The review from the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF, 2023) also finds that performance and recruitment bonuses could help challenging schools to attract and keep staff.
It concludes that heavier workloads, including working hours and leave entitlement, strongly influence teachers’ decision-making. There is potential to boost retention via effective CPD, induction support, and school leadership, too.
The review has been carried out by a team of researchers from the UCL Institute of Education and has considered the global evidence-base, including 55 studies relating to recruitment and retention in disadvantaged schools.
The review identifies 28 factors that influence recruitment and retention spanning three categories – system-level, school-level, and individual.
- System-level factors include financial incentives and accountability.
- School-level factors include workload, induction, leadership, CPD, autonomy, behaviour, support staff and resources, and the school climate.
- Individual factors include intrinsic motivation, fitting in, personality traits, and emotional factors.
The researchers conclude: “Among the system-level factors, financial incentive was the factor with the highest weight of evidence. Such incentives could be used to improve recruitment and retention of high-quality teachers in disadvantaged schools.
“A number of school-level policies also appeared important. This included workload and working conditions; induction support, coaching and mentoring; effective school leaders; and collaboration with colleagues.”
Forms of financial incentive might include teacher performance bonuses, recruitment bonuses, loan forgiveness, and higher salaries. The paper suggests that financial rewards given directly to teachers, rather than being allocated to their school of employment, show “particular promise”.
It adds: “The most promising approaches here seem to be annual awards, of a significant size, which apply specifically to high-quality individuals working in disadvantaged schools.”
Earlier this year, the NFER warned that teacher vacancies are 93% up on pre-Covid levels while initial teacher training targets are once again set to be missed significantly. The government is on track to recruit 79% of the primary teachers and just 58% of the secondary teachers it needs in 2023/24 (McClean et al, 2023).
Retention is also an on-going problem in England’s schools with almost one in 10 teachers having quit in 2020/21, with rates worsening for more experienced colleagues (for details, see our report here).
The EEF’s review finds that workload and not salary has the biggest influence on retention at school level. It states: “Heavier workloads were consistently associated with poorer retention and reducing workloads with increased retention. Specific aspects of workload included teaching a specialist subject (vs other subjects in which the teacher was not expert) and the number of courses taught, the challenge of the assigned classes and the availability of time for planning.
“Working conditions were also highlighted including length of contracted day, leave entitlement and allocation of duties. One (study) suggested that, in many cases, working conditions were a stronger influence on retention than salary.”
The report concludes that the greatest weight of evidence for school-level factors to attract high-quality teachers and boost retention suggest focusing on:
- Workload and working conditions.
- Induction support.
- Coaching and mentoring.
- Effective school leaders.
- Collaboration with colleagues.
- Professional development.
- Relationships with parents and students.
- Autonomy, agency, and control.
- Discipline and behaviour.
- Teacher status.
The report adds: “Promising approaches might include workload reduction through reducing the number of different classes or subjects taught or increasing planning time.
“Other promising approaches might include induction programmes, coaching or mentoring, especially for beginning teachers; professional development programmes for school leaders; opportunities for professional collaboration, such as co-planning or learning communities; access to professional development beyond the statutory minimum, such as funded higher education programmes or professional certification or courses; support for positive relationships with students, including cultural awareness; allowing teachers to exercise professional judgement or input into key school decisions; or possibly interventions to improve behaviour and discipline in schools.”
One problem is the lack of England-based research in this area, with the review having drawn predominantly on international research, including a high number of US studies.
The EEF has now commissioned a number of evidence reviews to focus on “specific practices which show promise in supporting teacher recruitment and retention in English schools”. Areas of focus are to include school leadership, flexible working, workload management, as well as one review into recruitment and retention practices used specifically by schools serving disadvantaged communities.
Professor Becky Francis, EEF chief executive, added: “Supporting the recruitment and retention of teachers should be a central focus of any effective education system. But targets for teacher recruitment are regularly missed, and a third of new teachers leave within the first five years of joining the profession.
“This report is an important first step in our work to understand more about what can be done to attract teachers to, and keep them in, schools with pupils who need their expertise most. These findings will be hugely helpful in sharpening the focus of our future research, making sure we put our resources behind trialling strategies with the greatest potential to make a difference in this crucial area.”
- EEF: Review of evidence on teacher quality, recruitment, and retention: Literature review on teacher quality in disadvantaged schools, June 2023: https://bit.ly/3J0OhNQ
- McLean, Worth & Faulkner-Ellis: Teacher labour market in England: Annual report 2023, NFER, March 2023: https://bit.ly/42oMfOx