It says the government must take action to ensure that the success of high-performing schools with deprived pupils can be repeated across the country.
The report says the government’s efforts to support teacher recruitment and retention need to be focused on the needs of lower-performing schools in poorer areas outside of London.
The DfE needs to ensure that factors affecting teacher supply, such as the availability of affordable housing, good transport links and quality of life, are being addressed across the government. The research suggests this will help to attract teachers into areas with low-performing schools.
The most successful schools have teachers who believe in their school’s ethos and are confident that their work can make a difference.
The report suggests that the DfE explore this further to research the link between “shared staff purpose and school performance”.
It says that this further research could assess what strategies are successful in supporting disadvantaged pupils and ask, “How does a shared sense of purpose impact on the performance of teachers and pupils’ results?”