Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate his Department has made of the number of teaching volunteers that are required to cover staff absences.

The department is extremely grateful to all the teachers who are responding to our call to return temporarily to the classroom. Every single teacher that responds can make a vital difference to children and young people by keeping them in face-to-face education.

The campaign aims to further bolster the many supply staff that are already working in our schools and who have been supporting schools throughout the COVID-19 outbreak.

On 12 January, the department published initial data from a sample of supply agencies gathered between 20 December 2021 and 7 January 2022. This showed that 485 former teachers have signed up with supply agencies, and over 100 Teach First alumni have also expressed interest in returning to the classroom.

Given the size of the sample, the true number of sign-ups since the call was launched will be larger. Full details of the data release can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/number-of-ex-teachers-joining-the-school-workforce-2021-to-2022.

This call for ex-teachers is just one of many measures we have in place to support our school workforce mitigate the challenges of COVID-19, including the reintroduction of the COVID-19 workforce fund, which we extended to the February half-term.