Retaining and developing the teaching workforce inquiry

The Department has failed to get a grip on teacher retention. The teaching workforce increased by 15,500 (3.5%) from 441,800 in November 2010 to 457,300 in November 2016. However, this overall rise masks the fact that the number of teachers in secondary schools fell by 10,800 (4.9%) from 219,000 in 2010 to 208,200 in 2016. In primary schools the pupil-teacher ratio remained fairly constant between 2011 and 2016, but in secondary schools the ratio increased, from 14.9:1 to 15.6:1 over the same period, even though pupil numbers fell. The Department forecasts that secondary school pupil numbers will increase by 540,000 (19.4%) between 2017 and 2025, and that pupil-teacher ratios will continue to rise. The number of qualified teachers leaving for reasons other than retirement increased from 6% (25,260) of the qualified workforce in 2011 to 8.1% (34,910) in 2016. The Department does not understand why more teachers are leaving the profession, and does not have a coherent plan to tackle teacher retention and development. It has a range of relatively small-scale initiatives but has not communicated these adequately to schools. The Department says it will be streamlining its approach, and that it was developing a plan that it expected to be ready by the end of 2017–18. It also acknowledges that the balance of investment has not been right, with £555 million spent each year on training new teachers and just £36 million spent on programmes to retain and develop teachers. Recommendation: The Department should, by April 2018, set out and communicate a coherent plan for how it will support schools to retain and develop the teaching workforce. The plan should include what the Department is aiming to achieve and by when, the interventions it will use to achieve its aims, and how it will measure success (including the desired impact on the rate of teachers leaving the profession).

Workload is the main reason why teachers leave the profession but the Department has not set out what impact it is seeking to achieve from its interventions on this issue. Workload is a significant barrier to teacher retention. The Department’s own survey, published in February 2017, found that classroom teachers and ‘middle leaders’ worked 54.4 hours on average during the reference week. Head teachers are concerned about increasing workload which has a detrimental effect on the quality of teaching and teachers’ wellbeing. They highlighted that increasing contact time so that teachers are teaching classes for a high proportion of the time, larger class sizes and the pace of change in assessment and the curriculum are the main factors which have increased workload. The tools published by the Department in 2015 to help schools reduce workload have had very limited impact; only half of schools have used the tools, of which a third reduced workload (by up to two hours per teacher per week). Alongside the results of its survey, in February 2017, the Department published an action plan to reduce unnecessary workload but it has not indicated the extent of change it expects to see as a result. We do not expect the Department to prescribe how many hours teachers should work but do expect it to understand and have a view on the relationship between workload and retention. We also expect the Department to be mindful of the impact on workload of decisions that schools have 6 Retaining and developing the teaching workforce necessarily had to take to make efficiency savings, such as increasing class sizes and contact time, and of its own decisions, such as regular curriculum and assessment changes. Recommendation: The Department should work with others in the school sector to set out what is an acceptable level of teacher workload, monitor through its periodic surveys of teachers the impact of its actions to reduce unnecessary workload, and identify possible further interventions.

Schools are struggling to recruit teachers of the right quality, particularly in some subjects and some parts of the country. During 2015–16 school leaders filled only around half of their vacant posts with qualified teachers with the experience and expertise required. Schools are struggling to recruit teachers in science, maths and modern foreign languages in particular, and these subjects are expected to be most affected by the UK leaving the European Union. The extent of teacher vacancies also varies across the country. In 2015 the North East had the lowest proportion of secondary schools reporting at least one vacancy (16.4%); the highest proportions were in outer London (30.4%), the South East (26.4%) and the East of England (25.3%). The Department stopped the National Teaching Service, which aimed to place teachers into underperforming schools that struggled with recruitment and retention, after the pilot matched only 24 teachers to schools in the North West. We are also concerned about the high cost for schools of recruitment. The Department plans to launch a pilot of a web-based national teacher vacancy service in spring 2018, to reduce the cost of recruitment and generate better data on vacancies. The Department also says it is working with the Crown Commercial Service to develop a framework contract for schools as a cheaper alternative to using recruitment agencies. There is a large pool of trained teachers (nearly 250,000) who are not currently teaching and could fill vacancies. Barriers to schools employing returning teachers include the challenge of timetabling when teachers work flexibly and schools’ concerns that returners may lack up-to-date subject knowledge. Recommendation: The Department should help schools more to recruit teachers of the right quality. In particular, it should: • set out its plans for the national vacancy service including the scope, timetable and budget; • report back to us by June 2018 on the results of the national vacancy service pilot; • write to us by June 2018 setting out the actions it has taken to control agency fees and the results achieved; and • work with the schools sector to share good practice in implementing flexible working to help attract former teachers to return to the profession.

