Only half of the required number of trainee secondary school teachers in England have been recruited as the academic year gets under way, analysis shows.

The NAHT and the NEU will host a joint debate on the crisis in teacher recruitment and retention at the TUC’s annual conference in Liverpool on Tuesday.

Paul Whiteman, the NAHT general secretary, said the shortages meant more children were being taught either by teachers with no qualification in the subject, by teaching assistants or by supply staff.

“The government must rip up its failed recruitment and retention strategy and replace it with a new vision which restores education as a career graduates aspire to,” he said.

“That means at the very least immediate action to tackle crushing workload and fundamentally reform Ofsted, as well as a plan to reverse more than a decade of real-terms pay cuts.”

The unions point out, however, that the number of pupils in state-funded schools in England has risen at almost double the rate of the teaching workforce.

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