Asked by Baroness Donaghy To ask Her Majesty’s
Government, in the light of figures showing that nearly one-third
of newly qualified teachers leave the profession within five years
of qualifying, what steps they are taking, including continuing
professional development entitlement, to retain them. The
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Asked by
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To ask Her Majesty’s Government, in the light of figures
showing that nearly one-third of newly qualified teachers
leave the profession within five years of qualifying, what
steps they are taking, including continuing professional
development entitlement, to retain them.
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for
Education (Lord Nash) (Con)
My Lords, the proportion of teachers leaving the profession
within five years of qualifying has remained broadly stable
since 1996, with around seven out of 10 teachers still
employed in state-funded schools after that period. We are
addressing key issues such as unnecessary workload and poor
pupil behaviour, and we are investing around £75 million in
the teaching and leadership innovation fund to support
high-quality professional development for teachers and
school leaders in areas of the country that need it most.
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(Lab)
I thank the Minister for his Answer but the Government’s
policy and complacency on this are staggering. I accept
that there will always be some attrition rate but the
record on continuing professional development is towards
the bottom of the 36 OECD countries. In the light of the
failure to recruit sufficient teachers and head teachers,
how do the Government intend to address their failing
policies?
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I think the noble Baroness was referring mainly to CPD.
Last July, we published an entirely new standard for
teacher professional development to help schools understand
more fully what was involved in good CPD. We spend a
significant amount of money on subject enhancement courses.
We continue with high-performing senior and middle leader
courses. We are reforming the NPQs. We have a number of
high- quality MAT CEO courses coming on stream provided by
institutions such as Cranfield University and King’s
College London. We also have the teaching and leadership
innovation fund, to which I referred.
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The Lord
My Lords, does the Minister agree that the working
environment for teachers is so often determined by the
quality and effectiveness of school leaders, and therefore
it is essential to equip school leaders to ensure the
flourishing of their staff as well as their pupils? Will he
be pleased to note with me the launch this weekend of the
Church’s Foundation for Educational Leadership to work in
this field?
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I am delighted to agree with the right reverend Prelate. I
know that the Church is taking the lead in this. It has
engaged in a big way with the Future Leaders Trust’s
executive educators course. I believe it is sending 100 of
its leaders on this course. As I say, we have other courses
coming on stream from the likes of the University of
Salford and a combination of the IoE and Deloitte. It is
very encouraging to see these high-quality providers coming
into this space.
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(LD)
My Lords, Ofsted has required an unsustainable level of
personalised feedback from teachers to students. Although
this guidance has been retracted, it is still common
practice in many schools. An excessive workload, including
data tasks, is damaging the well-being of teachers. What
consideration of teachers’ welfare is measured by Ofsted
during inspections?
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The noble Baroness makes an extremely point. I know that
this issue concerns us all—and Ofsted. We are committed to
reducing teachers’ workload. We conducted the workload
challenge and we are following all the recommendations from
that. Our larger multi-academy trusts are developing
extensive support programmes for their teachers to take a
lot of the workload off them so that they can focus on the
most important thing: teaching in the classroom.
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(Con)
My Lords, I declare an interest as I have a granddaughter
who is just completing Teach First, a two-year course. Is
the Minister aware that not only do the people benefit from
doing these courses but the pupils benefit because they
have very bright, interested people teaching them in those
two years? It is understandable that they should have all
opportunities open to them—teaching or anything else—at the
end of that time. Does he agree?
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I agree entirely with my noble friend. Teach First is
expanding its programme to all areas of the country. It
will have nearly 1,500 new recruits this summer, and it has
some very high-quality, well-educated people.
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(CB)
My Lords, last year’s report from the National Audit Office
recommended that the DfE should focus more on retention,
especially as some subjects, including Spanish and German,
are increasingly being taught by non-specialists. Does the
Minister agree that the DfE should start monitoring
retention by subject so that efforts to dissuade teachers
from leaving could be better targeted?
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I agree entirely with the noble Baroness and that is
something we are looking at very closely. We have recently
introduced a new scholarship, in partnership with the
British Council, to recruit MFL teachers, worth £2,500
tax-free.
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(Lab)
My Lords, I remind the House of my interests relating to my
work at TES. Last Monday, the head of education for the OECD,
Andreas Schleicher, was in London, at a meeting of more than
80 Education Ministers. He reminded them that this country is
the world capital of rote learning—as opposed to the leading
jurisdictions, such as Singapore, Shanghai and Hong Kong,
which have far less rote learning because they focus on
deeper thinking through mastery. Is not the retention problem
in this country that bored teachers are having to fill bored
pupils with too much shallow-level content and not enough
deep thinking?
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I do not agree with the noble Lord, although I have lot of
respect for his experience in this area. One thing we have
done is improve the knowledge in the curriculum because
cognitive science is absolutely clear that to develop skills
such as critical thinking, you need knowledge to apply. We
are also clear that some of our best groups are now
developing much better teaching resources for teachers so
that they do not have to spend time devising lesson plans and
can spend much more time developing the kind of techniques
that the noble Lord refers to.
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(Lab)
My Lords, it beggars belief that just last week the Treasury
cancelled a promised £384 million payment to schools—this at
a time when the DfE itself is cutting school budgets. The
Minister has said that he will address the very real issue of
workload but the initial teacher training figures for this
Session show that only 89% of secondary school places were
filled—just as the “pupil bulge” begins to impact at
secondary level. Does the Minister have anything positive to
say about levels of professional pay to ensure that teaching
remains an attractive profession?
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We have a very strong economy, as this Government and the
previous Government have created what has sometimes been
referred to as a jobs miracle, and many areas are struggling
to recruit. I am sure the noble Lord will be delighted to
hear that this year we are 12% up on maths and science
teachers and 15% up on physics teachers. The number of
returners to the profession is also up by 20% on 2011.
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