Repository logo
 

‘Should I stay or should I go?’ Staff turnover in secondary schools – voices from four case studies in Cambridgeshire


Change log

Authors

Abstract

This is a dual-purpose paper. It is both a work-in-progress report as well as the expansion of a presentation to be given at the forthcoming Kaleidoscope 2023 conference. It therefore addresses one of the Kaleidoscope 2023 themes, resilience in education. The paper uses qualitative data extracted from my ongoing PhD research project that investigates the relationship between the everyday lives of all school staff, their working conditions, and their wellbeing. The aim of that project is to see if there are policies and design interventions that might improve the working lives of all school workers. The Introduction summarises the problem of recruitment and retention, both locally and globally. By reference to recent post-Pandemic research and current (April 2023) industrial unrest it suggests the importance of continuing research in this area. The Methodologies section details the theories underpinning the mixture of qualitative and quantitative methods that have been used in my PhD research and the way in which I have extracted the ‘voices’ that form the body of this paper. The Results are selected quotations from the interviews conducted with 12 members of staff in the 4 schools that were studied. My Discussion focusses on the interviewees’ feelings about themselves, and sheds light on sources of job satisfaction and dissatisfaction. The article concludes with ideas about what these voices tell us about resilience and suggests possible future work based on employee experience design.

Description

Keywords

School staff, recruitment, retention, resilience, self-image, employee experience

Journal Title

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

2634-9876

Volume Title

10

Publisher

CERJ, Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge

Publisher DOI

Publisher URL

Collections