Inquiry Into Secondary Education Teacher Retention

THE RESPONSE OF THE NATIONAL UNION OF TEACHERS TO THE HOUSE OF COMMONS’ EDUCATION AND SKILLS COMMITTEE INQUIRY INTO SECONDARY EDUCATION TEACHER RETENTION

Summary

The evidence submitted describes a general picture of recruitment and retention of teachers to the profession with reference to the particular circumstances facing secondary recruitment and retention.

Evidence from both Government studies, such as that commissioned from PricewaterhouseCoopers, and the NUT’s own studies and research point to four reasons for teachers leaving the profession. They are:

• excessive workload;

• unacceptable pupil behaviour;

• government initiatives; and

• low salaries.

It is these reasons which have to be addressed.

• The arguments for ensuring that teachers’ pay is competitive are well rehearsed. In the long-term, recruitment difficulties will not be ameliorated by devices such as ‘Golden Hellos’. The submissions by the National Union of Teachers to the School Teachers’ Review Body have consistently drawn the Government’s attention to the impact of low salary levels on both teacher retention and recruitment. This is highlighted graphically in the latest figures for recruitment to secondary PGCE and ITT courses. According to the May bulletin of Education Data Surveys, the majority of secondary courses still have vacancies.

• The need for a planned approach by Government to the introduction of any new initiatives it contemplates is essential. Before any initiative takes place, Government must audit the capacity of schools to introduce that initiative both in the terms of financial costs and time available. Both the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority and Mike Tomlinson are conducting inquiries into the future of public examinations for the 14-19 age range. Nowhere is there a greater necessity in secondary education for proper planning and auditing than in this area. There must be a period of stability before the introduction of any new public examination.

• Unacceptable pupil behaviour impacts on all school communities, particularly teachers. Secondary schools face some of the toughest challenges. Despite welcome initiatives such as the Improving Behaviour and Attendance programme, both headteachers and classroom teachers in secondary schools are still unclear about the support available to them externally when school-based strategies dealing with unacceptable behaviour do not work for individual pupils. Schools still receive mixed messages about whether or not exclusions are acceptable. Those messages are compounded by the effects of the current schools’ funding crisis. Local education authorities have been encouraged to expand and strengthen behaviour support teams and pupil referral units. As a result of the Secretary of State’s recent statement on funding to Parliament, local authorities are now being told to transfer as much funding as possible to schools.

• Entitlement to professional development is fundamental to the effective retention of teachers in secondary education. The Government’s decision to dismantle its continuing professional development strategy is a matter of deep concern. It is essential that teachers in secondary schools feel that they have control over their professional development. Evidence from the NUT’s own professional development programme demonstrates that professional development focused on teachers’ needs such as the need for professional development in the management of pupil behaviour is effective and raises teacher morale.

• There are specific implications for secondary schools arising from the School Workforce Agreement. Most secondary teachers already receive non-contact time. Any attempts to reduce current non-contact time which exceeds the minimum guarantee of 10 per cent would increase teachers’ workload and undermine consequently their morale and confidence.

• Attempts at remodelling job descriptions against the wishes of secondary teachers will have the reverse effect of that intended. Attempts may be made to remove the responsibilities of examination officers, for example. Examination officers have a crucial role in schools; a role which involves decisions on teaching as well as on administrative arrangements.

• No less important is the need to ensure that those in management and leadership positions receive their promised management, leadership and headteacher time. This is important in secondary schools, as well as in primary schools, because of the numbers involved in the management and leadership. No detriment in current allocations must apply to these groups of teachers as well.

• In addition, the introduction of cover supervisors as opposed to using qualified teachers for cover could have unfortunate effects on teacher workload and standards. The proposals made by OFSTED for integrating the work of temporary cover teachers and ensuring their development and training provide a sensible alternative strategy.

• The greatest threat to the implementation of changes to the School Teachers’ Pay and Conditions document arising from the current consultation concerns the availability of funding for secondary schools. In general, secondary schools are experiencing rising pupil rolls. The inadequacies in school allocations for 2003/04 brings into question whether intended allocations for 2004/05 and 2005/06 are sufficient. The Government must provide additional funding to those schools and local education authorities, including secondary schools, which have had to reduce the number of teaching and support staff posts as a result of insufficient funding.

• The Government promised unprecedented increases in school funding for 2003/04. The National Union of Teachers does not accept arguments which point to falling rolls as a reason for losing posts. Increases in funding should have been used to cushion the effects of reduced pupil numbers and also to provide funding headroom for the introduction of the School Workforce Agreement. The funding crisis is not only devastating for those who face redundancy, it has undermined the confidence of schools in the Government’s commitment to provide stable and sufficient resources for schools.

