New research reveals the use of
non-specialist teachers is more prevalent in schools facing
teacher supply challenges, and that this is likely to have a
detrimental impact on pupils’ education and learning.
The data, covering schools in England, shows that among secondary
schools finding teacher recruitment the most difficult, 62 per
cent reported at least ‘some’ maths lessons being taught by
non-specialists, 55 per cent for physics and 26 per cent for
Modern Foreign Languages (MFL). This compares to 28 per cent for
maths, 29 per cent for physics and 14 per cent for MFL in the
schools that reported finding teacher recruitment the least
difficult.
The study, conducted by the National Foundation for Educational
Research (NFER) and funded by the Nuffield Foundation, examines
national and local level trends in teacher recruitment and
retention in England.
NFER surveyed nationally representative samples of senior leaders
with responsibility for staffing in autumn 2020 (reflecting on
the 2019/20 academic year) and autumn 2021 (reflecting on the
2020/21 academic year) to gather information about their
experience of teacher recruitment, retention and what actions, if
any, they had taken to manage shortages.
It found that many secondary schools are facing recruitment
challenges. School leaders were asked to rate the extent they
were ‘unable to assemble a field of quality applicants’ (1 being
‘not at all’ and 8 being ‘to a great extent’). On average,
secondary school leaders said 5 and primary school leaders 3.8.
NFER School Workforce Lead and co-author of the report,
Jack Worth, said:
“The growing recruitment and retention challenges in England are
likely to be having negative impacts on pupils’ education and
learning. Under-recruitment to initial teacher training leads to
school leaders facing teacher recruitment shortages, which they
can mitigate to some extent by, for example, deploying
non-specialist teachers or asking school leaders to take on more
teaching. But these measures make school improvement harder right
across the system.
“We call on the Government to place a renewed focus on improving
teacher recruitment and retention, to ensure a sufficient supply
of teachers, and in turn, support the improvement of pupil
outcomes in schools throughout the education system.”
Josh Hillman, Director of Education at The Nuffield
Foundation said:
“Knowledgeable and inspiring teachers are vital for ensuring that
every pupil receives a high-quality education. It is therefore of
great concern that the report's findings highlight how
recruitment challenges are leading to an increased use of
non-specialist teachers, particularly in schools struggling to
hire teaching staff, and in particular parts of the country.”
Other findings include:
- Quantity and quality of applicants to vacancies are
particularly acute challenges for secondary schools, where
recruitment of trainees to teacher training programmes has been
below the target numbers required for many years.
- Schools that reported finding teacher recruitment the most
difficult were considerably more likely than other schools to
report recruiting less-experienced teachers than they would
otherwise like, and more likely to employ more unqualified
teachers then they normally would. Recruiting inexperienced or
unqualified teachers may have negative implications for teaching
quality.
- In the autumn 2020 survey, only 13 per cent of primary school
leaders and 27 per cent of secondary school leaders reported that
they could have afforded to recruit another teacher, regardless
of whether they wanted to or not.
As part of NFER’s research into England’s growing teacher
recruitment and retention challenges, it has created a data
dashboard, in partnership with the Nuffield Foundation, which
will launch in December. The tool provides information on the
nature of the recruitment and retention challenges, and their
implications for pupils and schools in terms of teacher
shortages, across different dimensions, including geography,
subject and school types.
