News

Recruitment and retention within the education sector has long been an elephant in the (class)room. Over the past ten years, the overall number of teachers in state-funded schools has failed to maintain the same rate of progress as pupil numbers.

The pupil to teacher ratio has increased from 17.1 in November 2010 to 18.0 in November 2022.

To put it bluntly, there simply aren’t enough teachers to (adequately and effectively) teach our pupils. So, unless this is fixed imminently, we face considerable risks in regard to hard won student achievement, school stability, and teacher availability.

But what do the most up to date figures reveal? Let’s look at the ‘Teacher Labour Market in England Annual Report 2024’ as well as Schools North East’s recent Spring State of the Region Survey to get an accurate picture.

Teacher supply is in a ‘critical’ state

A recent report by the NFER, funded by the Nuffield Foundation, looked into how many teachers there are and, perhaps more importantly, how happy they are. Warning: it’s not good news.

Not enough people are signing up to be teachers, and the ones who already are teachers, are thinking about quitting! This is a big issue, and we must keep pushing for solutions that don’t just promise to mask the problem, but actually solve it.

Looking at exactly what’s putting teachers off might be a good place to start. Hey, we’re not psychics, but we have a feeling that workload and pay might have something to do with it. Because it always does!

Impossible workloads are sending teachers out the door

According to the Labour Force Survey, teachers’ working hours in 22/23 increased by an hour (compared to the previous year) to 45.7 hours a week.

Unsurprisingly then, workload appears to be the main reason why teachers leave the profession. In fact, Working Lives of Teachers and Leaders (WLTL) survey data suggests that the number of teachers thinking of leaving has increased by a staggering 44 percent in 22/23, compared to the previous year.

What happened to the government’s target to reduce teacher workload? It looks like we’re going in the opposite direction, which suggests that it’s no longer enough to focus on reducing workload specific to planning, admin and marking. Teachers are now calling for behaviour management, pastoral care, and outside agency support to be key priority areas. And we couldn’t agree more!

Everyone is getting a big pay increase…. except teachers

Now let’s talk about teacher salaries in England. The NFER report shows that they haven’t been keeping up with the rest of the job market since 2010, which is (understandably!) a huge disappointment to anybody working in the sector.

It means that teachers haven’t been getting raises as big as people in other professions, so can we really blame them for considering jumping ship?

Even last year’s pay increase didn’t make too much of a difference in this situation, especially for longer serving teachers who have already demonstrated significant loyalty to the profession. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand that if teaching doesn’t pay well, it’s going to be hard to attract and keep good teachers. And thus the recruitment and retention crisis saga will continue.

If only there was a general election on the horizon in which we could call on political parties to develop long-term pay setting strategies…

What’s the situation in the North East?

As always, Schools North East works to put a regional accent on the education debate.

While the NFER report does well to paint a national picture, what exactly is it like in the North East?

We send out a ‘State of the Region’ survey once per term to better understand how our region’s schools are currently coping in different key areas, including recruitment and retention.

We released the results from our Spring  23/24 survey (which was sent out in February and collected responses that represent over 170 North East schools) last week.

Within that report, we revealed that only 60 percent of responses said they had staff levels above 95 percent; last term, 75 percent of responses said this, which shows quite a significant drop.

If that wasn’t enough to make you grimace, over 80 percent of responses said they’re struggling to access supply staff to cover these absences.

Recruitment of permanent staff has shown slight improvements over the last five terms, which is great! However, those struggling to recruit permanent staff is still over 60 percent. These are not the results we want to be sharing in the middle of a recruitment and retention crisis.

It’s important to recognise that it isn’t all bad here in the North East. In the 22/23 academic year, our surveys had an average of 41 percent struggling to retain staff, but in both surveys for the 23/24 Autumn and Spring terms, this figure was just under 30 percent. So that’s something!

Plus, this term is the first time since Autumn 2022 that the majority of responses have rated staff wellbeing as positive (four or five).

Keep your heads up and shoulders back

Picture this: schools with passionate teachers who are happy to stay where they are, year after year. That’s what we’re aiming for, as both a region and a country, but we can’t do it alone.

Chris Zarraga, Director of Schools North East, said: “We must keep pushing for the government to prioritise education. When schools attract and keep the great teachers and education staff that we know they all are, it creates a stable and supportive environment for our students.

“With happy and motivated teachers, students thrive, learning is engaging, and everyone feels supported enough to keep doing the amazing work they’re doing.. As a result, our schools will flourish, so it really is a win-win for everyone involved.”

This is another wake-up call for the government and all political parties as we fast approach the next General Election! We need them to step up and invest in our teachers, which, in turn, invests in our country.