Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent steps he has taken to help retain newly qualified teachers.

It is a top priority of the Government to ensure that we continue to attract, retain, and support the high-quality teachers we need to inspire the next generation. We continue to progress the delivery of the Teacher Recruitment and Retention Strategy that the Government published in January 2019. Our strategy includes commitments to ensuring all teachers receive world-class training and development and are supported to stay and succeed in the profession.

Central to these reforms is the Early Career Framework (ECF) which is the biggest teaching reform in a generation. It will provide newly qualified teachers with a funded, two-year support package, and will be fully rolled out in autumn 2021. Early roll-out began in autumn 2020 and is taking place in selected areas: the North East, Greater Manchester, Bradford, and Doncaster.

The content of the ECF builds on and complements Initial Teacher Training and underpins what all early career teachers should be entitled to learn about and learn how to do, based on expert guidance and the best available research evidence. The ECF has been designed to support early career teacher development in five core areas, including behaviour management, to ensure that new teachers receive high-quality support and development during the first two years of their careers.

The offer for early career teachers includes:

• 5% off timetable in their second year of teaching to undertake induction activities, including training and mentoring
• Freely available high quality development materials based on the Early Career Framework
• A dedicated mentor and training for these mentors
• Funding for mentors to spend with early career teachers in the second year of induction

This is designed to ensure teachers feel more confident and in control at the start of their new career, and have the knowledge, skills and support they need for a strong start in the profession.

We are also taking a range of actions to address teacher workload and wellbeing, including improving access to resources, building wellbeing into teacher training and policy making, and the creation of the first ever Education Staff Wellbeing Charter which will be published at the earliest opportunity this year. We continue to assess the impact of policy changes and requests to schools on workload, working to reduce that impact wherever possible, for example, by reviewing data collections, services and requests.