Asked by: Stephen Morgan (Labour - Portsmouth South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to encourage more (a) women, (b) men, (c) people from ethnic minority backgrounds and (d) people from lower socio-economic backgrounds to become teachers.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department wants teaching to be an inclusive profession where teachers from all backgrounds are supported throughout their career, from the moment they enter the profession, through their continued development as teachers and as they progress into leadership.
Recruitment campaigns for Initial Teacher Training (ITT) are targeted at students, recent graduates and potential career changers regardless of their identity or background.
Apply for Teacher Training, the new application service for ITT in England, was rolled out nationally in 2021. It has been designed to be user friendly and has been extensively tested with a diverse range of potential applicants to ensure it helps remove barriers to great teachers applying for ITT courses.
The Department’s world class teacher development programmes, such as National Professional Qualifications (NPQs), are designed to support all teachers through to executive headship, and are designed to reach as many people as possible, regardless of their background. Since autumn 2021, eligible teachers and headteachers have been able to access scholarships to undertake fully funded NPQs and 51,518 qualifications have been started so far.
Flexible working supports equality of opportunity in the workforce and can help women to stay in the workforce and progress. The Department is taking action to promote flexible working in schools. This includes publishing resources and guidance on GOV.UK and funding a programme of support, including webinars with a focus on how flexible working can support diversity and inclusion.
Governors have an important role to play in promoting diversity, equality and inclusion when appointing headteachers. Guidance states that school governance boards are expected to have an understanding of, and an adherence to, the Equality Act 2010, promoting equality and diversity throughout the organisation including in relation to its own operation. They should understand the full diversity of the cultural context of the school and community they serve and are reminded of this in the department’s Governance Handbook: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/governance-handbook, and in the current guidance on recruiting a headteacher: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/recruiting-a-headteacher.
Asked by: Andrew Rosindell (Conservative - Romford)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is talking to increase the recruitment of teachers in (a) rural and (b) coastal communities.
Answered by Nick Gibb
As at the last school workforce census (November 2022, published on 8 June 2023), the number of teachers remains high, with 468,400 full time equivalent (FTE) teachers working in state funded schools across the country. This is over 27,000 (6%) more than in 2010. The last school workforce census is available at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/school-workforce-in-england.
The Department’s reforms are aimed at increasing teacher recruitment and at ensuring teachers across England stay and succeed in the profession.
The Department announced a financial incentives package worth up to £181 million for those starting initial teacher training (ITT) in the 2023/24 academic year. The Department is providing bursaries worth up to £27,000 and scholarships worth up to £29,000 to encourage trainees to apply to train in key secondary subjects such as mathematics, physics, chemistry, and computing. The Department has extended bursary and scholarship eligibility to all non-UK national trainees in languages and physics.
The Department provides a Levelling Up Premium (LUP) worth up to £3,000 for mathematics, physics, chemistry, and computing teachers in the first five years of their careers who work in disadvantaged schools. Teachers in Education Investment Areas (EIAs) receive the highest LUP payments and many EIAs are predominantly rural. 69% of secondary or special schools in coastal towns (as defined by the ONS’ Coastal Towns 2020 analysis, which is available at: https://www.ons.gov.uk/businessindustryandtrade/tourismindustry/articles/coastaltownsinenglandandwales/2020-10-06) are eligible for the LUP, compared to 59% of schools elsewhere in the country. The eligibility criteria and list of eligible schools is available at: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/levelling-up-premium-payments-for-teachers.
The Department has also raised starting salaries outside London by 8.9% to £28,000 and remains committed to the Government’s ambition of delivering £30,000 starting salaries to attract talented people to teaching.
To support retention across all areas, the Department has worked with the education sector and published a range of resources to help address staff workload and wellbeing. These include the school workload reduction toolkit and the education staff wellbeing charter. The toolkit is available at: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/school-workload-reduction-toolkit, and the wellbeing charter is available at: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/education-staff-wellbeing-charter. More than 2,700 schools have signed up to the Charter so far.
Asked by: Lord Pearson of Rannoch (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the decision by the Teacher Regulation Agency, dated 23 May, recommending that a prohibition order should be imposed on Mr Joshua Sutcliffe.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
It is important that processes relating to teacher misconduct are progressed without any political involvement. Decisions on whether to progress cases are taken independently by the Teaching Regulation Agency (TRA).
An independent Professional Conduct Panel is appointed to hear cases and determine whether the evidence proves unacceptable professional conduct, conduct that may bring the profession into disrepute, or a conviction of a relevant offence. If so, the Professional Conduct Panel will make a recommendation on whether to prohibit the individual from teaching.
