Asked by: Peter Bottomley (Conservative - Worthing West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make an assessment of the adequacy of levels of confidence among primary school teachers in teaching religious education.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
One of our top priorities is to ensure that the department continues to attract, retain and develop the highly skilled teachers we need to inspire the next generation. 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 understands there is further to go to improve recruitment in some subjects. That is why the department has put in place bursaries worth £10,000 tax-free to encourage talented trainee teachers to teach Religious Education (RE).
The 2023/24 pay award means that teachers and leaders in maintained schools received the highest pay award in over thirty years and it delivers our manifesto commitment of at least a £30,000 starting salary for school teachers in all regions of the country in all subjects, including RE.
RE is an essential part of a school’s curriculum and remains a compulsory subject in all state-funded schools, including academies, to all pupils up to the age of 18.
Whilst no detailed assessment of primary teacher’s confidence in teaching RE has taken place, it is right that teachers feel confident in delivering the content for this subject. To ensure high standards and confidence in RE teaching, RE resources are being procured by Oak National Academy as part of the second tranche of its work. Oak will work closely with the sector and utilise sector experience when producing new materials for RE. This will ensure that high quality lessons are available nationwide, benefitting both teachers and pupils. These resources will begin to be available from Autumn 2024 and be fully available by September 2025
Data on numbers of qualified RE teachers are available on a national scale only. Using the Teacher Workforce Census there were 15,721 RE teachers in state-funded secondary schools nationally in 2022/23, which represents an increase from 15,529 in 2021/22 (up 192 teachers or 1.2%).
Asked by: Munira Wilson (Liberal Democrat - Twickenham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much her Department spent on advertising campaigns to (a) recruit new teachers and (b) bring retired and former teachers back to teaching in each academic year since 2015.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
The attached table sets out total spend for teacher recruitment and returners advertising campaigns from the 2015/16 to 2022/23 academic years.
The objectives of the teaching advertising campaign are to raise the status of teaching and contribute to overall Initial Teacher Training numbers. Due to the often-lengthy candidate journey from initial consideration through to applying for and starting initial teacher training, several methods are used to assess campaign impact. They include regular brand tracking studies and other market research, econometric modelling to identify and quantify the factors affecting sign ups to the Get Into Teaching service, analysis of the flow of candidates between Get Into Teaching and the Find and Apply services, and tracking of site traffic to the Get Into Teaching website.
From financial year 2021/22 onwards, the department incorporated some paid search activity for returners into the recruitment budget.
Asked by: Tahir Ali (Labour - Birmingham, Hall Green)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she has plans to introduce mandatory training on (a) learning disabilities and (b) autism for secondary school teachers.
Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department considers all teachers as teachers of Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND), including autism, and is committed to ensuring that all pupils can reach their potential and receive excellent support from their teachers.
The Teachers’ Standards set clear expectations that teachers must understand the needs of all pupils. To be awarded Qualified Teacher Status (QTS), trainees must demonstrate that they have met all the Teachers’ Standards at the appropriate level. The standards are also used to assess the performance of all teachers with QTS under the School Teachers’ Appraisal Regulations (2012). Therefore, most teachers need to adhere to the standards throughout their careers.
The Teachers’ Standards require teachers to adapt teaching to respond to the needs of all pupils, and to have a clear understanding of the needs of all pupils, including those with special educational needs.
To support all teachers in meeting the Teachers’ Standards, the department is implementing high-quality teacher training reforms which begins with Initial Teacher Training (ITT) and continues as their careers progress. The department’s Universal Services programme, backed by almost £12 million, provides SEND-specific training to the school and college workforce, with over 100,000 professionals undertaking autism awareness training since 2022.
The department is exploring opportunities to build teacher expertise through a joint review of the ITT Core Content Framework and Early Career Framework. The review, due to published in early 2024, has an aim to support trainees and Early Career Teachers to be more confident in meeting the needs of children and young people with SEND, including autism, both through engaging with the most up to date evidence to inform their practice, and applying this in the contexts in which they work as new teachers.
In May 2023, the department published guidance for accredited ITT providers and their partners, to support the involvement of special schools and alternative provision in ITT. The guidance is available at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1157879/ITT_-_special_schools_and_alternative_provision_May_2023.pdf#:~:text=It%20has%20been%20produced%20to%20help%20accredited%20Initial,units%2C%20and%20mainstream%20schools%20with%20SEN%20resource%20units.
The department’s reforms to teacher recruitment and retention will support all teachers, including teachers of children with SEND.
Asked by: Stephen Timms (Labour - East Ham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many teachers with qualified teacher status have enrolled on subject knowledge enhancement courses in each year since 2018.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
Government funded subject knowledge enhancement (SKE) courses are not available to teachers who already hold qualified teacher status (QTS). The SKE programme supports recruitment to Initial Teacher Training (ITT) in subjects with the biggest sufficiency challenges. It is only available to candidates who have a conditional offer of a place on an ITT programme which leads to the award of QTS.