We are concerned that the cost of living, in particular housing costs, is making it difficult to recruit and retain teachers in some parts of the country. The National Audit Office’s survey of school leaders found that, after workload, factors affecting the cost of living (for example house prices) are the second most significant barrier to teacher retention, with 42% of respondents reporting it as a barrier. The cost Retaining and developing the teaching workforce 7 of living in certain parts of the country makes it even more difficult to attract and retain teachers. Committee Members highlighted the high cost of housing in Oxfordshire and Cambridgshire as a barrier to retaining teachers locally. In 2015 the highest proportions of secondary schools reporting at least one vacancy were in outer London and the South East, where house prices are high. The Department has given schools flexibility to vary pay and allowances to help them recruit and retain teachers; but many are not using these flexibilities, which is not surprising given their financial pressures and efforts to find efficiencies. The Department says it is willing to talk to any schools with proposals to support teachers with housing, but it does not have any particular initiatives to address cost of living issues. Its pilot scheme, which involved offering teachers £10,000 as an incentive to move to the North West, had little take up. The Committee questioned whether the Department had considered relocation costs when it fixed the incentive payment at £10,000. Recommendation: The Department should set out how it will take account of the housing requirements for teachers, particularly in high-cost areas, in order to support recruitment and retention. It should take a more strategic role, particularly as this is an issue that goes across Whitehall, when considering initiatives to support teachers to ensure that funding for these has a real impact.

The Department could not explain why the quality of teaching varies so much across the country, and what action it would take to improve quality in the Midlands and the North of England in particular. More pupils are now in schools where Ofsted has rated the quality of teaching, learning and assessment as outstanding or good: 90% of primary school pupils and 82% of secondary school pupils in 2016. However, in five of the nine English regions, all in the Midlands or the North of England, more than 20% of pupils were in secondary schools rated as requires improvement or inadequate for teaching, learning and assessment. Across England 88,000 pupils were in schools where teaching, learning and assessment was rated as inadequate. The proportion of pupils in secondary schools rated as inadequate for teacher, learning and assessment increased with the deprivation of an area. We pressed the Department on why there are such regional differences in teaching quality and what it is doing to address them, but it could not provide any satisfactory explanation. Recommendation: The Department should conduct more work to understand why there are regional differences in teaching quality (for example by engaging more with school leaders in those regions where quality could be most improved) and, in light of its findings, set out how it proposes to improve the quality of teaching in the Midlands and the North of England specifically.

Teachers are not getting enough good quality continuing professional development throughout their career, which has implications for teacher retention and quality and ultimately for pupil outcomes. Continuing professional development (CPD) is essential for the workforce to keep up to date with current practices and meet expected standards. The Department does not collect data, but research by the Educational Policy Institute found that on average teachers in England spent only four days a year on CPD in 2013 compared with an average of 10.5 days across the 36 countries covered by the analysis. Head teachers stressed to us how vital it is for teachers to undertake good quality CPD at all stages of their career 8 Retaining and developing the teaching workforce not just in the first few years. They highlighted time and cost as the main barriers to teachers undertaking CPD, in line with the findings of the National Audit Office’s survey of school leaders. The Department acknowledges that more needs to be done to increase the amount and quality of CPD that teachers undertake. Recommendation: The Department should write to us by April 2018 setting out its plans for improving the quality of CPD available to teachers, its expectations for how much CPD teachers should undertake and how improvements in CPD will be paid for.

The Department has not made clear what it means by its aim of improving social mobility through its 12 opportunity areas and how it will measure progress. The Department has created 12 ‘opportunity areas’ that will receive extra funding and other support with the aim of improving social mobility and ensuring that children in these parts of the country have opportunities to reach their potential. The programme is at an early stage with the opportunity areas currently developing local plans. We recognise that improving social mobility is a long-term goal, that the Department has commissioned a process evaluation to report by summer 2018, and that it plans a further study to examine the impact of the opportunity areas. However, the Department has not defined measures of success for the programme, and says that it is relying on local areas to define their own priorities. The Department did not explain how the opportunity areas fit with other government programmes focusing on particular geographical areas, such as the Northern Powerhouse. Recommendation: The Department should write to us by April 2018 to explain in more detail its aims for the opportunity areas over both the short term and long term. Retaining and developing the teaching workforce 9 1 Teacher recruitment and retention

