String of schools featured by Education Uncovered have high teacher turnover rates, official DfE data show

School-by-school statistics show high teacher departure rates in some institutions.

 

The human impact of controversial school management and takeover regimes appears to be showing through in official government data for teacher turnover in England, Education Uncovered can reveal.

Several schools which have featured extensively on this website in recent years have registered rates of teacher departures which are well above national averages, Department for Education statistics released earlier this month show.

The data include one school, handed by the government to England’s largest academy trust two years ago, which saw almost half its teachers depart last year; at another controversy-beset trust the figure was 42 per cent; and at an academy which has seen both teachers and pupils subject to highly centralised management, 38 per cent of teachers left.

This comes in the context of teacher turnover rates overall which declined slightly in the year to November 2024, the latest data demonstrate, with academies continuing to show higher levels of teacher departures than local authority schools, but with the gap closing somewhat.

Holland Park School

One of the most striking figures, within the DfE’s “school workforce in England” datasets, is one showing that nearly half of all teachers at Holland Park, the large comprehensive in Kensington, West London which controversially joined the United Learning Trust in January 2023, left the school in the year to November 2024.

Some 40 teachers, among the 86 who had worked in the school as of November 2023, had left by the following year. That equates to 47 per cent: the highest annual percentage of departures for Holland Park since the DfE’s dataset began, in 2010-11.

The figure compares to an overall national average rate for teacher departures, from all types of school in 2023-24, of 17 per cent.

Holland Park had been handed to United Learning in the face of a sustained community campaign, backed by the local authority and local MP as well as the National Education Union, which had argued that the-then single academy trust should join a local academy trust, rather than England’s largest, which is based in Peterborough.

The school had been in turmoil since Colin Hall, its long-serving headteacher who had been one of England’s best-paid school leaders, was announced as retiring in September 2021, after claims emerged that the school suffered from a “toxic” working environment. 

The data show that teacher departures nearly doubled from what they were the final year before the United Learning takeover – in 2021-22, when 26 per cent of teachers left – to last year, with 2022-23 seeing 35 per cent of teachers departing.

In March, Education Uncovered revealed that Holland Park had announced the departure of its fifth substantive headteacher in four years, while NEU staff members had put together an explosive letter warning of an “unsustainable” situation under United Learning. 

United Learning did not respond to a request for comment at the time, but its chief executive, Sir Jon Coles, had told a parent in a letter that the academic standards and pupil behaviour at the school “remain[ed] strong”.

It is true that Holland Park appears to have had a high teacher turnover rate throughout much of the last 15 years. The DfE’s dataset show six of the 14 years on record where teacher departures were 40 per cent or higher, including three years in a row from 2015-16 to 2017-18, and an average annual figure of 36 per cent.

Longsands Academy and other Astrea schoolsHoll

At Longsands Academy in Cambridgeshire, the DfE data appear to support the narrative offered by multiple staff sources spoken to by Education Uncovered over the past two years, that this was a relatively stable institution until an intensively top-down regime was instigated by the academy trust running it, Sheffield-based Astrea Academy Trust.

Astrea implemented highly centralised teaching and behaviour management regimes at Longsands and others among its secondary schools, with Richard Tutt, its director of secondary, said by multiple sources to be the driving force. In September 2023, Mr Tutt generated controversy after telling staff at Longsands that they could leave if they did not like the trust’s approach.

Education Uncovered reported in December 2023 that eight per cent of the school’s teachers left that Christmas, which sources said was unprecedented for the time of year. In January 2024, this website reported that pupils at the school had faced class sizes of up to 90 as it struggled to grapple with an exodus of teachers.

The new data show that teacher departures at Longsands surged to 38 per cent in the year to November 2024 – so the 12 months after Mr Tutt’s talk to staff. Of the 94 teachers who were in the school as of November 2023, 36 had left by 12 months later.

This was more than double the figure for 2022-23, and nearly double the highest other figure on record for the school: 20 per cent in 2014-15.

The latest figures raise fresh questions about Astrea’s apparent comment to inspectors, during the school’s Ofsted of February 2024 which rated it “good,” that staff turnover was a product of the school having “huge financial issues” when the trust took it over. This had been six years ago, and would not obviously appear to explain why teacher departures spiked so dramatically during 2023-24.

The fact that the Ofsted report did not mention teacher turnover at all despite, again, it having increased so markedly during the year of the inspection, is also underlined by the latest numbers.

At Ernulf Academy, the other secondary in the Cambridgeshire town of St Neots which is controlled by Astrea, teacher departures have averaged 40 per cent over the past two years. They were 45 per cent in 2022-23, and then 37 per cent in 2023-24.

Again, there was no mention of what are by national standards very high levels of teacher departures, in an Ofsted report which rated the school good in all aspects, following an inspection in January this year.

