International teacher recruitment: understanding the attitudes and experiences of school leaders and teachers

Teacher supply and retention is an ongoing challenge for all schools. The 2016 School Workforce Census (SWC) states that for secondary schools, the percentage of schools that have at least one advertised vacancy or temporarily-filled post rose from 23 per cent in 2015 to 27 per cent in 2016 (DfE 2017a). These national patterns do not reflect the extent of local and regional differences in teacher demand and supply, with more acute challenges in certain areas, schools and subjects - particularly maths, physics and modern foreign languages (NAO, 2016; DfE 2016a). Whilst the vast majority of teachers by schools are recruited from England, schools may also recruit teachers from overseas as a solution to filling teacher vacancies, including in shortage subjects.In November 2016, Sheffield Hallam University and the University of Brighton were commissioned by the Department for Education (DfE) to research schools' approaches to recruiting teachers from abroad, their motivations, behaviours and the perceived benefits and barriers to recruiting internationally. More specifically, the research aimed to help inform decisions on how the DfE might support the recruitment of international STEM and MFL teachers, and to identify key principles for the design and delivery of international recruitment initiatives.