Recruiting and retaining teachers to meet your school’s ethos

April and May are traditionally very busy months for recruiting teachers ahead of the new school year.

This comes at a time where teacher shortages are becoming a serious issue. The Government has missed its target for training the number of newly-qualified secondary teachers the system needs for five years in a row. The targets have increased at the same time, due in part to rising pupil numbers.

So the Government’s new teaching-vacancies website is welcomed and could help reduce the cost of advertising for schools, something which is estimated to cost in the region of £75 million a year.

“Another key reason why the recruitment targets have been getting more challenging to meet is that the school system is retaining fewer teachers,” said Oliver Daly, Principal HR Consultant for national law firm Stone King.

“The nature of retention has also shifted over time, away from natural replacement of retiring teachers to large numbers of working-age teachers leaving. Fewer teachers retiring has offset the rise in working-age teachers leaving to some extent, but not enough to stop the overall leaving rate climbing.”

Given this, it is important that schools and MATs take responsibility for their own recruitment and retention strategies and look to put the needs of their teaching talent at the top of the agenda.

In a competitive market your school or trust should do all it can to stand out and attract teachers that meet your ethos.

Stone King’s team of HR consultants can offer specialist support with recruitment and retention of teachers and support staff. This advice can be accessed under our HR retainer or on an ad-hoc basis.