Teacher Recruitment and Retention Strategy Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Education
David Drew
Main Page: David Drew (Labour (Co-op) - Stroud)Department Debates - View all David Drew's debates with the Department for Education
(5 years, 10 months ago)
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Nick Gibb
As I mentioned earlier, the new Ofsted framework will be looking at things like teacher workload, as part and parcel of the leadership and management judgments made about a school. The Government take teacher workload extremely seriously, which is why we set up the three review groups to look at data management, excessive marking and lesson preparation. We have accepted all the recommendations of those three review groups.
Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)
By definition, the most experienced teachers are the most expensive. One of the reasons for poor retention is that schools, particularly smaller primary schools, have to lay off those teachers because they cannot afford them within their budget. Will the Government look at how we can keep those teachers teaching, as they are the best because of that experience?
Nick Gibb
The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. The national funding formula is distributing funding across our schools system in a far fairer way than in the past, and this recruitment and retention strategy should ease the cost pressures on schools. We have also introduced a teaching vacancy website, which is a free resource to enable schools to recruit free of charge, as the profession has been calling for a long time.