For many, teaching isn’t just a career – it’s a calling. But that doesn’t stop thousands of teachers walking away from the classroom every year. Schools and trusts hoping to retain teaching talent have their work cut out for them, but with the right recruitment and retention strategies in place, there’s plenty of hope yet
It’s no secret that the education sector is facing a retention crisis. According to the DfE, almost 40,000 UK teachers quit teaching during 2021/22 – the highest since records began in 2010. There are several reasons that schools and trusts are struggling to keep good educators in their classrooms, from admin overload to lack of career progression.
It’s a complex problem – but thankfully, there are effective strategies and solutions to keep school staff supported, motivated and committed.
The secret to a good strategy? Seeing the bigger picture. Before you start building an effective teacher recruitment or retention strategy, you need to understand what’s going well and what needs improving.
You can achieve this by:
Holding exit interviews with departing staff to gather data on why they leave
Using HR software to track career development and identify areas of concern
Collating data on measurable performance metrics for teachers, like exam results
You can use these insights to inform your recruitment and retention strategies
A Guide for Schools and Trusts
Explore this free guide to workforce management in education and discover strategies for improving:
Staff absence management
Teacher training & CPD
Retention
Performance management
Recruitment & onboarding
Improve Retention With a Joined-up Recruitment Strategy
A robust recruitment and onboarding process with a joined-up HR system means schools and trusts can:
Bring candidates onboard faster
Integrate new starters earlier
Provide new starters with essential resources and support, ensuring staff are quickly aligned with the school’s mission.
Teacher retention is a complex issue, and there’s no one-size-fits-all solution, but this list of powerful workforce management approaches could help your school or trust keep your staff on board.
Support new starters from day one
Education recruitment is a competitive market – you can’t afford to miss the opportunity to get new starters onboard as soon as contracts are signed. If you have a comprehensive HR system, consider enrolling your new starters as soon as possible. This means your employee has access to:
Onboarding information
Induction materials
Policies & procedures
Not only will this get the induction process rolling, but it can also help new starters feel valued even before they’ve started working at the school. In some cases, it may be months before a new teacher or staff member is due to start their contract. Granting them access to your HR system before their first day establishes that all-important communication and makes them feel part of the team.
Facilitate flexible working
Like most UK workers, school staff have the right to request flexible working measures. For schools and trusts with the right processes in place, this can become an opportunity to retain talent by responding to their needs. A powerful HR system that tracks staff working patterns can help you monitor who is working when. In some cases, teachers might be able to cover a particular class or subject via a “job share” arrangement. Having a robust HR system could help you facilitate this; for example, managing complex payroll considerations.
While flexible working isn’t as easy to implement in schools as it might be in an office, it’s still possible – and there are software solutions out there that can help you manage it.
This is a sponsored article, brought to you by IRIS Education.
You can download a free copy of the guide here: Download
For more information on how IRIS Education can help you with your school recruitment needs, please visit the website: www.iris.co.uk/education
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