Teachers Leaving Shore – What is the Situation?

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

Hebrews 13:8

Dear Students, Parents and Carers

In recent years Shore has attracted media attention and the ire of some parents with a considerable number of staff departures. In fact, in a school the size of Shore, the level of departures in this time has accorded with the national average in the independent education sector. This level of attrition is more than 13 percent per year, hence over as little as four years, more than half the staff depart their schools. However, this rate has not been the regular experience at Shore. 

The reassuring news is three weeks before the end of the academic year, departures this semester are clearly going to be very small in number. Even these few have a clear rationale: retirements, significant promotions to other schools, very attractive opportunities outside of education, and work relocation of spouses. 

My approach to staffing transition is that neither zero movement nor substantial movement are to be desired.  Some staff turnover in a large school provides the benefit of ‘new blood’, the import of fresh ideas and energy to challenge a school and replenish its numbers. We have seen this in recent times at Shore with the addition of many excellent staff who are already highly regarded by other staff members, their students and parents. However, rapid turnover is far from optimal, as it represents loss of institutional memory and loss of relationship. Schools find it difficult to cope with large churn. They are better at managing more incremental change amidst substantial stability and continuity. This is the very essence of Shore. The Christian faith on which we are founded attests, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Hebrews 13:8). However, this continuity needs to be nuanced in our messaging in order to be relevant in a society which thinks differently and functions differently from the ways of the past.

Many look at Shore and are rightly impressed with the magnificent resources that are in the School. There is no doubt this is valid, and, not least, with our physical resources. Nonetheless, the most important, the most strategic and the most impactful of our resources at Shore are our excellent staff. This is increasingly supported by research, particularly that of Australia’s best known education academic, Professor John Hattie, whose mega-studies indicate that of all the variables in a student’s success, the most important is the quality of the teacher in the classroom, an effect which is very substantial. It follows, then, that at Shore we need to support, encourage, nourish and preserve our excellent staff. This process includes access to ongoing training and development in terms of the latest research in education and social trends. It would be unthinkable in other professions, such as medicine, that practitioners do not stay up to date. So it is with teaching. 

In a highly mobile society such as Australia, there will always be tree-changers, sea-changers, and those looking to escape the ‘rat race’ of the big city, particularly as they have discovered during COVID-19 that they can work effectively online from home. There will be career developments for teachers who secure exciting promotions to positions not vacant in their current school, and there will be retirements. Although it is always sad to farewell staff who are highly regarded, the only consolation is that we are able to appoint excellent people into Shore who will continue to bear the torch. 

Considering that at Shore we have over 300 permanent staff, the anticipated rate of departure is very manageable. Shore appears to me to be stable, with a strong staff Common Room fully invested in providing an excellent education for our students.

Dr J Collier
Interim Headmaster