Schools in England now have more
teachers than ever before, but we know there’s even more we can
do to make sure we’re recruiting the best and brightest educators
for our young people.
Alongside other initiatives,
encouraging former teachers to rejoin the profession is a key way
to strengthen the teacher workforce – around 17,000 teachers
return to the profession every year and make up around a third of
all new teachers in the classroom.
There are many reasons that
ex-teachers re-enter the classroom, such as returning from
parental leave, a career break, or time spent living
abroad.
Here’s what you need to know about our
returners policy.
How are you encouraging former
teachers to return to the classroom?
Former teachers who want to return to
or stay in the profession can access one-to-one tailored support
through our Return to Teaching Advisory
(RTTA)
service.
Prospective returner teachers are
matched with a specialist advisor and given targeted support in
working towards a successful application. This could
include:
-
building
confidence;
-
helping returners navigate changes
in schools since they last taught;
-
helping them find suitable
training;
-
identifying the right role;
-
helping returners with the CV and
application.
Returners can also access courses to
improve subject knowledge and teaching practices, such as
National Professional Qualifications (NPQs)
and useful resources such as
the Early Career Framework
(ECF).
Who is eligible to use the
RTTA?
This service is open
to:
-
returning secondary school teachers
who hold Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) who want to return to
teach in a state school in England;
-
any teacher with QTS who may have
never taught;
-
UK-trained teachers overseas;
-
overseas-trained teachers in
England;
-
overseas-trained teachers who have
recently been awarded QTS, who wish to teach in
England.
What else are you doing to
improve teacher recruitment?
In some key subjects we offer tax-free
bursaries worth up to £27,000 and tax-free scholarships worth up
to £29,000. We provide funding for programmes to boost subject
knowledge, and we are developing a new physics Initial Teacher
Training course for engineers.
We are also supporting recruitment and
retention of specialists in areas where they are most needed
through the Levelling Up Premium.
The Levelling Up Premium is worth up
to £3,000 tax-free annually for maths, physics, chemistry and
computing teachers in the first five years of their careers who
choose to work in disadvantaged schools, including in Education
Investment Areas.
And this September, we will be increasing teacher starting
salaries to a minimum of £30,000 in all regions of the
country.
What are you doing to make
sure teachers stay in the profession?
Teacher retention is key to ensuring
effective teacher supply and quality, and we are taking action to
support teachers to stay in the profession and
thrive.
We have published a range of resources
to help address teacher workload and wellbeing and support
schools to introduce flexible working practices. We’re also
putting together a workload reduction taskforce to explore how we
can go further to support school and trust leaders to minimise
workload.
This will help us meet our ambition to
reduce working hours by five hours per week within three years
for teachers and leaders.
We know that offering high quality
continuing professional development improves teacher retention.
That’s why we’ve developed the biggest teaching reform in a
generation – the Early Career Framework (ECF) – which provides
the solid foundations for a successful career in teaching, backed
by over £130 million a year in funding when fully rolled
out.
The ECF reforms aim to support
teachers and school leaders to feel more confident and in control
of their careers. It sets out what all early career teachers
should learn about and learn how to do during the first two years
of their careers.
You may also be interested in:
