6 March, 2026

Top education news stories

Explore this week’s news roundup to uncover the key challenges and priorities for schools across the country.

6 min read

1. New NFER report on school support staff recruitment, retention and pay

NFER has published a new report, looking at how school support staff such as administrators, teaching assistants, technicians, school business professionals and others experience school life. Read more here.

The report finds that the support staff workforce continues to grow year on year, and that the most recent growth is driven by teaching assistant roles.

When it comes to recruitment, NFER found evidence that variation in SEND needs may be linked to demand for teaching assistants, but the relationship is not especially strong. Additionally, a 2023 survey suggests SEND support is a common part of teaching assistants’ work, but general learning support is even more common.

Despite this, around three in four school leaders reported that they found it difficult to recruit teaching assistants in 2025. In fact, leaders reported greater difficulty recruiting teaching assistants than teachers.

NFER’s experimental analysis suggests just under one in five support staff left the state school system within 12 months in the latest data, with exit rates rising in each of the last three years.

The report draws on Edurio staff survey data to shed light on why people consider leaving. Many respondents cite not feeling valued and low morale. Staffing shortages, financial reasons and workload are also commonly mentioned.

The report also notes that a significant proportion of support staff in the Edurio survey data rate their pay as not fair compared to similar roles in their organisation.

Source: School Support Staff: Recruitment, Retention and Pay (Key Findings from the New NFER Report) (home.edurio.com)

2. 2.7% teacher pay rise affordable over next two years, says DfE

Teachers’ union leader calls government projections ‘insulting’, writes Tes.

Mainstream schools can afford a 2.7% pay rise over the next two years under current funding plans, DfE modelling shows.

The rise will come from £1 billion of “financial headroom” that a DfE document says schools will have in 2026/27 and 2027/28.

This headroom, it says, equates to an overall pay increase of 2.7% over that period if awards are affordable within each year and applied to all teachers. The increase comes on top of pay drift, which is estimated to increase average teacher pay by a further 0.5% over the two years.

The DfE has previously proposed in its written evidence to the School Teachers’ Review Body that teachers’ pay should rise by 6.5% across the three academic years from 2026/27 to 2028/29.

The department says that a 6.5% award over three years, combined with increases from the previous two pay rounds, would amount to a real-terms rise of almost 4% across the Parliament, based on Office for Budget Responsibility consumer price inflation forecasts.

But Daniel Kebede, general secretary of the NEU teaching union, said: “Teacher pay has already been cut by 23% against [Retail Price Index] inflation since 2010, with devastating consequences for teacher living standards, recruitment and retention.

“The government must invest in the urgent and significant pay correction that is needed to value, recruit and retain teachers properly.”

Source: Clarity sought as trust growth funding ‘absent’ from white paper (schools.co.uk)

3. Diversity and flexibility push in DfE’s 6,500 teachers plan

Ministers have finally revealed details of how they plan to grow the teaching workforce by 6,500, writes Schools Week.

Ministers aim to improve diversity in teaching and access to flexible working as part of their plan to boost the size of the workforce by 6,500 – a pledge that initially promised 6,500 “new teachers in key subjects”, but was later changed to measure overall workforce growth, including retained teachers.

The government has published the delivery plan for its years-old pledge to recruit additional teachers.

While progress on the goal appears promising, experts have warned that better long-term thinking is needed to address entrenched workforce issues.

The boost was a manifesto pledge for Labour, and ministers have since faced repeated criticism for moving goalposts and failing to explain how it would be achieved.

The Labour government said recruitment will target areas “where the need is greatest”, including shortage subjects and disadvantaged areas.

Furthermore, much of the plan to boost recruitment includes work already underway, and work to specifically grow the FE workforce. One goal is ensuring the schools’ workforce “reflects the diversity of our communities”.

A recent NFER report highlighted “significant ethnic disparities” in ITT rejection rates among UK applicants. This was not explained by differences in applicants, suggesting “discrimination has a role”.

To combat this, the government will pilot “anonymised” teacher trainee applications, increase transparency by publishing more recruitment data, and improve how it collects information on ethnicity and disability in schools to “monitor and address disparities”.

Source: Diversity and flexibility push in DfE’s 6,500 teachers plan (schoolsweek.co.uk)