Following the recommendation, the decision to impose a prohibition order is taken by a senior TRA official. Although that decision is taken on behalf of the Secretary of State, neither she or any other Ministers in the department can have any involvement in these independent investigations, related processes, and decisions.
Asked by: Lucy Powell (Labour (Co-op) - Manchester Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many computing teachers (a) left teaching and (b) were recruited in (i) 2018, (ii) 2019, (iii) 2021 and (iv) 2022.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department has invested over £100 million to support the quality of computing teaching through the creation of the National Centre for Computing Education. This has provided a computing hub network and high quality training and resources for pre and in service teachers.
Information on the school workforce, including the number of subject teachers in state funded secondary schools and the overall number of teachers joining and leaving the state funded sector, 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.
As at November 2022, the latest data available, there were 7,529 full time equivalent (FTE) teachers teaching computer science, and 6,179 FTE teachers teaching information, computing and technology (ICT) in state funded secondary schools. It is important to note that it is possible for teachers to teach both subjects, therefore, some may be counted in both of these figures.
FTE teachers of computer science and ICT1 in statefunded secondary schools
2018/19 to 2021/222
Year | Computer Science | ICT |
2022/23 | 7,529 | 6,179 |
2021/22 | 6,573 | 6,691 |
2020/21 | 6,049 | 6,670 |
2019/20 | 4,305 | 8,069 |
2018/19 | 3,954 | 8,834 |
Source: School Workforce Census, published at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/8bcbf8de-57df-4ae4-8a65-08db7860a436.
1: Teachers were counted once against each subject. Therefore, teachers may be counted against both computer science and ICT
2: Computer science was introduced as a new code from 2017/18 to reflect reformed GCSEs.
The requested figures for leavers and joiners by subject taught are not available.
47,954 teachers joined the state funded school sector for 2022/23, up by 3,943 since last year.
43,997 teachers left the state funded sector in 2021/22, up by 7,818 since last year.
Leavers are defined as qualified teachers leaving the state funded sector in England, for example due to a change of career or joining other UK education sectors, and those leaving on career breaks such as maternity leave or secondments outside of the school sector. Some of these teachers may later rejoin a state funded school in England.
Almost 9 in 10 (87.2%) teachers who qualified in 2021 are still teaching one year after qualification. Almost 8 in 10 (76.1%) teachers who qualified three years ago are still teaching, and almost 7 in 10 (68.7%) teachers who qualified five years ago are still teaching.
It is the Department’s priority to make sure that teachers not only stay in the profession, but thrive in it. The Department has taken action to improve teacher and leader workload, working with the profession to understand and address longstanding issues around marking, planning and data management. The Department continues to work proactively with the sector to understand the drivers behind workload and wellbeing issues and improve our policies and interventions.
The Department is supporting schools to act and remove unhelpful practice that creates unnecessary workload. The Department School Workload Reduction Toolkit, developed alongside headteachers, is a helpful resource for schools to review and reduce workload.
The Department also worked in partnership with the education sector and mental health experts to create the Education Staff Wellbeing Charter. The Department is encouraging schools to sign up to as a shared commitment to promote staff wellbeing. So far, 2,600 schools have signed up to the Charter.
Asked by: Matt Vickers (Conservative - Stockton South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department are taking to improve the (a) recruitment and (b) retention rate of teachers.
Answered by Nick Gibb
There are now over 468,000 full time equivalent (FTE) teachers in state funded schools in England, which is an increase of 2,800 (less than 1%) since last year, and an increase of 27,000 (6%) since 2010. This makes it the highest FTE of teachers since the School Workforce Census began in 2010. Just over two thirds of teachers who qualified five years ago are still teaching.
The Department’s reforms are aimed at increasing teacher recruitment and at ensuring teachers across England stay and thrive in the profession.
The Department announced a financial incentives package worth up to £181 million for those starting initial teacher training (ITT) in the 2023/24 academic year. The Department is providing bursaries worth up to £27,000 and scholarships worth up to £29,000 to encourage trainees to apply to train in key secondary subjects such as mathematics, physics, chemistry, and computing.
The Department provides a Levelling Up Premium worth up to £3,000 annually for mathematics, physics, chemistry and computing teachers in the first five years of their careers who work in disadvantaged schools nationally, including within Education Investment Areas (EIAs). The eligibility criteria and list of eligible schools are available at: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/levelling-up-premium-payments-for-teachers.
The Department has also raised starting salaries outside London by 8.9% to £28,000 and remains committed to the Government’s ambition of delivering £30,000 starting salaries to attract talented people to teaching.
