Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment her Department has made of the adequacy of recent trends in the numbers of newly qualified teachers for STEM subjects.
Answered by Robert Halfon
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 has put in place a range of measures, including bursaries worth £28,000 tax free and scholarships worth £30,000 tax free, to encourage talented STEM trainees to key subjects such as mathematics, physics, chemistry and computing.
From the 2023/24 academic year, physics trainees from non-UK countries are also eligible for these bursaries and scholarships, and for a one off payment of £10,000 as part of the international relocation payment pilot.
To encourage engineering graduates and career changers with an engineering background, to consider a career as a physics teacher, the department has launched a pilot Initial Teacher Training course in spring 2022 called ‘Engineers teach physics. Following that pilot, the department has rolled the course out to all providers nationally in academic year 2022/23.
To help retention of STEM teachers, the department is funding a Levelling Up Premium worth up to £3,000 after tax annually for mathematics, physics, chemistry and computing teachers in the first five years of their careers who choose to work in disadvantaged schools, including in Education Investment Areas. For the 2024/25 and 2025/26 academic years, the department will provide around £100 million each year to double the rates of the Levelling Up Premium to up to £6,000 after tax. The premium will expand to cover eligible STEM and technical subjects in colleges, including electronics, engineering and digital, alongside the teachers in schools teaching mathematics, physics, chemistry and computing.
These payments will incentivise the recruitment and retention of STEM and technical graduates within the schools and further education colleges where they are needed most.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to improve the retention rate of STEM teachers working in state schools.
Answered by Robert Halfon
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 has put in place a range of measures, including bursaries worth £28,000 tax free and scholarships worth £30,000 tax free, to encourage talented STEM trainees to key subjects such as mathematics, physics, chemistry and computing.
From the 2023/24 academic year, physics trainees from non-UK countries are also eligible for these bursaries and scholarships, and for a one off payment of £10,000 as part of the international relocation payment pilot.
To encourage engineering graduates and career changers with an engineering background, to consider a career as a physics teacher, the department has launched a pilot Initial Teacher Training course in spring 2022 called ‘Engineers teach physics. Following that pilot, the department has rolled the course out to all providers nationally in academic year 2022/23.
To help retention of STEM teachers, the department is funding a Levelling Up Premium worth up to £3,000 after tax annually for mathematics, physics, chemistry and computing teachers in the first five years of their careers who choose to work in disadvantaged schools, including in Education Investment Areas. For the 2024/25 and 2025/26 academic years, the department will provide around £100 million each year to double the rates of the Levelling Up Premium to up to £6,000 after tax. The premium will expand to cover eligible STEM and technical subjects in colleges, including electronics, engineering and digital, alongside the teachers in schools teaching mathematics, physics, chemistry and computing.
These payments will incentivise the recruitment and retention of STEM and technical graduates within the schools and further education colleges where they are needed most.
Asked by: Laurence Robertson (Conservative - Tewkesbury)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made for her policies of difficulties experienced by schools in attracting teachers to take up leadership roles.
Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
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 number of FTE of teachers since the School Workforce Census began in 2010.
The Department has put in place a range of measures, including bursaries worth £28,000 tax free and scholarships worth £30,000 tax free, to encourage talented trainees to key subjects such as mathematics, physics, chemistry and computing. The Initial Teacher Training financial incentives package for the 2024/25 recruitment cycle, which incentivises candidates to take teacher training in hard to recruit subjects, is worth up to £196 million, which is an increase of 15 million on the last cycle.
Teacher retention is key to ensuring effective teacher supply and quality. To support retention, the Department is funding a Levelling Up Premium worth up to £3,000 after tax for mathematics, physics, chemistry and computing teachers in the first five years of their careers who choose to work in disadvantaged schools, including in Education Investment Areas. For 2024/25 and 2025/26, the Department will be providing around £100 million each year to double the rates of the Levelling Up Premium to up to £6,000 after tax.
On 13 July, the Department announced that it is accepting 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 received a pay award of 6.5%, which is the highest pay award for teachers in over 30 years. This delivers the Government’s manifesto commitment for school teachers in all regions of the country to have a starting salary of at least £30,000.
The Department has also launched a new and updated suite of National Professional Qualifications (NPQs) for teachers and school leaders at all levels, designed for those who want to develop expertise in high quality teaching practice to those leading multiple schools across trusts. Four leadership NPQs are available to help boost leaders’ existing knowledge and confidence as they progress into more senior roles. This includes an NPQ in Headship (NPQH), Executive Leadership (NPQEL), Senior Leadership (NPQSL) and Early Years Leadership (NPQEYL). An Early Headship Coaching offer (EHCO) is also available to professionals who are new to the role of headship.