Asked by: Seema Malhotra (Labour (Co-op) - Feltham and Heston)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment she has made of the potential impact of levels of teacher (a) recruitment and (b) retention on the provision of (i) English, (ii) maths and (iii) functional skills in further education settings.
Answered by Robert Halfon
The department is investing an additional £185 million in the 2023/24 financial year and £285 million in the 2024/25 financial year to drive forward skills delivery in the further education (FE) sector. This funding will help colleges and other providers to address key priorities, including tackling recruitment and retention issues in high-value technical, vocational, and academic provision which are of critical importance to our economic growth and prosperity.
The department is also delivering a programme to support the sector to recruit excellent staff, which includes a national recruitment campaign, and strengthening and incentivising the uptake of initial teacher education (teacher training bursaries in priority subjects worth up to £29,000 each, tax free for 2023/24).
The department’s Taking Teaching Further programme has supported around 1,000 industry professionals to train as FE teachers since 2018. The latest round of Taking Teaching Further is live, supporting FE providers to recruit and support those with relevant knowledge and industry experience to retrain as FE teachers. Taking Teaching Further covers the cost of a teaching qualification, as well as providing a reduced teaching timetable and mentoring support for new recruits.
To boost recruitment and retention of teachers, the department will give early career teachers in key science, technology, engineering, mathematics and technical shortage subjects, working in disadvantaged schools and colleges, up to £6,000 after tax annually on top of their pay. This will double the existing Levelling Up Premium paid to school teachers, and extend it to all FE colleges for the first time.
The department remains committed to supporting FE teachers and the vital work they do in improving achievement in English and mathematics. The department will continue investing in continuing professional development and research in 2023 and beyond, including supporting practitioners to test successful and transferable approaches to improving post-16 level 2 English and mathematics outcomes. The Essential Skills workforce grant is delivering professional development to enhance English and mathematics teaching in FE, supporting our policies and reforms. The department is investing up to £10 million to support teachers of English and mathematics re-sit learners. It will include training in mastery pedagogy for FE mathematics teachers.
Asked by: Munira Wilson (Liberal Democrat - Twickenham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to retain teachers when they become parents.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
Great teaching is transformational for children’s life chances, but the department cannot achieve its ambitions unless there are sufficient teachers. The department recognises there is more to do to ensure teaching remains an attractive, high-status profession, and to recruit and retain the best teachers. The department wants teaching to be an inclusive profession where all teachers, regardless of background or circumstance, are supported throughout their career journeys.
The department’s ‘Teacher Recruitment and Retention’ strategy, published in 2019, outlines the department’s approach to improving teacher retention, including activities which contribute to supporting teachers returning from parental leave or those with caring responsibilities.
Well-designed flexible working can enable individuals to reconcile work and caring responsibilities. The department is taking action to promote flexible working in schools, including by publishing non-statutory guidance and case studies on GOV.UK, a flexible working toolkit, and funding a programme focused on embedding flexible working in schools and Multi-Academy Trusts (MATs).
This programme includes the delivery of supportive webinars and peer support provided by flexible working ambassador schools and MATs. This funded programme offers practical support with combining flexible working life as a parent, including how flexible working can be navigated alongside career progression.
The department is also clear about the importance of efforts to reduce unnecessary workload and an improved wellbeing offer for all teachers. Workload is often cited as an important reason why teachers leave the profession. The department is supporting schools to act and remove unhelpful practice that creates unnecessary workload. The department’s school workload reduction toolkit, developed alongside school leaders, is a helpful resource for schools to review and reduce workload.
In September 2023, the department launched a workload reduction taskforce. The taskforce is made up of union representatives, experts and experienced practitioners. The taskforce will make recommendations to government, Ofsted and school and trust leaders by the end of March 2024.
Staff wellbeing is also crucial to the department’s commitment to recruit and retain more teachers and support teacher quality. The department has worked in partnership with the education sector and mental health experts to co-create the Education Staff Wellbeing Charter and is encouraging schools to sign up as a shared commitment to promote staff wellbeing. Over 3,000 schools and colleges have signed up to the charter since it was launched for sign-up in November 2021.
Asked by: Andrew Rosindell (Conservative - Romford)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if he will take steps to increase (a) the number of training positions for teachers and (b) incentives for specialist teachers to train in the UK.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
The department does not currently cap or restrict the number of teacher training positions offered by accredited Initial Teacher Training (ITT) providers. This enables them to recruit the highest number of candidates that they can whilst ensuring they are able to deliver high-quality training.
For the 2024/25 academic year recruitment cycle, the department has announced an ITT financial incentives package worth up to £196 million, which is a £15 million increase on the last cycle.
For trainees starting ITT in 2024/25, the department is offering a £28,000 tax-free bursary and £30,000 tax-free bursaries in mathematics, physics, chemistry and computing.
The department is also offering a £25,000 tax-free bursary for biology, design & technology, geography and languages (including ancient languages), and a £10,000 tax-free bursary for English, art and design, music and religious education.
