School staffing a chronic issue, says union

As reported by the BBC, a teachers’ union believes Guernsey schools are suffering from a growing staff shortage

Paul Montague, of the National Education Union, said there was a “chronic ongoing recruitment issue”.

He said: “It’s particularly bad at the moment and something definitely needs to be done.”

Liz Coffey, executive principal of the Secondary School Partnership, said there was not a “wholesale recruitment issue”.

Mr Montague spoke after concerns raised by a parent about staffing at St Sampson’s High School.

‘The parent, who wanted to be anonymous, said the ‘system is broken’ and ‘they don’t have the staff’.

Mr Montague said: “I fully accept that people are working as hard as they possibly can to fill these gaps.

“We do have some very good agency staff but understandably agency staff are only here for one term.

“Sometimes we manage to extend that to a year, but it’s still not what’s required in terms of benefiting the youngsters in terms of their education.

“We have so many youngsters whose progress in a particular subject area has been blighted because they’ve had a massive turnover in staff and I just don’t think it’s acceptable.”

Mrs Coffey said there were currently three open teacher vacancies at St Sampson’s.

“We are in the process of making appointments and some new staff are due to start roles soon,” she said.

“While it is never ideal to have vacancies, we have taken steps to ensure the impact on students is minimal.

“Primarily, we have been using agency staff to continue the delivery of lessons, particularly in specialist subject areas where recruitment can be most difficult.”