One of the headteachers told us that unreasonable levels of workload, and the impact this had on teachers’ ability to do their jobs well, was the main reason for teachers leaving.16 NASUWT said that the main reasons for teachers leaving were pay, workload and the management or employer practices of schools.17 Written evidence from the National Association of Head Teachers noted that a survey of its members had found that the top two reasons for leaving prematurely were workload (mentioned by 84% of respondents) and achieving a better work-life balance (83% of respondents).18 And written evidence from the National Education Union reported that the main reason why teachers consider leaving the profession was workload (cited by 90% of secondary teachers and 93% of primary teachers), with other reasons including the pace of curriculum change and rising class sizes.19

The Department has a range of small initiatives to retain and develop teachers but has limited evidence as to whether they are making a difference.20 It noted that some initiatives had been more effective than others and some had failed; the ‘return to 8 C&AG’s Report, para 2.6 9 Q 1 10 National Education Union (RTW0005), p. 4 11 C&AG’s Report, paras 2.5, 2.7 12 Q 68 13 C&AG’s Report, para 2.5 14 Wellcome Trust (RTW0006) 15 Q 69 16 Q 2; Alan Henshall (RTW0003) 17 Q 1 18 National Association of Head Teachers (RTW0004), para 4 19 National Education Union (RTW0005), p. 4 20 C&AG’s Report, paras 13–14 Retaining and developing the teaching workforce 11 teaching’ pilot was an example of an initiative which had not worked as well as planned.21 The headteachers told us that they engaged successfully with teaching schools which lead alliances of schools offering training and support to each other. They had heard about the Chartered College of Teaching but were not aware of, or did not know in detail about, other initiatives listed in the National Audit Office report.22 The Department said that it had been trying to do too many small scale things. It told us that it saw an opportunity to take a more streamlined, more strategic approach, and it was developing a plan to be ready by the end of 2017–18.23

The Department agreed with us that the balance of investment had not been right with around £555 million spent each year on training new teachers and just £36 million spent on programmes to retain and develop the existing teaching workforce. It said that more support was clearly needed for schools on retention. It also told us that it was carrying out a detailed evaluation of bursaries for new teachers, as requested by the previous Committee, and would report the results in summer 2018.24 Teacher workload

One of the headteachers explained that increased workload was caused by rising class sizes, the pace of change in assessment and curriculum, and extra work as a result of the financial savings which schools were having to make.25 The headteachers told us that contact time is too high; teachers are having to teach more hours, leaving less time during normal working hours for other tasks such as planning and marking.26 They said that increasing workload reduced the quality of what teachers could do which in turn adversely affected their job satisfaction, work-life balance and wellbeing.27

The Department published guidance on its website to help schools reduce workload in 2015. It told us that only half of schools had used the tools; of those, 32% had reduced workload (by up to two hours per teacher per week).28 The National Education Union reported that, in a March 2016 survey, 75% of primary teachers and 74% of secondary teachers said their workload had increased since the Government’s response to the workload challenge in February 2015.29

The Department’s survey, published in February 2017, found that classroom teachers and ‘middle leaders’ reported that they worked 54.4 hours on average during the reference week. Alongside the survey results, the Department published an action plan to reduce unnecessary workload.30 We asked the Department if it had a target in mind for reducing teacher workload. It told us that it did not want to tell teachers how many hours to work, as this was a matter for each headteacher to decide, but it did want to help teachers to minimise the amount of unproductive work.31 21 Qq 71, 132 22 Qq 7, 8; C&AG’s Report, para’s 3.14–3.15, Figure 17 23 Qq 132–134 24 Q 67; Committee of Public Accounts, Training new teachers, Third Report of Session 2016–17, HC 73, 10 June 2016 25 Q 2 26 Qq 38–40; Alan Henshall (RTW0003) 27 Qq 2–3; Alan Henshall (RTW0003) 28 Q 70; C&AG’s Report, para 2.13 29 National Education Union (RTW0005), page 4 30 C&AG’s Report, para 2.13 31 Qq 80–82 12 Retaining and developing the teaching workforce Recruiting teachers of the right quality

During 2015–16 school leaders filled only around half of their vacant posts with qualified teachers with the experience and expertise required.32 The Department highlighted that schools were struggling particularly to recruit teachers in science, maths and modern foreign languages. It told us that it was making 5,000 training places available in the next year in maths, physics and modern foreign languages to give teachers who currently taught other subjects the skills to teach those subjects as well. The Department also said that it was introducing a pilot for new teachers studying science or modern foreign languages, under which it would forgive them the cost of their student loans in the first 10 years of their career. It had also introduced a new bursary that gave trainee maths teachers £20,000 up front, and two early career payments of £5,000 after their third year in the profession and after their fifth year, provided that they kept teaching maths.33

