Society

Sustaining teacher quality and retention post-pandemic

This project examines the impact of the substantial changes and sustained disruption caused by COVID-19 to the development of secondary school teachers, during their Initial Teacher Education (ITE) year and subsequent two years as an Early Career Teacher (ECT). The overall aim of the research is to produce a set of recommendations to enhance teacher quality and retention.

Failure to respond now means that teachers, working in secondary schools across the UK, will not have sufficient expertise and may rapidly leave the profession. This lack of expertise combined with high rates of attrition will have a serious impact on the educational outcomes of young people who have already faced significant disadvantage through school closures and ongoing COVID-19-related disruption.

Findings from a pilot study underline the extensive challenges facing new entrants to the teaching profession and the future learning that needs to be urgently addressed by the Initial Teacher Education (ITE) sector. Research findings are being generated through analysis of responses gathered from questionnaires and remote interviews with trainee teachers, ECTs, school leaders, and ITE staff based in both schools and university, based on a sample of approximately 400 teachers trained at King’s College London.

The project team includes academics and students from the School of Education, Communication and Society and the Policy Institute. The project is also being supported by a student from the King’s Undergraduate Research Fellowship scheme, SooYeon Suh.

SooYeon wrote a piece detailing her experiences of working on the project and how it has developed her skills.

Aims

The project will look to answer the following research questions:

How has the COVID-19 pandemic created challenges and opportunities for secondary trainee teachers and ECTs to develop teacher quality?
How might the COVID-19 pandemic affect the retention of secondary trainee teachers and ECTs during the period March 2020-2022, especially those teaching subjects which have persistent shortages of teachers?
What changes to practice should be highlighted to trainees, teachers, schools and training providers to mitigate the negative effects of COVID-19 on teacher quality and retention?

Methods

Using a mixed-methods approach, quantitative and qualitative data will be collected via questionnaires and interviews. The project timeline enables data to be collected during both the training year of the 2020-2021 cohort and then again during the same cohort’s first year as an ECT, in 2021-2022. Therefore, the impacts of training and qualifying during the Covid period will be considered over a period of at least 18 months. This will provide rich understandings of the impacts of COVID-19 on teacher quality and retention that will have relevance for policy makers, school leaders and ITE providers across the UK.

Project team

Richard Brock

Lecturer in Science Education

Ye (Catherine) Cao

PhD candidate

Carla Finesilver

Senior Lecturer in Mathematics Education and Inclusion

Simon Gibbons

Senior Lecturer in English Education Director of Teacher Education

Rachel Hesketh

Research Associate

Jane Jones

Senior Lecturer in Modern Foreign Languages (MFL) Education

Alex Manning

Lecturer in Science Education

Bethan Marshall

Senior Lecturer in English Education

Christina Richardson

Lecturer in Language Education

Elizabeth Rushton

Former Lecturer in Geography Education

Sarah Steadman

Lecturer in English Education

Emma Towers

Lecturer in Education Policy

Reports

Conferences

Conferences and workshops

Presentation at Sheffield Institute of Education, Elizabeth Rushton and Emma Towers - Supporting ECTs in the first year - the place of identity, Autumn 2022. The slides are available here.

Dr Simon Gibbons contributed to an online event ‘Advancing Teacher Training and Development’, hosted by the Institute of Government and Public Policy. 20 January 2022.

Presentation of reflections on phase 1 findings in the context of wider discussion with colleagues from other PGCE ITE programmes based in England as part of the Universities’ Council for the Education of Teachers Annual Conference 2021, with Dr Elizabeth Rushton, Dr Simon Gibbons, Dr Claire Ball-Smith (University of York), Dr Lisa Murtagh (University of Manchester) and Dr Kate Ireland (Warwick University), November 2021. The slides from this presentation are available here.

Presentation of Phase 1 findings at British Education Research Association Annual Conference, Dr Elizabeth Rushton and Dr Simon Gibbons, September 2021.

Roundtable event with stakeholders from across the education sector to share Phase 1 findings, hosted by Dr Rachel Hesketh, Dr Elizabeth Rushton and Dr Simon Gibbons, July 2021.

Keynote presentation of Phase 1 findings at King’s College London Initial Teacher Education Partnership Conference, Dr Elizabeth Rushton and Dr Simon Gibbons, June 2021. You can watch a recording of this presentation here.

Workshop at King’s College London Initial Teacher Education Partnership Conference, Dr Jane Jones and Dr Emma Towers, Should I stay or should I go? Factors affecting early career teacher retention’, June 2021. The slides from this presentation are available here.

Project status: Ongoing