Teacher retention: Teachers in challenging areas more likely to leave

Jan 27, 2024

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1 in 4 teachers likely to quit in 5 years in challenging areas

A quarter of secondary teachers working in the government's Education Improvement Areas (24 per cent) say they are unlikely to be in the profession in five years’ time, new research reveals.

And across the country more than one in five of secondary school teachers (21 per cent) say they are likely to quit teaching within the same timeframe.

The findings are revealed today in the final report from the Commission on Teacher Retention, which found that "there is no single driver of teacher retention, nor one silver bullet to fix it".

The report also warns that salary rises alone will not stem the flow of teachers leaving the sector.

The report, 1970s Working Conditions in the 2020s: Modernising the professional lives of teachers for the 21st century, makes 10 recommendations for policymakers and schools, with the aim of "modernising working practices in teaching" and thereby boosting retention.

The commission, set up by the teacher wellbeing charity Education Support, working alongside policy firm Public First, calls for the Department for Education to be held accountable for teacher recruitment and to set annual retention targets for the school workforce in England - including teachers, leaders and support staff.

The commission also wants a national review of the pay and conditions of teachers, including their pay structure and their contracted hours.

In a survey for the commission carried out by Public First, involving more than 1,000 teachers in secondary state schools in England, almost six in 10 (57 per cent) said that increasing pay was the most important change needed to prevent teachers from leaving.

And 64 per cent said they would be likely to leave the profession if they were offered a job in another sector that promised better pay.

However, this figure was below the 78 per cent of teachers who said they would be likely to leave the profession if they were offered a job in another sector that promised a better work-life balance.

In the research, 31 per cent of teachers told the commission that their work-life balance was either bad or very bad.

The report also claims that "too often" pay becomes the "main prism" through which the debate around recruitment and retention is understood.

The survey included respondents in Education Investment Areas - which are 55 local authority areas identified as having the weakest results across key stage 2 and key stage 4 between 2017 and 2019.

The commission's 10 recommendations for policymakers and schools to improve teacher retention

1. A serious, government-commissioned, independent review of the current statutory guidance on pay and conditions for teachers in England.

2. Codifying what "poor practice" around workload looks like, through a list of things that schools must stop doing, in clear terms on the Department for Education website.

3. School leaders should commit to reviewing their own workload practices on a yearly (or more regular) basis.

4. The DfE should be set new retention targets for the school workforce in England - including teachers, leaders and support staff - published annually.

5. The profession needs clarity from the government in defining what is schools’ responsibility and what isn't.

6. We need a national conversation and a recognition at a political level that the complexity of children and young people's needs and pupil behaviour is becoming more challenging in such a way that exceeds school and teachers’ capacity to resolve alone.

7. A fully-funded, specialist human resources advisory service should be established for schools, tasked with promoting and supporting them specifically with the implementation of best practice flexible-working policies and arrangements.

8. The government should commit to an urgent review of the deployment and content of the training elements of the Early Career Framework (ECF), and the content frameworks underpinning the suite of National Professional Qualifications (NPQs).

9. The collection of accountability components, including the pressure experienced by heads and teachers as a result of Ofsted inspections, should be reviewed holistically.

10. Every five years headteachers should be granted a month-long, paid sabbatical to complete a new qualification - "the NPQH+" - expertly designed to develop the people management skills required of good leaders, and with a laser focus on the current context in schools.

The report's authors say: "Any suggestion that salary rises alone will stem the flow of teachers leaving the profession is overly simplistic, even in some of the more challenging school contexts."

The commission recommends that the government needs to provide official guidance of what is and is not part of a school's responsibilities, as well as a formal review of school accountability, including the function of Ofsted, looking specifically at the pressure it places on teachers.

It also calls for the creation of a fully funded, specialist human resources advisory service for schools, tasked with promoting and supporting them with the implementation flexible working and part-time arrangements.

Nearly two-thirds (64 per cent) of teachers in Education Investment Areas (EIAs) surveyed said worsening pupil behaviour was an issue - if not the biggest - in their school.

The report calls for a national conversation about the significant shift in behaviour as well as the increase in emotional and mental health needs among children and young people.

Sinéad Mc Brearty, chief executive officer at Education Support, said: "We are past the point when incremental change might yield material improvement."

Ms Mc Brearty said it was time "to come together to think big and act with courage in pursuit of world-class education delivered by world-class professionals".

While 81 per cent of those surveyed liked their job, and more than three-quarters said it was rewarding, Evelyn Forde, chair of the commission and president of the Association of School and College Leaders, said that she feared the "picture is changing".

"We cannot afford to ride off the goodwill of the workforce any longer," Ms Forde warned.

The commission also recommends identifying what "poor practice" around teacher workload looks like; that school leaders should commit to reviewing their own workload practices on at least a yearly basis; an urgent review of the deployment and content of the training elements of the Early Career Framework (ECF) and the content frameworks underpinning the suite of National Professional Qualifications (NPQs); and that every five years headteachers should be granted a month-long, paid sabbatical to complete a new leaders’ qualification, called the NPQH+.

A Department for Education spokesperson said: "Since 2010 we’ve increased the number of teachers working in state-funded schools by 24,000, now totalling more than 465,000.

"Almost nine in 10 teachers who qualified in 2020 were still teaching one year after qualification, and just over two-thirds of teachers who started teaching five years ago are still teaching.  

"We are listening to teachers and leaders and working with them to address workload and wellbeing issues. These include development of the School Workload Reduction Toolkit, funding wellbeing support for leaders and launching the Education Staff Wellbeing Charter."

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1 in 4 teachers likely to quit in 5 years in challenging areas

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