The Department has created an entitlement to at least three years of structured training, support, and professional development for all new teachers, underpinned by the ITT Core Content Framework and the Early Career Framework (ECF). Further information on the ITT Core Content Framework can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/initial-teacher-training-itt-core-content-framework. Further information on the ECF can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/early-career-framework. Together, these ensure that new teachers will benefit from at least three years of evidence based training, across ITT and into their induction.
To support retention, the Department has worked with the education sector and published a range of resources to help address staff workload and wellbeing and to support schools to introduce flexible working practices. This includes the workload reduction toolkit and the Education Staff Wellbeing Charter. Further information on the workload reduction toolkit can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/school-workload-reduction-toolkit. Further information on the Education Staff Wellbeing charter can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/education-staff-wellbeing-charter. More than 2,600 schools have signed up to the Charter so far.
Asked by: Seema Malhotra (Labour (Co-op) - Feltham and Heston)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to address recruitment and retention in English teaching.
Answered by Nick Gibb
There are now over 468,000 full time equivalent (FTE) teachers in state funded schools in England, which is an increase of 2,800 (less than 1%) since last year, and an increase of 27,000 (6%) since 2010. This makes it the highest FTE of teachers since the School Workforce Census began in 2010.
The Department’s reforms are aimed at increasing teacher recruitment and at ensuring teachers across England stay and succeed in the profession.
The Department announced a financial incentives package worth up to £181 million for those starting Initial Teacher Training (ITT) in the 2023/24 academic year. This includes the reintroduction of a £15,000 bursary to train to teach English, which will be available for prospective English teachers starting teacher training this autumn.
The Department has also raised starting salaries outside of London by 8.9% to £28,000 and remains committed to the Government’s ambition of delivering £30,000 starting salaries to attract talented people to teaching.
The Department has created an entitlement to at least three years of structured training, support, and professional development for all new teachers, underpinned by the ITT Core Content Framework and the Early Career Framework (ECF). Further information on the ITT Core Content Framework can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/initial-teacher-training-itt-core-content-framework. Further information on the ECF can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/early-career-framework. Together, these ensure that new teachers will benefit from at least three years of evidence based training, across ITT and into their induction.
To support retention across all subjects, the Department has worked with the education sector and has published a range of resources to help address staff workload and wellbeing and to support schools to introduce flexible working practices. This includes the workload reduction toolkit and the Education Staff Wellbeing Charter. Further information on the workload reduction toolkit can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/school-workload-reduction-toolkit. Further information on the Education Staff Wellbeing charter can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/education-staff-wellbeing-charter. More than 2,600 schools have signed up to the Charter so far.
Asked by: Feryal Clark (Labour - Enfield North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to improve the (a) recruitment and (b) retention of teachers in (i) Enfield North constituency and (ii) Enfield.
Answered by Nick Gibb
There are now over 468,000 full time equivalent (FTE) teachers in state-funded schools in England, which is an increase of 2,800 (less than 1%) since last year, and an increase of 27,000 (6%) since 2010. This makes it the highest FTE of teachers since the School Workforce Census began in 2010.
The Department’s reforms are aimed at increasing teacher recruitment and at ensuring teachers across England stay and thrive in the profession.
The Department announced a financial incentives package worth up to £181 million for those starting initial teacher training (ITT) in the 2023/24 academic year. The Department is providing bursaries worth up to £27,000 and scholarships worth up to £29,000 to encourage trainees to apply to train in key secondary subjects such as mathematics, physics, chemistry, and computing.
The Government remains committed to delivering £30,000 starting salaries to attract talented people to teaching.
To support retention across all areas, the Department has worked with the education sector and published a range of resources to help address staff workload and wellbeing. This includes the published workload reduction toolkit, which can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/school-workload-reduction-toolkit, and the Education Staff Wellbeing Charter, which can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/education-staff-wellbeing-charter. More than 2,600 schools have signed up to the Charter so far.
Asked by: Colleen Fletcher (Labour - Coventry North East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to improve the (a) recruitment and (b) retention of teachers in (i) Coventry North East constituency and (ii) Coventry.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The latest School Workforce Census, which was published on 8 June 2023, shows the number of teachers remains high, with 468,400 full time equivalent (FTE) teachers working in state funded schools across the country. This is over 27,000 more than in 2010. In November 2022, when the latest available data was collected, there were 3,284 FTE teachers in state funded schools in Coventry. This is an increase of 3.2% from the year previous when there were 3,182 FTE teachers in state funded schools in Coventry and an increase of 6.3% since 2010 when the school workforce census began when there were 3,090 FTE teachers in state funded schools in Coventry. Over this period, the number of schools in Coventry included in the school workforce census has ranged between 112 to 120. School Workforce Census data can be found online at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/school-workforce-in-england.
