BUCKINGHAMSHIRE'S hard-pressed schools are looking abroad to try and recruit staff. Trips are planned in May in an effort to find about 40 teachers for September.

The foreign trips are part of a number of initiatives to fill teacher vacancies.

At the beginning of the spring term, schools were 120 staff short, or just over three per cent of the workforce.

In secondary schools, where there are 50 vacancies, only five are in grammar schools and all the rest in upper schools. The main subject areas are in English, maths, science and RE.

Schools have had to cope either by covering with their own staff, using agency staff or amalgamating classes.

The figures are revealed in a report to the county council's joint schools group which meets today. The report makes it clear that these are the latest figures and the situation is getting worse.

The county council has put several ideas in motion to get teachers to come to the county.

One is a bid for government money, which would give teachers moving to the area up to £25,000 towards the cost of their first home.

The money would be repaid when the teacher moved.

The council is also looking to housing associations to rent property to teachers.

It has received a grant of £50,000 to employ someone whose job will be just to recruit teachers.

And it is spending £6,000 over the next six weeks advertising in local newspapers to get teachers who have left the profession to come back, and to find graduates prepared to train as teachers.

This would produce home-grown teachers who do not have to move home, and is similar to the Return to Nursing recruitment drive run by local hospitals.