Retention rates for newly qualified teachers are beginning to drop back to pre-pandemic levels, new government data reveals.
Data released today by the Department for Education shows an increase in the number of new teachers leaving the sector after one year from 11.7 per cent in 2019 to 12.5 per cent in 2020.
It also shows that retention rates have risen for teachers between two and six years after qualifying, but have fallen for those between seven and 12 years.
James Zuccollo, director for school workforce at the Education Policy Institute (EPI) think tank, said that while it was reassuring” that retention rates had not worsened compared with the previous year on average, the data was collected in November 2021 and so might not yet “reflect a post-pandemic world”.
The figures cover the year to November 2021.
Kevin Courtney, joint general secretary of the NEU teaching union, said the latest information confirmed that the “serious and deep-rooted teacher recruitment and retention problems” still remain.
He said it was “clear that the problems are getting worse”.
Teacher vacancies
Teacher vacancies have seen a big increase on pre-pandemic levels, from 968 in November 2019 to 1,600 in November 2021.
Professor John Howson, chair of TeachVac, said part of the increase “may be down to pandemic and recruitment patterns”.
Although the DfE has said the rise corresponded with an increase in teachers in the workforce, more recent data from TeachVac shows that there might be some cause for concern.
By 31 December 2021 (the end of the collection year), TeachVac had recorded 64,283 teacher vacancies.
However, by the end of May this year, that figure had already been exceeded, with current figures coming in at 68,832.
TeachVac is a national vacancy service, and it checks each vacancy to avoid duplication in its data.
Leavers
Today’s data reveals that 36,300 teachers left the state-funded sector in 2020-21, up by 4,000 since last year but otherwise lower than previous years.
Speaking on Twitter, Jack Worth, lead economist at the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER), said these leaving decisions would have been taken just after the spring 2021 school closures and “before the wider labour market recovered strongly when restrictions were lifted”.
And for the first time, the leaving rate for primary teachers has risen above the leaving rate for secondaries.
The leaving rate for primaries is now 8.0, compared with 7.8 for secondaries.
Gender
Female teachers are still less likely than their male counterparts to be in leadership positions, despite making up more than three-quarters (75.5 per cent) of the workforce.
Today’s data shows the gap is decreasing.
In 2021-22, almost seven in 10 (69.4 per cent) of leadership teachers were female, up from 65.9 per cent in 2010-11.
Teacher ratios
Pupil-to-teacher ratios (PTR) are continuing to increase (up by 1.2 in five years).
Currently, there are 16.7 pupils per teacher in secondary schools.
Mr Courtney said this continuing rise “adds to the already critical problems caused by excessive workload”.
Professor Howson said this was ”partly down to a demographic bulge going through the secondary sector” and he expected ratios to “continue to worsen over the next couple of years”.
Diversity of the workforce
The diversity of the teacher workforce is increasing, with 14.9 per cent belonging to an ethnic minority group in November 2021.
This is up from 11.2 per cent in 2010-11. But a recent report from the NFER shows there is still a lot of work to be done.
Published last month, the report says that there are “significant disparities” between the career progression of non-white teachers and their counterparts.
