Secondary teachers in England are more likely to leave the profession than their counterparts in Wales, but the opposite is true for primary teachers, a new report has found.
The National Foundation for Educational Research said its research findings “appear to challenge the hypothesis that the contrasting approach to policymaking in Wales compared to England is associated with universally lower rates of teacher attrition”.
Education is a devolved matter, meaning the Welsh government sets policy for schools.
There are some significant differences – Wales has no league tables, a different school inspection system and different approaches to teacher pay, testing and curriculum development.
NFER’s research found that “while teacher attrition rates are lower in Wales than in England overall, a substantial portion of this difference is due to differences in economic and contextual factors between the two countries”.
The attrition rate among secondary class teachers was 0.6 percentage points higher in England than in Wales, but among primary teachers the attrition rate was 0.6 percentage points lower in England.
“Given the different approaches taken by education policy makers in England and Wales since devolution, we might reasonably think that teacher retention rates could be higher in Wales compared to England,” said report author Jack Worth.
“However, newly available data that allows us to make robust comparisons of retention rates seems to show that it is a lot more complex than that.”
Welsh teachers work fewer hours
The study found that teachers in Wales worked fewer hours per week on average and had slightly better perceptions of their working hours than those in England.
In England, the average working hours during term time was 47, compared to 44 in Wales.
Thirty-four per cent of teachers in England reported working over 50 hours in a particular reference week, compared to just 21 per cent of teachers in Wales.
But the report said it was “important to note that teachers in both countries report high working hours and many teachers in both countries report preferring to work shorter hours”.
There are also “key groups of teachers and schools” with more substantial differences in attrition rates between the two countries.
Bigger gap for more experienced staff
For example, the difference in attrition rate among teachers with more than 20 years of experience was 1.3 percentage points for primary and 2.1 percentage points for secondary.
The report noted these teachers would have trained before the devolution of education policymaking to the Welsh government.
Part-time teachers also have “significantly higher retention rates in Wales compared to comparator schools in England”, and “substantially more” of the workforce in Wales works part time.
This “suggests that greater attention is paid in Wales to making part-time working opportunities available for teachers”, researchers said.
“With ongoing challenges with teacher recruitment and retention issues, this new research gives policy-makers food for thought,” said Josh Hillman of the Nuffield Foundation, which commissioned the report.
“By comparing England and Wales, the research also offers a valuable contribution to our understanding of the different approaches to teacher recruitment and retention across the UK.”
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