More than a quarter of state school teachers now abandon the profession within their first three years.
Department for Education statistics on state-funded schools reveal that in November last year, 5,292 of the 20,431 teachers who entered the profession three years earlier had already left their jobs, the most in 20 years.
The DfE data also shows 800 quit their career every week, 100 of them less than three years into it. In total last year 43,500 teachers left the profession, which represents one in 10 of all teaching staff. And in the past 10 years, 60,000 teachers quit in their first three years, the DfE data has also revealed.
The reasons given include abuse from pupils as well as overwork, Ofsted stress and stagnating pay. In January, teachers went on strike at Pencoedtre High School, in Barry, South Wales, saying pupils used them like punchbags.
And while classroom teachers’ pay averages £43,000, with £75,300 for heads, inflation has devalued it. Unions say that in 2023/24, most classroom teachers’ salaries were worth a third less, in real-terms, than salaries tied to Retail Price Index inflation in every year since 2010.
National Education Union general secretary Daniel Kebede said: “Increased child poverty and the decimation of mental health support services and SEND provision has also impacted heavily on the workload of schools, which have been left to pick up the pieces of a broken society.”
Campaign for Real Education head Christopher McGovern said of teaching: “These days it is less about passing on subject knowledge and more about social work and child psychiatry.” The government has pledged to prioritise hiring 6,500 teachers, funded by taxing private school fees.