New scheme will mean early career maths and physics teachers in the North East, Yorkshire & the Humber and all Opportunity Areas can get an additional £2,000.

Thousands of teachers across the country are to receive extra money to encourage and support them during the early years of their classroom careers.

Early career maths and physics teachers in the North East, Yorkshire & the Humber and Opportunity Areas will receive a £2,000 Government incentive as part of a drive to increase rates of retention among teachers of these subjects.

The initiative announced today (Thursday 23 May) will further support teachers in the areas benefitting from the Government’s £72 million Opportunity Area programme.

Backed by £10 million investment set aside from last year’s Budget, the pilot will test a new way of incentivising maths and physics teachers to remain in the profession during the first five years of their career.

The scheme is based on evidence from the Gatsby Foundation and Education Policy Institute, which highlighted the potentially significant impact of such retention payments.

Minister for School Standards Nick Gibb said:

Teaching remains a popular career, but we want to make sure that we can continue to attract and keep the brightest and best graduates, particularly in subjects where specialist knowledge and expertise are vital to the future success of the economy.

The number of young people studying science and maths subjects has increased since 2010 and we have today pledged £10 million investment to ensure teaching remains an attractive and fulfilling proposition and that every child has the opportunity to fulfil their potential.

This follows the launch of the government’s first-ever integrated strategy to recruit and retain more teachers in schools – and will build on the 30,000 classroom teachers the government aims to recruit each year and support the 450,000 teachers already working in schools in England.

The pilot runs alongside Government plans set out in the Teacher Recruitment & Retention Strategy to improve incentives on offer to teachers in England to include retention-based payments for those who stay in the profession by staggering additional payments throughout the first years of their career.

Chief Secretary to the Treasury Liz Truss said:

Maths and science open doors to higher wages and better opportunities for pupils. Great teachers are, of course, crucial to the success of STEM lessons and this pilot will help schools recruit and retain the best staff.

We are investing in these teachers to inspire the next generations to succeed in Britain’s future economy.

Mike Parker, Director of Schools North East, said:

High-quality teaching has a profoundly positive impact on children, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds. There are many factors that account for the disparity in outcomes for pupils in economically disadvantaged areas when compared with more affluent ones, but the availability and retention of teaching talent is among the greatest.

Physics and maths are vital disciplines for the vibrant and successful sectors that are driving the economy in the North East. Investing in recruitment and retention of teachers is essential not only to the future success of pupils in this area but also to the long-term economic outlook of the region.

Nigel Thomas, Executive Director at the Gatsby Foundation, said:

We warmly welcome the Government’s announcement and have long advocated the use of modest salary supplements to retain teachers in shortage-subject areas, where better paid opportunities exist outside of the profession. Gatsby’s own research strongly indicates that financial incentives would be more effective at curbing teacher shortages in maths and science than recruitment measures alone.

We hope that this scheme is the first of many steps to ensure that learners nationwide are able to receive a high-quality and robust science and maths education regardless of geography, background or circumstance.

Today’s announcement builds on the Government’s continued work to increase support for the teaching profession by trialling extra payments for teachers in schools, in 2019-20 and 2020-21, in subjects where there have traditionally been challenges in retaining teachers.

This is part of the Government’s commitment to invest in programmes to encourage take up in STEM-related subjects, including the opening of Lancaster Maths School, announced earlier this week (Tues 21 May). Created in a collaboration between Lancaster University and Cardinal Newman College in Preston, the school will act as a regional centre of excellence for delivering Mathematics at A Level for the most able 16 to 19-year-old students from across Lancashire.

It also follows the £508 million teachers’ pay grant announced last year to give thousands of classroom teachers a pay rise, and forms part of a drive led by the Education Secretary Damian Hinds to ensure teaching is a valued and rewarding career.

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New scheme will mean early career maths and physics teachers in the North East, Yorkshire & the Humber and all Opportunity Areas can get an additional £2,000.

Thank you very much, Mr President and a huge thank you to our briefers, Mr Zenega and Mr Madeira and to the Assistant Secretary-General. It’s very good to have this. It’s the first briefings we’ve had since UNSOM’s mandate was renewed.

I think the first thing to say, Mr President, is that when we had the last meeting many of us noted that 2019 would be a very important year for Somalia – and I might even go as far as to say it would set the trend of Somalia’s development for years to come. I think an important signifier of that is the new Special Representative of the Secretary-General, and we hope he can be in post soon. And we hope in turn that that becomes an opportunity to reset the UN-Somalia relationship and to find a way forward on the Panel of Experts. Restoration of cooperation with the UN and the international community is very important. I know the Somali Government has been thinking about this as well and that’s very welcome. I think the ASG’s last points show quite why this is so critical. Somalia needs the guidance and technical capability of the UN to help it with some of the detailed issues that the ASG was mentioning.

I just wanted to thank Mr Onanga for standing in and holding the fort in the interregnum between the two SRSGs. I think it’s important on an occasion like this, Mr President to say something about the bravery of AMISOM in Somalia and also the great efforts made by the African Union, which we appreciate. The UN, Somalia and international partners there need to work in tandem to deliver the transition plan. I think that in tandem, in cooperation, working coherently together is a really vital part of the prospects for success. We all want to get to a stage where Somalia leads on providing security for its people. So for the United Kingdom we really welcome efforts to build the impetus in the AMISOM mandate renewal currently ongoing. But I would just stress, Mr President, that in my experience, these things work best when troop numbers are allied to the tasks that the troops have to do and not the other way round.

As I said, 2019 is important. In fact probably the next 12 months are going to be critical to making progress on political, economic and security reforms ahead of the elections in 2020/2021. And we all know that political agreements between the Federal Government and the Federal Member States are going to be at the heart of Somalia’s stability and prosperity. I think in order to bring that about it’s very important that there’s regular and constructive dialogue between the Federal Government and the Federal Member States, particularly on the constitutional review, the electoral laws, the implementation of the security pact and the delivery of the transition plan. And I was interested to see about the prospects for the Somalia Partnership Forum which will meet this Summer.

I think the Council, Mr President would find it useful to have regular meetings and briefings so that we can help chart progress. I think it’s important that we think about how we can support all sides being able to fulfil the agreed partnership principles in that forum. And it be very good to have a sense of where the UN sees the key priorities there and how they relate to the National Development Plan.

I just wanted to say something about the humanitarian situation. We wanted to have a humanitarian brief because of the deterioration – as a result of the drought. In some ways the early warning indicators we see are worse than those we witnessed two years ago. We are about to announce additional support. We hope others might be able to do likewise. I think we all know there’s a real opportunity here to help Somalia get back on track, but it has very many components, one of which is cooperation with the UN. Obviously, the transition plan is important and in fact critical and anything AMISOM can do to support transition priorities is also very critical.

Thank you.

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