Teacher Autonomy
How does it relate to job satisfaction and retention?
A study by the National Foundation for Education Research (NFER) in collaboration with the Teacher Development Trust (TDT) suggests teacher autonomy over their professional development is strongly linked with job satisfaction and retention.
Autonomy plays a significant role in teachers’ motivation. Giving teachers greater influence over how they do their job has the potential to increase job satisfaction, which in turn is important in tackling teacher retention. At a time when the school system cannot afford to lose valuable teachers, improving autonomy, workload, satisfaction and retention could help address the teacher supply challenge.
There has been a welcome recent focus on teacher workload but we know that what concerns teachers is not just the amount of time worked, but the relevance of tasks they’re being required to carry out. School leaders and policy makers need to carefully consider how accountability and performance management systems are supporting the right types of teacher autonomy, raising morale and improving retention.
