How staff experience impacts retention in English schools

Introduction

Staff Retention by Role

Since the Edurio Staff Experience and Wellbeing survey launched in the 2018/2019 academic year, we’ve collected over 110,000 school staff responses. During that time, we observed how the proportion of staff considering resigning decreased during the years most heavily impacted by Covid-19 and then increased to levels higher than before the pandemic.

As this trend can also be seen in the Department for Education’s school workplace census, in this new report, we use our data to look at retention through the lens of the broader staff experience to provide insights for school and trust leaders whose work directly impacts staff wellbeing, recruitment and retention.

With almost 1 in 2 teachers (49%) in England considering resignation, school staff retention is an issue that should be at the forefront of every school or trust leader’s mind. The Staff Retention by Role Report will help you explore this issue in great depth and highlight the areas where improvement is needed most.

With the risk of resignation differing significantly between roles, we review who is most at risk of resigning, and review the elements of the staff experience with the strongest relationship with resignation.

The proportion of staff considering resigning dropped during the heavily-disrupted academic years of 2019/20 and 2020/21, but has since increased to levels higher than before the pandemic.

What you will find inside the report

Understanding the factors that correlate with staff retention is imperative to getting to the root of the issue. This report provides insight into different aspects affecting school staff retention rates:

1. Which roles are most at risk of resigning,
2. What aspects of their work are school staff most optimistic about,
3. What factors correlate most strongly with staff retention,
4. How do resignation rates differ between primary and secondary schools?