A new “expert teacher” role should be established to reward and retain staff who want to further their careers but stay in the classroom, a new report has said.
The Teaching Commission, in a new report today, has also called for the teacher pay review body to have a widened remit – including by investigating how much longer staff work above the 1,265 directed hours – and for better parental pay.
The report, ‘Shaping the Future of Teaching’, highlights a “weakened workforce” and says long-term reforms are needed to deliver a “thriving” profession.
New ‘expert teacher’ role
One of the key recommendations is for the establishment of an “expert teacher” role to “recognise and reward expertise in classroom teaching”.
They would act as role models of “good professional practice” and “raise the status of the classroom teacher” by offering those wanting to further their careers an option that does not mean leaving the classroom.
The position should also come with “appropriate financial incentives to make the role attractive to teachers”, the report said.
Teaching Commission chair Baroness Mary Bousted told Schools Week: “At the moment, the only way that teachers can progress in the career is to go the management route. You take on management responsibilities, and you get extra pay for that in the form of TLRs] teaching and learning responsibility payments], and then you put on the leadership scale.”
She said the new expert role would likely be “very popular and a very good move for teachers in their 30s, particularly women teachers who may well leave to have children may not want to take on management responsibilities”.
Nearly one in four of the 40,000 teachers who left the profession in 2022-23 were women in their 30s.
Return of the ‘advanced skills teacher’?
Bousted said the role would require “a lesser timetable” so staff could mentor and support other teachers. She said they should be paid “equivalent, at least, to the TLR scale”.
She suggested it could operate similar to ‘advanced skills teachers’, which were introduced in 1998 but funding for the position was phased out in 2013.
An earlier Ofsted study found most had “significantly” improved quality of teaching in their school.
Bousted said the position could be linked with chartered teacher status – a professional accreditation run by the Chartered College of Teaching.
The report does not say how many expert teachers should be appointed, but around 4,000 were designated under the previous scheme – around one for every five schools.
Costings have also not been done as part of the report. Bousted said any policy should be shaped by “unions, employers and the government”.
Pepe Di’Iasio, general secretary of school leaders’ union ASCL, described expert teachers as “an interesting proposal”.
“Progression opportunities are important for aiding retention and this new role could be helpful in this regard. We’d be happy to discuss this recommendation further.”
Review of ‘excessive working hours’
While recruitment is on track to improve this year, secondary recruitment is still expected to hit around 86 per cent of its target.
Almost 10 per cent of teachers left the profession in 2022-23, the majority of working age.
“This wastage means that it takes 10 newly qualified teachers to replace every seven who leave the profession early,” the report said.
“We are losing far too many teachers because the reality of their working lives does not match their motivation for joining and remaining in the profession.”
The commission also calls for a big expansion of the School Teachers’ Review Body’s remit – which makes recommendations on pay, duties and working time of teachers.
This would include a “review [of] the excessive working hours culture in schools and to develop proposals which place a limit on teacher and school leader contracted working time”.
A full-time teacher can be directed to work for 1,265 hours, over 195 days in a year, by their headteacher.
Look at other duties
But the commission says the STRB should look at the time spent on other duties over and above the directed hours, including planning, marking, and managing behaviour.
Bousted said this would “document the excessive hours teachers work and require a change of mindset in leadership”. She said leaders would then have to reduce a teacher’s workload in order to give them new responsibilities, rather than new requirements being “just added on”.
The most recent working lives of teachers report, published last week, showed a slight fall in teaching hours. But they remain high.
Primary teachers worked an average of 52.5 hours a week and secondary teachers an average of 50.3 in 2024, far above the average 36.6 working hours for all workers, according to the ONS.
The Teaching Commission says the DfE’s working lives of teachers survey should also go beyond counting working hours, and measure work “quality and intensity”. It recommends schools should also take part in discussions about working hours and work quality, including consultation with unions on directed time.
Di’Iasio said: “We have long been concerned by the unsustainable and excessive hours worked by many school leaders and would like to see the STPCD updated to provide them with guaranteed breaks and maximum working hours.”
Tackle ‘institutional racism’ and better parental leave
Another focus was on diversity.
While around 37 per cent of primary and secondary pupils are from BAME backgrounds, this is true of just 10 per cent of teachers.
Meanwhile, NFER research last year found while people from BAME backgrounds are over-represented in initial teacher training applications, they are disproportionately likely to be rejected.
This inequality continues throughout the profession, with BAME people less likely to be promoted to leadership roles.
The commission is also calling for government to make ethnicity pay gap reporting compulsory “so that employers are encouraged to identify and address disparities”.
It is also calling for government to “amplify the voices of Black and Global Majority teachers” in recruitment materials and public engagement, and for the education sector to fund leadership development programmes for aspiring BAME leaders.
The Commission also found teacher maternity leave policies “compare very poorly with other graduate professions”.
It recommends the parental leave policies outlined in the Burgundy Book – the national agreement that outlines teachers’ conditions of service – should be “improved” so they are “equal to equivalent professions”.
Government has launched a wider review into parental pay.
Emma Sheppard, founder of The MaternityTeacher PaternityTeacher (MTPT) Project which has been campaigning for this since 2023, said: “Equal and improved parental leave and pay would reduce the impact of the motherhood penalty that drives so many experienced women out of teaching, and attract more men into the profession who want to care for their own children, as well as the students in our schools.”
The key recommendations
How do teachers feel about their working lives?
Give the School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB) a remit to “review the excessive working hours culture in schools”, including proposals to “place a limit of teacher and school leader contracted working time”. This should include the work staff do over the 1265 hours of directed time
An annual government plan to address “excessive workload intensity”
How do pupils feel about their learning lives?
Pupils should be consulted on “priorities for change” on curriculum and assessment reform
Pupil behaviour
All schools should have “protocols” to respond centrally to parental complaints, with government guidance on the issue
Teachers and leaders as learners
Create ‘expert teacher’ role to “recognise and reward expertise in classroom teaching, with appropriate financial incentives”
Update Burgundy Book to adopt equal and improved parental leave policies, compared to “equivalent professions”.
Culture counts
Leadership national professional qualifications (NPQs) should be “revised” to build on “extensive business research literature beyond schools”
Schools should run “regular” reviews into their “professional culture”
Schools as first responders
School staff dealing with pupil poverty issues should get training and wellbeing support
The STRB should investigate teacher and leader supply in deprived schools, and make recommendations for solutions
Early departures
Government to work with teacher training providers to ensure the early career framework is a “spiral curriculum, not a repetition of content” already covered in initial training
Subject- or phase-specific professional development entitlement for early career teachers
Returner mother teachers
Burgundy book updated to adopt improved parental leave policies
Extra support for returning mother teachers in their first year back
Move with the times: Flexible working
Schools should adopt “a more strategic and iterative approach to timetabling”, involving “multiple senior leaders”
Race to the top
“Anti-racism framework” for initial teacher training providers and schools
Compulsory reporting of ethnicity pay gap for employers
Government-funded leadership programme for black and global majority leaders
Money matters
The STRB should be given an additional remit to explore raising starting teacher salaries so they reach the top third of graduate earnings by 2030
Review into how much deprivation funding streams such as pupil premium are being used for “core operational staffing costs”
A 25-year school rebuilding and refurbishment programme
Measuring the effects
Ofsted should commission independent research into the consistency, reliability and validity of judgments
Ofsted inspections ditched in favour of self-evaluation system
Independent body to manage complaints about the conduct of Ofsted and inspection outcomes
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