In March 2024, this website revealed that a teacher, leaving the school, had lambasted what she said was a “totalitarian” approach to controlling pupils and staff.

Astrea has said that its methods are raising standards, and can point to a string of recent positive inspection results across the trust. 

At Woodfields Academy, another Astrea secondary, in Doncaster, south Yorkshire, teacher departure rates were 41 per cent in both 2023-23 and 2023-24. This is not quite, however, the highest percentage on its record, which was 42 per cent in 2016-17. The school has faced a lot of controversy in recent years, following an Ofsted-inadequate verdict in January 2023, though it improved to “good” following an inspection in May last year.

At another comprehensive which has featured on this website extensively over the past three years, St Ivo in St Ives, Cambridgeshire, teacher departure rates have been not quite as high, though they did hit a record 23 per cent in 2023-24. This was the highest on its record, going back 13 years, and came after a figure of 21 per cent for 2022-23, which was the second-highest.

St Ivo features the same centralised teaching and behaviour management policies as the other Astrea secondaries. It also saw Mr Tutt give the same September 2023 speech as he had delivered at Longsands.

Canary Wharf College

Another academy trust which generated many stories on this website, in this case during 2023 and 2024, was Canary Wharf College, a chain of three free schools on the Isle of Dogs, East London.

Stories included the chain facing strike action – which did end up happening – over a 37-point list of concerns put together by the National Education Union – the trust being ordered to cap its primary class numbers after operating above capacity, and staff being told to work beyond their statutory hours.

The latest DfE data show that each of the trust’s two primary schools registered more than half of their teachers leaving, during one of the two years following the arrival of the controversial chief executive Joanne Taylor at Canary Wharf in January 2023.

 

At Canary Wharf College, East Ferry, the departure rate for November 2022 to November 2023 was 59 per cent – with 12 of 21 teachers leaving. During the latest year on record, November 2023-24, it eased somewhat at this school, to 32 per cent. But this was still well above the national average.

At Canary Wharf College, Glenworth, in 2023-24 more than half of the teachers left: 11 out of 19, or 57 per cent. The previous year, it had been a less dramatic 20 per cent.

At the third school in the trust, Canary Wharf College 3 – its only secondary, the teacher departure rates in the last two years have been 29 per cent and 40 per cent. The latter figure, though more than double the national average, is actually slightly below the school’s highest on record: 45 per cent in 2017-18.  

In October last year, Ms Taylor had left her position. In December, Education Uncovered reported how Gillian Kemp, who leads the University Schools Trust (UST), was taking over as interim chief executive in what was billed as a “partnership” with UST.

Brampton Manor

The number of teachers leaving another high-profile institution written about by Education Uncovered also seems noteworthy.

Some 52 of the 169 teaching staff left Brompton Manor Academy, in Newham, East London, which is 31 per cent. Teacher departures have topped 30 per cent in two of the last three years, and average 24 per cent annually since 2010-11.

Brampton Manor has generated many positive media stories over the years for its high academic standards, and boasts three successful “outstanding” Ofsted inspections.

However,  in June 2021, this website covered an employment tribunal case in which the school was found to have created a “hostile environment” for a young teacher with multiple sclerosis. 

In the following weeks, Education Uncovered reported on controversy around conditions for staff at the school, including teachers having warned Ofsted of a “culture of fear” at the school but the inspectorate appearing to have ignored them, and the school offering teachers only statutory sick pay of less than £100 a week.

The school did not respond at the time to requests for comment.

Harris Lowe Academy

Another school not reported on specifically by this website, but now operating within a trust which certainly does feature frequently, is Harris Lowe Academy Willesden, in Brent, North London.

This was one of the first academies to be created, when it was launched as Capital City Academy in September 2003, under the “sponsorship” or control of the advertising agent Sir Frank Lowe. However, 20 years later, in September 2023, it was transferred to England’s second-largest academy chain: the Harris Federation.

The DfE’s new data show that in the year that followed: November 2023 to November 2024 - 40 per cent of the school’s teachers  - 31 out of 78 - departed. This was the highest proportion of any year on the school’s records, going back to 2010-11. The figures for 2021-22 and 2022-23 had been nine per cent and 27 per cent respectively.

Ark Alexandra

Education Uncovered has also been featuring Ark Alexandra Academy, in Hastings, East Sussex, in recent weeks. The school, which is controlled by the West London-based Ark Schools, has generated considerable controversy, again for its pupil and teacher management policies, with the local MP not wanting Ark to run other schools in the town, and the NEU criticising what it said is an “authoritarian regime” in the school, though Ark says it is thriving.

Last week, this website revealed how teachers had been told to hand out 25 detentions a week, whatever their pupils’ behaviour, as well as reward points. 

