Another Week, Another Manufactured Outrage
The real story behind falling primary teacher numbers, and why Tory attacks are misleading.
I’ve done some quite in-depth and long pieces recently (and I am working on another one for you shortly!), so I thought I’d do a shorter, simpler one this weekend after I saw a couple of Conservative MPs complaining about an ‘abandoned’ manifesto promise, which needed debunking.
The claim
Yesterday, Conservative MP, Neil O’Brien, put out 5 tweets, a retweet, wrote a piece on his own website, a piece for the Express and even created an “interactive map” around the subject of teacher numbers - particularly Primary school teacher numbers.
He claimed that Labour had ‘abandoned their manifesto promise’ to recruit 6,500 during this parliament because the official statistics on teacher numbers released on Thursday (5th June 2025) saw a slight fall in teacher numbers, driven by a fall in Primary teachers. He went on to complain (as did other Tory MPs) that Labour were now ‘excluding’ primary teachers from that 6,500 commitment.
Sounds terrible, right?
Now, my initial response was that a commitment to 6,500 new teachers over the course of this parliament (~5 years) can hardly be deemed to have been abandoned just because it hasn't happened after 11 months.
But then the more I looked into these claims, the more they didn’t add up. So, I’ve done a full-on fact-check for him (and for you!)
The fact-check
Firstly, the numbers released on Thursday are for staff within schools during the 2024/2025 academic year. And anyone who knows anything about education knows that teaching jobs are recruited and broadly set in stone by the summer half-term holiday before the school year starts.
Which means the teachers covered by these data will have been largely decided BEFORE the July 2024 election.
Any ‘failures’ or ‘successes’ happened under the former government.
So, what do the figures show?
400 fewer FTE (Full Time Equivalent) teachers in 2024/25 than the previous year
2,900 fewer primary and state-funded nursery teachers
1,400 more secondary teachers
900 more teachers in Pupil Referral Units
The fall in primary school numbers is what has been weaponised in these claims. And on the surface, it does feel wrong to think of primary schools having fewer teachers.
But, as ever when looking at these sorts of issues, context is key.
The context
There was a separate government report looking at pupil numbers, which showed:
59,600 FEWER pupils across ALL schools in 2024 compared to the previous year
60,016 fewer pupils in state-funded primary schools
1,494 more pupils in state-funded secondary schools
So of course, there were fewer teachers in primary education - there were fewer pupils.
This is because of our falling birth rate. The birth rate in the UK peaked in 2013 and has been falling ever since. And those with quick mental arithmetic skills will note that that was 11 years before 2024, and 11 is when children move to secondary school.
Basically, the last of the high birth-rate years have now left primary, and each subsequent year group is getting smaller. So, primary schools need fewer teachers.
But those big year groups are now feeding into and through secondary and college education, so of course, that’s where extra teachers are needed.
What else does the report show?
The report on school staffing shows some positive trends:
Unfilled teaching jobs were down after a 3 year increase
5,900 more teaching assistants
1,300 fewer teachers leaving the profession
Increased retention of teachers who had recently qualified
More teachers returning to teaching than in previous years
There’s still a long way to go in a profession that has been really struggling, particularly since Covid, and the report did highlight that there were fewer brand-new teachers joining the profession since last year, which needs addressing.
The Verdict
Yes, it is true that primary school teacher numbers fell last year.
Yes, it is true that the government has now said that the 6,500 increase in teachers will be “across secondary and special schools, and our colleges”, which appears to exclude Primary schools.
But the context matters.
Primary pupil numbers are falling and will continue falling for the foreseeable future, so it is right that more teachers should be targeted at secondary schools, colleges and special schools.
And remember, none of the data in Thursday’s report - neither the good bits nor the bad bits - is as a result of any current Labour government policy.
So, when you see someone, especially a politician, using this data to suggest otherwise, you can now push back.
And don’t forget, a manifesto pledge to achieve something over 5 years has not been “abandoned” when it hasn’t been achieved in 11 months!
Debunking skills
When you see a political claim being made about new data, ask yourself:
What time period does the data relate to?
Who was responsible for the sector at the time?
What is the context behind the claims being made?
Is there more information I should consider?
Always go to the source document, where you will usually find explanations for any rises or falls. Feel free to sense-check those too! You can try and find industry responses to see if what they’re saying aligns with the government data.
No political claim should be blindly believed, no matter what your political affiliations are! Always check your own biases…
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