In the second of a regular research insights feature, Amanda Taylor from the Centre for Information and Knowledge at the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) rounds up a selection of recent reports on teacher recruitment and retention.

Research insights

Scarcely a week goes by without the media reporting on the challenges school and college leaders face in recruiting and retaining teachers. For the system as a whole, the supply of teachers is a very complex issue influenced by rising pupil numbers, perceptions about the teaching profession – particularly around workload – to wider economic and labour market conditions. Here we round up some of the major recent research reports to provide you with more of the bigger picture.

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Title: Should I Stay or Should I Go? NFER analysis of teachers joining and leaving the profession
Date: November 2015
URL: bit.ly/2cKUWvJ

NFER looked at a range of data sources to begin to create an accurate picture of the teacher supply challenge and then used data from the Labour Force Survey to analyse job moves in and out of teaching.

What you need to know:

• A total of 10% of teachers leave the state-funded school sector each year, but overall teacher numbers have been growing steadily in recent years. However, pupil numbers are rising and there have been shortfalls in the target numbers for entrants to teacher training.
• Secondary schools face particular challenges, especially in recruiting to some English Baccalaureate (EBacc) subjects, because of greater growth in pupil numbers, shortfalls in initial teacher training (ITT) entrants and higher numbers reporting leaving the profession.
• More than half of the teachers who leave take up other jobs in the wider education sector, such as teaching in private schools, becoming teaching assistants and taking on non-teaching roles in schools. A similar proportion of non-student entrants come from within the education sector.
• Teachers who leave are not doing so to earn more money, at least in the short-term.
• The report concludes by considering several supply-and-demand side measures that could help alleviate these pressures, such as promoting alternative career pathways for teachers and allowing class sizes to rise.

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Title: Engaging Teachers: NFER analysis of teacher retention
Date: September 2016
URL: bit.ly/2d2k9Bp 

As a follow-up to Should I Stay or Should I Go? NFER wanted to understand the experiences and intentions of teachers by exploring how engaged and supported teachers feel over time and how this relates to their intention to remain in or leave teaching.

What you need to know:

• The majority of teachers are not considering leaving the profession, and not all teachers considering leaving will actually leave. However, the proportion of teachers considering leaving has increased significantly in the last year from 17 to 23 per cent.
• There is a strong relationship between teacher engagement (measured by looking at the extent to which teachers agreed with 16 statements about their job and their school) and retention. Half of teachers are “engaged” and, of these, the vast majority (90 per cent) are not considering leaving. “Disengaged” teachers are much more likely to be considering leaving, but only 15% of teachers are disengaged.
• Engagement underpins retention. Protective factors associated with retention include job satisfaction, having adequate resources, reward and recognition, and being well supported by management. Maths teachers and senior leaders have high levels of engagement and are less likely to be considering leaving. Conversely, science teachers, and experienced male teachers have a heightened risk of leaving.
• Recommendations to improve retention include more systematic monitoring of teacher engagement and their future intentions and placing a greater focus on staff wellbeing.

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Title:The Longer-term Costs and Benefits of Different Initial Teacher Training Routes (Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), NFER and Education Datalab)
Date: July 2016
URL: bit.ly/2cMUE9q 

This research, funded by the Nuffield Foundation, looked at how routes into the profession have changed in recent years and how each score in terms of costs, benefits and retention rates.

What you need to know:

• About 40% of teachers who begin initial training are not teaching in the state sector five years later.
• The teacher training landscape has changed significantly in recent years and in 2015/16, School Direct accounted for about one-third of trainees and Teach First 5% of entrants. A figure of 40% of entrants still train via traditional postgraduate courses.
• It costs in the region of £23,000 to train a teacher although this average figure masks the disparity between the costs of training a primary school graduate via an undergraduate degree (£17,000) and those of Teach First trainees (about £38,000).
• The cost per teacher in school five years after training is highest for Teach First trainees due to higher initial costs and lower retention rates (about 60% are not teaching in a state school five years later). However, the authors point out that this may be justified because Teach First trainees are placed in schools in disadvantaged areas and because the scheme may attract candidates who would otherwise not consider teaching.
• The researchers highlight areas for further research, including the factors that affect the decision to enter teacher training and the cost-effectiveness of financial incentives to train.

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Title: Training New Teachers (National Au dit Off ice (NAO))
Date: February 2016
URL: bit.ly/2cYBTi7

This far-ranging report by the National Audit Office (NAO) examined the government’s arrangements for training new teachers. It looked specifically at whether these provide value for money and result in enough teachers of the right quality.

What you need to know:

• It is four years since the government met its targets for initial teacher training. Secondary school training places have been particularly difficult to fill.
• In 2015/16, 14 out of 17 secondary subjects had unfilled training places. Subjects with the lowest proportion of training places filled were: design and technology (41%), religious education (63%), art and design (63%), and business studies (64%). The subjects most synonymous with teacher shortage fared better with 71% of physics and 93% of maths places filled in 2015/16.
• The report recommends that the government should work with school leaders to develop a good understanding of local demand for and supply of school leaders to inform its teacher supply model.

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Forthcoming research

Look out for new research from NFER towards the end of the year that will provide a clear analysis of patterns of headteacher retention across the sector (bit.ly/2cEqYdw).

Keeping up to date

Sign up to NFER’s free current awareness emails (bit.ly/2d5w43F):

• ‘On the Web’ – our bimonthly digest listing all major education reports
• ‘In the News’ – our weekly round-up of education news
• ‘NFER Direct for Schools’ – monthly e-newsletter for schools and teachers

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Further reading

• Title: The Careers of Teach First Ambassadors Who Remain in Teaching : Job Choices, Promotion and School Quality publisher Report to Teach First by Education Datalab
  Date: July 2016
  URL: bit.ly/2d7Wd47
• Title: The Importance of Teachers: a Coll ection of Essays on Teacher Recruitment and Retention publisher Policy Exchange
  Date: March 2016
  URL: bit.ly/2cKpRdj
• Title: Linking ITT and Workf orce Data (Initial Teacher Training Performance Profiles and School Workforce Census ) publisher Education Datalab
  Date: July 2016
  URL: bit.ly/2cAavoT
• Title: Social Inequalities in Access to Teachers publisher Social Market Foundation Commission on Educational In equality and Datalab
  Date: April 2016
  URL: bit.ly/2cjxGmv

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Also see ASCL’s guidance on Marking and Feedback (www.ascl.org.uk/markingfeedback) and on Lesson Planning and Teacher Resources (www.ascl.org.uk/lessonplanning).In addition, ASCL Professional Development is planning to run a course on managing teacher workload. To register your interest, please email pd@ascl.org.uk

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Amanda Taylor is Senior Information and Reviews Librarian and Deputy Head of the Centre for Information and Knowledge at NFER.

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