Teacher Recruitment and Retention Strategy

Debate between Lord Pickles and Lord Agnew of Oulton

Tuesday 29th January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, the focus is on early-career teaching at this stage. We have outlined four key areas. One is funding, which will allow teachers in their second year to reduce their timetable by 5%. We are encouraging a reduction in teacher workload, which I covered a moment ago, and a more diverse range of options for career progression, which will help teachers further along in their career. We want to continue to make sure that teaching is considered a great career for those coming into it. We launched an initiative last year called Discover Teaching. Some 13,000 potential recruits have been through that system.

We need to see how the first phase of this programme evolves. We are rolling out some pilot areas in September next year: Bradford, the north-east and one other area which I shall find in my notes in a moment. We will learn from our experience of how those work before we implement the programme across the country.

[Lord Pickles (Con)]

I have always been quite surprised at the lack of support for new people entering the teaching profession, compared with other professions. My noble friend has spoken about some of the burdens. Can he talk a little about the positive help that the new strategy will give to newly qualified teachers in the first couple of years?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

Yes, as I mentioned a moment ago, newly qualified teachers in their second year will have 5% taken off their teaching timetable—that is in addition to the 10% taken off the timetable in the first year. High-quality, freely available curricular and training materials will be designed to complement the early-career framework. There will be funded early-career framework training programmes and support from a trained mentor, including funding to take into account the additional call on mentors’ time in the second year of induction.