Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if he will make an assessment of the prevalence of difficulties in the (a) recruitment and (b) retention of teachers in (i) primary and (ii) secondary schools in Birmingham, Hall Green constituency.

The most recent School workforce census shows that, as at November 2022, there are over 468,000 full time equivalent (FTE) teachers in state-funded schools in England, which is an increase of 27,000 (6%) since 2010. This makes it the highest FTE of teachers since the School Workforce Census began in 2010.

Teacher numbers at a school level are published in the additional supporting files. This can be found in the School workforce census 2022 publication, available at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/school-workforce-in-england#dataBlock-d32da738-358d-4c1f-955b-6c6f83552d65-tables. The department also produces national targets for postgraduate initial teacher training (ITT) for each subject based on estimates from the Teacher Workforce Model to ensure focus on the right subjects each year. These are available at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/postgraduate-initial-teacher-training-targets.

The department knows that some schools face challenges with recruitment and retention, particularly in some secondary subjects, and action is being taken to increase teacher recruitment and retention.

The department is offering a financial incentives package worth up to £196 million for those starting ITT in the 2024/25 academic year, including bursaries worth up to £28,000 and scholarships worth up to £30,000 to encourage trainees to apply to train in key secondary subjects such as mathematics, physics, chemistry, and computing. The department is also offering a £25,000 tax-free bursary for biology, design and technology, geography and languages (including ancient languages), and a £10,000 tax-free bursary for English, art and design, music and RE.

The department is providing a Levelling Up Premium worth up to £3,000 annually for mathematics, physics, chemistry, and computing teachers in the first five years of their careers who work in disadvantaged schools nationally, including within education investment areas (EIAs). For 2024/25 and 2025/26, the department will be investing approximately £100 million each year to double the rates of the Levelling Up Premium to up to £6,000 after tax. This builds on knowledge gained from similar pilots and will support recruitment and retention of specialist teachers in these subjects and in the schools and areas that need them most.

There are 97 schools in the Birmingham local authority area eligible for the Levelling Up Premium, including nine schools in the Birmingham, Hall Green constituency. The eligibility criteria and list of eligible schools is available at: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/levelling-up-premium-payments-for-teachers.

Earlier this year the department accepted the School Teachers’ Review Body’s recommendations for the 2023/24 pay award for teachers and leaders. This means that teachers and leaders in maintained schools will receive a pay award of 6.5%. This is the highest pay award for teachers in over thirty years and delivers the manifesto commitment of a minimum £30,000 starting salary for school teachers across England.

To support teacher retention across all school phases, the department has published a range of resources to help address staff workload and wellbeing. This includes the workload reduction toolkit and the education staff wellbeing charter. More than 3,000 schools have signed up to the wellbeing charter so far. The wellbeing charter can be accessed at: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/education-staff-wellbeing-charter. The workload reduction toolkit is available here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/school-workload-reduction-toolkit. As part of the pay announcement for 2023/24, the department also convened a workload reduction taskforce to explore how to further support trusts and school leaders to minimise workload.