Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will publish a strategy to improve the retention of teaching staff in schools.

The within school factor that makes the biggest difference to a young person’s educational outcome is high-quality teaching. Recruiting and retaining more qualified, expert teachers is therefore critical to the government’s mission to break down barriers to opportunity and boost the life chances for every child.

A successful recruitment strategy starts with a strong retention strategy. We 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. In addition to recruiting high-quality teachers, the department wants to ensure teachers stay and thrive in this 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.

The department is also working closely with teachers and school leaders to improve the experience of teaching, including making key resources on reducing workload and supporting wellbeing, developed with school leaders, available to teachers.

To further improve retention, the department is actively promoting flexible working, such as allowing planning, preparation, and assessment to be undertaken from home. The department is also funding bespoke support provided by flexible working ambassador schools and multi-academy trusts, ensuring schools are capturing the benefits of flexible working, whilst protecting pupils’ face-to-face teacher time.

High-quality continuous professional development is also key to ensuring the retention of an effective teaching workforce. Through the revised Initial Teacher Training and Early Career Framework, new teachers will benefit from at least three years of evidence-based training, across Initial Teacher Training and into their induction. The department has also launched an updated suite of national professional qualifications (NPQs) for teachers and school leaders at all levels, from those who want to develop expertise in high-quality teaching practice to those leading multiple schools across trusts. Teaching School Hubs play a significant role in delivering the initial teacher training, the early career framework and NPQs. The Shropshire and Telford Education Partnership hub supports delivery across Shropshire, Telford and the Wrekin.

This government inherited a system with critical shortages of teachers, with numbers not keeping pace with demographic changes. That is why the department has set out the ambition to recruit 6,500 new expert teachers across our schools, both mainstream and specialist, and our colleges over the course of this Parliament. We have made good early progress towards this target by expanding the school teacher recruitment campaign, ‘Every Lesson Shapes a Life’, and the further education teacher recruitment campaign, ‘Share your Skills’, alongside making £233 million available for teacher trainee tax-free bursaries for the 2025/26 recruitment cycle.