The Keeping Every Early-career Physicist Teaching (KEEP Teaching) project aimed to reduce teacher workload and address retention challenges affecting early career teachers (ECTs) with a physics specialism. The Institute of Physics (IOP) identified key factors that determine the ease of transition for a physics graduate through their NQT year. The trial aimed to look at whether an adapted timetable (designed to maximise a teacher’s time in their subject specialism) had an impact on the likelihood of a physics ECT remaining in their first school and in the profession.
Intervention schools received a four-page guidance document and were instructed to design a ‘matched’ timetable for their physics ECTs. This tailored scheduling was designed to increase the amount of physics lessons and reduce the number of distinct lessons that they teach, aiming to support ECTs to plan fewer lessons and to feel more confident by teaching the subject that they have the most expertise in.
This project was funded as part of the Science Teacher Retention grants round, co-funded with the Wellcome Trust, to address the challenge of teacher retention.
Over a three-year period (2019−22), 207 school-ECT pairings were recruited to the trial. Those in the intervention group were expected to implement the guidance for an NQTs full timetable (for all year groups) across the academic year.
This project and its evaluation were affected by the 2020 and 2021 partial school closures caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Originally, the primary outcome was intended to measure the retention of ECTs in the teaching profession three years post teaching qualification. Due to the impact of COVID-19 on job mobility and recruitment, the outcome measure was changed to assess the job satisfaction of ECTs, as a proxy for job retention.
Outcomes in relation to job retention were intended to remain as secondary outcomes to be sourced at a later date from the School Workforce Census (SWC) and published in an addendum report in 2026. However, following analysis of the initial efficacy trial findings outlined in this report, it was determined that pursuing the addendum would add limited value. This decision is based on the low implementation in schools of the timetabling guidance.
Early Career Physics Teachers in the KEEP Teaching intervention group did not report increased job satisfaction (primary outcome) compared to teachers in the control group. While there was a statistically significant difference between how much the timetabling was matched to the ideals of a new physics teacher (‘matchedness’) between intervention and control groups in cohort one, no such differences were observed in subsequent cohorts. This result has a high security rating.
The intervention was lighter touch than originally planned as schools did not implement the guidance as expected and no schools took up the offer of further tailored guidance. Although the initial timetabling guidance was considered useful there appears to have been internal communication difficulties within schools. More sustained and direct work with schools to influence timetables may have led to more substantial changes in timetable adaptation, and therefore increased job satisfaction.