The Department’s reforms are aimed at increasing teacher recruitment and ensuring teachers across England stay in the profession.
The Department announced a financial incentives package worth up to £181 million for those starting initial teacher training (ITT) in the 2023/24 academic year. The Department is providing bursaries worth up to £27,000 and scholarships worth up to £29,000 to encourage trainees to apply to train in key secondary subjects such as mathematics, physics, chemistry, and computing.
The Department provides a Levelling Up Premium worth up to £3,000 annually for mathematics, physics, chemistry and computing teachers in the first five years of their careers who work in disadvantaged schools nationally, including within Education Investment Areas (EIAs). The Department provides the highest payments to teachers in eligible schools in EIAs. Coventry is an EIA. There are seven schools in the Coventry North East constituency eligible for the Levelling Up Premium and 26 schools in the Coventry Local Authority. The eligibility criteria and list of eligible schools is available at: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/levelling-up-premium-payments-for-teachers.
The Department has also raised starting salaries outside London by 8.9% to £28,000 and remains committed to the Government’s ambition of delivering £30,000 starting salaries to attract talented people to teaching.
To support retention across all areas, the Department has worked with the education sector and published a range of resources to help address staff workload and wellbeing. This includes the workload reduction toolkit, which can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/school-workload-reduction-toolkit and the Education Staff Wellbeing Charter, which can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/education-staff-wellbeing-charter. More than 2,600 schools have signed up to the Charter so far.
Asked by: Andrew Rosindell (Conservative - Romford)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department is taking steps to increase the recruitment of male primary school teachers.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department wants to attract and retain diverse, talented teachers from all backgrounds, and this includes recruiting male teachers. It is important that schools and their leadership teams reflect their communities and their pupils. The Department knows that good teachers, regardless of gender or background, provide positive role models and shape the lives of young people.
The gender of new entrants to postgraduate teacher training has remained broadly similar since 2015/16, with 28% being male in 2022/23. 16% of primary postgraduate trainees were male compared to 39% of secondary postgraduate trainees in 2022/23.
More women apply to the primary phase than men, which is reflected in the higher proportion of female teachers working in primary schools. Whilst it remains true that men make up a smaller proportion of the teaching workforce, the number of male teachers in primary schools has gradually increased since 2010. Since 2010, there has been an increase of over 7,000 male teachers in state funded nursery and primary schools, from 28,180 in 2010/11 to 35,202 in 2021/22.
As of November 2021, in state funded nursery and primary schools, 26% of headteachers were male, compared with 14% of all nursery and primary teachers.
The Department is using the data gathered through its new in-house teacher recruitment services, such as the new Apply for Teaching Training service. These services are generating new real-time data and insight into recruitment of male primary Initial Teacher Training (ITT) candidates and the recruitment practices of schools and universities that offer ITT.
The Department’s recruitment campaigns are targeted at audiences of students, recent graduates, and potential career changers, regardless of gender. The Department makes every effort to ensure that our advertising is fully reflective of this across the full range of marketing materials used. The Department continues to develop its work to ensure that diversity and inclusion is central to the work delivered.
The Department is working with its Teacher Vacancy Service to ensure online case studies encourage more male primary teachers into the profession, through sharing positive and encouraging stories from teachers.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will hold discussions with the Teaching Regulation Agency on the adequacy of its guidelines on (a) misgendering and (b) preferred pronouns, in the context of the case of Joshua Sutcliffe.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Guidance on ‘Teacher misconduct: the prohibition of teachers’ (the Advice) sets out the arrangements for the regulatory system relating to teacher misconduct. These arrangements are operated by the Teaching Regulation Agency (TRA), an executive agency of the Department, which acts on behalf of the Secretary of State for Education, as the regulator of the teaching profession. The Advice is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/teacher-misconduct-the-prohibition-of-teachers--3.
The Advice sets out the factors to be considered by an independent professional conduct panel convened by the TRA for the purposes of regulating the teaching profession. The Advice is used to inform panel considerations, findings and recommendations to the Secretary of State about whether to impose a prohibition order on a teacher. A panel must consider each case on its own merits. The decision maker who acts on behalf of the Secretary of State also uses the Advice when considering the panel’s recommendation and in deciding whether to make a prohibition order.
Given the independent nature of the panel, it would be inappropriate for the Secretary of State to comment on the specifics of any case or look to direct a panel in any way.