The Chartered College of Teaching is joining a new project, led by Sheffield Institute of Education to research professional development and teacher retention in mid-career teachers.

This new research project sets out to better understand the link between continuous professional development, job satisfaction, self-efficacy and teacher retention. Mid-career teachers are encouraged to participate in a survey and join online focus groups. The research team includes researchers from Sheffield Institute of Education, Chartered College of Teaching, the Education Policy Institute and Multi-Academy Trusts.

The project will involve a rapid evidence review, secondary data analysis of some data from the TALIS (The OECD Teaching and Learning International Survey) teacher questionnaire and collect data from UK-based mid-career teachers through online surveys and online focus groups to investigate what professional development opportunities are available to mid-career teachers and how they relate to their career progression and retention.

“The secondary school system is facing a substantial teacher supply challenge over the next decade” (Worth and Van den Brande, 2019: 4).

With ongoing recruitment and retention challenges, there has been an increased focus on recruiting graduates into teaching and retaining early career teachers in the profession. However, less is known about the factors that could encourage mid-career teachers to stay in the profession. An NFER report (Lynch et al., 2016) suggests that workload and changes to the curriculum contribute to teachers leaving the profession but overall job satisfaction and feeling valued by management appear to be the biggest drivers. Research by Sheffield Hallam University further shows that professional development is a contributing factor in retaining teachers (Coldwell, 2017).

The project will not only improve the understanding of these issues but is also directly relevant to the development of the new, specialist NPQs. The project runs until the end of April and results will be made available throughout the summer term.

If you are a mid-career teacher and can spare 10-15 minutes, complete the survey and/or sign up to one of the online focus groups.