For our free daily briefing on the biggest issues facing the nation, sign up to the Wales Matters newsletter here<\/a><\/p>\nRecruitment in some subjects \u2013 such as PE, history and geography \u2013 is fine but maths, English, sciences, Welsh and modern foreign languages are particularly low, he said. EWC data showed 75% of those teaching maths are trained in the subject and, speaking more generally, he said the number is lower still for sciences. He warned: \u201cGiven the picture with recruitment, we could see that picture deteriorating.”<\/p>\n
In terms of primary school teachers, the Welsh Government aims for about 600 primary teachers to be trained each year, a number which overdelivered in August 2024.<\/p>\n
Eithne Hughes, the EWC\u2019s chair, added that some in Wales are teaching not just their specialism \u201cbut possibly a couple of others, adding to the workload pressure\u201d.<\/p>\n
Ms Hughes said: \u201cThat becomes an issue when you\u2019ve got reduced funding and headteachers just having to have somebody in front of classes. It doesn\u2019t support standards.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Llewellyn raised the example set by Scotland where teachers\u2019 registration is linked to a specific subject or phase. \u201cYou cannot teach a subject you\u2019re not trained in,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Mr Llewellyn said the number of Welsh-speaking teachers is 33% \u2013 higher than the census \u2013 but it has remained static despite initiatives, with a lower number among support staff.<\/p>\n
He told the committee the number of Welsh speakers currently completing training is about 20% for primaries and 18% for secondaries, against a target of 30%. “When you magnify that down into particular subjects, you see those figures dropping,” he said, adding that only three of the 27 new maths teachers were Welsh speakers.<\/p>\n
Ms Hughes, a former headteacher in an English-medium school, told Senedd members she found recruiting Welsh teachers extremely difficult during her experience.<\/p>\n
Pressed about the key barriers and why Welsh Government targets are \u201ccontinually missed\u201d, Ms Hughes pointed to work-life balance, policy overload, pay, and behavioural problems.<\/p>\n
She suggested teachers are expected to be a social worker, police officer and medical expert, stressing: \u201cWe have to allow the business of teaching\u2026 to be at the core\u201d.<\/p>\n
Mr Llewellyn agreed: “What it means to be a teacher\u2026 in terms of workload, stress, bureaucracy, accountability, lack of autonomy, and pupil behaviour \u2013 it\u2019s a tough gig.”<\/p>\n
He urged policymakers to treat the causes rather than the symptoms as he questioned \u201cflashy\u201d promotional campaigns: “If what you\u2019re trying to promote isn\u2019t good, it won\u2019t work.”<\/p>\n
Pointing out that the starting salary for some bus drivers is near to teachers\u2019 in Wales, he warned: “The reality is: to be convinced to be a teacher is increasingly unlikely.”<\/p>\n
Asked about retention, he said around 2,400 teachers leave the EWC register every year, concluding:”We need to watch this really carefully because it\u2019s OK when you lose individuals from the profession and you\u2019re recruiting the number you need back. But\u2026 we are recruiting nowhere near the number of secondary and Welsh-medium teachers that we need. Attrition is OK if you\u2019re replacing but therein lies the problem.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Only a third of the number of secondary school teachers have been recruited Wales is only training around…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":160518,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5010],"tags":[748,2266,4884,285,16,15,1764,31933,14794],"class_list":{"0":"post-160517","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wales","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-education","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-politics","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-wales","15":"tag-wales-schools","16":"tag-welsh-government"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114631409914002372","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=160517"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160517\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/160518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=160517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=160517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=160517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}