Westminster launch for report into trainee teacher recruitment in coastal and rural areas

Released: 21.01.26

Researchers from Plymouth Marjon University will launch the Teach Cornwall Report in Westminster on Thursday 22 January calling for additional support to recruit trainee teachers to coastal and rural areas.

The Teach Cornwall Report shines a light on decades of place-based inequity for initial teacher training recruitment. Researchers are calling for Initial Teacher Training resourcing to be place-sensitive, recognising the additional location-based costs associated with training to teach in coastal and rural areas in England.

The report describes Cornwall’s geography, the impact of tourism on affordable housing, as well as a lack of year-round public transport, which are barriers to training as a teacher.

Professor Tanya Ovenden-Hope from Plymouth Marjon University, who led the research, said: “This isn’t an isolated issue for Cornwall. The inability to recruit trainee teachers from outside of the area for places like Cumbria, Clacton, East Kent, Somerset, Isle of Wight and more, impact on the schools, and the children from persistently disadvantaged backgrounds sustain outcomes below those of their peers in urban schools when the teacher supply fails”.

“We are calling for place-sensitive policy making and resourcing for Initial Teacher Training to support areas like Cornwall being able to recruit trainee teachers from anywhere.”

At the launch, Professor Ovenden-Hope will detail the cost savings for adequate investment to stabilise the teacher workforce in coastal and rural places in England. For example, spending £8,000 - £9,000 per trainee, to better support challenges faced in transport, housing and the cost of living, would deliver a significant return on investment of 44.7:1 in 10 years.

In turn, this would secure additional permanent teachers, reduce supply cover costs, enhance workforce stability and benefit student outcomes. 

Professor Ovenden-Hope added: “If the findings of the Teach Cornwall Report are ignored, then we will have more decades of challenges for trainee teacher, and teacher, recruitment in our coastal and rural places in England.”

Experts in the field of teacher education, Professor Dame Sonia Blandford, Professor Sam Twiselton OBR and Professor Aimee Quickfall, have been invited to comment on the findings of the Teach Cornwall Report and how these align with the national teacher training landscape.

Attending the launch in Westminster is Jayne Kirkham, MP for Truro and Falmouth in Cornwall, who wrote the Foreword for the report. She said: "If we want to tackle teacher shortages everywhere, we must take rural and coastal realities seriously and create pathways that work.

“Here in Cornwall, trainees contend with long commutes, a housing crisis, and limited job opportunities - particularly in the primary sector. The voices in this report remind us that solutions must be shaped by those on the frontline.

“This report offers place-based solutions, from tailored support for underrepresented trainees to collaborative innovations like the OneCornwall ITT Provider Network. These insights matter for all rural and coastal communities across the UK who are facing similar barriers.”

The report - which you can read in full here – states that

• Trainees face major travel challenges, with 78% needing to own a car to get to school placements. Some have "almost two hours each way" commutes, which are "clearly unsustainable" and harmful to "health and wellbeing”.
• Cornish salaries are 12% below the national average and the area ranks 83rd of 326 for in the government’s Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD). Housing pressures from second-home ownership force some trainees into unsatisfactory accommodation, including caravans, and 68% rely on family support to manage rent and travel costs.
• Cornwall’s population is 93.6% White British, which can create isolation for trainees from ethnically diverse backgrounds. One trainee said: "If there is a reason for me to leave Cornwall, it will be because I want to work where I'm not the only different person." More limited access to places like museums, cinemas and leisure centres adds to this.