Last week we learned about a number of possible strategies to address the crisis in teacher retention and recruitment.
The Commons Education Select Committee inquiry heard evidence from initial teacher training (ITT) providers; the NFER (National Foundation for Educational Research) published its annual report on the teacher labour market and pay strategy policy options; and finally the School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB) published its 33rd report - just after the government accepted the recommendations of all its public sector pay review bodies.
If accepted, the teacher pay deal will halt industrial action for now - but we need to use these reports as a catalyst to think about how we can strategically plan for teaching to be seen as an attractive long-term option for graduates.
Paying secondary teachers more?
The NFER (and the STRB) advocate raising teachers’ salaries over time to restore competitiveness against private sector graduate salaries. However, the NFER put forward three ideas of how this could be done - with balanced, bold and adventurous options.
Most notable was the “adventurous” option, which, among other things, suggested that because recruitment and retention of primary teachers is less problematic, secondary teachers would see their pay rise more over time than their primary colleagues.
Of course, while this might target pay cost-effectively, it would be unfair to primary colleagues who have to cover the whole range of subjects in their daily teaching and now have to have the depth of specialist knowledge required to satisfy the Ofsted inspectors taking deep dives into the curriculum. Secondary teachers require such intense expertise in only one or two subjects.
It could also constitute gender discrimination, given that in primary schools 17 per cent of teachers are men, compared with 35 per cent in secondary schools. Moreover, in situations where pay is less competitive, men have been known to depart more quickly than women.
It’s an eye-catching idea but one that is unlikely to go far.
Stopping teachers falling off the ‘cliff edge’
The Commons Education Select Committee had a more dynamic view as it explored the scenario for new teachers: the reasonably attractive starting salary and early incremental pay increases; the intensive training and mentoring.
But, very reasonably, it asked what happens when these teachers reach “the cliff edge”, when salary and prospects seem to fall away.
Among suggestions to motivate teachers to remain in the profession was that more teachers who are two or so years past the Early Career Framework should be encouraged to become mentors to their less experienced colleagues. This would have a threefold benefit if it increases the pool of available mentors, ensures that the first two years of teaching are well-supported, and inspires the mentors.
But while it’s widely recognised that mentors play a “pivotal role”, their contribution attracts a heavy workload. There was no real discussion about financial reward or formally including it in a more comprehensive career structure.
A bolder vision for mentoring
But is this broad view sufficiently far-reaching? Why limit the benefits of mentoring to the earliest career stages? There is much that schools could learn from practice in further education.
Mentoring is already available to FE teachers who identify aspects of their practice to improve after lesson observations or through proactively seeking mentoring support. Remission is given and mentoring built into the mentors’ job structure.
A bolder vision would be to use mentoring to support career development and succession planning, which would raise levels of aspiration.
Mentors could be drawn from various levels of the organisation, even in middle and senior leadership, to help ambitious teachers plan their own pathways, identify training and take up shadowing opportunities, evaluate progress and set their goals.
There would be a training cost for coaching skills via a recognised qualification, but the long-term payoff would be more fulfilled teachers, better retention rates - and it would benefit the system as a whole by ensuring a better pool of candidates for headships.
Recognising other career routes
Most notable was the STRB’s position: it is insistent that investment is needed to ensure that teaching can compete against other openings in a much healthier graduate jobs market.
“Investment is needed to proactively manage the worsening recruitment position and declining competitiveness of teacher pay. The cost of failure is high: it affects teaching quality and adversely impacts on children’s education,” it says.
This is why it made its recommendation for a pay increase of 6.5 per cent, which was - finally - accepted by the government.
Within its report, though, it also recommends that performance-related pay should be withdrawn, which is a welcome proposal because it would lessen workload around appraisal and salary discussions, as well as eliminating the possibility of gender or racial inequality when bonuses are decided.
It is also pleasing that the STRB says a more holistic strategy is needed for a more well-planned pay and career structure, not least to reflect the longstanding criticism that there is “an over-emphasis on a linear hierarchical pathway to leadership”.
It advocates for new “pathways for teaching specialists, mentors and special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) professionals”.
This strategic approach would ensure that classroom professionals could finally find rewarding work when subject specialists, SEND professionals and mentors are given their place in the career and pay structure.
Reinforcing the role of research
Indeed, the report notes that the scope of the School Teachers’ Pay and Conditions document, which covers pay awards, may need updating if the sector is to recognise that there are some roles that sit outside this but that are important to how teachers’ careers develop.
For example, academic research within schools is increasingly taken on by teachers - not least through 22 research schools - but it is unclear at present how teachers who take on responsibility for research are recognised and rewarded in terms of salary and promotions.
If, though, the functions of research and mentoring were subsumed into a new career structure, greater value for money would be achieved because schools would be more future-focused, staffing would be more stable and teachers would be more resilient.
The need to find urgent solutions
Overall, the government’s decision to accept the STRB’s pay recommendation appears to have resolved the current standoff.
But it seems clear that unless structural changes are made to how teachers are rewarded over the longer term, such a situation will repeat itself again soon.
Ideas like those outlined above show that we need to think deeply about how else the profession can reward its staff and ensure that workloads remain manageable.
Yvonne Williams, who has been teaching for more than 30 years, was a member of the Department for Education Marking Policy Review Group, which looked at teacher workload in 2015-2016
