Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to improve the (a) recruitment and (b) retention of specialist physics teachers in schools.

Recent data shows record numbers of teachers in England’s state funded schools with over 468,000 full time equivalent now in our schools. This is an increase of 2,800 since last year, and an increase of 27,000 since 2010.

The Department’s recruitment and retention reforms aim to ensure effective teacher supply across all subjects. The Department recognises that recruitment and retention in some subjects, including science, technology, engineering, and mathematics subjects, remains more challenging and the Department has put additional targeted initiatives in place.

​The Government remains committed to delivering £30,000 starting salaries to attract talented people to teaching. In October 2022, the Department announced an Initial Teacher Training (ITT) financial incentives package worth up to £181 million for those starting ITT in 2023/24, which is a £52 million increase on 2022/23. The package includes bursaries worth £27,000 tax free and scholarships worth £29,000 tax free, to encourage talented trainees to teach in key subjects, such as physics, chemistry and computing. More information on the financial incentives package can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/funding-initial-teacher-training-itt/funding-initial-teacher-training-itt-academic-year-2023-to-2024.

​For the 2023/24 academic year, the Department has also extended bursary and scholarship eligibility to all non-UK national trainees in physics.

The Department is offering a Levelling Up Premium worth up to £3,000 tax free for mathematics, physics, chemistry, and computing teachers in the first five years of their careers who choose to work in disadvantaged schools, including in Education Investment Areas. More information is available at: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/levelling-up-premium-payments-for-teachers.

​In spring 2022, the Department launched ‘Engineers teach physics’, an ITT course which was piloted as a step to encourage engineering graduates and career changers with an engineering background to consider a career as a physics teacher. Following the pilot year, the Department has now rolled ‘Engineers teach physics’ out nationally, with 18 providers currently offering this course.

​The Department reviews the existing schemes on offer each year and considers the introduction of specific targeted initiatives where there is evidence that they could contribute to the recruitment and retention of excellent teachers.

​To support retention across all subjects, the Department has published a range of resources to help address staff workload and wellbeing. This includes the Education Staff Wellbeing Charter, which the Department is encouraging schools to sign up to as a shared commitment to promote staff wellbeing: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/education-staff-wellbeing-charter. The Department will be reviewing progress made against the Charter later this year.