Written evidence submitted by the Royal Society

1. Introduction

1.1          The Royal Society welcomes the Education Select Committee’s inquiry into teacher recruitment, training and retention.

1.2          The Royal Society is a Fellowship of many of the world’s most eminent scientists and is the oldest scientific academy in the world. The Society’s fundamental purpose is to recognise, promote, and support excellence in science and to encourage the development and use of science for the benefit of humanity.

1.3          Our strategic priorities are to promote excellence in science; to support international collaboration; and to demonstrate the importance of science to everyone. It is for these reasons that the Society has a long-established schools’ education and policy programme to ensure that the UK maintains its status as a world-leading scientific nation, to encourage science, mathematics and computing education to age 18, and to generate evidence and analysis to support a range of public policy decisions.

2              The current situation regarding teacher recruitment and retention 

What are the main factors leading to difficulties recruiting and retaining qualified teachers?

2.1          The Royal Society believes three key factors are responsible for the continuing difficulties in teacher recruitment and retention:

(i)           Low teachers’ pay

Median pay for teachers in schools in England fell 12 per cent in real terms (from around £48,000 to around £41,500) between 2010/11 and 2022/23, which is 11 percentage points lower for teachers than for other graduates of similar age, gender and region.[1] In general further education colleges, median teacher pay dropped 18% in real terms between 2010/11 and 2022/23 (from around £42,500 to around £34,500)[2].

So it is unsurprising that findings from the Department for Education’s (DfE’s) recently published ‘Working lives of teachers and leaders’ (WLTL) survey of more than 11,000 school leaders and teachers in England show a majority of teachers and leaders (61%) disagreed with the statement that they were satisfied with the salary they receive for the work they do[3]. Teaching is therefore less competitive with other employment sectors[4].

Teachers of the sciences (biology, chemistry, physics), mathematics and computing, which are in particularly short supply, were most likely to disagree with this statement: the levels of disagreement recorded among those surveyed whose main subject taught was physics, biology, computing and mathematics were, respectively, 80%, 70%, 66% and 63%. Further, those whose main subject taught was physics (74%), chemistry (70%), computing (68%) and mathematics (64%) were most likely to disagree with the statement ‘I am satisfied with my longer-term salary prospects compared with other career paths I could follow if I leave (overall disagreement: 58%)’.

Salary differentials between teaching and other occupations are greatest in the physical sciences (and mathematics and computing) where science teacher shortages are greatest.[5] Consequently, schools and colleges will continue to struggle to find suitably qualified staff. Last August, the Association of Colleges found that about three-quarters of colleges in England cannot find suitable staff to teach technical and digital subjects.[6] Similarly, comparative data for the first quarter of 2022 and 2023 have shown teacher vacancies increased 22% in the sciences, 18% in mathematics and 28% in computing[7].

The continuing persistent under-supply and poor retention of teachers in the sciences, mathematics and computing will mean more children, particularly those in disadvantaged communities where there tend to be fewer teachers with specialist backgrounds in these subjects, will be taught by non-specialists and experience a more disrupted education as teachers come and go. This may negatively impact children’s attainment at GCSE, further reduce progression to studying these subjects post-16, exacerbate the continuing under-supply of STEM-skilled talent entering the labour market and damage the UK’s economic ambitions.

(ii)          High teacher workload. This remains greater than for other occupations, despite having fallen during the pandemic. The DfE’s newly published report of its WLTL survey found that more than 70% of teachers and leaders surveyed disagreed with the statement ‘I have an acceptable workload’. This follows previous survey data, including DfE research[8] and the findings from the OECD’s latest quinquennial Teaching and Learning International Survey, which highlighted that:
 

• full-time lower secondary teachers in England reported working, on average, 49.3 hours a week. This was above the OECD average of 41 hours a week and higher than the equivalent figure, of 48.2 hours per week, recorded for in England in TALIS 2013.
• full-time primary teachers in England reported working 52.1 hours a week. This was more than in any other participating country except Japan.
• 53% of primary teachers and 57% of lower-secondary school teachers felt that their workload was unmanageable.

(iii)        Inflexibility of teachers’ working conditions. Compared with other similar graduates, teachers have had more limited opportunities, in particular, to work from home, but also to work part-time, job-share, vary their working day start and end times, or take ad hoc days off when needed or sabbaticals. The DfE’s WLTL survey found that teachers with some degree of flexible working were more likely than those who did not to say they were satisfied with their job most or all of the time and that they felt valued by their school. It also found a cultural resistance to flexible working within teaching, with more than half of those surveyed disagreeing that flexible working is compatible with a teaching career and that flexible working could damage opportunities for career progression.

