). The questions (let alone the answers!) also set off a good Twitter debate.
Ups and Downs
On the rise
📈 Damage to students’ emotional wellbeing caused by technology / social media: 82% of secondary school teachers are concerned about this (compared to 72% in January 2020)
📈Getting too many emails at work: 23% of teachers say they get ‘far too many’ (compared to 20% in December 2020)
📈 Dealing with pupils with extremely disruptive behaviour outside of lessons: 39% of teachers feel this is worse compared to three years ago (compared to 32% in 2022)
📈 Dealing with pupils with extremely disruptive behaviour in lessons 35% of teachers feel this is worse compared to three years ago (compared to 27% in 2022)
Heading down
📉 GCSE reliability: 24% of teachers say the exams are a ‘not particularly accurate’ measure of pupil attainment (was 19% in February 2021)
📉 Influence over what is what is taught in your classroom: 26% of teachers say they have ‘a great deal of influence’ (was 41% in January 2023)
Daily Reads
The most read article from the last week has been: The 5 worst education arguments by graphics
And here are the rest for your reference:
