Recruiting Teachers From Abroad.

The Department of Education is unable to hold onto new teachers as up to half now quit the profession in their first five years. Perhaps they should be asking why so many see this as 'a wonderful job - ruined'.
From the outside, the salaries do not seem all that bad and many will hasten to point out the 'short working days' and the amount of holidays which teachers currently receive. This is an illusion, BTW. "Oh, he/she only spends 22 hours a week in a classroom" is another piece of nonsense. How many people overlook the huge amounts of preparation required by most teachers and marking, for English teachers in particular, can take up horrendous amounts of time. How many teachers are not using their 'holidays' for planning when the exam board suddenly changes the base of all that you have been doing and thus turns you into a novice - irrespective of all your previous experience. Some subjects lend themselves to strategies which legitimately reduce the marking work load - but no subject can escape. Add 'meetings' to the mix and the hours really start to tot up.
The sense that you will not be supported in tricky disciplinary situations, 'spoiled brat syndrome' is on the increase, gobby and offensive parents, the decline in the ability to learn as so many pupils have become passive rather than active and it is easy to see why so many staff suffer mental breakdowns. All of this - and more - before OFSTED are dumped into your life! They seem designed to criticise whatever you do - and this is not a mere perception. They ruin your self confidence and undermine so much of what you or your school are trying to achieve. (If you try teaching in a Christian School - they get even worse!)