Children are missing an hour a week because of a staff shortage

The head teacher of Mellow Lane School said he was "gutted" to have to cut lessons because of a lack of staff.

Rodd Stafford says that the school, in Hayes, in the London borough of Hillingdon, had tried many ways to recruit more staff.

And he warned that a lack of secondary school teachers was jeopardising efforts to raise standards.

The head teacher says that pupils in three year groups are missing a science lesson each week, because not enough qualified teachers can be found.

'Frustrating'

This comes as the House of Commons education select committee says that there are still localised problems with secondary school teacher recruitment.

I'm gutted. Everything I've worked for for 20 years is being put at risk, because there are simply not enough qualified staff out there Rodd Stafford, head teacher

It says that there should be a special grade of teachers for more challenging schools - and that schools should have more flexibility over pay.

In the case of Mellow Lane School, a humanities specialist, the head says the underlying problem is an overall lack of qualified teachers in shortage subjects.

"We've tried everything there is out there - direct recruitment from overseas, web interviews, running our own programme in the school, constant advertising, training support staff to become teachers," said Mr Stafford.

This shortage means that the weekly lessons are being cut from 25 hours to 24 hours - with a science lesson being removed because of the lack of qualified teachers.

"It's very, very frustrating. In common parlance I have to say I'm gutted. Everything I've worked for for 20 years is being put at risk, because there are simply not enough qualified staff out there," said Mr Stafford.

Higher pay?

He doubted whether this was a problem that could be resolved with higher salaries - as he said that there was a deeper-rooted problem of an overall lack of graduates in shortage science subjects.

While the select committee report has focused on staffing problems in tough schools, the problems in this outer London school also highlights the knock-on difficulties created by extra payments in urban areas.

Schools just outside the areas receiving extra payments can find themselves struggling to recruit staff who can earn more by working a short distance away in schools which qualify for higher levels of London weighting.

The government has repeatedly argued that it is tackling the teacher shortage - and that teacher numbers are rising.

And the select committee concluded that there is not a widespread teacher shortage - but that there were specific problems in some schools.

In primary schools, the most recent problem has been too many teachers chasing too few jobs, with claims that newly-qualified primary teachers have been struggling to find vacancies.