The Department has identified the supply of teachers of modern foreign languages, and maths and sciences subjects as likely to be particularly affected by the UK leaving the European Union.34 It told us that about 3.5% of secondary school teachers are from elsewhere in the European Union. The Department said that its job was to make sure that the decision-makers were well informed about the extent to which the school system benefited from these teachers, and that it was liaising with those involved in the negotiations about the UK’s exit from the European Union.35

We also asked the Department if it was addressing the visa rules for recruiting teachers from outside the European Union, which require teachers to have a minimum salary. The Department told us that it was making representations to the Migration Advisory Committee about the possibility of adding more subjects to the shortage occupation list and the salary which teachers must earn to qualify for a visa.36

The extent of teacher vacancies varies across England. In 2015 the North East had the lowest proportion of secondary schools reporting at least one vacancy (16.4%); the highest proportions were in outer London (30.4%), the South East (26.4%) and the East of England (25.3%).37 The Department stopped the National Teaching Service, which aimed to place teachers into underperforming schools that struggled with recruitment and retention, after the pilot matched only 24 teachers to schools in the North West. The Department told us that the pilot had shown that £10,000 did not incentivise enough teachers to move. It also acknowledged that it had tried to implement the scheme too quickly.38 The Committee questioned whether the Department had considered relocation costs when it fixed the incentive payment at £10,000.39

One of the headteachers and the NASUWT referred to the increasing cost of recruitment.40 We have heard that it can cost up to £5,000 to advertise, and to recruit through an agency can cost in the region of £5,000 for a newly-qualified teacher, rising to between £8,000 and £9,000 for an experienced teacher. After the evidence session Tes 32 C&AG’s Report, para 2.23 & Figure 10 33 Qq 104, 106 34 C&AG’s Report, para 1.5 35 Q 105 36 Qq 143–147 37 C&AG’s Report, para 2.26, Figure 12 38 Qq 111–113; C&AG’s Report, para 2.30–2.32 39 Q 156 40 Qq 30, 34 Retaining and developing the teaching workforce 13 wrote to us and stated that the average cost of advertising a secondary school vacancy with it is now under £1,000.41 The Department told us that it planned to launch a pilot of a web- based national teacher vacancy service in spring 2018, with the aim of reducing the cost of recruitment and generating better data on vacancies. It would then develop the service in response to the market.42 The Department also said that it was working with the Crown Commercial Service to develop a framework contract as a cheaper alternative to schools using recruitment agencies.43

There is a large pool of trained teachers, 243,900 aged under 60 at the end of 2015, who are not currently teaching and could fill vacancies. The number of teachers returning to state-funded schools increased by 1,100 to 14,200 between 2011 and 2016.44 The headteachers told us that more support was needed for flexible working—barriers to schools employing returning teachers included additional cost and the challenge of timetabling when teachers worked flexibly.45 The Department emphasised that it needed to target support at teachers who would not otherwise return to the profession, but acknowledged that it needed to do more to work with the sector to address concerns that schools had about taking back teachers who had been out of the classroom for a long time. The Department published guidance on flexible working in February 2017 and told us that it had held a summit with schools to share good practice, and that it would update its guidance in 2018.46 Cost of living

The National Audit Office’s survey of school leaders found that, after workload, factors affecting the cost of living (for example house prices) were the second most significant barrier to teacher retention, with 42% of respondents reporting it as a barrier.47 We heard that the cost of living in certain parts of the country made it difficult to attract and retain teachers.48 Committee Members highlighted the high cost of housing in Oxfordshire and Cambridgshire as a barrier to retaining teachers locally.49 The Department told us that it is aware of the challenge that schools face in keeping teachers who want to start a family in areas where house prices are rising.50 It has given schools flexibility to vary pay and allowances to help them recruit and retain teachers, but many are not using these flexibilities. The Department confirmed that, on the whole, schools were cautious about using the flexibilities and tended to stay with the standards across the system.51 41 Q 148; Correspondence to the Committee from Tes, 5 December 2017 42 Qq 76, 84, 140, 150 43 Qq 148–149 44 C&AG’s Report, para 2.18–2.19, Figure 8 45 Qq 4–7 46 Qq 71–72, 107–110; C&AG’s Report, para 2.20 47 C&AG’s Report, Figure 7 48 Qq 29–30; National Education Union (RTW0005), page 3 49 Q 96 50 Q 97 51 Qq 1, 83, 95; C&AG’s Report, para 2.15 14 Retaining and developing the teaching workforce

