Hey there Teacher Tappsters!
Week three of the last half term of the year 🤩. You will make it to summer – believe!
New prize draw
This month’s prize draw is all about the summer holidays. Win and scoop £500 for a fantastic summer day – and bring along your teacher friends!
Answer questions four days in a row to earn a ticket which you’ll see in your app under prize draw. Collect as many as you can between 17th – 30th June. And on the 1st July, we will draw a winning ticket. 🎉
You can see your tickets and progress in the app. If we have permission, we’ll also send an email each time you get a ticket. No need to do anything with your tickets – they are automatically entered into the prize draw.
BUT, you might like to check your tickets when we announce the winner: it has a special code on it! We’ll share the winning ticket code on our social channels, and we’ll email the winner too. Full terms and conditions can be found here.
What is happening with recruitment and retention in English schools?
Today’s blog is on one topic: recruitment and retention!
For the past few months we’ve had several FASCINATING questions about jobs, BUT we couldn’t discuss them
Why? We’ve been compiling our annual Teacher Tapp and SchoolDash report on teacher recruitment and retention, funded by the Gatsby Foundation. This report ensures policymakers hear YOUR voice on the topic each and every year. (We literally follow them around with these stats all year!)
So what did we find…
Finding One: The job market is stabilising (finally)
Some good news! The number of job adverts being posted by schools has finally slowed down. After two years of low turnover during the pandemic, the job market in 2022 got rather busy .
We are happy to report things have become comparatively less busy in 2024.
When asked on the 18th May about jobs advertised this season, you said the percentage of primary schools with job posts still open was 39%, dropping from 44% in 2022.
In secondary schools the figure also improved – 23% of schools still had job adverts open, two points lower than 2022.
There are other signs the job market is stabilising. For example, 36% of secondaries haven’t advertised at all, similar to last year’s 34%. And just over a quarter of primaries (26%) made the same claim – again, similar level to 2022 when it was 27%.
Why is this good news? For one thing, a stable job market makes planning much easier for school leaders. Another reason is the cost. Recruitment is costly for schools, and fewer teachers leaving means less money spent on advertising posts (and spent on other things instead!)
Finding Two: Recruitment challenges in disadvantaged areas reduce quality of education
Now onto the less good news.
Leaders in the most disadvantaged areas are more likely to say recruitment challenges are negatively impacting the quality of education they can provide.
In secondaries with the most affluent pupils, 86% of heads said it was so tough to recruit that it was impacting the quality of education (which is pretty high already!); but when we look at leaders in the most deprived areas, 95% said recruitment was affecting the quality of education.
In primary schools, the levels of leaders reporting problems is lower, but the affluence gap still exists.
77% of primary leaders in the most affluent areas say recruitment negatively affected education; this jumps to 84% for schools in the most deprived areas.
How do these recruitment challenges play out on the ground?
Schools in the most deprived areas are more likely to have teachers do a last minute withdrawal – that is, they never turn up for the job at all – compared to schools in the most affluent areas (28% vs 20%).
Likewise, school leaders in poorer areas are more likely to spend time interviewing, but not appointing for a role. (47% vs 36% in the most affluent areas).
Note, however, that leaders in the poorest areas are less likely to make a ‘reclutant appointment’, i.e. to hire someone who isn’t right for the role – perhaps because they have already dealt with the challenges that can bring.
One way to work out if things are REALLY baad on the ground with shortages is to look at what happens with GCSE classes as these tend to be the groups schools protect first.
When asked, half of teachers in the most deprived schools said a teacher had left a GCSE class halfway through the year, and half said teaching had been disrupted by extended absences
These sorts of disruptions weren’t seen by everyone. 30% of the most affluent schools reported no major disruptions to teaching. However, only 19% of teachers in the most deprived schools could say the same – a gap of eleven percentage points.
