In our experience as a leading curricular music provider, Sing Education has looked at the reason why so many music, art and theatre teachers struggle to stay engaged with their chosen career – despite their overwhelming love for children and primary education.
Click here if you missed the first article in our two-part in-depth series on The Dash for Primary Teacher Talent – New Landscape in Educational Recruitment.
In our experience as a leading curricular music provider, Sing Education has looked at the reason why so many music, art and theatre teachers struggle to stay engaged with their chosen career – despite their overwhelming love for children and primary education.
Based on this research, as well as our own classroom practice, we’ve developed an innovative teaching model designed to meet those challenging needs, as well as to provide excellent benefits to headteachers, schools and MATs.
We found an outstanding way to partner career commitment with classroom flexibility.
All of Sing Education’s highly-skilled music teachers are sourced from among the country’s best music conservatoires and universities. As a Sing Education teacher, they become part of our diverse and talented team of professional musicians, teaching across primary schools in London. Our goals are not only to transform how music education is “done” for young learners, but also to shape the development and career arc of working musicians who choose to teach in primary schools.
For those who become part of our teaching team, we provide fulfilling and stable opportunities for teachers to continually use and grow their musical skills. We give teachers an exciting, dynamic career should they start later in life, come from other teaching work, or even if they are fresh out of university. We offer teachers something that’s powerfully fulfilling – a better way to use their musical skills, performance ability and teaching capacity. Ultimately the success of our vision means that more music graduates are working in the field they studied.
Why Do Good Teachers Leave? Download here
And we’ve ensured that this creative teaching framework suits schools and headteachers as well:
So you’ve done it!
Highlighted your strongest educational attributes, positioned your school as an employer of choice, attracted the very best candidates the market has to offer, and crafted a sound budget and hiring plan complete with enticing offer packages that balance salary, benefits and unique workplace perks.
Result!
With these factors in place, it’s no wonder you’re well on your way to achieving your highest recruitment goals. But wait! The journey doesn’t end there. Without an ongoing strategy to retain the talent you’ve attracted, you’re likely to find yourself in an untenable – and very expensive – position in just a few years time due to staff attrition.
According to FE News, “The education profession depends on healthy levels of recruitment and retention, but for too long these have been in a precarious position. Although efforts have been made recently by government to make starting salaries more attractive, there continues to be a neglect and underappreciation of those already in the education system who, over time, have gained invaluable experience. The loss of their expertise, through leaving education, would constitute a ‘brain drain’. This would be bad news for schools and colleges and the young people they teach, not to mention new teachers who can benefit from their wisdom.” 1
Certain professions, particularly high stress ones, such as teaching, finance and medicine are particularly vulnerable to brain drain. Often it manifests itself during the most productive employment years, when mid-career staff face the tough decision on whether to “double down” on their fast-paced professional track or take a break to devote more time to family, entrepreneurial ambitions or other personal aspirations.
As described in Schools Week as part of a spotlight on flexible working, “There is a well-documented recruitment challenge in education, and we’re interested in this group of women aged 30 to 39. 6,000 of them leave the profession every year, and there’s not much data on what happens to them.
They aren’t the only people for whom flexible working would be beneficial, but they are nearly 30 per cent of the teachers leaving the profession, and it does suggest that teaching somehow, whatever people believe on the outside, is not compatible particularly with having a family.” 2
Why Do Good Teachers Leave? Download here
In similar reporting, FE News published data this Spring from the National Education Union survey on the State of Education in the UK. Quite alarmingly, some “35% of total respondents reported they would definitely be no longer working in education in five years’ time.” 3
Moreover, “Of those who indicated they would no longer be working in education, either in two or five years’ time, we asked them why. The most common reason was that the education profession is not valued or trusted by government/media (53%), closely followed by workload (51%), then accountability (34%) and pay (24%).” 4
Having the right hiring plan, recruitment model and delivery partners in place go a long way to helping break this vicious cycle.
The reason many schools choose Sing Education is that the provision – as quoted by one headteacher recently – “is stress free.”
Headteachers working with us are secure in the knowledge that their music provision will be fully, efficiently and successfully managed. From soup to nuts, new school onboarding to outgoing teacher transition, Sing Education has developed tried and true practices, policies and resources for every eventuality. Music is therefore one less thing on a headteachers’ already overflowing administrative plate.
For example, our music teachers receive continuous training throughout their career with us, in addition to substantive training before they are matched with a school. They benefit from a full package of teaching resources and ongoing support from our senior leadership team, as well as from their peers working in other schools.
We truly cater to our partner schools – organising all the operational details, as well as the practical side of things like the logistics around sickness cover. In fact we not only cover the management of absenteeism, we also cover payroll, we cover contracts, we cover safeguarding. It’s a hassle-free experience for headteachers who adopt our programme. They can rest easy, knowing that school music is just happening, and not only is it happening, but it’s high quality and engaging.
Staffing. From recruitment to onboarding to retention, it’s a veritable minefield of stressors.
And no more so than when considering specialist provision areas such as theatre, the arts and music education. Having a strong hiring strategy, an advisory partner you can rely on and the tools to see your plan into action are vital if you want to succeed in a highly competitive talent marketplace.
If you’d like further information, guidance and support, please look to Sing Education. Our decades of experience recruiting, retaining and developing the very best quality music specialists means we have the tools and tactics to help you reach your goals – however ambitious your hiring targets. Simply give us a call to learn more.
Why Do Good Teachers Leave? Download here
Founded in 2014 and serving more than 9,000 children each week, Sing Education is a first class provider of primary school music education. Focusing on high-quality, singing-led tuition, we deliver a complete solution for schools which includes teacher recruitment, training and management, bespoke curricular resources and educational consultancy services.
Through music lessons, singing assemblies, choirs, after school clubs and instrumental tuition, Sing Education works with students from Nursery right through to Year 6. Our core philosophy is that “Every Child Has A Voice,” and, as educators active in the classroom, our directors and teachers know firsthand how much young learners benefit from exciting, rewarding music education.
#SingEducation #MusicChangesLives
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