However, pre-pandemic work undertaken by the Royal Society showed that teachers pursuing ‘braided careers’, which enable them to teach part-time and work part-time for another employer, can be pivotal in ensuring they stay in teaching[9].

2.2          Furthermore:

(iv)        research undertaken for the Royal Society by the NFER using OECD TALIS data has shown that compared to teachers of other subjects, science and mathematics teachers have lower levels of self-efficacy (belief in their own ability) in engaging their students in learning[10]. This could be one factor determining the comparatively poor retention of sciences, mathematics and computing teachers, although the high attrition rates among these teachers is more likely to be due to higher-paid employment opportunities outside teaching.

(v)          graduates may be deterred from entering teaching because of negative perceptions they encounter about the profession in the media and on social media. In addition, individuals’ shared experiences of having to deal with large numbers of students with challenging behaviour can give a misleading impression: the latest WLTL report shows that 62% of those surveyed rated pupil behaviour in their schools as ‘good’ or ‘very good’. This could conceivably deter potential applicants from applying to ITT courses and is not being effectively combated.

(vi)        the teacher recruitment crisis may inadvertently have been exacerbated by the reaccreditation of initial teacher training (ITT) providers instigated by the ITT Market Review. This has caused a reduction in the total number of accredited providers for 2024/25 and fewer teachers may be trained in future. Providers that lost their accreditation trained 605 STEM teachers in 2022/23, including 19% of the total number of physics teachers trained that year[11].

2.3          Importantly, overall numbers of FTE qualified teachers have not kept pace with increasing pupil numbers[12], prompting an increase in the pupil–teacher ratio in state-funded secondary schools from 17.6 in 2010 to 18.8 in 2021. This has increased pressure on teacher supply, particularly given poor teacher retention and high teacher vacancy rates.

Which subjects are most affected?

2.4          The NFER’s 2023 Teacher Labour Market report confirms that England is facing a teacher recruitment crisis in the sciences (biology, chemistry, physics), mathematics and computing, all of which are of vital economic importance:

• physics teachers account for the biggest shortfall in recruitment with just 19% of the target met this year.
• across all sciences, recruitment is at approximately 50% of target.
• only 30% of the target for computing teachers were recruited within 2022/23.
• recruitment to mathematics teacher training slightly improved since the pandemic, although this is more reflective of a significant fall in the recruitment target rather than a substantial increase in teachers.[13]

2.5          Notably, what the Select Committee refers to as the ‘current situation’ regarding teacher recruitment and retention is not the realisation of a new or emerging phenomenon, but rather an acknowledgement that the challenges with teacher recruitment and retention have worsened. As the Royal Society has previously highlighted, shortfalls in the recruitment of sciences and mathematics teachers have existed for over 30 years[14].

2.6          During the past decade, the Government’s ITT recruitment targets in the sciences, mathematics and computing have generally, and consistently, not been met, resulting in a significant cumulative shortfall in recruitment to ITT in these subjects (figure 1). These shortfalls are compounded by poor rates of teacher retention, particularly among newly qualified teachers (NQTs) in these subjects: official statistics indicate that only 60–66% of NQTs in these subjects are in service five years’ post-qualification[15].

How does the situation differ across the country and across different types of schools and colleges?

2.7          Covid-19 caused significant disruption to ITT provision, with reductions in the number of placements available for trainees. The NFER reported that while there were no significant differences in the availability of placements by academy status, region, Ofsted rating or distance to a school’s closest ITT provider, schools with the highest numbers of disadvantaged students were particularly affected[16].
 

2.8          The DfE knows that schools in areas with high deprivation have higher rates of school-to-school mobility and wastage[17]. Within these areas, inland urban districts have the highest rate of leavers to other schools and in general recruit high numbers of newly qualified teachers whereas coastal rural areas had the highest rate of teachers leaving the sector entirely.

2.9          The Education Policy Institute has evidenced that the landscape of ITT provision in England will change substantially because of the reaccreditation process instigated by the ITT Market Review. Providers who were not reaccredited account for almost 30% of all trainee teachers in the South West, North East and East of England[18], so urban and coastal areas in these regions, and particularly schools in areas of disadvantage within them, where learning has been most heavily impacted by the pandemic, will likely have fewer placements to offer and struggle to recruit and retain teachers, especially in the sciences, mathematics and computing.

