TTR0098

Written evidence submitted by the London & South East Education Group

About London & South East Education Group

London & South East Education Group is a social enterprise that comprises two large organisations: London South East Academies Trust (LSEAT) and London South East Colleges (LSEC). The Group was formed in 2018, encompassing our college and multi-academy trust which have both been growing since then, bringing together more campuses and academies. This over-arching organisation reflects our growth since the merger and position as the leading educational provider in south east London. We became a social enterprise in 2019 in order to fulfil both our college and academies’ role as anchor institutions and to contribute to creating economic and social prosperity on top of delivering high-quality education. Promoting local skills and employment is fundamental to our strategies for generating social value and enhancing our positive impact in local communities[1]. We are one of the major employers in the south east London area with over 1,300 employees, and maintaining high levels of staff satisfaction is one of our 2019/2023 goals[2].

The following gives an overview of our Early Years Foundation (EYF) to adult learning provision and describes the issues we currently face in the recruitment, retention, and training of teaching staff. In our response we include details about other learner-facing roles, given the difficulties recruiting and retaining teaching assistants (TA) and learning support assistants (LSA). These roles provide important support in the classroom, and therefore are fundamental to the student experience and outcomes.

Summary

Teacher recruitment has been a persistent challenge in the sector for some years, which when considered alongside the number of teachers leaving the profession, paints a worrying picture as it is imperative that schools and colleges have sufficient qualified staff to provide learners with high quality teaching and learning. At a national level we continue to see concerns raised about recruitment (e.g. NFER’s 2023 Annual Report[3]), and these concerns are reflected both in our Trust and College. Recruitment has been especially challenging this year (2023), even more so than in the previous two years. The Covid-19 pandemic temporarily improved recruiting at primary and secondary levels as teaching was perceived as a stable option during an uncertain time. Despite this surge, recruitment rates have declined in the last year. Since the Covid-19 pandemic, the number of applicants has decreased, and we have seen a decline in the quality of applicants through recruitment agencies.

We currently have high levels of vacancies in our schools, particularly for science and maths teachers, while the College struggles most finding teachers for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM), Health and Social Care, and Special Education Needs and Disabilities (SEND). Recruiting for learner-facing roles – both Teacher Assistants (TA) in schools and Learning Support Assistants (LSAs) in College – has been increasingly challenging. Vacancies for teachers, TAs and LSAs frequently have to be advertised often two or three times before being successful. We find that recruitment is especially difficult in AP settings and special schools supporting children and young people with SEMH needs. The growing demand for SEMH provision is not met by the supply  of people entering the profession, and there is a lack of knowledge about and familiarity with AP and specialist settings in the Initial Teacher Training and Early Career frameworks.

Our retention rates have also started to fall in the last year, reflecting a national trend. Although major efforts have been put in place through our People and Culture Strategy to promote wellbeing and mental health, we fear that high levels of vacancies and heavy reliance on agency staff are increasing pressure on existing staff, leading to high workloads and work-related stress.

The talent shortage and high rates leaving the profession are ultimately detrimental to the student experience. Disadvantaged students and pupils with SEND are at more risk. Most of the research and policy literature focuses on workforce issues in mainstream schools, describing these as more acute in settings serving more disadvantaged students and the impact on student outcomes.  We see these challenges across our schools and college campuses which are in areas of high deprivation, providing education for high percentages of students eligible for Free School Meals (FSM), Looked After Children (LAC) and pupils with diverse Social, Emotional and Mental Health (SEMH) needs. We know that having a high-quality teacher in the classroom can make a real difference, and is critical to reducing attainment gaps. This is particularly important as the education sector recovers from the pandemic which significantly disrupted learning, and continues to present additional challenges for the sector.

1. London South East Academies Trust (LSEAT)

1.1. Our primary, secondary and KS5 provision

LSEAT is a multi-academy trust (MAT) comprising one mainstream, and eight special and alternative provision (AP) academies, with over 1,200 pupils across the boroughs of Bromley, Bexley and Lambeth, and Surrey County. Our reach and coverage go from EYF stage to Key Stage (KS) 5.

