Hey there Tappers!
Congratulations – the finish line is in sight now. It is just a couple of weeks before you will be enjoying your first alarm-free morning of the summer break!
New Prize Draw! 🎟️
This week a new prize draw has been launched!
This month’s prize draw is all about a new summer wardrobe 🛍️🛒. Win and you score £500 to splurge on new threads in a shop of your choosing 🤑.
Answer questions four days in a row to earn a ticket which you’ll see in your app under prize draw. Collect as many as you can between 8th – 31st July. And on the 1st August, we will draw a winning ticket. 🎉
You can see your tickets and progress in the app. If we have permission, we’ll also send an email each time you get a ticket. No need to do anything with your tickets – they are automatically entered into the prize draw.
BUT, you might like to check your tickets when we announce the winner: it has a special code on it! We’ll share the winning ticket code on our social channels, and we’ll email the winner too. Full terms and conditions can be found here.
General election updates…
Now the general election is behind us we have some numbers to crunch 📊. First up – how did everyone vote?
🔴 58% Labour Party
🟡 20% Liberal Democrat
🟢 9% Green Party
🔵 5% Conservative Party
⚪️ 2% Reform
Compared to when we asked in June, only a few people changed their mind – but most notable was the switch to Liberal Democrats rising from 12% to 20% in a week.
Compared to the 2019 election, there were fewer Conservative voters (5% vs 10%). Another shift can be seen in votes for smaller parties: 0% voted for BNP or UKIP in the last general election whereas this time Reform secured 2% of the vote.
New secretary of state for education
With a new government comes a new cabinet. So it’s goodbye to Gillian Keegan, and hello to Bridget Phillipson 👋.
As always, we asked if you were sad to see the education secretary go. We didn’t have huge numbers expressing sadness that Gillian Keegan was leaving, however her result isn’t out of step with the other numerous Ed Secs who held the post following Nadhim Zahawi’s departure in 2022.
Next week we will be able to share the results of the open question “What would you like to say to the new Ed Sec?” be sure to keep your eyes peeled for our compilation of your responses 👀.
Student elections
It wasn’t just the grown ups getting involved in the democratic process – we also heard about your pupil elections.
🗳️ Just under a quarter of schools held their own elections.
Their results came out as:
🔴 40% Labour Party
🟡 12% Liberal Democrat
🟢 14% Green Party
🔵 4% Conservative Party
⚪️ 14% Reform
How important is it to involve children in elections? Is it something you embrace as a school, or is the term too busy or the topic too contentious? Be sure to let us know what you think over socials or on the app…💬
Teacher absence
Once again we have asked about reasons for teacher absence. This is a question we ask every year and this allows us to track changes over time.
This year we can see:
🔻13% took days off related to mental health – this is the same as last year, and the figure has stayed around this level since we first asked in 2017.
📊 Around a third of teachers told us they never take a day off – but this is lower than in the years running up to the pandemic (41% in July 2018 and 43% in July 2019).
😷 Respiratory illnesses make up 16% of absence this year, lower than the previous two years (31% February 2022 and 21% July 2023).
Taking time off as a teacher can be really difficult – as can covering teachers when they are absent. Our report with Gatsby included some data in the number of schools using long term cover in their schools, you can read more here.
Work anxiety in the summer term
Although the summer term can feel like a manic rush, this is balanced by the promise of the holidays just around the corner. Plus, the things that make it busy also tend to be events that should bring high reward: end of year productions, prize giving, sports days. The warm and fuzzy stuff 🥰.
We have been tracking work related anxiety since 2019, and we can see the summer usually result in a lower anxiety score. However, this term we can see a change in the trend for headteachers.
Last year, anxiety scores in July were the lowest of the year for headteachers, but this academic year they are the highest.
However, it’s not all bad news. On average, we have lower numbers of headteachers with high anxiety scores across the whole of the year in 2023-24, compared to 2022-23.
Want to find out more about headteacher stress? This blog from 2021 digs into the data around headteacher wellbeing, and how many teachers aspire to lead schools…
Days off in lieu around the world 🌍
Did you know we also have Teacher Tapp in Flanders 🏴🇧🇪 and the Netherlands 🇳🇱?
This week, teachers in all three Teacher Tapping communities were asked about their school’s approach to days off in lieu following school trips that extend beyond the working day.
🇳🇱Teachers in the Netherlands were the MOST likely to be given time off following a school trip (only 65% saying no day off would be given if a trip extended into non-working time).
🏴 In England, over one in five teachers said they would get a day in lieu if they were on a trip that extended into a weekend.
🇧🇪 Teachers in Flanders were the LEAST likely to be given time off after being on a school trip (97% saying no days off for trips that run into non-working time).
Do you have a question you would love to ask teachers in Flanders and the Netherlands? Drop us a link on hello@teachertapp.co.uk.
Top events
This week’s top event is White Rose Maths Primary to secondary transition an online webinar taking place today! You’re too late to sign up to this one BUT be sure to keep checking back on the app as we’re adding more events every day.
If you want to know what edu-events are coming up then check the app and filter for your phase and subject.
Ups and Downs
On the rise 📈
Visualisers in the classroom…and being used – More classroom teachers say they used their visualiser in their last lesson 26% UP from 20% in July 2022.
Heading down 📉
Trips cancelled due to lack of parent contributions – Fewer trips were cancelled this year versus 2019 due to parents being unable to pay the price for the outing. 18% DOWN from 24%.
Daily Reads
Our most read daily read this week was a election special Tes blog: 12 questions for the new Labour government
If you would like to read the rest you can find them here 👇