The department reviews the bursaries on offer each year to take account of factors including historic recruitment, forecast economic conditions, and teacher supply need in each subject. This provides flexibility to respond to the need to attract new teachers, and means the department is spending money where it is needed most.
The department welcomes talented individuals from overseas to train to teach in England. For the 2023/24 and 2024/25 academic years, the department has extended bursary and scholarship eligibility to all non-UK national trainees in physics and languages. This means international physics and languages trainees are eligible for scholarships worth up to £30,000 and bursaries worth up to £28,000. The department is also piloting a new international relocation payment worth £10,000 to help teachers and trainees in languages and physics with the cost of visas and other expenses involved in moving to England.
Asked by: Sarah Olney (Liberal Democrat - Richmond Park)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the Answer of 26 October 2023 to Question 203895 Teachers: Recruitment, what estimate her Department has made of the (a) number and (b) proportion of new teacher sign ups that is attributable to the Get Into Teaching advertising campaign.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
Several methods are used to assess the Get Into Teaching campaign’s impact. They include regular brand tracking studies and other market research; econometric modelling to identify and quantify the factors affecting sign ups to the Get Into Teaching service; analysis of the flow of candidates between Get Into Teaching and the Find and Apply services; and tracking of site traffic to the Get Into Teaching website.
The teaching recruitment campaign tracks a number of behavioural and attitudinal metrics to give a rounded picture of campaign impact.
Key Performance Indicators for the teaching recruitment campaign are the consideration of teaching as a career amongst our target audience and the number of new, unique sign-ups to the Get Into Teaching service. The campaign also measures the proportion of sign-ups attributed to the advertising campaign, through econometric modelling. Recent econometric analysis shows that in July 2023, 42% of sign-ups to the Get Into Teaching website were attributable to paid advertising.
There are many factors affecting the number of teachers recruited in any given recruitment cycle, including levels of financial support, predicted demand for new teachers, the size of pool of new graduates and other economic factors.
Asked by: Nadia Whittome (Labour - Nottingham East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to help increase the number food technology teachers.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
The latest School Workforce Census showed that during November 2022, there were 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 number of FTE teachers on record since the School Workforce Census began in 2010.
The department’s teacher recruitment and retention reforms are aimed at supporting teacher recruitment and retention across all subjects, including food technology. The department accepted in full 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. The award also delivers the manifesto commitment of a minimum £30,000 starting salary for school teachers in all regions in England, with a pay award of up to 7.1% for new teachers outside London.
The department knows there is further to go to improve recruitment in some subjects. That is why the department has put in place a range of measures, including bursaries. For those starting Initial Teacher Training (ITT) in the 2024/25 academic year, £25,000 tax-free bursaries are being offered in design & technology, which includes food technology. Over the past two years, the design and technology bursary has increased from £15,000 to £25,000.
The department has created an entitlement to at least three years of structured training, support and professional development for all new teachers, underpinned by the ITT Core Content Framework and the Early Career Framework. Together, these ensure that new teachers will benefit from at least three years of evidence-based training, across ITT and into their induction, to ensure teachers are better supported at the start of career.
The department has published a range of resources to help address teacher workload and wellbeing, which impact retention. This includes the school workload reduction toolkit, developed alongside school leaders, which is a helpful resource for schools to review and reduce workload. The toolkit is available at: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/school-workload-reduction-toolkit.
The department has also worked in partnership with the education sector and mental health experts to create the Education Staff Wellbeing Charter, which we are encouraging schools to sign up to as a shared commitment to promote staff wellbeing. The charter is available at: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/education-staff-wellbeing-charter.
Asked by: Tahir Ali (Labour - Birmingham, Hall Green)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department has made an estimate of how many newly qualified teachers work abroad because of (a) pay and (b) working conditions.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
The department does not collect data on teachers teaching outside England.
One of the department’s top priorities is to ensure that we continue to attract, retain and develop the highly skilled teachers we need to inspire the next generation.
On 13 July 2023, the department announced that we are accepting the School Teachers Review Body’s (STRB) recommendations for the 2023/24 pay award for teachers and headteachers. This means that teachers and leaders in maintained schools received the highest pay award in over thirty years and it delivers our manifesto commitment of at least a £30,000 starting salary for school teachers in all regions of the country.
The department has created an entitlement to at least three years of structured training, support and professional development for all new teachers underpinned by the Initial Teacher Training (ITT) Core Content Framework and the Early Career Framework Together, these ensure that new teachers will benefit from at least three years of evidence-based training, across ITT and into their induction.
The department has also launched a new and updated suite of National Professional Qualifications for teachers and headteachers at all levels, from those who want to develop expertise in high-quality teaching practice to those leading multiple schools across trusts.
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’s reforms are aimed not only at increasing teacher recruitment through an attractive pay offer and financial incentives such as bursaries, but also at ensuring teachers stay and thrive in the profession.