We prepare all our young people for the next step in their lives and for career success. Our holistic approach enables every child to flourish and achieve their full potential, regardless of social background or ability. For Spring Term 2022, 67 of our pupils were in EYF, 713 in primary, 395 in secondary and 33 in KS5. Our academies serve some of the most disadvantaged areas of South East London – the Borough of Lambeth ranked 69 of the 316 local authorities in England in the 2019 Index of Multiple Deprivations (IMD); with Bexley at 170 and Bromley at 209. Moreover, in affluent areas such as Surrey County and the Borough of Bromley, our schools are in areas of higher deprivation with some having over 60% of students eligible for Pupil Premium. Most of our pupils have a high proportion of social, emotional, and mental health (SEMH) needs as well – more than 70% of our pupils within LSEAT have a special educational need of which 57% have Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs) while the remainder are classified as SEN Support. Moreover, 39% of our total LSEAT SEN student cohort have SEMH and 33% are in the Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD).

1.2. Teacher recruitment and retention in LSEAT

Teacher recruitment in LSEAT

The schools within our trust are currently seeking to fill vacancies at all levels, with 13 roles being advertised at the moment. The situation is especially critical when looking for TAs – in October 2022, there were 29 TA vacancies at the same time (15 of them corresponding to just one of our AP settings) which could not be filled before the start of the academic year. While hiring primary school teachers is generally challenging, in our secondary schools science and maths are especially difficult to recruit.

The Trust’s situation corresponds with a national increase in the teacher vacancy rate as the number of reported vacancies in state-funded schools went from 452 in November 2010 to 1,564 in 2021 – i.e. 0.1% to 0.3% of the workforce[4]. In LSEAT, vacancies are rarely filled after being posted for the first time and they frequently have to be readvertised at least two or three times. Many of the teaching roles that are currently being advertised have only one or no applicants, although the number of applicants slightly increases according to the salary offer.

Difficulties with teaching staff recruitment affect the academies as a whole. All staff must work harder during long periods with vacancies and despite using cover staff, support staff and teaching staff have to fill staffing gaps by rearranging classes and timetables. This not only affects students’ experience but likewise puts more pressure on staff, resulting in increasing sick leave and instances of staff leaving the profession.

Retention in LSEAT

Difficulties in recruitment overlap with the high numbers of people leaving the profession. LSEAT’s historically good retention rates have decreased in the last year and our human resources team foresees an increase in resignation rates after 31 May 2023. The staff turnover in the Trust is 15.4% which we understand to be in line with the sector rates. This is due to people leaving the profession or changing settings, with retirement being relatively rare. This pattern is shared across our AP settings with the only exception being our mainstream school.

We have taken steps to incentivise retention by making wellbeing a priority, promoting a work-life balance, and providing support to ease the pressures put on our staff. The Trust has also implemented bonus systems and created career pathways in which our staff can progress in their role, for which CPD is critical as described in section 3 below. Forming a MAT has proved to be advantageous in this sense because retention strategies can be delivered from a trust perspective by sharing support services and giving teachers the opportunity to work across multiple schools and to get more experience.

Recruitment and retention challenges in AP and SEND settings

Among the reasons for poor recruitment are the particular challenges of working in AP and specialist schools – our eight special schools and AP settings find it more difficult to recruit teaching staff compared to our mainstream school. The high levels of responsibility and expectation put on professionals in AP academies hinder our attempts to find the right teaching staff. We know that not every applicant will be suited for the environment, even if they are excellent teachers. Many of our pupils have high behaviour needs and deal with difficult issues at home including mental health and domestic abuse. Many have different SEMH needs as well, with most of our SEMH pupils being around two years behind academically when they join our schools. Most have ECHPs, around two-thirds have speech and language issues, and many are on the autistic spectrum.

