A staffing crisis in our schools is driving up cover and workload, undermining pandemic recovery work, and creating a perfect storm of recruitment and retention challenges.

A “deeply worrying”, “shocking” and “unprecedented” annual report from Ofsted has flagged urgent problems with staffing levels which the inspectorate says are “compounding difficulties in education and social care”.

The report reveals that 88% of all state-funded schools are now judged by inspectors to be good or outstanding – up almost 2% from 2021. For secondary schools, 80% fall into this category compared with 89% of primary schools and special schools.


State of the nation: Ofsted's annual report shows the 'overall effectiveness' of state-funded schools as of August 31, 2022 (source: Ofsted, 2022)


However, the report highlights significant staffing pressures on schools including:

  • Continuing high levels of staff absence due to Covid infection.
  • Recruitment difficulties, including shortages of teaching assistants.
  • Difficulty finding supply staff due to high demand.
  • Difficulty recruiting staff with appropriate SEND expertise.
  • Difficulty running interventions due to staffing problems.

The Department for Education (DfE) has consistently missed its initial teacher training (ITT) recruitment targets for years now, but the situation seems to be worsening.

The latest figures released earlier this month show that 13 out of17 secondary subjects (and primary education as a whole) failed to meet their teacher recruitment targets (DfE, 2022).

In total, 2022/23 has seen 23,224 entrants to ITT against a target of 32,600 – just 71% of the total required. Broken down by phase, we have recruited 10,868 primary teachers against a target of 11,655 (93%) and 12,356 secondary teachers against a target of 20,945 (59%).

At the same time, the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) highlights falling pay as a key reason behind the recruitment and retention crisis, adding that continued underfunding of education has resulted in high workloads for those that remain, creating a vicious circle.

The 2022 Teacher Wellbeing Index revealed that 72% of teachers are stressed and 76% have experienced mental health symptoms due to their work; 59% of teachers and 67% of senior leadership have considered quitting in the last year – with the majority citing workload as the reason.

DfE workforce figures (2022) show that almost 1 in 10 teachers quit in 2020/21. The proportion of teachers still teaching after three years at the chalkface now stands at 77% (up from its recent low of 73%), while the proportion still teaching after five years is 68.8% (up from a low of 65.4%).

However, the number of teachers of all levels of experience leaving in 2020/21 increased to 36,262, up by more than 4,000 on the year before. This equates to 8% – almost one in 10.

Ofsted’s report said that staffing shortages were “compounding” problems caused by the pandemic and hampering recovery work, adding that the spring term 2022 had been “particularly challenging”.

It states: “In schools, Covid-related staff absences left gaps not easily filled by the limited number of supply teachers. Managing with fewer staff slowed the pace of intervention where children needed extra help. It also delayed the return of sports, drama, music and other programmes that are normally part of the school experience.”

It adds: “Many schools used their own staff to cover absences, which increased workloads. Staff absence prevented some schools from providing enrichment activities, interventions and catch-up programmes.”

Julie McCulloch, ASCL’s director of policy, said: “This is a deeply worrying report. The chief inspector highlights the major challenges faced by the education sector, many of which have become more acute as a result of the government’s inadequate response to the growing recruitment and retention crisis in our schools and colleges.

“The use of non-specialist teachers is becoming more commonplace and, while they do the best they can to teach subjects in which they are not specialists, this represents a clear threat to educational standards. The report also highlights the increasing difficulty in attracting and retaining support staff, including teaching assistants. This particularly affects children with SEN, who often rely on this additional support in the classroom.

“Staff shortages are a result of teaching becoming a less attractive profession. Teacher pay has fallen in real-terms by a fifth since 2010, while continued underfunding has increased workload at the same time.”

Meanwhile, at a time when almost one in five 7 to 16-year-olds have a probable mental health condition (Newlove-Delgado et al, 2022), Ofsted said that many schools have found it difficult to access external support services for pupils with mental health issues. It adds: “Lengthy waiting lists have placed an extra burden on schools.”

The report issues a similar warning for pupils with SEND: “The SEND system was put under even greater strain during the pandemic. Young people with SEND found that services such as speech and language therapy and mental health support were not always available. There were also delays in assessments for Education, Health and Care Plans. Demand for services has also grown significantly.

“Nearly 1.5 million school pupils are currently identified as having SEND, an increase of almost 77,000 in the year. But with the system under pressure, accurate identification is critical. We know that many children fell behind during the pandemic and need help to catch-up, but nonetheless do not have SEND in the normal usage of the term. Labelling these children as having SEND is not right for them and also puts an unnecessary burden on the system.”

Commenting on the report, Dr MaryBousted, joint general secretary of the National Education Union, said: “This is a shocking and unprecedented annual report from Ofsted –testimony to over a decade of neglect of education and the services needed by children with SEND, looked after children and other students who need individual help.

“Its conclusions about the deep gaps across the education workforce are sobering.Teacher shortages in schools are having a hugely detrimental impact on the provision of a broad and balanced curriculum, enrichment activities, and timely interventions to support children and young people with SEND.

“Ofsted specifically highlights the shortage of support staff. The loss of teaching assistants has a huge impact on tailored support and inclusion and good opportunities for children with additional or special needs.”

Elsewhere, the report issues a warning to schools which use part-time timetables in a bid to avoid exclusion – Ofsted says that these students must not be allowed to “slowly slide out of education”.

In her commentary within the report, chief inspector Amanda Spielman states: “In previous reports I have spoken about the practice of off-rolling – removing children from a school roll without the due process of a formal exclusion. The pandemic has obscured trends in exclusions and off-rolling, so it is harder to tell if off-rolling is still a problem.

“However, there is anecdotal evidence that part-time timetables are being used more regularly in schools. This is where children attend school, but their attendance is limited to a handful of lessons. This might be held up as an alternative to exclusion, but it is another avenue by which children can slowly slide out of education.”

The report also signals a continuing focus on attendance: “Initial high levels of absenteeism have fallen, but there are still concerns about a smaller number of persistent absentees. For a minority of families, the social contract around schooling – attendance in return for education – has become fractured, perhaps tested by periods of lockdown.”

Finally, the report highlights the impact that the removal of the exemption from inspection for outstanding schools has had.

This year Ofsted inspected nearly 500 schools that were previously exempt because they had been judged outstanding. Schools that were last inspected before September 2015 had a graded inspection. Of these 370 schools, only 17% retained their outstanding grade while 17% were judged requires improvement and 4% were inadequate.