Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 2 July 2018 to Question 156624, how many and what proportion of teachers of subjects other than maths are still in teaching after (a) three, (b) four and (c) five years.

The Department is currently undertaking detailed analysis of teacher training and school workforce data to explore the proportion of bursary holders awarded qualified teacher status (QTS) and the progression of bursary holders into the state funded workforce in England. This will include analysis of employment and retention rates by trainee bursary status (whether a trainee received a bursary), and whether the subject for which a trainee received a bursary is the subject they go on to teach. The Department intends to publish this analysis later in the year.

Table 8 of the School Workforce Census 2017 includes analysis of teacher retention rates over time, but this data is not currently available by subject and does not consider whether the teacher received a bursary during teacher training. This table is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/school-workforce-in-england-november-2017.

Whilst not a direct measure of retention, the Department has recently published new analysis of employment rates of trainees awarded QTS in state-funded schools in England. This analysis does not consider whether a trainee received a bursary during their teacher training, but does include employment rates by subject in Table T1.4 of the Teacher Analysis Compendium (February 2018) is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/teachers-analysis-compendium-3. Analysis of teacher wastage rates can also be found by subject in Tables T2.1 to T2.4 of the Teacher Analysis Compendium (May 2017) is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/teachers-analysis-compendium-2017.

The Department is piloting a phased bursary for mathematics trainee teachers starting initial teacher training in the 2018/19 academic year, which comprises a lower bursary upfront followed by two additional early-career payments once in teaching. The pilot will test whether this approach secures a greater supply of teachers than the upfront bursary.