Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps is she taking to increase teacher (a) recruitment and (b) retention.

As at the last school workforce census (November 2021, published in June 2022), the number of teachers remains high, with over 465,500 full time equivalent teachers working in state funded schools across the country. This is over 24,000 more than in 2010.

The Department’s reforms are aimed at increasing teacher recruitment and at ensuring teachers across England stay and thrive in the profession. The Department announced a £181 million financial incentives package for those starting initial teacher training in the 2023/24 academic year. The Department is providing bursaries worth up to £27,000 and scholarships worth up to £29,000 to encourage trainees to apply to train in key secondary subjects such as mathematics, physics, chemistry, and computing. The Department has expanded the offer to international trainees in physics and languages.

Additionally, the Department provides a Levelling Up Premium worth up to £3,000 for mathematics, physics, chemistry, and computing teachers in the first five years of their careers who work in disadvantaged schools nationally, including within Education Investment Areas.

The Department has recently raised starting salaries outside London by 8.9% to £28,000 and remains committed to the Government’s ambition of delivering £30,000 starting salaries to attract talented people to teaching.

To support retention in the first few years of teaching, the Department has rolled out the Early Career Framework nationally, providing the foundations for a successful career in teaching. This is backed by over £130 million a year in funding.

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.

The Department has published a range of resources to help address staff workload and wellbeing. This includes the Education Staff Wellbeing Charter, which the Department is encouraging schools to sign up to as a shared commitment to promote staff wellbeing. The Department has also published the workload reduction toolkit, developed alongside headteachers to help reduce workload, and resources to support schools to implement effective flexible working practices.