Does this ring true for you? Perhaps you’re a leader who has found recruitment tough…or maybe a teacher who has been keen to move this year. Let us know your job hunting stories on the app or over socials…💬
Finding Three: Teachers in disadvantaged schools are less likely to apply based on ‘good reputation’
If the job market is stabilising, then why are there still stark differences in the experiences of recruiting in the most affluent and the most disadvantaged schools?
Ufortunately, even when shortages are reduced, there are long-standing differences in how easily schools can recruit staff.
To show why this is the case, one question asked is: “Thinking of your current school, what made you apply to the school?”.
Teachers working in affluent schools most typically say it had a “good reputation” (51%). Those working in more areas with poorer intakes were far less likely to say this (14%). Instead, what we see in schools in deprived areas is that many more teachers say they had ‘just applied everywhere’ (20% vs 13% in affluent schools).
There is some good news, however, that the figures for “good impression at a pre-interview school visit” are very similar across all schools – which shows the power of getting people into school ahead of interview to overcome more general myths about the school’s ‘reputation’. 
Do you work in a school with a poor reputation that struggles to recruit? Can it sometimes work in your favour by attract enthusiastic staff keen to help ‘turn things round’? Let us know what you think 💬.
Finding Four: Teachers working in disadvantaged schools report more challenging behaviour
Why schools with poorer intakes might struggle with reputation is a complex matter, but one hypothesis is that behaviour is perceived as being worse in such schools.
The data collected in this year’s report does suggest that teachers in more deprived areas face steeper behaviour challenges.
They’re more likely say they spend too much time managing behaviour are more likely to be in schools in deprived areas (57% agree, compared to 38% in more affluent areas – a gap of 19 percentage points).
And that feeling appears to be justified: learning reportedly stops in more lessons in disadvantaged areas.
Learning stopped at least once in the last lesson of 62% of secondary school teachers in the most disadvantaged areas, but only 50% of the most affluent – though it is worth again noting that this difference is not as big as people sometimes expect!
In conclusion…
So, what does this all tell us?
🔺 The teaching job market has been more stable this year than in previous years.
🔺 Schools in disadvantaged areas say recruitment challenges are negatively impacting the quality of education they can provide.
🔺 When teachers change jobs and teach in a disadvantaged area, they’re less likely to say they chose that school due to its “good reputation” compared to teachers who work in affluent areas.
🔺 Teachers who work in disadvantaged areas are more likely to report challenging behaviour.
If this has sparked your interest, then you can download and read the whole report here.
Now we have a picture of what is happening with recruitment and retention in English schools – we want to know what you think…
If recruitment and retention is to be successfully addressed, the different experiences for teachers working in disadvantaged schools cannot be ignored. But what could help encourage teacher movement to ensure the quality of education was as high across all schools?
🤔 If you’re a teacher working in a school of high disadvantage, what do you think would help recruitment and retention?
⚖️ If the challenges are behaviour and job satisfaction, does pay solve that? How can we balance things out?
🧭 Do leaders find that the struggle to find candidates is down to geography? Would incentives to help teachers relocate help?
Give us your thoughts – message on the app or send us a tweet! 📝
Top events
This week’s top event is…ResearchEd and their in-person National Conference 2024 for the SECOND time!! 😍🤩🥳
Even better news – if you’re going then you will see us there! So come and say “hi!”. We will be on our Teacher Tapp stand with our bingo machine and new merch! Check the app to see all the new events on offer.
Ups and Downs
On the rise 📈
Headteachers reporting ‘same as normal’ about the number of responses to job adverts This year 21% of secondary school headteachers said responses to job adverts were ‘normal’ compared to 13% in 2023.
Heading down 📉
Job adverts that are still open There has been a drop in the number of primary school jobs adverts still open for applicants in May this year, 39% down from 44% in 2022.
Daily Reads
Our most read daily read this week was the blog: Do pupils in single sex schools do better?
If you would like to read the rest you can find them here 👇