The local NEU has highlighted Ark Alexandra’s latest turnover data, which at 24 per cent of teachers departing during 2023-24, was indeed well above the national average.

However, the figures did not represent a huge jump from the proportion doing so in 2022-23: 23 per cent. The current management regime dates back to September 2023. The DfE’s figures for the school, which cover the past five years, show that in the first of those, 2019-20, 25 per cent of teachers left, before relatively low turnovers of 10 per cent and 16 per cent followed over the period 2020-22.

Oaks Park

Another school which has featured on Education Uncovered in recent years over workforce concerns is Oaks Park, a local authority comprehensive in Redbridge, North-East London.

NEU members at the school went on strike in 2021 over what the union said was the victimisation of colleagues who had refused to work at the school during the pandemic. Four employees also got in touch with this website to raise concerns about working conditions, saying many staff had left in recent years. The school told me at the time that it took its responsibilities to staff extremely seriously, but was facing a constant battle to recruit and retain staff because of the “difficult job market for schools”.

In February, Oaks Park was found at an employment tribunal to have subjected a deaf member of its support staff to discrimination and victimisation after requiring her to work on-site during a pandemic. 

The latest DfE data show Oaks Park with higher-than-average teacher departure numbers for the year to November 2024, with 26 of the school’s 102 teachers – 25 per cent - leaving during the year. This followed figures of 21, 19 and 22 per cent, respectively, over the three years from 2020-21.

Regional context

Readers may note that a high proportion of the schools mentioned above are in London. Is it possible, then, that they were affected by capital-wide factors, perhaps including the cost of living making it hard to keep hold of staff, rather than anything specific to particular schools?  

This might seem possible, with London coming out as having the highest teacher turnover of any of England’s nine regions. This is the case, in each instance, when I analysed the DfE figures, covering the percentage of teachers departing individual schools during 2023-24, for LA maintained nursery and primary schools; for LA secondary schools; for primary academies and for secondary academies.

However, despite this, London as a whole, in these various sectors, still comes out as having lower turnover rates, in 2023-24, than is the case for any of the schools documented above.

That is, the proportion of teachers leaving LA primary and nursery schools during 2023-24 was 16 per cent; also 16 per cent for LA secondary schools; 17 per cent for London primary academies; and also 17 per cent* for London secondary academies.

The national and sector-by-sector picture over time

Finally, the national data for teacher turnover did ease somewhat in the last year, the DfE statistics suggest.

Some 16.7 per cent of teachers left their school in the year to November 2024, the figures show, compared to 17.6 per cent for 2022-23. Other than a dip during the pandemic years of 2019-21, this was actually the lowest figure since 2011-12. These figures cover all state-funded schools.

I have reported, for both this website and for the Campaign for State Education, how teacher turnover has been higher within academies, and in particular within the largest academy trusts, than in local authority maintained schools. Latest data used in that investigation dated from 2021-22. 

The most recently published figures show that academies continue to have higher teacher turnover than is the case in the maintained sector. However, the gap has closed somewhat.

Primary academies had a teacher departure rate of 18.1 per cent on average in 2023-24, compared to 15.3 per cent in the local authority primary and nursery sector. That is a gap of 2.7 percentage points – slightly down on the figures of 3.1 points seen in both 2021-22 and 2022-23.

Similarly, secondary academies had a teacher departure rate of 17.9 per cent overall in 2023-24 – a 2.4 percentage point gap over the 15.5 per cent seen in secondary local authority maintained schools. The gap was 2.8 and 3.4 percentage points in the years 2021-22 and 2022-23 respectively.

Overall context

There is a debate to be had about whether schools having a very low rate of teacher turnover, for example, would be positive. An Education Policy Institute investigation published last year, which also found higher teacher turnover rates within multi academy trusts, stated that low staff turnover “may limit opportunities for progression and lead to higher wage bills at a school level”.

However, it added: “Excessively high turnover can be disruptive to learning and may imply staff are unhappy in the working conditions in their current role. Evidence has shown a one standard-deviation increase in annual teacher entry rate results [at secondary level] in a 0.8 per cent of a standard deviation reduction in GCSE scores.”

It seems important, then, to track teacher turnover, especially perhaps in cases of well-above-average rates which seem to be in line with narratives emerging from school sources on the ground.

 

*Close readers might wonder why these figures for London, which as discussed are the highest in England, are not substantially higher than the national averages quoted in the section that follows them. The reason appears to be that the DfE teacher turnover data does not categorise schools by region, and that, when I used DfE school census data to look up regions myself, some schools came up as N/A. I am not sure why this is; it may be that such institutions had recently academies. Schools with a region listed as “N/A” had relatively high teacher turnover rates – actually higher than London – which will have pushed up the national average figures.