Last week I was one of the panel of witnesses to give evidence at the recent Commons Education Select Committee hearing on teacher recruitment, training and retention.

Alongside a range of insights into what persuades teachers to become teachers, as well as stay in the classroom for a long career, one issue came across loud and clear.

Whether it was RE teachers, maths teachers, design and technology or, in my case, physics, the message was: if you want to hire and keep good specialist teachers then you have to let them teach their specialist subject.

Of course, it should be obvious. Alongside pay and training, and the general conditions of life in the classroom, high on the list of what keeps teachers interested and motivated is being able, most of the time, to teach within their specialism.

But, too often, it just doesn’t work like that.

Struggling to progress

I gave the committee an example of the life of a new physics teacher.

Many start their teaching careers in a school where they are the sole physics specialist. With no one to turn to for subject-specific support, they also likely have up to 60 per cent of their timetable filled teaching biology and chemistry, both of which they dropped at 16.

With as many as 20 unique lessons to prepare each week - 12 of those outside of their specialist field - additional reading and research are needed to get up to speed, including over weekends.

By the end of the year, they may have taught each lesson just once and feel like they’re making limited progress.

At some point over their first five years, roughly 40 per cent of physics teachers decide they have had enough and - with a heavy heart - decide to leave the profession.

It’s a picture many teachers will recognise. In the committee hearing, panellist after panellist spoke of worrying attrition rates across their subjects, citing workload as the most common concern. So, while physics tends to be disproportionately affected, this crisis in retention is much bigger than physics.

Institute of Physics (IOP) analysis suggests that, of the 30,000 people teaching the sciences, only around 6,500 are specialist physics teachers, which implies a deficit of at least 3,500 physics teachers.

Last year, the government only reached 17 per cent of their target for physics teacher recruitment.

Not convinced by the offer

This is the lowest level in 15 years, with physics teachers leaving the profession at among the highest rates of any teachers.

Many physics and engineering graduates are put off applying to teach physics because they know that they will have to teach biology and chemistry as well.

According to historical data, some 25 per cent of physics graduates who went into teaching chose to teach maths rather than physics. Removing this requirement to teach all three sciences would improve recruitment as well as retention.

This isn’t just an issue for teaching, it’s unfair for young people. It creates a postcode lottery of opportunity that reinforces inequalities - those who can learn from a specialist, and those who can’t.

With 70 per cent of A-level physics students coming from just 30 per cent of schools, there are at least 300 schools (more likely to be in deprived areas) that send no students on to take A-level physics at all.

A student in the lowest socioeconomic status quintile is three times less likely to take A-level physics than someone in the top quintile.

Three Rs to fix the issue

But there is no silver bullet. That is why the IOP is calling for a multi-pronged approach - our “3Rs” to tackling issues across teacher recruitment and retention, and through supporting established teachers to retrain:

• Improving recruitment through dedicated marketing to engineers in relevant disciplines, and passing financial incentives on to initial teacher training providers to recruit to specific targets.
• Improving retention through reducing workload by deploying teachers to teach within their specialism, especially in their early careers.
• Supporting specialist teachers of the other sciences who are expected to teach physics through a formally recognised retraining programme for physics, coupled with a teacher bursary and funding for schools to buy out classroom time.

We need to escape the trap of this self-reinforcing spiral, with a target that just keeps on growing to cover the shortfall. And we need to act now.

The dire shortage of physics teachers, coupled with wider equity challenges that young people face in schools, is undermining our young people’s futures, holding back our economy and threatening our ability to tackle some of the greatest societal challenges of our time.

Hari Rentala is head of learning and skills at the Institute of Physics