Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many secondary school music teachers left the teaching profession in the period between (a) 2010 and 2015, (b) 2015 and 2020 and (c) 2020 and 2024.

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 in-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 subjects taught is not collected from primary schools. Since the department does not collect the curriculum data for primary teachers, we cannot identify the primary music teachers to calculate a leaver statistic.

​Based on the school workforce census data, the numbers of secondary school music teachers who left the teaching profession during the specified periods are as follows:

• ​ In the 2010/11 to 2014/15 academic years,1,968 secondary school music teachers left the teaching profession.
• ​ In the 2015/16 to 2019/20 academic years, 1,833 secondary school music teachers left the teaching profession.
• ​ In the 2020/21 to 2022/23 academic years,1,068 secondary school music teachers left the teaching profession.

​Information on the number of teachers leaving service for the 2023/24 academic year will be published in June 2025.

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

This includes the number and rate of teacher vacancies in each school, local authority, region and nationally. Figures for primary and secondary schools for the 2019/20 to 2023/24 academic years, which is the latest information available, is available here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/8a3eb31d-c466-4007-0220-08dd45ba797d.

Information on teacher vacancies for the 2024/25 academic year will be published in June 2025.

This is why the government 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.

The department has made good early progress towards this key pledge by ensuring teaching is once again an attractive and respected profession, which is key to ensuring teachers receive the pay they deserve. That is why we have 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, we have 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 schoolteacher recruitment campaign, ‘Every Lesson Shapes a Life’, and the further education teacher recruitment campaign, ‘Share your Skills’.

In addition to recruiting expert teachers, we want existing teachers to stay and thrive in the profession, and 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, we have made available workload and wellbeing resources that were developed with school leaders, through our new Improving Workload and Wellbeing online service. We are also continuing 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. This includes professional supervision and counselling for those who need it. More than 2,000 leaders have benefitted from the support so far. Support continues to be available and can be accessed by visiting Education Support’s website.

The department is also committed to supporting schools to implement 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.