The Department for Education is not including primary schools in its target for hiring an additional 6,500 teachers, it has confirmed.
The 6,500 new teacher target was a key pledge as one of before the general election last year but there have been questions about how it will be measured.
In a recent , education secretary Bridget Phillipson described it as a “promise to recruit an additional 6,500 expert teachers across secondary and special schools, and our colleges, over the course of this Parliament”.
And the department has today confirmed to Tes that primary schools are not part of its target.
Wording ‘seems to deliberately exclude primaries’
Jack Worth, lead economist at the National Foundation for Educational Research, highlighted that the wording the education secretary used “seems to deliberately exclude primary schools from the definition” and added that he “wouldn’t be surprised if that is the case when they do publish a definition”.
“This is because primary pupil numbers are falling slightly and expected to fall further over the next few years,” he added.
In a speech in February, the education secretary had said that the government was committed to ensuring that it has “more teachers where they are most needed across our colleges and our secondary schools, both mainstream and specialist”.
It comes as the , published by the government today, shows that the overall number of teachers in England fell last year despite increases in the numbers in both secondary and special schools.
It shows there are 468,300 full-time equivalent teachers, which is a decrease of 400 since last year and an increase of 26,900 since 2010 when the school workforce census began.
Government ‘making progress’
In a press statement today, the DfE highlighted how there are “now are 2,346 more teachers in secondary and special schools in England compared to last year, as government makes progress on its additional 6,500 teacher target”.
And Ms Phillipson said: “We are delivering on our pledge to recruit an additional 6,500 expert teachers with more joining the profession in our secondary and special schools and over a thousand more people intending to train to become teachers this year compared to last, fundamental to improving children’s life chances.”
The government data shows that state-funded nursery and primary schools saw a decrease of 2,900 teachers - or 1.3 per cent this year.
Secondary, FE and special schools focus ‘makes sense’
Mr Worth said that falling birth rates and pupil numbers “if all else is equal is likely to mean fewer teachers in primary”. He added that it would therefore be possible to have a healthy system with a declining number of teachers providing pupil-teacher ratios and class sizes remained the same.
He continued: “People in the primary sector can point to recruitment targets having been missed recently but it makes sense for the government to focus on secondary, FE and special schools which is where the recruitment issues have been most challenging.
“Including primary in the 6,500 target would make it much harder to meet.”
Last month senior officials from the Department for Education were questioned by MPs on the progress being made towards Labour’s election pledge to recruit 6,500 new teachers.
Appearing in front of the Commons Public Accounts Committee (PAC), DfE permanent secretary Susan Acland-Hood said work was under way on the target but that no specific year has been set as a baseline against which to measure progress.
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