The Education Select Committee has formally accepted Teacher Support Network’s written evidence for its inquiry into ‘attracting, training and retaining the best teachers’. The evidence was based on information from our services and your responses to our e-newsletter surveys, as well as an archive of other research.

In the evidence, we challenged the view that the attributes of an effective teacher are solely innate and not developed. For example, a teacher’s wellbeing is influenced by a host of external factors, and research shows a clear link between teacher wellbeing, effectiveness and pupil outcomes. We also expressed real concern about the reasons for such high attrition rates in teaching. Research shows that, overall, people give negative reasons for leaving teaching, such as pupil behaviour problems and high workload. Five key actions were suggested to address this. In the evidence, we argued that:

• Recruiters must ensure that potential teachers understand the realities of teaching before and during training
• Health and wellbeing must become an integral part of all teacher training and development
• School leaders and managers must be advised to implement practices that improve retention, and be encouraged to innovate in other ways. A culture of distributed leadership, where teachers are supported and encouraged to direct their own development, is a key known ingredient of quality retention
• Policy makers must proactively research and respond to the negative issues that teachers are giving as reasons for departure
• Finally, actions, such as publicity campaigns, must be identified and implemented to make teachers feel more valued in society

Others to have evidence accepted include the National Union of Teachers (NUT), NASUWT, the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL), OFSTED, a Secondary Headteacher and two Primary Headteachers.

You can read our full submission here.

The Select Committee’s enquiry will conclude next year, at which a report will be sent to the Department for Education (DfE) which they will be obliged to respond to.

This is the latest report that Teacher Support Network have contributed evidence to. Teacher Support Network previously gave written and oral evidence to the 2010 behaviour and discipline in schools enquiry. This work, which featured teachers' responses from our 2010 Behaviour Survey led to improvements in protecting teachers from the repercussions of false allegations, which were given royal assent recently in the 2011 Education Act.