Stephen Timms – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stephen Timms on 2016-03-17.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to encourage older professionals to enter the teaching profession for the first time.

Nick Gibb

Career changers are an important source of new teachers and bring relevant knowledge and skills from their previous employment. The number of teachers returning to the profession has increased from 11,710 in 2011 to 14,100 in 2014.

In 2015/16, 21% of new entrants to initial teacher training (ITT) courses were aged 30 and above. Our marketing campaign, Your Future Their Future, uses a range of advertising to promote teacher recruitment. As part of this we run a month-long ‘New Year New Career’ sub-campaign in January of each year which is dedicated to attracting more career changers to teaching.

We provide specific support for career changers to make the transition to teaching and particularly for the subjects that are needed the most, which includes:

• The School Direct (salaried) route, which is specifically targeted at career changers with three years’ work experience and allows them to earn a salary whilst they train to teach.

• Working with 18 School Direct lead schools to develop and recruit to flexible School Direct (salaried) courses in mathematics and physics, starting in September 2016.

Career changers can access support including bursaries or scholarships of up to £30,000 tax-free; advice and guidance from the expert advisers on the Get Into Teaching Line; help with arranging school experience to assist with their ITT application; and access to our free Train to Teach events.