Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to improve rates of teacher recruitment and retention in schools in England.

At a national level we are retaining and recruiting the teachers we need. We recognise, however, that the strengthening economy and growth in pupil numbers have made the situation more challenging, and that this is more acute in certain subjects and particular schools or areas of the country.

We have more teachers in our schools than ever before and the number of teachers has kept pace with changing numbers of pupils. The number of teachers in state-funded schools throughout England is up more than 15,000 since 2010. This year we have recruited more than 27,000 people to postgraduate teacher training programmes and we have exceeded our recruitment targets in a number of key subjects including biology, English, geography and history.

We are spending over £1.3 billion up to 2020 to attract new teachers into the profession. We have funded the expansion of Teach First into every region of England; continued to fund targeted leadership programmes; and we are supporting schools to bring more former teachers back into the classroom.

Latest statistics show that teacher retention one year after qualifying has remained stable at around 90% for the past two decades. We are actively addressing the key issues that evidence suggests cause teachers to consider leaving the profession, for example, by supporting schools to reduce unnecessary workload and improving behaviour management training for new teachers.