New initiative to attract more food teachers in schools

A new initiative has been launched to increase applications for food teaching roles in UK secondary schools.

The initiative comes through the Savoy Educational Trust, who has given a new grant to The Food Teachers Centre, a UK based support group for secondary teachers.

Launching in September, the new scheme, TeachFood, will see the creation of a 9-month campaign featuring a variety of tools, resources and support networks designed to educate and attract aspiring food teachers.

Resources include the TeachFood toolkit, an online platform delivering videos, graphics and case studies from food teachers, as well as information on how to pursue a career in food teaching. In addition, a questionnaire will also be shared with those who engaged with the platform, with questions to help indicate the likelihood of users entering the food teaching profession following the campaign.

The news of the project comes after the recent ‘Teachers Labour Market’ report from the National Foundation for Educational Research, highlighting that 10 out of 17 secondary subjects are likely to under-recruit in 2024/25, with overall secondary recruitment forecast to be around only 61 percent of target. Data from the latest ‘Education and Training Statistics for the UK’ government report also shows that there were only 3,745 teachers for food technology classes for the 2022-23 academic year – a drop of 4% compared to 2021-22 and marking the 10th year in a row that food teacher numbers have fallen.

Alongside a lack of teachers, issues such as inadequate food technology facilities in schools are only compounding the issue further. 

Speaking on the announcement of the project, Angela Maher, Chief Executive at The Savoy Educational Trust, said: “We’ve seen in recent years that although the number of students studying hospitality and food-related courses at secondary schools has increased there are not enough food teachers to deliver in the classroom, which is very worrying. 

"Schools are telling us that they have really strong interest from students wanting to study these subjects, but many are having to limit numbers due to the shortage of teachers and more help is needed to fill these specialist roles. We hope our funding will enable the Food Teachers Centre to promote food teaching in schools, attract more teachers into the profession, and allow more students to undertake this important and worthwhile study option.”

The TeachFood project will be led by Louise T Davies, Founder of the Food Teachers Centre, as well as Roy Ballam, Education Consultant.