The qualifications are part of a wider set of teacher development reforms. These qualifications sit alongside the support, training and development which is available through the entirety of a teacher’s career.
Asked by: Laurence Robertson (Conservative - Tewkesbury)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to help schools improve the (a) recruitment and (b) retention of teachers.
Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
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 number of FTE of teachers since the School Workforce Census began in 2010.
The Department has put in place a range of measures, including bursaries worth £28,000 tax free and scholarships worth £30,000 tax free, to encourage talented trainees to key subjects such as mathematics, physics, chemistry and computing. The Initial Teacher Training financial incentives package for the 2024/25 recruitment cycle, which incentivises candidates to take teacher training in hard to recruit subjects, is worth up to £196 million, which is an increase of 15 million on the last cycle.
Teacher retention is key to ensuring effective teacher supply and quality. To support retention, the Department is funding a Levelling Up Premium worth up to £3,000 after tax for mathematics, physics, chemistry and computing teachers in the first five years of their careers who choose to work in disadvantaged schools, including in Education Investment Areas. For 2024/25 and 2025/26, the Department will be providing around £100 million each year to double the rates of the Levelling Up Premium to up to £6,000 after tax.
On 13 July, the Department announced that it is accepting 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 received a pay award of 6.5%, which is the highest pay award for teachers in over 30 years. This delivers the Government’s manifesto commitment for school teachers in all regions of the country to have a starting salary of at least £30,000.
The Department has also launched a new and updated suite of National Professional Qualifications (NPQs) for teachers and school leaders at all levels, designed for those who want to develop expertise in high quality teaching practice to those leading multiple schools across trusts. Four leadership NPQs are available to help boost leaders’ existing knowledge and confidence as they progress into more senior roles. This includes an NPQ in Headship (NPQH), Executive Leadership (NPQEL), Senior Leadership (NPQSL) and Early Years Leadership (NPQEYL). An Early Headship Coaching offer (EHCO) is also available to professionals who are new to the role of headship.
The qualifications are part of a wider set of teacher development reforms. These qualifications sit alongside the support, training and development which is available through the entirety of a teacher’s career.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department has altered its targets for trainee (a) modern foreign language and (b) religious education secondary school teacher recruitment for 2022-23, in the context of levels of recruitment of teachers for those subjects in previous years.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The table below shows the percentage of the postgraduate Initial Teacher Training (ITT) target achieved in religious education and modern foreign languages for the years shown.
Academic Year | 2017/18 | 2018/19 | 2019/20 | 2021/22 |
Religious Education | 62% | 58% | 94% | 94% |
Modern Foreign Languages | 91% | 88% | 62% | 69% |
Source: DfE ITT Census statistical publications
To note:
The Department estimates the number of postgraduate ITT trainees required to meet teacher demand in England each year using the teacher workforce model. The model includes an adjustment to build in any impacts of recruitment being below target for the two previous ITT recruitment rounds, for both primary, and each secondary subject.
The model uses ITT recruitment data, ITT completion and post-ITT employment rates to estimate the number of newly qualified teachers (NQTs) entering the workforce having trained via all forms of ITT in the two most recent ITT cycles.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what percentage of trainee (a) religious education and (b) modern foreign language secondary school teachers were recruited against the cumulative targets between 2017-2018 and 2021-2022, excluding the 2020-21 recruitment year.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The table below shows the percentage of the postgraduate Initial Teacher Training (ITT) target achieved in religious education and modern foreign languages for the years shown.
Academic Year | 2017/18 | 2018/19 | 2019/20 | 2021/22 |
Religious Education | 62% | 58% | 94% | 94% |
Modern Foreign Languages | 91% | 88% | 62% | 69% |
Source: DfE ITT Census statistical publications
To note:
The Department estimates the number of postgraduate ITT trainees required to meet teacher demand in England each year using the teacher workforce model. The model includes an adjustment to build in any impacts of recruitment being below target for the two previous ITT recruitment rounds, for both primary, and each secondary subject.
The model uses ITT recruitment data, ITT completion and post-ITT employment rates to estimate the number of newly qualified teachers (NQTs) entering the workforce having trained via all forms of ITT in the two most recent ITT cycles.
Asked by: Dean Russell (Conservative - Watford)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department is taking to encourage people to become mathematics teachers.
Answered by Nick Gibb
There are now over 468,000 full time equivalent (FTE) teachers in state-funded schools in England, 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 knows there is further to go to improve recruitment in some subjects, including mathematics. This is why the Department has put in place a range of measures, including bursaries worth £28,000 tax free and scholarships worth £30,000 tax free, to encourage talented trainees to teach mathematics, as well as physics, chemistry and computing. The initial teacher training financial incentives package for the 2024/25 recruitment cycle is worth up to £196 million, a £15 million increase on the last cycle.
