Paying for a free press

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This is the latest of my August holiday posts. Somehow, even on holiday on the other side of the world, education stories worth commenting upon still appear. Last Monday (17TH August), The Sydney Morning Herald carried an opinion piece headed, ’Good education ideas need the right execution’.

Interestingly, the story was about the success of the Multi Academy Programme in raising education standards in England. The author of the piece stated that ‘A key enabler of England’s progress has been the Multi-Academy Trust (MAT). He added that  ‘Rather than every school running its own back office, finance, HR and administration those functions are shared across the group’.

The author concluded that the creation of MATs allows teachers to spend more time on teaching and learning, and, hence on raising standards. In essence, this is a critique of the Thatcher government’s 1987 education reforms that took responsibility for schools away from democratically accountable local councils and, by devolving budgets to individual schools, made each school a small business in its own right.

I don’t disagree with Gant Rule’s basic thesis in his Sydney Morning Telegraph opinion piece that schools are better run as part of a larger organisation than as a small business. Where we part company is over the matter of local democratic oversight of schools.

Interestingly, opposite Mr Rules opinion piece in the newspaper is a full page advert placed by The McKinnon organisation that aims to ‘to strengthen the standard of political leadership and improve how our country is governed’.

It seems odd to me that an organisation championing such views about governance should sanction an opinion piece that seems to be in direct opposition to its stated values. This is because in England, MATs are subject to no local political control.

Additionally, a MAT might well have schools spread across the country and thus be in competition with other MATs for pupils and staff with no local accountability for any of its schools.

Indeed, regular readers of my blog will know of the campaign I supported to bring in-year admissions back into a single system rather than allowing MATs to drive a coach and horses through any sensible local planning. That privilege was certainly not in the spirit of improving how England’s education system was governed and was especially harmful for children taken into care and forced to change school mid-year (search for Jacob’s Law om johnohowson.wordpress for more details). The 2026 Education Act in England has returned all in-year admissions to the oversight of local authorities, a bonus for local democracy.

As a former county councillor, and cabinet member for Children’s Services, I am not unbiased in the discussions about who should run schools in England.

However, I find it interesting that a newspaper can publish an. opinion piece by Mr Rule opposite a full-page advertisement from the organisation Mr Rule co-founded. Perhaps the declaration that the piece is part of a partnership between the Herald newspaper and McKinnon makes it alright.  

Unlike Mr Rule, I believe that schools should serve their local communities, and that MATs rarely recognise that fact. Councillors can be voted out of office: CEOs of MATs are safe from local scrutiny. There must be some discussion about how democratic the MAT model of school governance is and how it fits into the McKinnon’s vision for the health of any democracy, either in England or Australia?

5 smiles and the MBacc

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Congratulations to everyone that has received their examination results this summer. The waiting time is always a nervous one, especially for those that are experiencing the wait for the first time. So, to my third holiday post.

Staying in a range of hotels and two overnight train trips, set me thinking about how hotels have traditionally been classified, often by using a star grading from one to five. There is also an alternative of rosettes.

On this trip, I wondered about a classification based on smiles? One smile for the quality of the greeting by the door staff – earned if you are greeted with a smile and help with luggage. The second smile comes for the reception staff. Are they welcoming, however harassed they might be, do they make you feel welcome and build upon the feeling of enjoying the fact that you are using their hotel that started with the door staff?

Smiles three, four and five can be a little more general: housekeeping staff, if you pass them in the corridor,  food and drink service staff whether in the bar or restaurant and any other staff you might encounter, from car parking to pool or arranging excursions. Do they all treat you as a person and a welcome guest?

On this trip, we have encountered some really good service, and some that might be better forgotten about.

So, why call this post, 5 smiles and the Mbacc? Perhaps, because hospitality ought to one of the key strands in the post-16 offering, whether a young person wants to continue to take a degree in the subject or starting working in the industry at 18,  and hopefully before with a part-time job that allows the classroom theory to be experienced in practice.

Sadly, graduates, whether in hospitality of any other subject, will find accessing the working holiday vias scheme with Australia more of a challenge.

This excellent scheme that has allowed many Australians and Brits to visit the other’s country is now subject to a ‘slowing down’ by the Australian government in Canberra. The slowdown is a part of Australia’s response to a perceived need to cut immigration into The Commonwealth.

