NAHT’s latest report reveals how England’s schools are haemorrhaging school leaders at an unprecedented rate. Gone for Good – leaders who are lost to the teaching profession highlights a truly catastrophic scale of loss, and one which threatens the stability of the profession and the future of the nation’s children.

The report shows that not only did a third (31%) of experienced leaders leave their jobs within five years of appointment, but more than half quit teaching altogether and are lost to state-funded schools.

• Almost two-thirds (64%) of primary heads who left their posts quit teaching
• More than two in three (67%) secondary heads who left their post left teaching.

Pay is critical to leadership aspiration and leadership retention. By the end of the year, we forecast that leaders’ salaries will have lost almost a quarter (24%) of their 2010 value in real terms. These cash losses are huge and the unfunded, below-inflation pay award simply exacerbates the existing leadership recruitment and retention crisis.

Read the full report