Responding to the new Education Committee report on the recruitment and retention crisis facing schools, Paul Whiteman, general secretary at school leaders’ union NAHT, said:

“Schools simply cannot attract the teachers and leaders they need, and NAHT has repeatedly pressed the government over the last seven years to act on this alarming recruitment and retention crisis. Pupils, parents and school leaders are seeing the damaging impact of this crisis in our schools, day in, day out.

“Worrying gaps in staffing mean more children in secondary schools are being taught in larger classes, by teachers with no qualification in the subject they are teaching, teaching assistants, or costly supply teachers.

“Vacancies, as well as increased pressure to help pupils starved of community support after a decade of under-investment in services like social care and children’s mental health, fuel intolerable levels of workload for existing staff and can damage their wellbeing. As the Education Committee points out, this is leading more to consider quitting what should be a richly rewarding profession.

“Above all the government needs to act decisively to address the ‘big ticket’ issues which are making it harder than ever for schools to attract and keep the teachers they need – including not only workload, but the damage inflicted by the brutal Ofsted inspection regime and years of real-terms pay cuts.”