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Recruitment and retention: The most deprived schools hit hardest

After catastrophic teacher recruitment figures are revealed, a new analysis shows that schools with high levels of free school meals have higher teacher attrition, higher teacher vacancies, and spend much more money on supply.
Image: Adobe Stock

A new “data dashboard” has been published offering information on a number of teaching workforce indicators to help understand the supply challenges facing English primary and secondary schools.

It shows just how hard schools in the most deprived areas are having to work to recruit and retain staff.

The new tool comes shortly after the latest initial teacher training (ITT) figures revealed that 13 out of the 17 secondary subjects and primary education 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%).

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