Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment her Department has made of the number of unfilled teacher posts in (a) Mid Cheshire constituency, (b) Cheshire, (c) the North West and (d) England in each of the last five years; and what steps she is taking to (i) fill those vacancies and (ii) improve teacher recruitment and retention in those areas.

Recruiting and retaining more teachers is critical to the government’s mission to break down barriers to opportunity and boost the life chances for every child, as the within-school factor that makes the biggest difference to a young person’s educational outcome is high-quality teaching. This government has inherited a system with critical shortages of teachers, with numbers not keeping pace with demographic changes.

Information on the school workforce is published in the ‘School Workforce in England’ statistical publication, and can be accessed at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/school-workforce-in-england.

This includes the number and rate of unfilled teacher posts in each school, local authority, region and nationally. Figures for the North West and England are published at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/f3eb0c32-ece8-4c6e-778a-08dd2da39723.

The attached table provides the number and rate of unfilled teacher posts in the Mid Cheshire and Cheshire constituencies, aggregated from local authority level data, in each of the last five academic years, as at November each year.

The growing number of teacher shortages is why the government has set out the ambition to recruit 6,500 new expert teachers across schools, both mainstream and specialist, and colleges over the course of this Parliament.

The department has made good early progress towards this key pledge by ensuring teaching is once again an attractive and respected profession, key to which is ensuring teachers receive the pay they deserve. The department has accepted in full the School Teachers’ Review Body’s recommendation of a 5.5% pay award for teachers and leaders in maintained schools for 2024/25. Alongside teacher pay, the department has made £233 million available from the 2025/26 recruitment cycle to support teacher trainees, with tax-free bursaries of up to £29,000 and scholarships of up to £31,000 in shortage subjects. The department has also expanded its school teacher recruitment campaign, ‘Every Lesson Shapes a Life’, and the further education teacher recruitment campaign ‘Share your Skills’.

In addition to recruiting expert teachers, the department wants existing teachers to stay and thrive in the profession. New teachers of mathematics, physics, chemistry and computing in the first five years of their careers will now receive a Targeted Retention Incentive of up to £6,000 after-tax if working in disadvantaged schools. There are six schools in Mid Cheshire that are eligible for Targeted Retention Incentives.

To further support retention, the department has made available workload and wellbeing resources, developed with school leaders, through our new Improving Workload and Wellbeing online service, and continues to promote the Education Staff Wellbeing Charter, which currently has nearly 4,000 school and college signatories.

The department is also funding mental health and wellbeing support for school and college leaders, providing professional supervision and counselling for those who need it. More than 2,000 leaders have benefitted so far, with support continuing to be available through Education Support’s website.

The department is also committed to supporting schools in implementing flexible working practices, including taking planning, preparation and assessment time remotely.

The department has established Teaching School Hubs across the country, which provide approved high-quality professional development to teachers at all stages of their careers. They play a significant role in delivering Initial Teacher Training, the Early Career Framework, National Professional Qualifications and Appropriate Body services. Cheshire Teaching School Hub is a centre of excellence supporting teacher training and development across Cheshire East, Cheshire West and Chester.