Responding to new research from the Recruitment and Employment Confederation which shows a double-digit rise in the number of job vacancies in nursery, primary and secondary schools in recent weeks, Paul Whiteman, general secretary at school leaders’ union NAHT, said:

“We’ve been warning for some time that there is a real crisis in recruitment and retention in schools affecting both leadership and teaching roles.

“It is little wonder when staff have faced years of significant real-terms pay and funding cuts on top of long hours and a stressful high-stakes system of accountability.

“The government’s latest offer on pay and working conditions falls short of addressing this and many our members are warning they would need to make cuts, including to jobs, even to afford to inadequate pay rise offered last week.

“Ministers need to wake up and realise that schools are nothing without their staff. Without an ambitious plan to address this crisis and make careers in teaching and leadership more attractive long-term propositions, children’s learning will suffer as schools struggle to provide the education pupils deserve with increasingly stretched resources.”