A total of 21 teachers will be joining west Essex schools in September to address a “critical shortage” of teachers.

Five schools in Epping Forest have formed a partnership with others in Harlow to train primary and secondary teachers, who are then encouraged to find work in local schools.

The partnership, which includes Davenant Foundation School in Loughton and St John’s Church of England primary school in Buckhurst Hill, has been formed to address a what has been described as a critical shortage of maths, science and computing teachers.

Schools involved in the partnership claim it has successfully provided local teachers for local schools and 21 trainees have already found employment for September 2015.

Davenant headteacher Chris Seward said: “All headteachers in West Essex are concerned about recruitment of teaching staff into the area and, consequently, we want to attract good people into starting their careers in our schools and, therefore, give us more supply in the years ahead.

“Our local schools collaborate very successfully to provide high quality training programmes that can lead to employment.”