More than one in three newly appointed secondary school headteachers and deputies aged under 50 leave their post within five years, it has emerged.
And one in four primary school leaders leave within five years of being in post, according to data looking at the retention of headteachers, assistant and deputy heads and middle leaders who are new to their role.
Five-year retention rates have decreased across all school leadership roles, the Department for Education (DfE) figures show.
The figures count leaders as being “retained” if they stay in a state school role at the same grade or higher.
The NAHT headteachers’ union obtained the data from a Freedom of Information request to the DfE, which collects this information but does not routinely publish it.
Paul Whiteman, NAHT general secretary, said the factors ”driving leaders from the job they love” included a 15 per cent real-terms cut to school leaders’ pay since 2010, combined with “high stakes accountability, crushing workload, long hours and inadequate school funding”.
But the DfE “still has no leadership strategy in place to stem the ever-worsening losses”, he added.
Mr Whiteman warned that school leadership supply was “teetering on the brink”.
The warning comes as the NAHT gives oral evidence to the School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB) today.
Middle leaders most likely to leave
The DfE data reveals that attrition rates have increased across all leadership roles when comparing the five-year period 2011-16 with 2015-20.
Of all the different roles, middle leaders at primary and secondary level continue to be most likely to leave within five years of appointment.
And they are increasingly likely to leave: between 2016 and 2020, the proportion of middle leaders leaving the role after five years has risen by three percentage points at primary, to 46 per cent, and by one percentage point at secondary, to 44 per cent.
During the same time period, a quarter of primary headteachers left within five years, with 26 per cent of deputy heads and 29 per cent of assistant heads doing so.
Meanwhile at secondary schools, more than a third (37 per cent) of headteachers and deputy heads left within five years, rising to 39 per cent of assistant heads.
The data is from the 2020 School Workforce Census.
School leaders’ pay cut
Mr Whiteman said the NAHT “urgently” needed the government to work with the union to create a “new” and “fair” deal on pay, workload and accountability.
His concerns are shared by other education unions.
ASCL submitted its STRB evidence on 30 March, supporting the move to £30,000 teacher starting salaries but calling for pay increases for teachers and leaders at other stages in their career, too.
Its evidence highlighted “severe issues” relating to recruitment and retention. It also modelled the “real-terms impact” on school leaders’ pay since 2010, arguing that the government should take “urgent action” to tackle this.
Last month, five headteachers’ and teachers’ leaders called on the STRB and the government to “listen to the united voice of the teaching profession, and make the changes necessary to recruit, retain and properly value teachers and school leaders”.
Last year, a survey by NAHT of 2,000 school leaders found that 93 per cent of school leaders thought the government had failed to support their wellbeing during the pandemic.
Teacher recruitment targets at ‘risk’
There are also concerns about teacher recruitment.
Last month, analysis from the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) found “substantial risk” that teacher recruitment targets will not be met this year across a large range of secondary subjects.
The DfE previously set a target for a reduction in ”teacher wastage” by June 2024.
Teacher wastage refers to teachers who have dropped out of the profession, retired or died by the end of their second year in teaching.
A DfE spokesperson said: ”The overall picture of school leadership in England is positive - vacancy rates are low and the quality of leadership is high, but we do recognise school leaders have faced challenges.
“That is why we are taking a wide range of action to support the profession, including investing £250 million in training opportunities across all stages of teachers’ careers, plus the government’s pay reforms, giving schools greater flexibility to reward exceptional leaders.”
