ITV News Central Investigation: What next for teaching in the Midlands?

This week, ITV News Central's 'Teaching in Crisis?' series has been looking at the challenges facing teachers and schools in our region.

All this week, I have been throwing the spotlight on one of the most pressing issues facing our schools - are there enough teachers to teach our children?

It's a subject riddled with mixed messages: the stock response from the Government is that teacher numbers are at an all-time high, and "there's never been a better time to be a teacher".

Talk to those working in education, though, and you get a very different picture - one of schools struggling to fill teaching vacancies and supply agencies busier than they have ever been.

Our own ITV News Central survey, the first ever conducted solely with teachers in the Midlands, revealed a worrying sense of discontent, mostly driven by the sheer volume of their work, which is causing many to reconsider their career choice.

More than 80 per cent had considered leaving teaching in the last two years, and of those, two-thirds blamed the excessive demands of the job.

In July, Education Secretary Nicky Morgan announced a "Workload Challenge" to look at how schools could reduce teachers' "unnecessary" workload.

But unions like the NASUWT, which carried out our survey, say it's the "necessary" workload - the jobs teachers have to do - which is excessive.

Recruiting new teachers

On the issue of recruitment, many headteachers continue to invest considerable time just maintaining a full quota of staff and the message that's come through loud and clear from them in our series is that teacher shortages are a major headache. We've heard how posts are advertised but can't be filled and how jobs which attracted dozens of applications ten years ago now get just one or two responses and in some cases none at all.

The Government clearly recognizes there's a problem. Most of us will have caught the new TV advert doing the rounds on our screens right now, selling the teaching profession and posing the question, "What does a teacher make?".

To entice new recruits, the Department for Education is offering bursaries and scholarships of up to £30,000 in subjects which traditionally suffer from shortages. The question is, are wannabe teachers really hooked in by financial sweeteners? Those we've spoken to this week say the reason most people give for going into teaching is the reason they've always given - to give young people a good start of life and reap the rewards from seeing them develop their knowledge.

What next for teaching in the Midlands?

Most teachers are driven to do what they do. Money doesn't seem to be a consideration, and in any case do parents want their children taught by teachers whose prime motive for taking up the job in the first place was a financial one?

What we appear to be left with is a perfect storm: teachers leaving the profession because of disillusionment with the job, schools struggling to recruit staff and pupil numbers rising because of the recent baby boom.

How serious is it? The Education Select Committee, the cross-party group of MPs to which Nicky Morgan is accountable, wants to find out. It's just announced an inquiry into the supply of teachers and has invited submissions before holding a day of oral evidence at Parliament later in the year.

Its findings could go a long way to determining whether teacher shortages are merely a "challenge", as the Government has described it, or a full-blown crisis.