Talent pathways – building a culture of career development in schools

Graham Chisnell, CEO, Veritas Multi Academy Trust, UK In this reflective piece, I explore the benefits of creating a culture of talent management within schools, and how this builds career pathways for teachers and strengthens staff retention. Through the springboard of a research trip to Singapore, Veritas Multi Academy Trust have devised a system of ‘talent pathways’ to build professional development opportunities for teachers across their schools (King, 2016). The challenges One aspect of a strong school is that it rests on the foundation of effective career progression for teachers. With a backdrop of rising teacher attrition in the UK, with a five-year retention rate of 67.7 per cent for those who qualified in 2013, our early career teachers are leaving the profession at an alarming rate (Dickens, 2019). Our senior posts in schools remain vacant, with over a quarter of schools in the UK struggling to fill their top positions (Busby, 2019a, 2019b). While UK school spendin