A total of 50 more teachers are working at Oxfordshire schools, new figures show, despite a “retention crisis” across England.

While the school workforce across the country has increased slightly, thousands of teachers have left the state school sector.

Department for Education (DfE) figures show there were 5,473 teachers working at the 305 state-funded schools in Oxfordshire as of November.

This was up from 5,423 the year before and a record-high number since comparable records began in 2010.

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Across England, the school workforce has increased “marginally” by around 300 teachers to 468,700.

This includes some teachers without qualified teacher status.

The figures show around 44,000 qualified teachers joined the school workforce, down 3,900 from the number of joiners the year before.

Meanwhile, 43,500 qualified teachers stopped working in the state school sector.

Teacher vacancies in state schools in England have more than doubled in the past three years, reaching an all-time high of 2,800 in November.

In Oxfordshire schools, 63 teaching roles needed to be filled – up from 31 the year before. 

Of these, 62 were for classroom teachers.

There were also 28 positions that were temporarily filled.

Classroom teachers’ median pay in Oxfordshire saw an increase of 4 per cent since 2022, reaching £41,600.

However, this was less than the average for England, which was £43,800.

Paul Whiteman, general secretary at school leaders’ union NAHT, said: “These alarming figures are stark evidence of the recruitment and retention crisis facing our schools and the need for whoever forms the next government to commit to urgent action to address this."

He said there are 18,000 more pupils in schools this year, while fewer new teachers have joined compared to previous years.

Mr Whiteman added that teacher vacancies are causing difficulties delivering the full curriculum, with subjects taught by non-specialists and supply teachers.

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Pepe Di’Iasio, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: “What these figures show, and what all school and colleges leaders know only too well, is that it is becoming increasingly difficult to fill teacher vacancies.

“Often this requires advertising roles several times and making use of supply staff in the intervening period, all of which has a financial cost attached.”

The DfE said: “The number of teachers entering and leaving service both fell though the number of entrants continues to be higher than for leavers.

“This, combined with changes in working patterns and an increase in unqualified teachers, resulted in a marginal increase to the number of teachers in England.”