The previous Committee raised concerns about the lack of affordable housing in some parts of the country which was affecting the supply of NHS clinical staff.52 We asked the Department if it had considered using land that it pays for to help provide affordable housing for teachers. It told us that it had had discussions with individual multi-academy trusts and local authorities about such initiatives and was willing to talk to any schools with proposals to support teachers with housing. However, it did not have any particular initiatives to address cost of living issues.53 52 Committee of Public Accounts, Managing the supply of NHS clinical staff in England, Fortieth Report of Session 2015–16, HC 731, 11 May 2016 53 Qq 96–103, 166–167 Retaining and developing the teaching workforce 15 2 Teacher quality Regional variations

In England more pupils are now in schools where Ofsted has rated the quality of teaching, learning and assessment as outstanding or good—90% of primary school pupils and 82% of secondary school pupils in 2016. However, in five of the nine English regions, all in the Midlands or the North, more than 20% of pupils were in secondary schools rated as requires improvement or inadequate in this respect. Across England 88,000 pupils were in schools where teaching, learning and assessment was rated as inadequate, and the proportion of pupils in secondary schools rated as inadequate increased with the deprivation of an area.54 We pressed the Department for Education (the Department) on why there are such regional differences in teaching quality, the link with deprivation, and what it is doing to address the variation, but it could not provide any satisfactory explanation.55

The Department explained that its focus is on the 12 opportunity areas it has established. These areas will receive funding and other support with the aim of improving social mobility and ensuring that children in these parts of the country have opportunities to reach their potential. The Department said that it would use opportunity areas to provide more investment to areas of the country that needed teachers the most, and provide more support to schools which struggled to recruit because of their location and particular challenges.56 It noted that the programme was at a very early stage—six of the opportunity areas had just published their delivery plans and the other six had not even reached that stage.57

We asked the Department how it would evaluate the opportunity areas programme. It said that the Education Endowment Foundation would evaluate the success or otherwise of the outputs from opportunity areas, and the extent to which they could demonstrate cause and effect. The Department was relying on local areas to define their own priorities which would be used to measure success. It said it would hope to see some practical improvements within a couple of years but by definition social mobility was a generational challenge.58 In written evidence provided after the session, the Department explained that it had commissioned a ‘process evaluation’ for the first year of the opportunity areas programme, to be published by summer 2018, and that it expected to appoint an organisation in early 2018 to undertake a study to assess the programme’s impact.59

We also asked how the opportunity areas related to other government initiatives such as the Northern Powerhouse. The Department told us that it was seeking to join programmes up and had recently announced funding of £30 million to support schools that had particular retention problems, of which £10 million would support the Northern Powerhouse. Opportunity areas had access to school improvement funds and teaching leadership funds, as did other schools in challenging circumstances.60 54 C&AG’s Report, para 3.8 and Figure 16 55 Qq 114–119, 123 56 Qq 114–116; C&AG’s Report, para 1.8 57 Q 122 58 Qq 120–124 59 Department for Education (RTW0007) 60 Q 119 16 Retaining and developing the teaching workforce Continuing professional development

The witnesses stressed the importance of teachers undertaking good quality continuing professional development (CPD) at all stages of their career, not just in the first few years.61 The Department does not collect data, but research by the Educational Policy Institute found that on average teachers in England spent only four days a year on CPD in 2013 compared with an average of 10.5 days across the 36 countries covered by the analysis.62 The headteachers highlighted time and cost as the main barriers to teachers undertaking CPD. Teachers are teaching classes for such a high proportion of their time that little time was available to undertake CPD. In addition, schools could not necessarily afford the cost of cover for teachers who undertook CPD.63

The Department acknowledged that more needed to be done to increase the quantity and quality of CPD that teachers undertake. It told us that it had been working with headteachers, other experts and the Chartered College of Teaching about how to make improvements. It would consult soon on whether there should be a clearer framework for what CPD a new teacher might expect to do and when and how teachers might develop, and on how the quality assurance of CPD might be improved.64 The Department also said that it would be investing, including in CPD, in schools with the greatest recruitment challenges. It could not tell us specifically how many schools would receive investment, but it would be “of the order of hundreds of schools”.65

The Chartered College of Teaching highlighted the role it expected to play, as the professional body for teachers, in supporting access to learning and development. It was establishing ‘chartered teacher status’ which it intended would provide a pathway for young, talented teachers. The College noted that it was important for it to raise awareness of its work so that teachers would join it, and thereby help it to become financially independent of the Department.66 61 Qq 19–20, 32–33, 35; C&AG’s Report, para 3.9 62 C&AG’s Report, para 3.10 63 Qq 36–38, 41 64 Qq 60–62, 130–131 65 Qq 163–165 66 Qq 11, 33–35, 43 Retaining and developing the teaching workforce 17