Question to the Department for Education:

To ask His Majesty's Government what (1) support, and (2) guidance, they are offering to schools to enable them to maximise teacher retention.

The Department’s reforms are aimed not only at increasing teacher recruitment in key subjects and areas, through an attractive pay offer and financial incentives such as bursaries, but also at ensuring teachers stay and succeed in the profession.

There are now 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.

The Department accepted in full the School Teachers’ Review Body’s recommendations for the 2023/24 pay award for teachers and head teachers, resulting in a pay award of 6.5%. This is the highest for teachers in over thirty years.

To support retention in the first few years of teaching, the Department has rolled out the Early Career Framework nationally, providing the foundations for a successful career in teaching, with over £130 million a year in funding. Beyond these first few years, the Department’s priority is to help all teachers and head teachers to continuously develop their expertise throughout their careers so every child in every classroom in every school has the best start in life.

The Department has therefore launched a new and updated suite of National Professional Qualifications (NPQs) for teachers and head teachers at all levels, from those who want to develop expertise in high quality teaching practice to those leading multiple schools across trusts. Since autumn 2021, eligible teachers and head teachers have been able to access scholarships to undertake fully funded NPQs.

These measures will create a golden thread running from Initial Teacher Training through to school leadership and rooting teacher and head teacher development in the best available evidence.

The Department has also published a range of resources to help address teacher workload and wellbeing, and therefore support retention, including the Education Staff Wellbeing Charter, which schools are being encouraged to sign up to as a shared commitment to promote staff wellbeing. Developed in partnership with the education sector and mental health experts, the Charter can be accessed at: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/education-staff-wellbeing-charter.

Additionally, a workload reduction toolkit has been developed for schools alongside head teachers and has been published here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/school-workload-reduction-toolkit. On 13 July 2023, the Department also announced that it will convene a Workload Reduction Taskforce to explore how it can go further to support trusts and head teachers to minimise workload for teachers and head teachers by building on previous successes.

The Department is also taking action to promote flexible working in schools. The Department has published supportive resources on GOV.UK, including non statutory guidance and case studies: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/flexible-working-resources-for-teachers-and-schools#guidance-for-flexible-working.