Jim Cunningham – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Cunningham on 2016-07-13.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 13 July 2016 to Question 41323, what assessment she has made of the reasons for the increase in the number of teachers leaving state-funded schools between 2011 and 2015; and if she will make a statement.

Nick Gibb

The proportion of teachers leaving the profession has remained at around 10% a year since 1996. However, there are more qualified teachers than ever before with 440,000 in 2011 compared to 456,900 in 2015.

We recognise that it is vital for schools to be able to retain good teachers – that is why we have made policy interventions in the areas that teachers tell us matter most such as improving pupil behaviour and reducing unnecessary workload.

We asked Tom Bennett, a behaviour expert, to chair an expert group to develop core content on behaviour management for the framework of content for initial teacher training, and the group’s recommendations were published last week.

We set up three independent review groups to address unnecessary workload in the key areas of marking, planning and data management. The groups reported early this year, and set out clear principles about what should happen in schools to reduce unnecessary workload in these areas. The Government has accepted all the relevant recommendations made by the groups, and we will continue to work with the teaching profession to make sure they have the ongoing support they need to continue reducing unnecessary teacher workload.

We have recently conducted the first biennial Teacher Workload Survey, which will allow us to track teacher workload over the coming years. The results of the first survey will be published later this year.