Any parent who keeps up-to-date with current affairs  will be well aware that there is a huge shortage of teachers and the problem is not going to disappear any time soon. Certainly, if a teacher departs mid-year it can be very difficult to get any replacement (if at all) until the following September:

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This problem is compounded by the huge cost of advertising. The short supply of teachers means that we have to advertise nationally and the highest profile advertiser is the Times Educational Supplement who charge £800+ for even a basic advertisement. The national figures see over £50million per year being spent by UK adverts for teacher vacancies and around £500 million on supply teachers.

This advertising money could instead by spent on new resources, extended Saturday Schools, improved facilities, and so on.

This state of affairs has led to the creation of a petition to Parliament to ask MPs to organise the setting up of a free, nationally used website for schools to use to advertise for posts. This will not only mean more money will be kept in schools to be spent on education, but also mean public money is not sent off to private companies for their own profit.

The petition takes seconds to do and is available at: https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/214287

Matt Allman, Headteacher, said: “Perhaps the biggest challenges any school are dealing with are the stretched budgets and the difficulties in attracting high-quality teachers from an ever-dwindling pool. The idea of a free, national website for teacher recruitment is a great idea and would enable us to better use our resources to help our children in the classroom.”