Researchers will probe whether flexible working schemes such as a nine-day fortnight and off-site planning, preparation, and assessment time can boost teacher retention.
The Education Endowment Foundation, which was set up with a government grant to investigate “what works” in education, today announced it was funding three projects to find solutions to the sector’s recruitment and retention woes.
An Ambition Institute-led scheme will check if the 17-school Dixon Academies Trust’s new nine-day working fortnight for teachers leads to an increase in staff retention.
Researchers from University College London’s Institute of Education (IOE) and the Chartered College of Teaching will explore the impact on retention when schools encourage teachers’ PPA time to be taken off-site, for the second project.
These projects will also look at the impact and implications these schemes have for young people, the EEF said.
And Teacher Tapp will will use its polling app to find strategies for attracting teachers to schools with high levels of socio-economic disadvantage, the third project.
Emily Yeomans, co-chief executive at the EEF, said: “Until we have solid approaches to address recruitment and retention, built on evidence, we will continue to see great teachers leaving the profession and young people’s education suffering as a result.
“These exciting projects should help us to build a far better picture of how important flexible working is to a supported, motivated teaching workforce who are more likely to stay in the profession.”
The EEF estimated the total costs of the three schemes would be about £800,000.
Projects aim to find solutions to recruitment and retention crisis
The latest DfE data showed nearly a third of teachers leave the profession within five years, while the workforce grew by just 259 full-time equivalent teachers last year as the number of leavers almost equalled the number of joiners.
The National Foundation for Educational Research recently predicted government would miss its teacher recruitment target again for September – the 11th time in 12 years.
The new government has pledged to recruit 6,500 expert new teachers but hasn’t set out a timescale for achieving this. Last year, 13,000 fewer teachers than required were recruited.
The first stage of the Dixons project will include interviews with leaders and teachers to gauge the benefits and challenges of implementing a nine-day working fortnight, EEF said. It will conclude this “scoping phase” in spring 2025, before an “impact evaluation phase”.
Concerns over ‘reduced consistency’
Last year, an EEF evidence review flagged flexible working as a possible solution to recruiting and retaining teachers.
But there was also “perceptual” evidence from leaders that the strategy increased costs, and could have negative impacts on pupils “as a result of reduced consistency of teaching”.
The DfE’s 2019 recruitment and retention strategy pledged to help “transform approaches to flexible working in schools”.
The Teacher Tapp-led study will ask a large sample of teachers and heads to record the choices they would make based on a range of example job opportunities.
It will analyse responses and “use an innovative methodology” to estimate the value teachers place on specific job benefits, with an evaluation report to be published in spring next year.
The PPA project scoping phase will be completed in summer 2025.
Teachers’ PPA must amount to at least 10 per cent of their timetabled teaching time.
Most do this at school but the EEF said off-site PPA is “often one of the most straightforward ways for schools to enable a more supportive working environment for teachers”.
Hilary Spencer, CEO of Ambition Institute, said: “We hope this can make a strong contribution to helping recruit and retain teachers in schools across the country”.