This context makes for a challenging and often unpredictable working environment, adding emotional and physical load to the teaching profession. While no additional qualifications are needed to teach in AP, our settings demand particular social and emotional skills from teachers such as resilience and flexibility. Nevertheless, as the current strike actions reflect, academies cannot make pay offers commensurate with the high degree of skill and responsibility invested in these roles as academies operate under very tight budgets. Overall, this disincentivises attempts to build a career in the sector.

2. London South East Colleges (LSEC)

2.1. Our further education provision

LSEC is an award-winning large further and higher education college operating across some of the most deprived areas of South East London, with over 10,000 students across six campuses, supported by around 700 members of staff. In 2021–22, we delivered 15,600 qualifications in the boroughs of Greenwich, Bexley, and Bromley.

We teach vocational subjects at Levels 1, 2 and 3 – right through to BA Honours degrees, Access to HE courses, apprenticeships, professional qualifications in our University Centre, as well as a distance learning provision. While around 3,600 of our students are aged 16-18, 3,700 are over 19. Therefore, our focus continues to be on careers and ensuring that all our learners are supported into fulfilling employment. We work in partnership with the Royal Borough of Greenwich to provide Adult Community Learning (ACL) courses, giving people of all ages the chance to learn something new, develop skills and socialise within their local areas. We achieve this by engaging with over 1,000 businesses regionally and nationally, ensuring that every curriculum is wholly relevant to its specific industry. A new Curriculum Strategy 2023/2028 is being developed using a collaborative approach, through a consulting exercise with key stakeholders and employers. This strategy harnesses existing relationships that have been built via our six employer boards to identify skills needs across sectors and design a curriculum accordingly.

2.2. Teacher recruitment, training, and retention in LSEC

Recruitment in LSEC

LSEC is actively hiring, with 20 lecturer roles being advertised as of 18th April. Our Human Resources data show that the three areas that are most difficult to recruit are STEM, Health and Social Care, and SEND. Persistent challenges are also faced with roles in business and tourism curriculum areas. Similar to LSEAT, vacancies for LSEC tend to be advertised at least two or three times, with some posts being vacant for over a year.

This is particularly worrying because teacher shortages correspond with areas that are priorities in LSEC’s Curriculum Strategy and to meet local, regional and national skills demands. For instance, the shortage of STEM teachers hinders the College’s efforts for improving its green and digital skills provision, which is critical to support learners into the green jobs needed for achieving the UK’s and the GLA’s net zero targets. Important funding has been awarded for this purpose through the Local London Green Academies Partnership and the Local London Green and Digital Mayoral Academy – funded by the Department for Education’s Strategic Development Fund (SDF) and the GLA, respectively. Nevertheless, we still face challenges when upskilling and recruiting specialist teaching and training staff that would broaden our provision in areas such as retrofitting and electric vehicle charging. One of the challenges recruiting staff in these areas is the competition with industry pay rates which are higher than those offered in the education sector. As described below, LSEC has implemented recruitment and retention strategies to try and address this, although this remains challenging for us and the sector given the FE funding and policy context[5].

Learner-facing roles are especially difficult to fill. As with TAs in schools, finding the right Learning Support Assistants (LSAs) is challenging. As of 18th April, LSEC was advertising for 23 LSA and four senior LSA vacancies – i.e. 35% of LSEC´s total vacancies advertised at the moment. This situation particularly affects our SEND provision for which LSAs are harder to recruit as opposed to lecturer roles. The College hosted two events between 17th and 21st April to try to overcome this general shortage and relies greatly on agency workers to cover vacant positions. However, some of these agency cover lecturers do not meet required quality standards. Like other colleges, LSEC is concerned about the significant monetary impact vacancies have, facing increasing agency fees and costs associated with inducting cover staff in temporary roles who are going to leave. While the current level of vacancies and the heavy reliance on agency staff is creating increased pressure on existing staff, there is concern that it can also be negatively impacting the learner experience and that it might be related to decreasing levels of attendance.

