Today’s news review looks at the National Audit Office (NAO) report on teacher recruitment and retention.
National Audit Office (NAO) report
Today, Tuesday 12 September 2017, the National Audit Office (NAO) has published a report on teacher recruitment and retention.
The report has been covered widely in today’s papers by The Times (p2), The Sun (p6), the Daily Telegraph (p8) and the i (p4) as well as online by BBC Online, the Mail Online, the Guardian, and trade titles, Schools Week and the TES.
We’re pleased to see the findings highlight that there are now more pupils in schools where Ofsted has rated the quality of teaching and learning as "good" or "outstanding". Overall, 82 per cent of secondary school pupils in 2016 are now in such schools.
The report also found that a greater number of qualified teachers are returning to state schools. In 2016, 14,200 teachers returned to work in state schools – an increase of 1,110 since 2011.
This is proof that the work we’re undertaking to support high-quality development for teachers and school leaders in areas of the country and the schools that need it most is working.
In terms of teacher retention, we continue to offer generous financial incentives for trainee teachers – including scholarships in geography and modern foreign languages. We are investing £16.7m in our marketing campaign (Your Future, Their Future), which is an increase of £6.1m on the previous year.
A Department for Education spokesperson said:
There are now a record number of teachers in our schools – 15,500 more than in 2010 - and overall the number of new teachers entering our classrooms outnumbers those who retire or leave. Last year more than 14,000 former teachers returned to the classroom, an increase of 8% since 2011. We continue to invest significant sums in teacher recruitment with £1.3billion up to 2020 being invested in teacher bursaries to attract the best and brightest into the profession.
We recognise there are challenges facing schools and we are taking significant steps to address them. We have established a £75million fund to support high-quality professional development in those schools where teacher retention is an issue, and we are making it easier to advertise vacancies. In addition, we are working with Ofsted to tackle workload and will continue to engage with the profession to better understand the specific challenges and how we can address them.
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