‘We’re cannibalising each other’: a case study of teacher turnover in hard-to-staff schools

Abstract In this paper, we present a case study of hard-to-staff secondary schools to examine teacher turnover in Australia. The paper draws on interviews with teachers and school leaders to explore issues related to turnover, an aspect of workforce instability that is less recognised in discussions of the Australian teaching workforce. We situate this analysis within the broader context of education marketisation to consider the implications for disadvantaged schools in the context of widespread teacher shortages. We map the dynamics of localised experiences of turnover, highlighting the impacts of marketisation on the teaching workforce through increasing competition between schools for teachers, the ongoing process of continuous recruitment, and the complexities of teacher retention in hard-to-staff schools. We demonstrate how this cycle of constant staff replacement not only disrupts school stability and social relationships but also places additional strain on remaining teachers and leaders, creating unsustainable working environments that further drive turnover contributing to increasingly stratified working conditions for teachers across different school contexts.