Retention in LSEC

LSEC’s staff turnover for this academic year (2022/23) is currently 15.8% (as of 3rd March). As seen with the rest of the education sector, retention figures in the College are similar to pre-pandemic rates for the FE sector (12% for teaching staff and between 10% and 16% for different support roles[6]). Despite our budget challenges reflecting the situation of the sector at large, LSEC has no union currently undertaking strike action. As described in the section below, the retention strategy around payment has focused on i) recruitment and retention allowances to recognise teachers that could be paid more if they were working in the industry (such as in STEM areas, as well as Maths and English), and ii) non-monetary rewards, which are holistic recognitions and benefits such as having a better pension scheme and holidays than other sectors.

3. London & South East Education Group’s (LSEEG) People and Culture Strategy

The Group’s People and Culture Strategy 2019/2024 is structured around seven themes: recruitment, reward, recognition, retention, roles and responsibilities, reporting, and regulations. The strategy has responded to the changing factors in the sector, and the need to diversify our recruitment strategies makes evident the complex issues in recruitment nowadays. The current strategy for recruiting both at the trust and the college includes using supply agencies, headhunters, social media, and a variety of job boards to a large extent. We attend external events and host recruitment events ourselves, flyers have even been distributed in car parks and finding fees have been offered to current employees to refer friends. Despite these efforts, recruitment is still very challenging.

Under this shortage, strategies for career progression and upskilling among existing staff have been strengthened. Apprenticeships in teaching are a great opportunity for this and it is currently encouraged across both the Trust and the College, either for TAs and LSAs wanting to become teachers or for professionals recruited from industry who have no experience in teaching. While funding is available via the apprenticeship levy for these qualifications, there are still challenges relating to staff protecting the 20% of their job time (6 hours per week) to complete apprenticeship coursework.

At primary and secondary levels, LSEAT has found it challenging to ensure staff qualify – even though they might be very good with pupils – have no formal qualifications. For example, some staff would need to take their GCSEs in Maths and English to proceed to undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in teaching. Even if they did it through the apprenticeship route, this 4-year path is not appealing for many. LSEAT has put in place a Professional Studies Course for Unqualified Teachers delivered over 8 sessions during the Spring and Summer terms as a Continuing Professional Development (CPD) strategy to tackle this challenge.

Within our People and Culture Strategy, good staff retention is promoted by continuing to foster a value-based culture focused on diversity, inclusivity, wellbeing, resilience rand positive staff engagement. Many HR actions aim at promoting work-life balance and reducing work-related stress. An example of this was the pilot for a four-day working week for maths, English and STEM teachers undertaken by LSEC in 2021. The trial aimed to make the college a more attractive employer, tackle staff shortages and promote retention. Another focus has been on managing workload in order to improve mental health and wellbeing and prevent burnout. Some of our staff benefits which aim to promote work-life balance and wellbeing include access to gym, yoga classes, and hair and beauty discounts at our salons in campus.

Some reward and recognition initiatives for improving wellbeing and preventing burnout have been implemented at low cost or no cost. For instance, LSEC has recently allocated a Wellbeing Day in which College will be closed to students and staff in order to take a break and focus on their mental health and wellbeing in the best way that works for them. Wellbeing Weeks also take place in the summer where the majority of staff take the same two weeks off which promotes rest and disconnection from work.

LSEC also has a Mental Health Champions programme which empowers passionate staff to become advocates for mental health in every curriculum area. Staff often feel they can approach their peers more easily than support areas like Human Resources or the Senior Leadership Team – peers can act as a vital first point of contact and signpost more specialist support. With a specialist mental health action plan, LSEC is signed up to the Association of Colleges’ Mental Health and Wellbeing Charter.

4. Policy recommendations

Initial Teacher Training (ITT) Framework and the Early Career Framework

Although the ITT Framework has been developed and improved, it still does not incentivise trainees to join AP and SEMH settings. For example, recruitment could be easier if some weeks of practice in specialists schools and AP settings was made compulsory as part of the training. Trainees often know little about how these settings differ from mainstream schools and early career teachers may have many misconceptions about them such as the pupil-teacher ratio or the level of support available in classroom.

