At the Conservative Party conference yesterday, the Prime Minister announced plans for the reformation of post-16 education, with a new baccalaureate-style ‘Advanced British Standard’. The government have said that:   

• The new Advanced British Standard would put technical and academic education on an equal footing 
• Every student will study some form of maths and English to age 18 
• An initial £600m funding boost for schools and colleges to support teacher recruitment and retention and help more students pass maths and English GCSE. This will include funding for a tax-free bonus of up to £30,000 over the first five years of their career for teachers in key shortage subjects. 

The ASE have the following comments.  

ASE welcomes the party’s focus on education and its underlying desire to improve the educational outcomes for all young people, particularly those from disadvantaged circumstances. We look forward to understanding more detail on the proposals and how they are likely to impact on science teaching, access to high quality science education and progression routes to meaningful further study and employment. There is an urgent need for investment in the teaching workforce, to recruit, train and retain specialist teachers, in a wide range of subjects, and particularly science where there is an unprecedented shortage of specialist teachers.  

Measures to improve the recruitment and retention of teachers are much needed. This issue is a huge concern to our members across the UK. We await detail on which teachers would be eligible to receive the proposed £30,000 during their first five years.  

‘The teaching profession is under enormous strain and we know that our members will have legitimate concerns about yet more proposed changes, regardless of the proposed timescale for implementation, and impact on the workforce.’
Prof Leigh Hoath ASE Co-Chair, and Deputy Dean, School of Education, at Leeds Trinity University. 

We will be discussing the proposals with relevant membership committees over the coming weeks and look forward to talking in more detail with the Department for Education (DfE) prior to the development of the formal consultation over the next few months.    

*March 2024 update: We have now submitted our consultation response