How can we keep great teachers? Creating cultures for learning and curriculum development by Sam Gibbs
Among the alarming teacher recruitment statistics released by the Department for Education last month are some particularly dispiriting headlines for English teachers. Back in June, The Guardian reported that many secondary heads are ‘shocked to find it is now a battle to find teachers for English - traditionally a subject that buoyed recruitment numbers’. It stated that, at the time of print, there were more than 900 vacancies for a September start. Which begs the question, why are so many English teachers leaving the profession? These issues are not exclusive to English, of course. If, as Schools Week reported recently, 40,000 teachers left last year, we might well ask whether the recently hard-won pay offer is going to be enough not just to attract people to our profession, but to keep them in our classrooms. The real question might be, why are we not talking more about teacher retention ? At the point when I left full-time teaching, I had taught English in secondary ...