Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what plans her department has to improve retention of experienced and senior teachers in mainstream schools.

Retaining experienced teachers is at the heart of the government’s pledge for 6,500 additional expert teachers. Details of the delivery plan were published in February and are available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/every-child-achieving-and-thriving/6500-additional-teachers-delivery-plan-html-version.

Our plan included a targeted retention incentive worth up to £6,000 after tax for eligible teachers in key subjects, above-inflation pay increase of almost 10% awarded over two years, and development of resources to support teacher workload and wellbeing, including the ‘Improve Workload and Wellbeing’ service.

As announced in the Schools White Paper, we will invest in a new teacher retention programme that provides training, resources and peer support to help schools learn from each other. We will also extend the national professional development offer so there is training at every stage, introducing new professional development programmes for experienced teachers and leaders. We are also investing £1 million additional funding each year for wellbeing support, providing up to 2,500 leaders annually with a safe and confidential space to develop new strategies to manage their resilience and capacity to thrive in their role.

Our interventions are having impact and the latest data shows that teacher leaver rates have fallen to one of the lowest rates on record, to 9.0% in the 2023/24 academic year.