Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department is taking to retain senior leaders within education.

To ensure the department continues to retain teachers and leaders, we are building a world-class teacher development system for teachers and school leaders at all levels. The reforms create a golden thread of high-quality, evidence-based training and support running from initial teacher training through to school leadership. The department will deliver 500,000 teacher training and development opportunities by 2024.

The department has launched a refreshed suite of fully funded National Professional Qualifications (NPQs) for teachers and school leaders. The leadership NPQs will give school leaders the expertise needed to improve teaching quality and pupil outcomes in their schools.

The department has also created an Early Headship Coaching Offer. This is for head teachers in their first five years of headship who are currently undertaking or have recently undertaken the NPQ for headship. The offer forms a targeted package of unassessed support when head teachers are less experienced and most at risk of leaving the profession.

The department is also funding a scheme for school leaders to improve and promote good mental health and wellbeing. The scheme, delivered by the charity Education Support, is providing one-to-one counselling, supervision, and peer support from experts to around 2,000 school leaders. Support is available for those at deputy head level and above in state-funded schools in England.

The education staff wellbeing charter is a set of commitments from the department, Ofsted, schools, and colleges to protect and promote the wellbeing of staff. Through the charter, the department pledges to work with the sector to drive down unnecessary workload, improve access to wellbeing resources, and champion flexible working, among a range of actions to support staff wellbeing.

The department is also taking action to ensure the schools system supports leaders and teachers. We want to spread the benefits of the best multi-academy trusts so that every child learns with the benefits of a strong, supportive family of schools. The department is supporting teachers and leaders to deliver higher standards of behaviour in schools by delivering an ambitious programme of work. This includes publishing the revised behaviour in schools guidance, implementing the department’s £10 million behaviour hubs programme, and delivering the national behaviour survey.

Additionally, building on the success of Oak National Academy’s work during the COVID-19 pandemic, the department will establish a new arms-length national curriculum body. These resources will ensure high-quality lessons are available nationwide for the benefit of all children. It will free teachers to teach using the best possible resources, reducing workload so teachers can concentrate on delivering lessons, and creating new resources only when there is a reason to do so.