More than a quarter of senior school leaders don’t expect to be in education beyond the next one to two years, according to YouGov poll findings seen by TES.

However, the overwhelming majority who took part in the survey said they were open to being persuaded to stay in the profession - particularly if workloads were reduced.

In the YouGov survey commissioned by the Education Support Partnership charity and shared with TES, 27 per cent of senior school leaders said they did not expect to be working in education beyond the next one to two years.

Of a total of 865 teachers and school leaders surveyed, 43 per cent said they did not expect to be working in the sector beyond five years.

Education Support Partnership runs a free and confidential 24-hour helpline that receives more than 30,000 calls a year from school staff experiencing difficulties.

The charity’s chief executive, Julian Stanley, said the poll findings reflected “what so many tell us when they call in crisis: that many staff working at every level in schools are feeling overwhelmed”.

‘Enough is enough’

He said it was “particularly worrying” that senior leaders with “immense experience” were saying “enough is enough”.

Russell Hobby, general secretary of the NAHT heads’ union, said he was alarmed by the proportion of senior leaders inclined to leave education.

“You’re always going to get a proportion that is ready to leave, but that’s high,” he said.

However, the poll also reveals that respondents were willing to be persuaded to stay.

In total, only 7 per cent of teachers and leaders said “nothing” would positively influence them to stay in education.

The biggest factor that could influence their decision was workload - 79 per cent of senior leaders and 76 per cent of all teachers and leaders said reducing workload would influence them to stay.

Mr Hobby said the fact that a majority of teachers and school leaders could still be persuaded to stay “exposes how badly managed the system is”.

“These are not people who have completely given up or lost the will to work - they’re people who feel they no longer can,” he added.

A Department for Education spokeswoman said: “We recognise the importance of schools being able to retain good teachers as well as recruit them, which is why we have focused actions in key areas that are of concern to teachers - like tackling unnecessary workload and improving teachers’ ability to manage poor pupil behaviour.

“Our latest Workforce Statistics show that teacher retention has been broadly stable for the past 20 years. We’ve also seen a significant rise in the number of teachers returning to the profession after some time out, with returners having increased by 20 per cent in the four years up to 2015.”

This is an edited article from the 24 February edition of TES. Subscribers can read the full article here. To subscribe, click here. This week’s TES magazine is available in all good newsagents. To download the digital edition, Android users can click here and iOS users can click here.

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