In the third of a four-part series exploring Supporting Education Group’s broad impact, Will Rogers explores the pivotal role training and development is playing and turning around the gloomy narrative around retention.
Teachers, school leaders and support staff are frequently and deservedly praised to the rafters.
There’s good reason for this – these professionals are at the very heart of the education system, and they routinely transform young lives.
The reality
But warm words and supportive sentiments don’t always translate into professionals who want to stay in our schools. The Department for Education’s own research showed that in 2024, over a third of teachers and school leaders were considering leaving the English state school sector in the following 12 months for reasons other than retirement.
We need these professionals to stay in schools – perhaps more now than ever before. And it is purposeful action through training and development which has a crucial role to play in making this happen.
Research shows that effective school leadership is vital in encouraging teacher retention, with leadership factors being strongly correlated to staff satisfaction in schools.
ImpactEd’s Work Well Report found that the statements “I feel accepted and supported as an individual at this school”, “I feel supported by the leaders and managers in this school” and “I think that the senior leadership team is doing a good job” were strongly correlated with staff satisfaction.
With a skilled and well-supported workforce, schools are far better able to deliver effective, inclusive teaching, which in turn improves overall school performance and efforts to close the attainment ga, and strengthens teacher retention.
How Supporting Education Group can help
Supporting Education Group (SEG) is playing a key role in ensuring that educators are skilled and well supported so that schools are better able to deliver effective, inclusive teaching. In fact, developing and inspiring an education workforce who thrive in the sector is one of our four key missions.
Through SEG’s range of professional qualifications and development programmes, including national professional qualifications (NPQs), SEND/specialist qualifications and apprenticeships, we’re already helping thousands of educators each year to develop the skills they need to thrive in the classroom and in leadership roles.
What our trainees think
Our NPQ leadership trainees say that our programmes have helped to keep them in the sector, with two-thirds commenting that what they’re being taught has had a positive impact on their workload. A similar proportion agreed that since completing their qualifications, they are less likely to consider leaving the profession.
According to a survey of 5,000 senior leadership, headship and executive leadership NPQ trainees who began their course between 2022 and 2023, 98% said they felt more confident about taking on senior roles. The vast majority also believed their NPQ programme had positively impacted outcomes in their schools, including the quality of teaching (93%), culture and wellbeing (90%), academic outcomes (78%) and non-academic outcomes (75%).
The narrative on our school workforce may continue to have an air of gloom about it, but for every piece of research presenting a discouraging picture about the retention of teachers, leaders and support staff, there are as many examples of programmes that are having a measurable, positive impact.
Through our range of professional qualifications and development programmes, we’ll continue to help thousands of educators each year to develop the skills they need to thrive in the classroom and in leadership roles – and turn that narrative around.
The impact of Supporting Education Group in its four missions is explored in detail in the new Supporting Education Group Impact Report 2024.