Teacher retention is critical to school effectiveness - after all, children thrive when they are taught by individuals they know and trust.

This is why last month’s Education Support’s Commission on Teacher Retention report and its recommendations to retain teachers sparked a flurry of conversations with current and ex-teachers on what we might do about improving retention.

I asked one who moved to teach overseas whether she would return to the profession if the pay and conditions matched the school she had left. Her response? “In a heartbeat.” Hope!

But wait - what was the pay and what were the conditions? It turned out she earned around £40,000 after tax, a salary that was supplemented by medical insurance, flights home, free accommodation and free transport to and from school.

While a new pay deal for teachers in England is certainly welcome news, perks and pay like that are just not going to happen.

However, while pay may be improved, what can make a huge difference to retention is the actual conditions of teaching that staff enjoy in schools - something many headteachers are making strides on to ensure staff are happy, motivated and, crucially, happy to stick around for the long-term.

Three key areas of focus

The most common thread among all the heads I spoke to was that they sought to improve the working conditions of their teachers by focusing on three things: behaviour, curriculum and assessment.

In the most successful schools I’ve visited and led in, pupil behaviour rarely disrupts learning and when it does, the system is simple, easy to use and understood by all.

In schools where there is a strong central curriculum with easily used resources, such as appropriate textbooks or booklets with reading and well-structured learning activities, teachers can focus their planning on adapting resources for their particular class’s needs, rather than sourcing all the knowledge to be learned and all the things the children might do with that knowledge from scratch.

Finally, schools that have reduced formal assessment and data collection meet with happier teachers. Combining an assessment-light approach with whole-class feedback in lieu of book marking removes hours and hours of teacher workload.

Don’t count the hours, count the work

In addition, working hours need to cease to be of interest to leaders - one head I worked for made a point of leaving the building when everyone could see her. Did she work from home afterwards? Undoubtedly. Did others leave earlier because they’d received the message it was OK to do so? Absolutely.

Carly Moran, headteacher at Orchard Park High School in Croydon, agrees: “Don’t count the hours worked, recognise the work done.”

Katie Hanley, executive principal at Harris Primary Academy Mayflower, says: “Getting staff to want to stay is less about the monetary rewards and more about how they are treated, valued and what the culture and climate feel like on a day-to-day basis.”

The importance of training

This includes how teacher time is respected.

Moran calendars her Inset days at the beginning or end of the term to support with any planning or assessment activities that may require additional teacher time, as well as conducting surveys with her middle leaders and explicitly asking them to name any tasks they consider “pointless” so she can strip them out of teachers’ workload.

Indeed, Inset and its accompanying professional development remain critical for retaining teachers - however, Ofsted’s May 2023 review of teacher professional development notes that teachers value and would like more time for training.

Hanley agrees: “Development is important and we actively encourage staff to complete any training that will stretch them and also contribute positively towards the school.”

Of course, though, no school wants to train up staff only to see them leave - which Hanley says she is aware can happen - and so there is also an active effort to help teachers’ careers progress at the school to keep them on the books for as long as possible.

“To avoid training and losing staff, opportunities are created early each year for promotions, rather than waiting for people to get itchy feet and begin to look elsewhere,” says Hanley.

Inspire existing pupils

Another interesting idea for inspiring and retaining new staff comes from Biddenham International School and Sports College in Bedford, where principal David Bailey can count a significant proportion of ex-students among his staff.

“We currently have 18 teachers who are ex-Biddenham students…whose backgrounds reflect the ethnic diversity of the school…our longest serving has been with us for 16 years; the newest will join us next year,” he explains.

A pipeline of invested, engaged and known teachers is something many schools would benefit from - so, how did they do it? Partly, this process is cyclical. Bailey says: “There is a sort of alumni network - the students going through know they are being taught by ex-students, and so they see the possibility for themselves.”

To bolster this, the school ensures that teacher training providers lead inspiring assemblies with the sixth-formers, making the path to becoming a teacher explicit.

While there is plenty to be concerned about regarding teacher retention, it is clear that school leaders across the country and across diverse settings are thinking and working hard to stem the flow and create happy, balanced environments where both pupils and adults can thrive.

Jo Facer is a former headteacher and the head of the National Professional Qualifications faculty at the National Institute of Teaching