• Secondary schools need stable staffing and guarantees that contractual changes which reduce bureaucratic burdens, introduce a work/life balance, and which guarantee planning, preparation and assessment time will not be dependent on the vagaries of school funding. It is essential that the commitments made by the Government when it launched the current Comprehensive Spending Review are kept to. Unless this happens, teacher retention and supply will continue to be bedevilled by cyclical and long-term weaknesses.

Recruitment and Retention – the General Picture

There are many inter-related factors which contribute to overall teacher supply. No single factor is, or should be regarded as, a pre-eminent measure in assessing the true position with regard to teacher shortages. The NUT’s work has concentrated upon uncovering the whole picture. The DfES, by contrast, in focusing upon vacant teaching posts (and upon a particular selective definition of vacant post), has in reality obstructed a wider understanding of the current situation.

An example is the age profile of the profession, the age imbalance of which continues to be a matter of serious concern. In March 2000, whereas less than one-fifth of full-time teachers were aged under 30, 59 per cent were aged 40 or over, it follows from these figures that the profession is likely to lose the majority of teachers over the next 20-25 years.

The DfES defines a teaching vacancy as “a full-time permanent appointment (or an appointment of at least one term’s duration) that was advertised but not filled”. The research carried out by Alan Smithers and Pamela Robinson, on behalf of the NUT, has revealed that such methods do not give a true picture of shortages of teachers in schools:

“Vacancies are difficult to pin down for at least two reasons. First, they are transient. A post becomes available, it is advertised, applicants are seen, and an appointment is made or not made. Recording vacancies on a fixed date as the Department seeks to do can only be a snapshot of a moving scene. But, secondly, seeking to count unfilled vacancies, as many of the newspaper surveys do, is flawed because rarely is a post left unfilled, even where it is not possible to make a satisfactory appointment. To do so could mean children having to be sent home.” [1]

Smithers and Robinson identifying the coping strategies carried out by headteachers and governing bodies to deal with shortages and consequent lack of match between teacher specialisms and the posts they take up which are not captured by the DfES’ methodology. The inadequacy in the DfES’ approach is reflected in the HMCI Annual Report for 2001/02, which comments:

“the (DfES) statistics exclude vacancies that schools are forced to fill on a temporary basis and give no indication of the quality of those appointed to vacant posts.”

Research commissioned by the NUT from Smithers and Robinson investigated ‘the Reality of School Staffing’ in the autumn term of 2002[2]. The research findings contrasted the reality of school staffing with the Government’s optimistic view of teacher recruitment and retention. Key findings are presented below.

• Secondary schools experienced a high level of turnover in some parts of the country. Poaching from other schools was used by headteachers as a coping strategy and this in turn added to the general turnover problem.

• In terms of recruitment, there remained considerable concern about the low number of applicants for each post.

• Vacancies in some subjects proved particularly difficult to fill, including vacancies in mathematics, English, modern foreign languages and physics. Management and, in particular, headteacher posts remained difficult to fill in some areas of the country.

• Headteachers’ solutions to the impact of turnover and recruitment problems ranged from increasing teaching hours of staff which often involved staff being asked to teach outside their specialism to employing more part-time and temporary staff. Shortages were continuing to have an impact on the shaping of the curriculum offered in schools.

• Many schools reported that the above problems were becoming more acute.

The authors concluded that the reality of school staffing in the autumn of 2002 remained a chronic lack of stability, with continuing high turnover stemming in part from shortfalls in teacher supply. The teacher/student ratio in secondary schools remained the highest of all OECD countries with the exception of Turkey, Mexico and Korea.

The poor position of teachers relative to other graduates’ salary levels and progression has been evident for some time. The NUT has repeatedly drawn attention to this and to the consequent problems of recruitment and retention to the teaching profession.

Teachers Salaries and Recruitment and Retention

Teachers start at a salary disadvantage relative to other graduate professions and then fall further behind. The starting salary for teachers in 2002 was £17,595, compared to the average starting salary for graduates generally of £19,714, according to Incomes Data Services (IDS).

The IDS data is based on graduate pay in companies which have specific graduate development programmes. Given that teaching is a graduate profession, the kind of companies surveyed by IDS provide the appropriate comparators for teaching. The IDS data is not based on the highest-paid graduate jobs, but on a range of graduate employers. The findings of the research conducted by IDS is similar to that carried out by the Association of Graduate Recruiters (AGR) and CSU.

