TTR0021
Written evidence submitted by Terry Graves
My name is Terry Graves and I taught PE and Science full time for 35 years and for 30 of those years I was a Senior Leader in schools and PE Advisory teacher (part-time). I have taught and advised EYFS to KS5.
I now work (part-time) as a PE consultant for the Association for PE (afPE) on the Sport England Secondary Teacher Training Programme and as an afPE Quality Mark Validator and Panel Member so I am currently working closely with many schools across the age range.
The current situation regarding teacher recruitment and retention
- What are the main factors leading to difficulties recruiting and retaining qualified teachers?
- Workload (the same as your 2018: “Factors affecting teacher retention: qualitative investigation Research report March 2018” CooperGibson Research
- Lack of appropriate funding for schools
- Decrease in real terms of teachers pay – staff have faced years of huge real-terms pay and funding cuts and yet increased work hours
- The explicit discrepancy between teachers/leaders pay in England, Scotland and Wales
- The high stakes, stressful system of accountability and the increased toxicity of the ‘Ofsted’ brand and the stress and damage it does to school communities before, during and after an inspection
- Increasing pupils and parent behavioural challenges in schools
- External perception of the profession as a respected career
- Lack of respect for our education system and its professionals shown by the government in the last thirteen years
- The landscape of teaching and learning has changed negatively
- In our current education system it is very difficult to offer hybrid working and as a result pay and conditions are increasingly important and these are being eroded all the time
- Consequently, when our profession is faced with such real-terms pay cuts, a punitive accountability system and unsustainable workload pressures many qualified and experienced professionals are turning away from teaching.
- Which subjects are most affected?
- All subjects are suffering from not being able to attract and keep qualified, high quality professionals needed to drive hiqh quality teaching and learning
- How does the situation differ across the country and across different types of schools and colleges?
- The situation is the worst I have ever known in all my time in education across the country and the effects and impact are worse in deprived areas, both urban and rural.
- What impact does this have on pupils, particularly disadvantaged pupils and those with SEND?
- The impact on all pupils is sadly a significantly negative one and again those most adversely affected are the disadvantaged and the SEND pupils because schools cannot fund the support needed. In addition, the services outside of schools that used to support these children and their families has also been cut to the bone or even stopped.
What action should the Department take to address the challenges in teacher recruitment and retention?
- Listen to, and value, the teachers and leaders in their schools
- Treat the profession with the respect it deserves and develop a constructive dialogue with the profession
- Address the issues stated above – all have been highlighted by the profession at every level
- The recent, not fully funded, pay offer suggests that the DfE/government STILL have not grasped the scale of the issue
- What has been the impact of the new bursaries and scholarships announced in October?
- Too early to say but I do hope that all of these bursaries have a built in clause that ensures that the recipients actually go into teaching?!
How well does the current teacher training framework work to prepare new teachers and how could it be improved?
- What has been the impact of the Early Career Framework implemented in September 2021?
- The early career framework ( ECF ) and the clear underpinning of a new entitlement for 2 years of CPD designed to help early career teachers develop their practice, knowledge and working habits is a great idea and it would help to make the profession appealing if it were well designed
- A better designed framework would help but if everything else does not improve i.e. funding, pay, safety, support, duty of care for the educators etc. it would be merely a sticking plaster on a wound that needs emergency surgery.
- It has been shown to have had little impact on retaining teachers a ‘Times Educational Supplement’ Survey (October 2022) reveals 4 in 5 new teachers and mentors in schools said support and training are ‘not well-designed’ and this is reinforced in many conversations I have had in schools with teachers, mentors and leaders.
- Are there ways in which teacher training could be improved to address the challenges in recruitment and retention?
- More University schools of education with 3/4 year full-time education undergraduate courses with relevant teaching placements
- How does teacher training in England compare internationally, and what are the benefits and disadvantages of the English system?
- Not in a position to comment
How do challenges in teacher recruitment, training and retention compare to those being faced in other professions/ sectors of the economy, and is there anything that can be learned from other professions/ sectors of the economy?
- If other professions are similarly under-funded, under pressure and under-valued then they too, will be having the same issues as teaching.
What particular challenges exist in teacher recruitment, training and retention for teachers from different demographic backgrounds?
- How well does the demographic makeup of the teaching workforce reflect that of the pupils they teach?
- in 2021, 85.1% of all teachers in state-funded schools in England were white British (out of those whose ethnicity was known) – by comparison, 70.8% of the working age population in England was white British at the time of the 2021 Census
- 3.8% of teachers were from the ‘white other’ ethnic group, the second highest percentage
- 92.5% of headteachers were white British
- 75.7% of teachers were women, and there were more female than male teachers in every ethnic group
April 2023