NEW Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson must urgently address teachers’ pay, the National Education Union said today as the government starts work on recruiting 6,500 new teachers to stem the staff retention crisis.

Ms Phillipson wrote to all education workforces to “make clear the valuable role they will play in this government’s agenda for change,” ahead of a reception with key education stakeholders later this week and a formal meeting with teaching unions in the coming days.

Her letter said that she aimed “to understand the scale of the challenges you are facing, and the support needed to fix them,” but it did not mention pay.