Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what plans she has to improve teacher (a) recruitment and (b) retention in Somerset.

High quality teaching is the most important in-school factor to a child’s educational outcomes. 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. This is why the department will recruit 6,500 new expert teachers, get more teachers into shortage subjects, support areas that face recruitment challenges and tackle retention issues. To deliver this pledge we are resetting the relationship with the sector to ensure teaching is once again a valued and attractive profession.

We agreed a 5.5% pay award for teachers this year, 2024/25, and we have increased the funding available for bursaries for trainee teaches to £233 million from 2025/26, to support teacher trainees with tax-free bursaries of up to £29,000 and scholarships of up to £31,000 in some 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’.

A successful recruitment strategy starts with a strong retention strategy, and in addition to recruiting high quality teachers, we want 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. There are six schools in the Yeovil constituency where teachers are eligible for targeted retention incentives.

The department has also taken steps to improve teachers’ workload and wellbeing, to support retention and help re-establish teaching as an attractive profession. This includes opportunities for greater flexible working, such as allowing planning, preparation and assessment time to be undertaken remotely, and making key resources to support wellbeing, developed with school leaders, available to teachers​.

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.

Malmesbury School of the Athelstan Trust is the flexible working ambassador school providing local, tailored peer support for Yeovil schools.

High quality continuing 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 Five Counties Teaching School Hubs Alliance is a partnership of Teaching School Hubs supporting teacher training and development across Somerset, South Gloucestershire, Bath and Bristol.