What impact does this have on pupils, particularly disadvantaged pupils and those with SEND?

2.10      Much of the country, particularly outside London, lacks access to secondary school teachers with degrees in the sciences (especially physics), mathematics or computing. Countrywide, almost half of all key stage 4 mathematics lessons are taught by teachers without a relevant degree. Schools in areas of disadvantage – and pupils with SEND – are particularly likely to have shortages of teachers in these subjects[19]. This matters because the quality of pupils’ learning in the classroom, in terms of them developing deep and fluent knowledge and flexible understanding of subject content, is a vital component of effective teaching[20], and will in turn affect pupils’ enjoyment, attainment and progression. Indeed, the quality of teaching has been shown to be a major determinant of pupils’ interest and achievement in science, which indicates the importance of the quality of ITT.[21] The same could be said for computing and mathematics.

2.11      It is self-evident, then, that the persistent failure to meet teacher training recruitment targets coupled with low rates of retention among qualified teachers and high vacancy rates compound the disruption to children’s education. Last year, secondary school leaders reported a lack of suitably qualified mathematics and physics teachers in the marketplace. This made recruitment difficult and forced many to ask non-specialists to teach these subjects, particularly in schools with the highest level of disadvantage[22].

3              What action should the Department take to address the challenges in teacher recruitment and retention? 

3.1          The Department should seek to reverse the decline in the competitiveness of sciences, mathematics and computing teaching with other occupations; enhance the professionalism of teachers; and raise the status of teaching.
 

3.2          The Department should be working hard with the teaching unions to resolve the damaging wave of pay-related teacher strikes that form part of the backdrop against which this inquiry is taking place. Prolongation of industrial action may negatively impact teacher supply.
 

3.3          The Department needs to demonstrate that it trusts and values teachers and to support and motivate them by:

• allowing them more autonomy within the curriculum and accountability system; 
• encouraging supporting relationships between teachers; 
• offering more intense CPD and embedding it into a teachers’ day-to-day role; 
• reducing workload related to reporting and accountability; and
• encouraging flexible working patterns. 

3.4          The Department needs to focus on improving recruitment and retention of high-quality teachers, particularly in areas of socioeconomic disadvantage where teacher attrition rates and teacher shortages are higher[23]. Teachers of the sciences, mathematics and computing should be incentivised to move to these areas[24] and those teaching in them – and across the country – should be eligible to receive salary supplements[25], retention bonus payments[26] and have access to high-quality professional development to raise teaching quality and teacher satisfaction.
 

3.5          The Department should undertake further actions to improve teacher training and retention (see the subsequent section ‘Are there ways in which teacher training could be improved to address the challenges in recruitment and retention?’).

What has been the impact of the new bursaries and scholarships announced in October?

3.6          Latest data (March 2023) on applications to ITT courses indicate bursaries and scholarships to teacher trainees in the sciences, mathematics and computing may have encouraged an increase in applicants compared to the same time last year.

3.7          However, the NFER has anticipated that bursaries will not encourage sufficient recruitment for the Government to meet its ITT recruitment targets[27].

3.8          While bursaries may boost recruitment into teacher training above the levels that might otherwise be achieved, evidence suggests that bursary holders, particularly in subjects like the sciences, mathematics and computing, may be less likely to take up a teaching role if/after they complete their teacher training.[28] Further, most trainee teachers will begin their training in debt and the level of this may increase due to costs incurred through travel to school placements, which vary across the country and accommodation costs, which also vary considerably, all of which may affect their decision to pursue a teaching career.

4         How well does the current teacher training framework work to prepare new teachers and how could it be improved? 

Are there ways in which teacher training could be improved to address the challenges in recruitment and retention?

4.1          A qualified teacher in England is, theoretically, qualified to teach any subject. However, this is not in the best interests of pupils’ education. It also undermines the value of subject specialism and diminishes the appeal of teaching as a high-status profession. The Royal Society believes Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) should be made subject- and phase-specific[29]. Research has indicated that teaching outside of a teacher’s own specialism increases workload and may increase the likelihood of a teacher leaving the profession[30],[31], and poor retention of science, mathematics and computing subject specialist teachers is a significant continuing concern[32].
 

