Recruitment and retention – what are we doing about it?

July 27th, 2017

Welcome to the summer term!

Whilst this is a term dominated by tests and exams we also appreciate that schools are preparing for the next academic year. We know that the budgets for you have reduced this year, however I think we have breathed a collective sigh of relief as the substantial changes to the funding formula have been put onto the back burner with the election and purdah.

We also know that a substantial part of your budget goes on recruitment for both full time staff and for supply staff and for both of these there are, increasingly, agency costs.

For this reason, we are delighted to be supporting two initiatives to help. The first is an initiative called Air Supply (www.airsupply.org.uk) which is an online system matching teachers directly with schools, launching this term, which means lower teacher recruitment fees for schools. Look out for our Q&A article with the Air Supply team in the next couple of weeks.

The second is the national government apprentice initiative. We have set up a task and finish advisory group, of headteachers and business managers. Their job will be to manage the levy for apprentices that all mainstream schools have to contribute to (academies manage their own levy).  After this they will focus on the associated training programme.

Once you have staff in place we know that you will looking for opportunities to ensure that they are delivering the best possible high quality teaching and learning and so do look at our CPD brochure for training right up to September 2018.

Lastly, look out for a free tea party launch of our new course on the collaborative classroom, a new initiative run in partnership by Octavo and Pegasus Trust.

We wish you all the best for the Summer Term – let’s make it the most successful yet!

We have breathed a collective sigh of relief as the substantial changes to the funding formula have been put onto the back burner with the election and purdah.