Lord Storey – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Storey on 2016-07-13.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what percentage of teachers left that profession (1) less than one year from starting teaching, and (2) within five years of starting teaching, between 2011 and 2016.

Lord Nash

We recognise that it is vital for schools to be able to retain good teachers – that is why we have made policy interventions in the areas that teachers tell us matter most such as improving pupil behaviour and reducing unnecessary workload.

The Department publishes statistics showing the percentage of qualified teachers who enter teaching within a year of completing their training and who remain in service each year afterwards. This information is available in Table 8 of the ‘School Workforce in England: November 2015’ statistical release which was published on June 30^th 2016.

The latest statistics show that 87% of qualified teachers that entered service during 2014 were still in post one year later. The following table shows the one-year retention rate has remained within one percentage point of this level during the last five years.

The latest available statistics also show that 70% of qualified teachers that entered service during 2010 were still in post five years later.

Over the longer-term five year retention rate has remained stable, of the cohort of newly qualified teachers who entered teaching in 1996, 71% were still teaching in the state-funded sector five-years later.