Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether (a) history, (b) physical education, (c) Classics, (d) drama and (e) religious education are included in the set of subjects defined as key subjects for the purposes of the commitment to recruit 6,500 new expert teachers in key subjects.

High quality teaching is the in-school factor that has the biggest positive impact on a child or young person’s outcomes in schools and colleges. This is why the government’s Plan for Change is committed to recruiting an additional 6,500 new expert teachers across secondary and special schools, and in our colleges, over the course of this Parliament.

We recognise that workforce shortages are more acute in some subjects and we have put in place a range of measures to boost recruitment and retention in these areas. We announced a £233 million initial teacher training (ITT) financial incentives package for 2025/26, which includes bursaries worth £29,000 tax-free and scholarships worth £31,000 tax-free, to encourage talented trainees to subjects such as mathematics, physics, chemistry and computing, where there is a particular need to boost recruitment. The complete list can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/funding-initial-teacher-training-itt/funding-initial-teacher-training-itt-academic-year-2025-to-2026#postgraduate-bursaries-and-scholarships.

To support retention in key subjects, in 2025/26, the department is offering a targeted retention incentive worth up to £6,000 after tax for mathematics, physics, chemistry and computing teachers in the first five years of their careers who choose to work in disadvantaged schools or teach technical subjects in further education colleges.

The department undertakes regular reviews to ensure we are prioritising the subjects where teachers are needed most, for example through our ITT bursaries, which are reviewed annually to reflect teacher supply need in each subject.