Recommendation 21

We challenged the Department on the extent to which poor pupil behaviour could negatively impact teachers’ mental health and wellbeing, as set out in written evidence from Education Support.56 60% of schoolteachers felt they spent too much time following up on behaviour incidents and the proportion of ex-teachers citing pupil behaviour as a reason for leaving rose from 32% to 44% in one year alone (2023 to 2024). The Department told us that a lot of the good practice work on behaviour issues highlighted good quality whole-school behaviour policies. In May 2025, the Department announced 90 new attendance and behaviour hubs that will target “intensive” support 49 C&AG’s Report, Figure 1 and 11 50 C&AG’s Report, para 2.27 51 Q 35 52 Q 33 53 C&AG’s Report, para 2.29 54 ITN0004 55 Q 28 56 ITN0009 17 to 500 schools a year and for best practice on tackling behaviour to be spread to 450 other schools. It noted that the network and regional learning from this will “make a difference”.57 Importance of pay