The Guardian is reporting that secondary schools struggling to recruit sufficient staff spent a staggering £56m on advertising for vacant posts last year, a 61% increase since 2010 according to the Labour party. At a time when there is a growing crisis in teacher recruitment and retention some schools revealed they were spending £80,000 a year on advertising and the proportion of schools that then have to readvertise when they fail to recruit first time round has also more than doubled over the past five years.  

The finding are based on information provided by a sample of more than 120 secondary schools, who in 2014-2015 on average spent just under £17,000 on advertising – up from £10,000 four years ago. Lucy Powell, who served as shadow education secretary until she resigned from the shadow cabinet alongside a number of senior colleagues last month, will reveal the figures in a speech to educational professionals at a Teach First conference in Leeds on Tuesday. She said: “The teacher shortage crisis is one of the biggest issues facing our schools yet the Tories are fixated now on increasing the number of grammar schools.”

The Manchester Central MP’s comments follow a television interview last week in which the new education secretary, Justine Greening, said she was “open minded” about allowing new grammar schools to open in England. Calling on the new education secretary to “ditch this terrible idea”, Powell said: “Justine Greening must turn the page on the Tories’ education policy and focus on what improves standards, excellent teachers, in the classroom with the right skills and support to deliver for children. “Our children and schools are paying a significant price for the Tories’ teacher shortage crisis. Ministers have spent the last six years constantly doing down the teaching profession, causing record numbers of staff to quit, and botching recruitment, missing their targets for four years in a row.

“Justine Greening now has an opportunity to hit the reset button and turbocharge plans to recruit and retain enough teachers.” However, head teachers fear that with Brexit to deal with, the teacher recruitment crisis will be a low priority for the new prime minister, Theresa May. John Tomsett, the head teacher of Huntington school in York, said in a blog this week that he knew of a school with a science department of 17 teachers, but only two have science degrees. “The school is in one of the most deprived wards in the country. More than most, its students need the very best teachers.” He continued: “If we do not make teaching a much more attractive profession we are in danger of seeing the school system in England implode. If May really does care about the ordinary working-class family then sorting out the teacher recruitment crisis should be a priority.

The thing is, it has to be a priority for us, for school leaders across the country, not for her, because with Brexit to deal with, education has already fallen off Theresa May’s priority list. We are on our own.” Responding to Labour’s claims, a government spokesman said: “The number of teachers in our schools is at an all-time high – 15,000 more since 2010 - but we recognise there are challenges. That’s why we are investing millions of pounds to attract the best and the brightest into the profession, helping schools to advertise vacancies more easily and expanding Teach First to get more top graduates teaching in some of the most challenging parts of the country.” The government has previously outlined plans to create a web tool to enable schools to advertise vacancies for free, with the creation of a national teaching vacancy website to help reduce the burden on schools.