Half of England’s teachers have thought about quitting, new research shows
Stakeholder research group Edurio has released a report which consists of 5 years of data tracking how risk of resignation for staff of different roles has evolved before, during and since the pandemic. In this report they look at the areas with the strongest retention levels.
Edurio Recruitment and Retention report
The research, which is available for download here, draws on responses from over 110,000 surveys filled out by school staff in England, over the past five years. Noting a decrease in risk of resignation during the heavily-disrupted years of 2019/20 and 2020/21, Edurio has tracked the rebound in resignation post-pandemic that has, in part, led to the current staffing crisis.
In the report there is a look at what school staff find most challenging by role. With Senior Leaders there was a strong relationship between workload and resignation with only 20% of the Senior Leaders who responded being happy with their workload. Middle Leaders found the biggest challenge in their role was the Relationship with the Trust with less than half (41%) of respondents feeling positively about their relationship with their Trust. Teacher and Teaching Assistant retention was strongly affected by leadership dynamics with this being the main link to resignation. The strongest link to resignation for Administrative staff was communication, although 70% of respondents reported that they were happy with the communication in their work environment.
Schools North East State of the Region Survey
The Schools North East State of the Region Survey is conducted regularly across this academic year. We ask the same set of core questions every term to get a snapshot of the situation in North East schools, tracking developments across the academic year.
Respondents were asked a variety of questions on recruitment and staffing in their schools. The results show that 86% of respondents had staffing levels between 90-100%. However, there are also some worrying figures underlying this data, 78% of schools found it difficult to access supply staff to cover absences, with this being both an issue of quality and quantity. It was also found that 66% of those who responded were struggling to recruit permanent staff- mainly Teaching Assistants, Teachers and Administrative staff, with around half of schools having more vacancies than pre-pandemic. Just under half (48%) of respondents said it was a struggle to retain their current staff and 62% of schools finding that staff wellbeing has declined since pre-pandemic summer terms.
The survey is still available to fill out here.
Director of Schools North East, Chris Zarraga:
“Although the Edurio report has taken respondents nationally, the results are reflected in feedback from Schools North East Roundtables, which are hosted half-termly, as well as through our State of the Region surveys. The recruitment and retention crisis is something which has been of major concern to North East school leaders since schools emerged from lockdown, with increased private sector competition, highly pressurised school environments, the cost of living crisis, and inflation, all combining to create a perfect storm. Urgent action is required from the Government before school staffing levels reach a critical point.”
The Schools North East ‘Manifesto for North East Education’, published in 2019 in response to the general election, contains the key recommendations for education policy. The recommendations highlight the need to support the North East’s teaching profession at every level. This is available to read here.
Jobs in Schools | North East is a jobs portal, powered by Schools North East and the schools in our region. This jobs board is a not-for-profit and enables schools to benefit from huge financial savings on their national recruitment spends, click to find out more.
Schools North East host regular Roundtables half-termly for Partner Schools. If you’d like to find out more about our Partner School Programme click here.
