Encouraging Persistence: Evidence from the Teacher Success RJP in Initial Teacher Training 2025

February 2026

As we round out the year, it’s been fantastic to receive this feedback from our ongoing partnership with the Department for Education, who implemented our T-Attract technology as part of their 2025 teacher training recruitment cycle. Results have shown that T-Attract encourages persistence in teacher training applications, with users more than twice as likely to reapply after an initial setback – vital as we face the ongoing teacher shortage.

Read the Department’s summary below.

Findings from the Department for Education

TSP’s realistic job preview (RJP) tool, T-Attract, is part of the Teacher Success Platform, a suite of research-based tools that use research-supported approaches to support teacher recruitment. The brief RJPs that form T-Attract place prospective teachers in classroom scenarios and provide feedback on their decisions, helping them understand the demands of teaching and whether it is a good fit for their personal characteristics and profile.

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In the Department for Education’s (DfE) 2025 teacher training recruitment cycle, 1,620 candidates completed T-Attract after being unsuccessful in a previous round of recruitment. Around half (51%) went on to reapply, and 29% of those reapplicants received an offer.

Higher-scoring users of the tool did somewhat better: candidates scoring above 92 (out of 100) had about a 34% chance of an offer, compared with 26% for those scoring below 92.

Most users were aged 30–44, with this group also showing relatively strong reapplication rates, and over half (53%) were non-EEA nationals, who were more likely to reapply (64%) but less likely to receive an offer (23%), reflecting additional barriers such as right-to-work and qualification equivalence.

Among those who were unsuccessful in their first-choice application across the wider applicant pool, only a low number (~2%) chose to engage with the RJP, but those who did were far more likely to reapply within the same cycle (63% compared with 29%).

Our key take-home message is that a high proportion of candidates who completed the RJP went on to reapply, and that engagement with the tool appears to encourage persistence in the application process, particularly for candidates who might otherwise disengage after an initial setback.

If you’re interested in trialing T-Attract or any of TSP’s other solutions, please email info@teachersuccess.co.uk, where we can organise a free demo or advise on the best solutions for your institution.