Asked by: Sarah Olney (Liberal Democrat - Richmond Park)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much her Department spent on advertising for teacher recruitment in each of the last five years.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The below table sets out total Departmental spend for teacher recruitment advertising campaigns for the past five financial years.
| Get Into Teaching Advertising: Financial Year Spend |
2022/23 | £13,157,484.38 |
2021/22 | £12,255,612.85 |
2020/21 | £11,848,725.34 |
2019/20 | £12,776,070.54 |
2018/19 | £12,773,706.55 |
The objectives of the teaching advertising campaign are to raise the status of teaching and contribute to overall Initial Teacher Training (ITT) numbers. Due to the long candidate journey from initial consideration through to applying for, and starting ITT, several methods are used to assess campaign impact. They include regular brand tracking studies and other market research such as:
Key performance indicators for the teaching recruitment campaign are consideration of teaching as a career amongst the Department’s 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 and the proportion of ITT applicants who have interacted with the Get Into Teaching service.
Asked by: Stephen Morgan (Labour - Portsmouth South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the adequacy of pay for supply teachers employed through education recruitment agencies.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Schools have the freedom to make staffing decisions that meet their circumstances. This means schools, academies and Local Authorities are responsible for the recruitment of their workforces, including whether to use supply agencies for supply staff.
If a supply teacher is employed by a private employment agency, the agency can decide their salary. As this is a commercial arrangement between the school or Local Authority and the agency, the Department is unable to intervene in matters concerning the terms of their employment or their pay. Supply teachers are free to register with multiple agencies to find the best pay and conditions to meet their own circumstances.
Under the Agency Workers Regulations, an agency supply teacher is entitled to receive the same pay and conditions of employment as teachers employed by the school or the Local Authority after 12 weeks in the same role with the same school or Local Authority. Guidance on the Agency Workers Regulations 2010 is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/agency-workers-regulations-2010-guidance-for-recruiters.
In August 2018, in conjunction with the Crown Commercial Service, the Department for Education launched the agency supply deal. The deal supports schools with getting value for money when hiring agency supply teachers and other temporary staff.
The deal has established a list of preferred suppliers that schools can access, all of which:
Details of the deal can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/deal-for-schools-hiring-supply-teachers-and-agency-workers.
Education is a devolved matter, meaning the devolved administrations set their own policy on supply teacher pay and conditions.
Asked by: Barbara Keeley (Labour - Worsley and Eccles South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many primary school music teachers left the teaching profession in the period between (a) 2010 and 2015, (b) 2015 and 2020 and (c) 2020 and 2023.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Information on the number of teachers leaving state-funded schools and the number of teachers by subject in state-funded secondary schools in England are published in the ‘School Workforce in England’ national statistic available at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/school-workforce-in-england.
In the year to November 2022, the full time equivalent (FTE) of 43,997 qualified teachers left the state-funded sector in England, while 47,954 qualified teachers joined.
The latest available data shows that in November 2022, the latest data available, there were 7,184 FTE teachers teaching music in state-funded secondary schools, a slight increase from 7,003 in the previous year.
Full-time equivalent (FTE) teachers1 of music in state-funded secondary schools
2011/12 to 2022/23
| Number of teachers of all years |
2011/12 | 8,043 |
2012/13 | 7,432 |
2013/14 | 7,268 |
2014/15 | 7,109 |
2015/16 | 6,862 |
2016/17 | 6,720 |
2017/18 | 6,480 |
2018/19 | 6,525 |
2019/20 | 6,543 |
2020/21 | 6,837 |
2021/22 | 7,003 |
2022/23 | 7,184 |
Source: School Workforce Census, published at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/94487fba-1bd5-4bef-b77d-08dbd08e1875
1: Teachers were counted once against each subject and key stage they taught, irrespective of the time spent teaching.
The requested figures for music teachers leaving the teaching profession are not available.
The quality of teaching remains the single most important factor in improving outcomes for children, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds.
The Department plans to update the Teacher Recruitment and Retention Strategy, originally published in 2019, and build on existing reforms to ensure every child has an excellent teacher, including in music. The strategy update will reflect progress in delivering these reforms, and set out priorities for the coming years.
For those starting initial teacher training in music in the 2024/25 academic year, the Department is offering £10,000 tax-free bursaries. This should attract more music teachers into the profession and support schools in delivering at least one hour of music lessons a week.
The Government will also be placing a stronger emphasis on teacher development as part of the Music Hub programme in the future, including peer-to-peer support through new Lead Schools in every Hub.