Multiple teacher changes 'hard to adjust to'

Guernsey's education department has cut the number of agency staff it uses, however, students say they are still being impacted by the turnover of teaching staff.

Before the 2024/25 academic year, the education department had 151 vacancies and filled 124 permanent appointments - leaving 27 to be filled by agency staff, a drop compared to 2023/24, when there was about 39 agency staff, and 2022/23, when there was more than 40.

Ella, who studies at the sixth form centre, said to begin with the turnover was "hard to adjust to".

Director of Education Nick Hynes said agency staff were "covering either long-term illness, maternity or sitting in posts until the vacant position is filled" permanently.

There are about 760 teachers across all stages of education on the island - primary, secondary, special and further education.

Ella, who studies the International Baccalaureate Diploma (IB), said she had three French teachers and two maths teachers over a two-year period.

"To begin with the changes were a little bit of a shock and they were hard to adjust to," she said.

"Some of the teachers that had been introduced to our course, because I do the IB, which is not as common as the A-level, one of our teachers hadn't been trained as well so the adaptation to the syllabus wasn't as stable as it could have been without the teacher turnover," she added.

The teaching union NASUWT said teacher recruitment had been an issue for many years and remained a problem.

According to data from the union, in the last year 40,000 teachers have left the profession in the UK.

It means that the pool of teachers that Guernsey can recruit from has reduced significantly compared to previous years.

NASUWT representative Wayne Bates said: "To be honest, it's an issue across the entire British Isles, particularly in certain subjects and certain areas there is a very very large teacher shortage and if the numbers of agency staff in Guernsey have reduced that is obviously welcome.

"Investment in education is absolutely imperative to ensure the long term economic benefits to the whole of the population on the Island.

Investment in education today will provide those benefits in future years."

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