Source · Select Committees · Education Committee
Recommendation 40
40
Acknowledged
Paragraph: 165
Limited understanding of overlapping teacher shortages hinders effective targeting of financial incentives.
Conclusion
We know subject specific and regional teacher shortages persist and we acknowledge the Department’s interventions to address this. However, we have heard that there is limited data and understanding of how these shortages interact and where they overlap. Further analysis is needed to better target financial incentives, Initial Teacher Education provision and the Early Career Framework mentor programme.
Government Response Summary
The government recognized the benefit of more information on sub-national supply challenges but explained the difficulties in quantifying them, noting incentives are targeted by pupil premium deciles. They committed to continuing investment in the evidence base and keeping data collection under review.
Paragraph Reference:
165
Government Response
Acknowledged
HM Government
Acknowledged
The Department recognises that collecting and publishing more information on sub-national supply challenges would be beneficial. However, it is challenging to quantify teacher supply using a single figure or metric as different metrics may give different, conflicting messages around teacher supply. For example, pupil teacher ratios (PTRs) could be used to assess teacher supply, by assuming lower PTRs mean supply levels are more favourable. However, PTRs can be a consequence of how well funded a school is, and whether a school receives additional payments relating to specific pupil cohorts, e.g. pupil premium. This is what we typically see in London where PTRs are lower, but if you look at other teacher supply metrics such as teacher leaver and/or vacancy rates then we see that London schools typically have higher leaver rates than elsewhere in England because there is more ‘churn’ and turnover within the system. Therefore, PTRs and leaver/vacancy rates would likely give conflicting messages about teacher supply in London. Whilst the Department has attempted to produce experimental supply index scores for each school, expressing supply levels in the form of a single figure, this did not identify a clear geographical pattern. Rather, it identified that differences are more evident at school level and that levels of deprivation and economic disadvantage were important. This is why the Targeted Retention Incentive (formerly Levelling Up Premium) is targeted at the school level using pupil premium deciles, rather than regionally. Also, as part of this year’s published government evidence6 to the School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB), we have included analysis which shows workforce challenges across a range of metrics broken down by pupil premium. The Department is committed to continuing to invest in the evidence base in this area and to continue to keep our evidence and data collection under review.