Question to the Department for Education:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of whether the School Direct programme is ensuring a sufficient supply of teachers for schools in England.

Teaching continues to represent an attractive choice for top graduates and career changers – last year we recruited over 1,000 more secondary teachers than the previous year, and we exceeded our target for new primary teachers.

Our best schools have a crucial role to play in training the next generation of outstanding teachers. That is why we introduced the School Direct training programme, which gives schools the opportunity to recruit and select their own trainee teachers, and to play a central part in both the design and delivery of teacher training. School Direct is only one of a range of routes through which new teachers can choose to train.

We initially piloted the School Direct programme with a cohort of 351 trainees in the academic year 2012/13; thanks to its popularity with schools the scheme rapidly expanded to deliver 6,676 training places the following year. This has continued to rise each year, and provisional data show that 10,252 trainees have commenced School Direct programmes in the current academic year. This represents 39 per cent of all postgraduate teacher training places in the current year, and makes a significant contribution to the 51 per cent of all postgraduate training places that are now school-led.

We recognise that recruitment to teacher training is becoming increasingly challenging as the economy improves and the graduate labour market strengthens. That is why we are giving schools greater direct involvement in selecting and training the high-quality teachers they need.