The first meeting of the Teaching Commission on teacher retention took place this week, bringing together a panel of serving teachers and education experts to address the mounting crisis of teacher retention.
The session featured compelling evidence from Professor Becky Taylor, insights from the Working Lives of Teachers and Leaders survey, and Jack Worth from the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER), who presented findings from their 2024 Teacher Labour Market in England report.
Stark data from the School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB) further underscored the disproportionate impact of retention issues on schools with the highest numbers of disadvantaged pupils.
A worsening picture
Jack Worth’s presentation painted a sobering picture. The NFER report highlighted that attrition rates remain worryingly high, with early-career teachers among the most affected.
Worth noted that while recruitment targets have consistently been missed, retention challenges exacerbate the crisis, particularly in core subjects like mathematics, physics and modern foreign languages.
Workload is still one of the key drivers forcing teachers out of the profession. Working hours have not gone down since the pandemic, and in spite of increases in salaries over recent years, real-terms pay has not kept pace with inflation, making teaching less competitive compared to other graduate professions.
What surprised me the most was Worth’s data on bursaries to attract teachers for shortage subjects. I have been critical of these because I have worked with some who have taken the money and run. However, NFER data proves they do attract more teachers, who don’t leave any quicker than teachers who haven’t received them.
Worth’s analysis also revealed the broader societal impacts of teacher attrition. When experienced teachers leave, the remaining staff often bear the burden of additional responsibilities, leading to further burnout and retention challenges. This vicious cycle is particularly acute in schools serving disadvantaged communities.
The double burden of disadvantage
Data from the STRB underscores the disproportionate impact of teacher retention issues on schools with high numbers of disadvantaged pupils. These schools, often serving communities with high levels of deprivation, face a double burden: they struggle to attract teachers and retain the ones they do recruit.
The STRB data showed that schools with the highest proportion of students in receipt of pupil premium have the highest leaving rate at 11.6 per cent, as well as the highest turnover rate at 12.6 per cent. They also have the highest rate of unqualified teachers, with students being taught by non-specialists for over 23 per cent of their time in school. This is simply not good enough.
I grew up as a disadvantaged child. It was only the knowledge and support of expert teachers that helped me to break the poverty cycle and eventually achieve a PhD. If we want schools to be more equitable places, we have to start here.
Professor Becky Taylor’s evidence also highlighted the systemic nature of this issue. She pointed to the most recent wave of the Working Lives of Teachers and Leaders survey, which detailed how working conditions in schools are placing significant additional pressure on teachers.
Behaviour in particular is adversely affecting teachers, with teachers reporting that 60 per cent of their time is spent following up behaviour incidents, an increase of 10 percentage points from 2022.
Serving teachers on the panel corroborated this, describing how behaviour has worsened dramatically since the pandemic.
Root causes
There is no doubt that teacher retention is a complex and multifaceted issue, but our discussions highlighted several possible root causes of the crisis.
Teachers consistently rank workload as the primary factor influencing their decision to leave the profession. Those on the panel also reported struggling to meet the needs of some of our most vulnerable pupils with special educational needs due to the systematic underfunding of external agencies.
This affects schools in challenging areas more, who, on top of more challenging behaviour, face structural challenges that compound issues, including inadequate resources and external support.
In my last year at school, post-pandemic, I noticed this increase in disruptive behaviour. Students were finding it tough to sit through lessons. Colleagues and I spent disproportionate amounts of time dealing on internal truancy, chasing students round the corridors in high-vis jackets like something from Wacky Races.
Now, I am in hundreds of schools a year all over the country. It is very clear to me that this is an ongoing problem.
A call to action
Some more evidence from Worth validated the commission’s focus on the retention side of the recrtuitment and retention crisis. If seven more teachers are retained, he claimed, 10 fewer ITT recruitments are needed to plug the gaps.
Pay is part of the solution, but by no means the only lever. There are 26,000 more graduates this year than in 2022/3. Data shows these Gen Zers want ‘pro-social’ careers, so we should be able to work out ways to persuade them to teach.
The meeting concluded with a sense of urgency. “If we do not act now,” warned commission chair, Professor Mary Bousted, “we risk losing a generation of teachers and exacerbating educational inequality.”
She went on to emphasise that retention requires coordinated efforts across government, schools and professional bodies. So our next steps will include hearing from witnesses across the sector, which will feed into developing a set of actionable recommendations.
After our first meeting, I am convinced of two things: that retention is not an isolated issue but a cornerstone of equity and excellence, and that the commission’s work offers a chance to implement meaningful change.
Ensuring that every pupil regardless of background has access to skilled and dedicated teachers is a mission that cannot wait.
To engage with the Teaching Commission, visit their website here
Pay (relative to the hours worked and pressures endured is so far out of step its now completely laughable and absolutely deserves the contempt of graduates looking at teaching and thinking…..why would i do that?, for that much salary?!!
Working conditions (expected to work in buildings that are crumbling, cold and drafty in winter and sweat boxes in Summer, no thanks!)
Working hours (should be a cap, we’re beyond anything else now), that would help focus minds as to what actually is and isnt important in terms of reasonable teacher workload.
Trust (move in polar opposite direction to micro management, this requires a cultural shift and will take years no doubt).
Bonfire of the assessment culture and data driven nonsense immediately. The harm this is doing to both students and teachers has not been properly exposed yet, but it will come out. Ofsted. Abolish and then replace immediately with an entirely different type of inspectorate with a remit to actually help schools rather than label them and police them.
Flexible working as a right. In non contact periods it should be accepted you may not be present in the physical school building, its not a jail after all! Nobody in 2024 wants to feel like they are working in a jail, but that is precisely what schools have come to resemble.
Parents to be made responsible for any childs misbehaviour. If this means a system where by they have to pick them up because said child has been removed from lesson due to disruptive behaviour then so be it. Schools MUST have this right made very clear to parents, with support from government. Nobody wants to work in an environment with disrespectful and foul mouthed children and teenagers. The behaviour crisis needs arresting and now. Fixing it may put a few noses out of joint, so be it.
Get a grip on all of the above issues and you might have half a chance of rescuing teaching. Otherwise its yesteryears career and its already in the bin.