Secondary head John Catton has spoken of his concerns after struggling to fill five positions at Orton Longueville School in time for the new school year.

He claims many of his colleagues share his view, and a recruitment website used by the vast majority of city schools is currently advertising 35 vacancies – 22 for teachers and 13 for teaching assistants.

And according to latest Government figures, the number of unfilled posts at primary and secondary schools nationally has jumped by a quarter in the last year.

Mr Catton said: “Peterborough is a hotspot. Other secondary heads are saying the same thing. This year has been particularly difficult.

“We are having to get creative to staff schools.

“We are growing our own and getting them trained in-house.”

Despite Mr Catton’s recruitment difficulties, Orton Longueville School was fully staffed when pupils returned earlier this month.

But he says Peterborough’s relative isolation in the country, coupled with its lack of a university for teacher training, meant it was worse off than other areas.

Director of innovation and development at the city’s Thomas Deacon Academy Steve Warburton said recruitment had been a problem in schools for years.

The fully-staffed academy has appointed six of its teachers from other professions who are undergoing on-the-job training as part of its efforts to address the problem.

“Different schools are experiencing different problems,” Mr Warburton said. “One thing schools are having to do is look at vacancies in a creative way by accessing more people who are looking for a career change in life.

“Schools need to make the most of people with life skills.”

Among the school’s new recruits is 41-year-old maths teacher Geoff Haynes – a former finance director of Barclays Stockbrokers, in Lynch Wood, Peterborough.

The father-of-two, from Deeping St James, near Market Deeping, took a 40 per cent salary drop to become a teacher, and says he is revelling in his new and rewarding career.

He said: “I was getting tired of what I was doing. I didn’t want to go any higher as the commitment that was needed would have had an adverse effect on my life.

“I enjoy teaching enormously, and I have the advantage of having worked somewhere else and know how green the grass is on both sides of the fence.

“It is not easy being a teacher, but it is fulfilling, and I have no regrets.”

Mr Haynes did a year-long Post Graduate Certificate in Education (available to those who already have a degree) at the University of Leicester before successfully applying to teach maths at The Academy.

According to figures released by the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF), there are 2,510 teaching vacancies at schools in England, up 470 from last year’s figure.

The number of applicants starting postgraduate teacher training this September has also fallen nearly 10 per cent compared to 2007.

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