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Recruitment and retention

 
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School leaders are driven by an ambition to provide opportunities for young people to reach their full potential. To fulfil that ambition, teaching must attract and retain a high-quality, well-trained and properly rewarded workforce. 

Through our work with members, NAHT is documenting and communicating the unfolding recruitment and retention crisis taking place in our schools to policymakers at the highest levels. 

NAHT is campaigning to:

Ensure all schools can recruit and retain excellent teachers and leaders

  • Lobby for change and reform of key macro issues affecting recruitment and retention: pay, accountability, funding and workload and identify key actions to be taken to improve these
  • Press for the development of a range of flexible leadership and non-leadership pathways to support recruitment and retention, including new opportunities that will retain the experience and expertise of mid to late career leaders
  • Build on the opportunities offered by the Early Career Framework to press for similar support for new heads, deputies and assistants, and school business leaders
  • Maintain a watching brief on the impact of Brexit on teacher supply
  • Lobby the DfE for practical measures to address the workload of school leaders, including protection of strategic leadership time
  • Campaign for a staged real term, restorative pay award for teachers and school leaders
  • Develop a position on the role of CEOs and other posts outside the School Teachers’ Pay and Conditions Document (STPCD) including a position on which roles should have a requirement for Qualified Teacher Status (QTS)
  • Lobby for a review of the pay system, including the STPCD
  • Press government to maintain and enhance the teacher's pension scheme and/or Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS)
  • Support work to ensure the profession represents a diverse workforce, including those with protected characteristics
  • Support effective partnerships between school leaders and governors with clarity of roles and responsibilities across different school structures.

Create a safe working environment for school leaders and their staff

  • Lobby the DfE to take concrete steps to tackle verbal and physical abuse and aggression against school staff, including harassment online and through social media.  

Ensure professional recognition of school business leaders (SBLs)

  • Lobby the DfE for SBLs to be included within a new national framework of terms and conditions for school staff
  • Promote the professional standards framework for all SBLs
  • Raise the profile and understanding of the SBL role across the school sector, including with governors.  

 

Pupil premium rates increased for the first time in five years

The government has announced that pupil premium rates will be increasing in the school year 2020/21, for the first time in five years. The increase is in line with inflation for this year at 1.8%.

The new rates will be as follows:

Free school meals

Schools will get £1,345 for every primary aged pupil (from £1,320) and £955 for every secondary aged pupil (from £935) that claim free school meals. 

Looked-after children and previously looked-after children

Schools will get £2,345 for every pupil who has left local authority care through adoption, a special guardianship order or a child arrangements order (from £2,300). Local authorities get the same amount for each child they are looking after; they must work with the school to decide how the money is used to support the child’s Personal Education Plan. 

NAHT general secretary Paul Whiteman said: “While the small increase to pupil premium funding is welcome, it will not be enough to reverse the real-term cuts that we have seen to this particular funding stream over recent years. We should remember that despite the small increase this year, it still represents a real-terms cut since the last increase in 2015/16. The country can afford to do more for the most vulnerable. It is certainly not job done on school funding.  

"It is also important to point out that this ‘increase’ is actually being paid for from the £2.6billion increase the government has already announced for 2020/21, and as such, it does not represent additional money for schools or disadvantaged pupils beyond what has already been announced.”  

Read more about the pupil premium rates and eligibility.

First published 05 February 2020

First published 05 February 2020
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