Education secretary says move to marking and preparation out of classroom would help stem retention crisis.

All state school teachers in England should given the right to work away from the classroom on lesson preparation, marking and pupil assessment to stem a growing retention crisis in the profession, the education secretary says today.

Bridget Phillipson told the Observer it was vital more schools offered teachers some flexible working away from the classroom as is already the case in many academy schools, without reducing contact time with pupils.

Her move comes as the Department for Education (DfE) reels from a mass of data showing high numbers, particularly of young female teachers, drifting out of the profession.

A recent Working Lives of Teachers and Leaders survey shows a big jump in respondents citing the lack of flexible working opportunities as a reason for considering leaving the state education sector in the next 12 months - up from 34% in 2023 to 47% in 2024.

Women aged 30 to 39 are the largest group quitting teaching, while also being the largest in the workforce. The equivalent of over 9,000 full-time female teachers left in 2022-3.

Phillipson said: "Children's life chances suffer without world-class teachers in our classrooms - that's why it's never been more urgent that we grip the teacher recruitment and retention crisis raging in our schools.

"That's what this government will do, by taking innovative examples from academies in offering more flexibility without reducing the teaching time with pupils. Our new children's wellbeing bill will transform children's life chances, helping us break the link between their background and what they can go on to achieve: that means driving up standards across every school." In the children's wellbeing and schools bill, published last Tuesday, there are provisions for all non-academy schools to have the same freedom to allow flexible working for their teachers as academies.