Every day, teachers across the country work incredibly hard to provide our pupils with the education to grow into thriving adults. But sadly, teaching is a profession in crisis.
High rates of teachers leaving combined with below target recruitment to initial teacher training (ITT) is resulting in more vacancies, bigger class sizes in secondary schools and more people who are unqualified or teaching out of their specialism.
The government’s commitment to recruit 6,500 new teachers may feel like an ambition that won’t touch the sides.
As others have said, the Department for Education needs a clear strategy - and I propose it needs a wide range of different tactics to keep teachers in the profession as well as recruiting new ones.
1. Attract and support career changers
The pool of young graduates and ex-teachers who might be persuaded to return is shrinking. Broadening our search to other demographics could increase the diversity of our profession, as well as its numbers.
One of those groups is the small but growing number who have had successful careers and now want to share their expertise by retraining to become teachers.
Between 2022 and 2024, the proportion of trainees aged 35 or older rose from 13 per cent to 16 per cent of the annual ITT intake.
The charity Now Teach works to recruit and retain these career changers, and I have been pleased to support this initiative since its inception.
At a recent event of the charity, it was uplifting to hear pupils share their experiences of being taught by people with career experience beyond teaching and praise their classroom presence and wider expertise.
Our profession is made stronger by the knowledge these people bring.
The majority of Now Teach’s career changers are teaching science, technology, engineering and maths and, compared with traditional recruitment routes, are more likely to be from global majority heritage backgrounds and more likely to be men.
Extra support is vital here: just two in five male applicants made it onto a training course last year, compared with nearly two-thirds of females. The DfE could reverse the previous government’s cuts and reinstate Now Teach’s funding to make sure these career change gains are not reversed.
2. Tackle representation challenges
People from global majority heritage backgrounds are also much less likely to be accepted into ITT than their white counterparts, despite high numbers of applications. They are then less likely to progress into teaching or leadership.
Too often, this is framed as an individual problem, so I’m proud that we are working with partners, including Mission 44, to support schools and training providers to address explicit and implicit racism.
Many foundational documents, from the Early Career Framework to the Ofsted framework, don’t mention race or racism, making it much less likely to be addressed. This isn’t just about recruiting extra teachers, but about improving diversity and equity for teachers and pupils.
3. Let teachers focus on the most important thing
One of the biggest reasons teachers give for wanting to leave the profession is workload. Teachers are expected to do too many things, and all of those things are complex and exhausting.
Teaching is a people-focused profession; teachers join because they want to support pupils to learn and to grow, to find joy in their subject and develop their passions and purposes.
But they can get bogged down in bureaucracy and overwhelmed with the pervasive challenges of poverty, mental health and special educational needs.
We need a focus on what the role of a teacher is (and is not) and provide the right support for each part of the role, so that pupils’ needs are met.
4. Flexible working
The government needs to help schools embrace flexible working; there are initiatives and working groups, but what teachers really need is to have a job that gives them more autonomy in exchange for their hard work and commitment. This will enable more teachers, particularly mothers with children, to stay in the profession.
At the Chartered College of Teaching, we are proud to advocate on behalf of colleagues, empowering a knowledgeable and respected teaching profession.
It is time that the government worked with us to take teacher diversity seriously in pursuit of an attractive and rewarding career for all.
Dame Alison Peacock is CEO of the Chartered College of Teaching
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