TTR0097
Written evidence submitted by the National Association of Independent Schools and Non-Maintained Special Schools (NASS)
About NASS
The National Association of Independent Schools and Non-Maintained Special Schools (NASS) is the membership body for special schools outside of local authority control. We have over 400 schools across England and Wales in independent, academy and Non-Maintained sectors.
NASS seeks to represent schools with central government and other key stakeholders such as local government and Ofsted. We provide advice, support and training to our member schools and conduct a range of research and other projects designed at creating and sharing new knowledge.
Summary
Our response focuses on the specific issues experienced by special schools. Whilst we are considering teachers in this submission, we would want the Committee to note the challenges experienced by the wider SEND workforce where we would argue that there are even more significant challenges in the recruitment, retention and training of therapists and social care staff to support residential provision.
Our key points are:
The current situation regarding teacher recruitment and retention
What are the main factors leading to difficulties recruiting and retaining qualified teachers?
We identify the key challenges as being:
Which subjects are most affected?
Subject-based specialism is not a feature of teaching in all special schools. However, special schools face the same challenges as mainstream schools in recruiting maths and science specialists.
How does the situation differ across the country and across different types of schools and colleges?
When NASS first started to explore this topic with its member schools in 2008, research suggested that 50% of head teacher roles could not be filled at the first advertisement. There is no evidence that this has improved over more recent years.
NASS conducts an annual ‘State of the Sector’ survey with its members and asks questions about staff recruitment and retention. Up until 2021, the main concerns raised were about the retention of social care staff. However, in 2021 and 2022, concern about teacher, and teaching assistant, recruitment rose to become the second concern of special schools behind therapist recruitment. As special schools operate as multi-disciplinary organisations, we think it is important to look more widely at the SEND workforce and to note that in many special schools, teachers make up a significant minority of the workforce.
We have reports of schools facing recruitment challenges in all parts of the country. However, schools located in areas where housing is limited by either or both cost and supply face significant additional challenges in attracting new staff – particularly those at an early stage in their career. We would welcome a return of the ‘key homes for key workers’ programme to help try to address this. For example, in some part of Cornwall (where we have 5 member schools), home buying is made almost impossible by inflated market prices and the supply of long-term rental properties is exceptionally low.
What impact does this have on pupils, particularly disadvantaged pupils and those with SEND?
Special Schools succeed based on the quality of people who lead and work in them. They work best for their learners where there is a highly-skilled, consistent and stable workforce with whom children can build lasting, trusting relationships. High turnover, staff absence and unfilled vacancies all undermine special schools’ ability to do this and risk students obtaining poorer outcomes.
What action should the Department take to address the challenges in teacher recruitment and retention?
What has been the impact of the new bursaries and scholarships announced in October?
NASS cannot evidence impact of the bursaries in special schools. Many of our members are excluded from these initiatives by virtue of working in independent special schools. We think this is short-sighted if the aim is to improve the education received by children with SEND, wherever they are educated.
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?
As noted above, many of our schools are excluded from making use of the ECF by virtue of being independent special schools. Given that staff move between sectors across their careers, this position is unhelpful.
Are there ways in which teacher training could be improved to address the challenges in recruitment and retention?
We would like to see Initial Teacher Training better equip new teachers to understand and work effectively with children with special educational needs. We would also like to see better use made of psychometric testing and data to identify what support new teachers might need across their career and to work in ways which play to their strengths and avoid the risk of career burnout.
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?
We recognise that teaching is not unique in the challenges it faces – we see similar difficulties in social care and health professions and recognise that other industries are also struggling.
NASS is currently working to better understand what we could learn from other industries. On 21st June, we will be hosting a round table to think about recruitment and retention in our sector, with input from inside and outside our membership. We are particularly keen to learn from the commercial sector who have largely abandoned the language of ‘recruitment and retention’ to focus instead on the concept of ‘talent management’ – how you support an employee across their career to make the best use of their strengths and abilities. This generally relies on a very ‘micro’ approach – managing according to individual needs. We are interested in understanding what can be done at the ‘macro’ level to influence school systems. For example, there is good research evidence to suggest that teachers at the highest risk of burnout can be identified through a combination of their personality characteristics, beliefs and, to some extent, the qualities of the school that they work in. We do not routinely make use of this evidence to screen teachers for risk of burnout or identify programmes of support which mitigate against this risk. We are hoping that we might be able to run a future pilot looking at this.
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?
Children from Black and minoritized communities are over-represented in special schools. Teachers from Black and minoritized communities – and head teachers in particular – are under-represented in special schools. We do not believe that we can adequately address the latter without also addressing the former. The writer/director Steve McQueen captured some of the history of the relationship between SEND particularly well in the ‘education’ episode of his Small Axe series of films.
April 2023