Experts say the government risks “meeting the target but missing the point” on its 6,500 teacher pledge, if quality and placement of teachers is not considered along with quantity.
As the sector awaits delayed details of how government plans to deliver on its flagship pledge, experts have given evidence to the education committee today, on teacher recruitment, training and retention and how the teacher supply crisis can be tackled.
Here’s what we learned…
1. 6.5k teacher pledge must consider quality…
The government previously said it would publish a roadmap this month, detailing how it will deliver on its pledge to boost the teacher workforce by 6,500.
It has confirmed it will miss this date, and will instead publish the delivery plan alongside the schools white paper, in the new year.
Jack Worth, lead economist at the National Foundation for Educational Research, described the 6,500 aim as “ambitious”. But he said whether it is sufficient “really depends on the nature of those teachers” and whether they address shortages.
“If there are a lot more PE specialists…[and] not quite as many physics, maths, computing, chemistry…then it may have met the target, but missed the point.”
The DfE initially pledged to recruit 6,500 new “expert teachers in key subjects”. They ditched the word “expert” from the pledge last year and the target has been broadened to include all subjects, excluding primary.
Meanwhile Dr Jasper Green, head of initial teacher education at the Institute of Education, said he is not sure the 6,500 target “is necessarily ambitious enough”.
“I think it focuses on number as opposed to quality. Both are important.” He said it is important to monitor applicants’ subject backgrounds, degree classification, training route, and the schools they go on to work in.
Teach First CEO James Toop urged for “more focus” on “ensuring we attract teachers to the school that need them most” such as into rural and coastal areas.
2. ‘Green shoots’ but retention ‘dire’
NEU general secretary Daniel Kebede said while teacher recruitment is showing “green shoots” of improvement, that could in part be due to a poor graduate market elsewhere in the workforce.
“Recruitment targets have been missed 12 times in the last 13 years, and…the issue around retention is pretty dire.” He said there is a particular issue around retention of school leaders.
NEU data shows around one-quarter of teachers are leaving the profession within three years. Recent government analysis shows one-third of secondary heads leave within three years.
Kathryn Morgan, leadership and workforce specialist at school leaders’ union ASCL, said feedback from ASCL members is that it is a “really tough” time for leaders, and “there are real challenges about people choosing not to go into school leadership.”
3. Fears of ‘short-termism’
Experts said the government’s drive to boost recruitment is “going well”, but Worth warned the government’s decision to cut bursaries could be premature.
“We know how effective bursaries are for increasing recruitment and also retaining those additional teachers,” he said. “So there’s a risk of short termism…that we kind of meet the short term target, but don’t address the kind of issues for the long term”.
He said making sure “pay is competitive long-term, that workload is manageable long-term, to make sure that those coming in [are] long-term retained” is key.
4. Fears over AI leading to ‘cognitive decline’ of pupils
On AI, Morgan said the technology “should be used as a way of carrying the load for things that people are wasting their time and energy on”.
But regarding more creative tasks, she said: “I think there’s a moral imperative here that we should be ensuring that we aren’t creating generations of children and young people who are just defaulting to ChatGPT”.
Kebede added: “I’ve got real concerns, actually, around artificial intelligence over the long term and cognitive decline for children, and I think that we have to really get ahead of that.”
Education Committee chair Helen Hayes MP responded: “You can watch this space for development in that area, without giving too much away”.
5. Lack of mentors
Meanwhile Melanie Renowden, CEO of the National Institute of Teaching, stressed mentors are “crucial” to training early career teachers (ECTs) “to be successful in sustained careers”.
But she added that mentor roles “are under pressure”. “We’re losing the experienced members of staff from schools. So… supply of mentors, particularly in schools that are serving most socio-economically disadvantaged communities, is a challenge.”
Kebede said mentoring from experienced colleagues “really developed” him as a young teacher. “But…we’ve haemorrhaged a lot of experience from our classroom.”
He spoke of one example where a first-year early career teacher was being mentored by a second-year ECT. “This is highly problematic. What we really do need is more staff with more space to allow that mentoring to happen.”
Morgan said it is important to free up funded time for mentors so developing ECTs doesn’t just feel like “another thing…on their to do list”.
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