Our academies report having successfully implemented the Early Career Framework, which has been mainly attributed to a positive experience with both the training provider and appropriate body which are common across the Trust. Nevertheless, in many cases even the training for early career teachers (ECT) working in our AP and specialist settings has a considerably general view that would be more applicable to mainstream schools, except for some cohorts. Despite this giving ECT transferable skills and adding to their career pathways if they later decide to leave AP, it reflects a general shortcoming in training to provide a realistic understanding of what AP might look like as a potential future path.

We are aware that some of these concerns might be addressed in the future as following the SEND and AP Improvement Plan published in March 2023 there is an ongoing consultation regarding the ITT and Early Career frameworks. Likewise, guidance is also being produced for providers to involve placements in special schools and APs to improve experience and expertise in this area. Although these are exciting developments for the sector, the complexity and pressing nature of the situation we currently face requires not only funding but also effective and timely solutions to address the massive teacher shortage.

Advertising vacancies

In March 2018 the DfE launched a website for advertising teacher vacancies[7] which the Group has used successfully. Nevertheless, awareness of the need to diversify recruitment strategies is growing since advertising vacancies has fallen short. With national FE vacancy levels twice as high as pre-pandemic rates, the probability of successfully recruiting by using traditional methods is reduced. Despite posting roles in all the job boards available, recruitment is still a challenge, moreover when other schools and colleges compete for the same applicants in the same websites.

Upskilling

Even though apprenticeships are a very good option for upskilling professionals into teaching roles, many highly competent and highly experienced TAs and teachers may not be interested in undertaking additional studies or may be deterred by the workload involved in studying alongside existing work and other commitments. A scheme for translating lived experience and professional experience into credit towards teaching qualifications could reduce the required workload and make upskilling more feasible.

Taking Teaching Further (TTF)

LSEC was one of the first FE providers to deliver a project through the Education and Training Foundation’s (ETF) TTF programme when launched in 2018. Funded by the DfE, this project has supported the College’s efforts not only to attract industry professionals with technical expertise to teach in FE, but also to make our courses relevant to new developments in industry and prepare our pupils for work. Although this funding has been successfully supported numerous strategies we have for attracting skilled professionals from the industry, it has not fully eased the challenges of recruitment and low levels of applications. Therefore, our efforts in this area include posting vacancies in specialist industry press and linking directly with companies in industries which are currently making people redundant in order to identify recruitment opportunities.

Pay

Low salaries in the sector underly many of the issues described in teacher recruitment and retention. Nationally, FE teachers’ situation is dramatic as the recommended pay of college teachers has declined by 18% in real terms between 2010/11 and 2022/23, accelerated by inflation which in just the past two years contributed to a 9% decline[8]. Moreover, the gap between the average salary of school and college teachers broadened during this period, with the median salary of school teachers falling by 14% in real terms – compared to 19% in the case of college teachers. Following the increase in starting salaries for school teachers, September 2023 will be the first time on record when new school teachers will earn more than the average new college teacher.

Therefore, the already critical situation seen with salaries in primary and secondary education is especially acute in FE. College leaders are striving to promote recruitment and retention amidst ongoing funding cuts by using monetary strategies (such as allowances for professionals in particular sectors) and low cost and no cost strategies to improve wellbeing and mental health support among our staff. Nevertheless, the sustainability of these strategies is at risk if budgets keep shrinking. Between 2010/11 and 2019/20, the sector has experienced dropping budgets – a 14% decreased spending per student in 16-18 education, and near 50% on classroom-based 19+ education. Already low existing budgets and other cost pressures keep falling short in face of the need to attract and retain qualified teachers in the sector.

Alongside salary and budget revisions, policies to decrease the workload in teaching, increase the pupil to teacher ratio, and provide effective professional and mental health support for both early career and experienced teachers are pressing. Moreover, given that current budgets hinder competition with industry salaries, innovative strategies of partnership and collaboration should be explored as short- and medium-term solutions. In this scenario, the government could provide strategic coordination and incentives that support FE providers’ attempts to attract qualified professionals in order that the student experience is not affected.

April 2023

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