Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of his policies to improve the retention rates of teachers.

There are more teachers in our schools than ever before and the number of teachers joining the profession continues to outnumber those who retire or leave. There are 457,300 teachers in state-funded schools in England – up 15,500 since 2010. More than 14,000 former teachers returned to teaching in the last year for which we have data, with the number of returning teachers having risen by 8% since 2011.

The Department is committed to addressing the issues that make teachers consider leaving the profession. At the Association of School and College Leaders conference in March the development of a strategy to drive recruitment and boost retention of teachers was announced. The strategy will build on the existing work to support schools, including the introduction of a period of stability to allow recent changes a chance to settle in, clarifying accountability in the system, and reducing unnecessary workload.