Despite recent increases for new entrants to teaching, teachers’ starting salaries continue to lag well behind those of other graduate professions. The relatively low level of teachers’ starting salaries continues to hinder recruitment to the profession.

The figures for teacher starting salaries compared with those of other graduates are the latest in a now established pattern of a decline in the relative value of teachers’ salaries. In 1994, the starting salary for teachers was worth 96 per cent of median graduate starting salaries. According to IDS, in 2002, teachers’ starting salaries declined to just 89 per cent of average graduate starting salaries.

Teachers have lagged behind other graduates in terms of salary progression for a number of years. This disadvantage compared to other graduates continues, according to analysis of the latest data.

The table below illustrates the poor position of teachers relative to other graduates even when the shortening of the main pay scale for teachers is taken into account. The figures for graduates generally show salary progression rates in 2002 from starting salaries for two groups: those recruited in 1998 and those recruited in 1996. The three-yearly figures are for the former; the five-yearly figures for the latter. These are then compared to teachers’ rates of salary progression after three and five years respectively. Two examples are given for teachers: a teacher without a management allowance and a teacher with such an allowance.

Salary Progression After Three Years

All graduates 45 per cent

Teacher (no management allowance) 26 per cent

Teacher (one management allowance) 35 per cent

Salary Progression After Five Years

All graduates 70 per cent

Teacher (no management allowance) 46 per cent

Teacher (one management allowance) 55 per cent

Like salary levels, poor relative rates of salary progression send the wrong signals to potential recruits to the profession.

Recruitment of Black and Minority Ethnic Teachers – A General Picture

There is a particularly urgent need to recruit and retain black and minority ethnic teachers within the teaching profession. Evidence from the NUT[3] and others[4] show that black and minority ethnic teachers leave the profession earlier and at faster rates than white teachers. A perceived lack of promotion prospects is a major issue hindering the recruitment and retention of teachers from some minority ethnic groups and needs a concerted and focused strategy from the DfES, NCSL and the TTA in order to redress the relatively low numbers of such teachers in the profession.

How to support isolated minority ethnic teachers in all white schools is another area which needs attention. The DfES with LEAs and schools needs to explore new ways of providing support for such teachers, including creating networking opportunities for minority ethnic teachers.

Although statistics on this issue are not easily available, it is the case that a disproportionate number of black and minority ethnic teachers are engaged in work funded through EMAG. There is a vital need to support black and ethnic minority teachers’ aspirations for moving into management. The NUT itself has jointly organised with NCSL ‘Black Teachers into Management’ courses.

An NUT survey on EMAG[5] itself showed that it was difficult to retain well-qualified minority ethnic staff employed by EMAG because of the lack of job security and perceived marginalisation. Developing and identifying clear career paths for teachers employed under EMAG and linked with comprehensive training and continuing professional development would go a long way towards encouraging more staff to continue providing support to children and young people from minority ethnic groups.

The DEMOS Report – Classroom Assistance: Why teachers must transform teaching

The report commissioned by the NUT from DEMOS, on the future of the teaching profession, was based on detailed interviews and workshops with more than 150 teachers drawn from a range of primary and secondary schools around Britain during 2000 and 2001[6]. This report’s insights and conclusions continue to remain relevant.

The report warned that the teaching profession would, on current trends, be unable to attract and retain enough teachers to sustain itself in the long-term. The generation of teachers who entered the profession in the 1960s and 1970s would retire in the next ten years, which would place extremely serious demands on supply teachers, irrespective of specific fluctuations labour market conditions. The report said that:

“In order to maintain the momentum of educational improvement and reform, policymakers will have to find ways to overcome both the cyclical and long-term weaknesses in the supply of high quality teachers.”

The report found that teacher shortages and lower morale were closely related. The danger was that teacher shortages placed even greater strain on serving teachers and further constrained opportunities for creativity and professional autonomy.

The report emphasised also that the most common reasons for entering the teaching profession were job satisfaction and working with children. Prospective teachers were also attracted to the profession principally by the rewarding nature of the work rather than by pay.

According to the survey, declining morale was related to external factors such as the media’s portrayal of teachers, poor working conditions and a high-pressured environment.

The research found that teachers felt undervalued. Teachers believed that their comparatively low pay reflected and reinforced the low value placed on teaching by society. Improving the conditions under which teachers worked was considered as important as the need to improve pay.

The research also showed that younger teachers were more concerned with pay than their more experienced colleagues. Many younger teachers pointed to the huge differences between their salaries and those earned by their university peers. The younger generation of teachers were more likely to compare their pay levels with graduates working in the private sector than was previously the case. Younger teachers also felt strongly that they were capable of earning much more money outside teaching if they had to.