Question to the Department for Education:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to improve the (1) recruitment, and (2) retention, of teachers.

The number of teachers remains high, with over 465,500 working in state-funded schools across the country at Full Time Equivalent (FTE). This is 24,000 more than in 2010.

The department recognises there is more to do to ensure teaching remains an attractive, high status profession, and to recruit and retain teachers in key subjects and areas. Reforms are aimed at increasing teacher recruitment through an attractive pay offer and financial incentives such as bursaries, as well as at ensuring teachers stay and succeed in the profession.

The department remains committed to delivering starting salaries of £30,000 to attract and retain the best teachers.

The department is investing £181 million in financial incentives. For those starting initial teacher training (ITT) in the 2023/24 academic year, bursaries worth up to £27,000 and scholarships worth up to £29,000 are offered to encourage talented trainees to apply to train in key secondary subjects such as mathematics, physics, chemistry and computing. This offer has also been expanded to international trainees in physics and languages.

The department offers a Levelling Up Premium worth up to £3,000 annually for mathematics, physics, chemistry and computing teachers working in disadvantaged schools in the first five years of their careers.

In autumn 2021, the new digital service, ‘Apply for teacher training’ was launched. This provides a more streamlined, user-friendly application route, to make it easier for people to train to become teachers.

The department is also taking action to enable teachers to succeed by transforming their training and support. 500,000 teacher training and development opportunities will be delivered by the end of 2024, giving all teachers and head teachers access to world class, evidence based training and professional development at every stage of their career.

To support retention in the first few years of teaching, the department has rolled out the Early Career Framework (ECF) nationally, providing the foundations for a successful career in teaching, with over £130 million a year in funding.

Additionally, the department has published a range of resources to help address teacher workload and wellbeing, including the Education Staff Wellbeing Charter, which schools are being encouraged to sign up to as a shared commitment to promote staff wellbeing. The charter can be accessed at: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/education-staff-wellbeing-charter. Additionally, the workload reduction toolkit has been developed alongside head teachers and has been published here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/school-workload-reduction-toolkit. Several other resources have also been published to support schools to implement effective flexible working practices, and these can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/flexible-working-resources-for-teachers-and-schools.