Kathryn Torney, Education Correspondent for Belfast Telegraph
Newly qualified teachers from across Northern Ireland have been helping to combat the severe staff shortage in English schools.
Employment prospects for new teachers are extremely poor here with a recent survey by the NASUWT teaching union finding that only 25% of recent graduates had managed to obtain permanent teaching posts in Northern Ireland.
Medway Local Education Authority in Kent is one of the areas which actively recruits teachers from Northern Ireland. Sixteen teachers from Northern Ireland took up posts in the area last September. Among them was Noel Hawthorne, from Derry, who completed his teaching degree at Belfast’s Stranmillis College. He now teaches Technology and Design - a shortage subject in England - at The Robert Napier High School in Gillingham. “It is a very good school and I enjoy it,” the 23 year-old said.
Noel received pay for July and August as an incentive and the Council paid for his transfer across. “It was great to be able to start my induction year, rather than have to make do with supply work in schools in Northern Ireland,” he continued. “I applied for jobs here and went for one interview but didn’t get it. When I went on the trip to see the English schools nearly every school I went to offered me a job. One school even offered me a house for a year and another threatened not to let me out of the school until I signed on the dotted line!”
Catherine Simpson (23) from Lisburn, teaches eight and nine-year-olds at St Mary’s R.C. Primary School in Gillingham. She studied for her initial teacher training at Edge Hill College outside Liverpool.
“I graduated in 2002 and then came home to look for a teaching post but ended up doing supply teaching for a year,” she said. “I must have applied for 20 to 30 jobs in Northern Ireland and didn’t even get called for an interview and then my grandmother saw an advert for teaching posts in England and encouraged me to apply. I was interviewed at the Wellington Park Hotel on a Wednesday and the head teacher rang me on the Friday to offer me the post. Teaching in St Mary’s has been a great experience and I’ve really enjoyed it. If my contract is extended beyond the induction year I would love to stay as I get on really well with the children and the staff.”
A spokesperson for one of the teachers’ unions commented: “As long as we have a surplus of teachers here in Northern Ireland, I think that newly qualified teachers should give serious consideration to at least completing their induction year across the water. Schools in England are crying out for highly qualified teachers. My concern is that that it is soul destroying for so many of our young people to spend four years preparing to enter the teaching profession and then find that the best we can offer them is a few days supply work every month.”
