Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the effect of real terms regression on pay on teacher retention.

Teacher retention is key to ensuring effective teacher supply and quality, and the Department is taking action to support teachers to stay in the profession.

The Department understands the pressures many teachers, like the rest of society, are currently facing due to the challenge of high inflation. Teachers do an essential job and do so brilliantly. The Department is clear that teacher pay should reflect these contributions. This is why the pay rise teachers are receiving this year is the highest in a generation.

The Department has accepted the recommendations of the Independent Pay Review Body for 2022/23 to provide the highest pay increases for 30 years, with every teacher eligible for a pay uplift of at least 5%.

The average salary for a classroom teacher is £39,500, with an employer pension contribution of 23.6% in addition, which equates to almost £10,000 per year.

The starting salary for a new teacher rose by up to 8.9% this year. The Department is committed to delivering £30,000 starting salaries, providing teaching with a more competitive financial offer, enabling the Department to attract high quality graduates and helping to ensure teaching is viewed as a prestigious profession.

Most teachers early in their career, and around 40% of experienced teachers, not already at the top of their pay scale, will also receive pay increases through progression or promotion. In total, this could mean rises of up to 15.9% this year.

To improve retention of teachers in priority areas, the Department is also offering a Levelling Up Premium worth up to £3,000 tax-free for mathematics, physics, chemistry, and computing teachers in the first five years of their careers, who choose to work in disadvantaged schools. This will support recruitment and retention of specialist teachers in these subjects and in the schools and areas that need them most.

The Department has also taken action to improve teacher and head teacher workload, working with teachers and head teachers to understand and address longstanding issues around marking, planning and data management. For example, the Department has developed, alongside headteachers, the school workload reduction toolkit.

The Department published the Education Staff Wellbeing Charter, which the Department is encouraging schools and colleges to sign up to. The Charter is a set of commitments from the Government, Ofsted, and schools and colleges to protect and promote the wellbeing of staff. As of January 2023, over 2,350 schools and colleges have signed up to the Charter. The Charter can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/education-staff-wellbeing-charter.

The Department is working with schools to expand and promote flexible working opportunities in schools. The Department knows that access to flexible working in schools can help to recruit, retain and motivate teachers and leaders, improve staff wellbeing and promote equality of opportunity in the workforce.

The Department has also created an entitlement to at least three years of structured training, support and professional development for all new teachers at the start of their training, and through their early career with refreshed core teacher training content and the Early Career Framework. Since 2021, eligible teachers and leaders have been able to access scholarships to undertake fully funded National Professional Qualifications, supporting all teachers and headteachers to continuously develop their expertise throughout their careers.

To improve recruitment, the Department announced a £181 million Initial Teacher Training financial incentives package for the new recruitment cycle, a £52 million increase on the last cycle, including bursaries worth £27,000 tax free and scholarships worth £29,000 tax free, to encourage trainees to key subjects such as mathematics, physics, chemistry, and computing.