DfE must act on teacher recruitment and retention

Commenting on new research on teacher recruitment by NFER, Helen Osgood, Community’s National Officer for Education and Early Years said:

“When figures from NFER forecast that recruitment of secondary teachers will be at just 52% of the requirements, it is clear there is a problem.  When recruitment to primary teacher training also fails to hit targets then there is a serious problem.

“Community has been clear that addressing recruitment is important, but we also need to address retention.

“It is time to restore teaching to be an aspirational profession. To do this, we need to improve pay and conditions, address workload, and support excellent teachers to remain in the profession.

“Our over-worked and over-burdened teachers also need support staff in order to be able to do their jobs properly. We would encourage DfE to think about school staffing as a whole and to address the funding squeeze so that leaders can afford to have the staff teams they need to meet pupil needs.”

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