4.2          The Royal Society believes a full review is needed of postgraduate teacher training courses leading to the award of PCGE. This issue was not adequately addressed by the ITT Market Review. Too little time is available to focus on provisioning subject-specific pedagogical knowledge and covering the requirements of the ITT Core Content Framework. Providers have reported that because time is so tight, they are forced to fit material into their timetable where they can rather than when they would wish to sequence it. The existing arrangements also exert pressure on schools and mentors.
 

4.3          The Royal Society believes the generic ITT Core Content Framework underpinning teacher training is overly prescriptive and downplays the importance of subject-specific training. It should be there for guidance and considered a minimal requirement for provision rather than being a fixed entity. Frameworks of subject-specific content and pedagogical knowledge across ITT courses should be developed alongside the ITT Core Content Framework to ensure that training is universally of the desired consistency, rigour and high quality.[33] The Society believes that these subject-specific frameworks should be developed collaboratively by working with expert providers and the professional/learned subject bodies. These frameworks should:

• recognise links between subjects;
• be geared to combining subject knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge and skills so that teachers can effectively build pupils’ conceptual understanding, and identify and address their misconceptions;
• stress the importance of evidence-based teaching, but not seek to dictate or limit the evidence base that providers draw upon;
• be responsive to changes in the evidence base and changes in policy and practice; and
• promote and encourage innovation and creativity in teacher training provision.

4.4          The ITT Core Content Framework itself should be continuously monitored and revised and updated at suitable intervals, given emerging new evidence or other developments in education. Regrettably there has been no commitment from the DfE to do so.
 

4.5          The Royal Society believes greater investment in high-quality subject-specific mentoring is essential for ensuring mentors know and understand the training curriculum and sufficiently influence trainees’ progress. Mentors should be experienced teachers, sharing the subject specialism of the trainees they are mentoring, and be fully trained in mentoring. Subject-specific mentors in the sciences, mathematics and computing are lacking, and many have to make time for mentoring on top of a full teaching workload. Provision of subject-specific mentoring in primary phase ITT represents an even greater challenge.
 

4.6          High-quality continuing professional development (CPD) is crucial in retaining teachers. Evidence shows that high-quality CPD has a significant positive impact on pupils’ outcomes[34],[35] and teachers’ job satisfaction[36], and that a 35 hour entitlement to CPD could increase student outcomes by two-thirds of a GCSE grade. The Government needs to improve its investment in - and CPD infrastructure - for science education beyond the current settlement. Given the evidence available, the Society believes this requires:

• introducing an entitlement to 35 hours of subject-specific CPD;
• an investment of £87 million over 3 years for science subject-specific CPD;
• establishing an Office for Science Education Teacher Professional Development with funding to support governance and improve the quality, oversight and coordination of science teacher subject CPD[37].

4.7          The Royal Society believes flexible working practices, including enabling teachers to enjoy braided careers in teaching, should be encouraged and would help boost teacher retention.

4.8          The Royal Society believes the Government should review the range, role and efficacy of Subject Knowledge Enhancement (SKE) courses in the sciences, mathematics and computing. Data seen by the Society show that uptake of SKE courses has fallen and that most participants are taking the shorter courses offered.

4.9          The Royal Society believes the Government should monitor the impact on recruitment and retention of its reformed process for facilitating applications from overseas teachers to gain Qualified Teacher Status[38].

What has been the impact of the Early Career Framework implemented in September 2021?

4.10              Last year, Teacher Tapp reported survey findings indicating that the Early Career Framework is insufficiently subject-specific, echoing the concerns above relating to teacher training, and that it may not be improving teacher retention[39].

5                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?

5.1              The demographic make-up of the teaching workforce does not closely mirror that of pupils. According to the latest School Workforce Census[40], 75.5% of England’s teaching workforce is female. Just 14.1% of nursery and primary school teachers, and 35.3% of secondary school teachers, are male.

5.2              However, gender differences are probably not evenly distributed across subjects. Although there appear to be no gender-disaggregated data available for sciences teachers, anecdotally, for instance, physics teachers are more likely to be male.
 

5.3              Census data have also shown an increase in the proportion of male teachers from Black and Minority Ethnic backgrounds in both primary and secondary schools[41]. The NFER has reported that the sciences and mathematics are overrepresented by teachers from Asian and black backgrounds compared to the wider population[42].

April 2023