Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many teachers were employed by state comprehensives (a) in the most recent period for which data is available and (b) in 2019.

Recent data shows that there are now over 468,000 Full Time Equivalent (FTE) teachers in state funded schools in England which is an increase of 27,000 (6%) since 2010. This makes the highest number of FTE teachers since the School Workforce Census began in 2010.

Of the 468,371 FTE teachers in England, 216,013 were employed by state funded secondary schools. Also, the data identifies that 10,603 (4.9%) were employed in fully selective state funded schools (grammar schools) and 204,647 (95.1%) in all other state funded schools (this includes non selective schools, some schools that are partially selective, and schools where admissions policy was unknown or reported as not applicable).

187,630 (87.2%) FTE teachers were employed in schools non selective in their admissions, 10,603 (4.9%) were selective, 5,336 (2.5%) reported not applicable and admissions policy was not identifiable for 11,681 (5.4%). Individual figures do not sum to the total figure because they are based on school level information, whereas the total is based on a grossed national figure, which includes a measure of estimation to account for nil returns to the School Workforce Census.

Information on the school workforce in England is published in the ‘School Workforce in England’ statistical publication, available at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/school-workforce-in-england.

Information on school admission policy is listed in Get Information About Schools (GIAS), which is the Department’s register for several organisation types, such as Schools and Multi Academy Trusts. These organisations maintain and can retrieve their details, such as whether their admissions policy is selective, using the GIAS website, which is available at: https://get-information-schools.service.gov.uk.