Question to the Department for Education:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the report by New Schools Network and Onward Lost Learning: Why we need to Level Up Education, published on 25 June; and what plans they have to offer teachers a fixed stipend to work in schools in areas of underperformance.

The department would like to thank New Schools Network and Onward for their report ‘Lost Learning: Why we need to Level Up Education’. The government will be responding to the report’s recommendations and conclusions in due course.

Levelling Up is at the heart of the government’s agenda to build back better after the COVID-19 outbreak and to deliver for citizens across the UK. The government will publish a landmark Levelling Up White Paper later this year, setting out new policy interventions to improve livelihoods and opportunity in all parts of the UK.

The department is currently piloting several retention payment schemes for teachers, including early career payments, teacher student loan reimbursement, and the mathematics and physics teacher retention payments. These schemes are targeted towards disadvantaged areas to encourage teachers to work in schools in these areas. The department is conducting evaluations to assess the effect of these pilot schemes, and we will consider our future retention offer in light of the evaluation findings.