It will be interesting to see whether the UK government responds in any way. However, certainly for teachers, the numbers using the scheme are not what they were when it was first introduced. The link between the UK and Australia is not what is once was for generations such as mine, brought up on stories of the ‘outback’, Ned Kelly and Waltzing Matilda. Australia now looks much more towards the Pacific Region than the northern Hemisphere: one wonders about the remaining links with Britain and the future of the monarchy in Australia? Will Andy Burnham, the maker of the MBacc, also be the Prime Minister to preside over the ending of the links between the UK monarchy and Australia?

Planes, trains, but not automobiles

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This is the second of my more light-hearted summer posts. The title comes from the 1987 movie directed by John Hughes and starring Steve Martin and John Candy. Appropriately enough, this post is being written while I am on a Boing 777 travelling over the Indian Ocean. Unlike in the film, my traveling companion is not a total stranger, but my twin brother, and our trip was planned several months ago. Our jeopardy was the result of Donald Trump’s war, as our route involved a stopover in Dubai.

Long-time readers of this blog may recall that in 2019, PC – pre-covid – together with my brother I wrote a travel book called Twin Tracks. The bok was about our interrail tour around Europe – Amazon may still have a few copies for sale. That journey was by rail. This trip has so far involved planes, a failed train trip, but with more rail adventures still to come, but no automobiles

The plane journeys, on an Emirates A380 and Boing 777 can pass with little comment, except to say that I find the A380 a much more pleasant, and quieter aeroplane than the 777, at least in business class.

So, on to the trains. One reason for stopping in Dubai was to try the UAE’s new railway line. When we booked our trip last November, before the war, we expected the railway to be fully open by summer 2026, including the Dubai station. Sadly, it is not. At present, the service runs non-stop from Abu Dhabi to Fujairah on the Gulf of Oman, bypassing Dubai.

We could still have taken the train, but it would have required a two-hour bus ride to the departure point, and another two-hour ride back. Tickets were also extremely hard to come by, and booking online required a local mobile phone number. As a result, we had to rethink our plans.

While considering the options, I reflected that the passenger line in the UAE isn’t the only delayed rail project. In the UK, there is HS2, of which the less raid the better, although most people now overlook the fact that the now hugely successful Elizabeth Line in London was also not only late, but also over budget.

The less said about the California Hugh speed Rail project or the sa=tation rebuild in /Germany, the better.

Of more concern to me is the government’s failure to open the new railway from Oxford (where I live) to Milton Keynes, creating  a connection with the West Coast mainline. The line is currently one of the most expensive freight-only lines in England.

I won’t bother with an explanation here, but safe to say it is a good example of what was once called the British disease.

Anyway, back to Dubai and a decision to visit Fujairah by public transport, for a daytrip. Why, partly because it’s there, and partly after four visits to Dubai, I had never been to that Emirate. Research for the trip discovered a public bus – really a long distance coach – run by RTA the Dubai transport authority. Interestingly, traffic congestion in Dubai has led to the service being switch from the Bus Station at Union Square on the metro to the end of the Green Metro line at the oddly named E& station, whether the E700 now departs from the adjacent bus station. White elderly males are a rare sight on the Dubai metro and, I suspect an even rarer on the E700. Certainly, on our return trip we were the only Europeans we saw on either the metro or the bus.

The ride is through desert and the mountains that separate most of the UAE from the Gulf of Oman. There is a new bus station in Fujairah, and stands alone on the edge of the town, requiring a taxi ride to reach anywhere – so, we did use automobiles, even if not by desire, but like in the film, because of the force of circumstances.

Fortunately, taxis are cheap in the UAE, where petrol costs very little, so we asked our taxi driver to take us to a restaurant on the corniche coast road. An enjoyable fish lunch later, and we retraced our steps, avoiding spending any time out in the heat that reached over 110F while we were eating our lunch. Had I mentioned 110F some years ago, nobody would have has much notion of what such a temperature might feel like: not so now.

‘PedXing’, and ‘this way for the nuclear bunker’

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August is known as the silly season. It is also the holiday season in the northern hemisphere. So, perhaps not surprisingly, this blog is having a bit of a holiday from writing just about education.

This post is being written from Dubai, so why the headline? Well, when I first visited the USA ,in the summer of 1968, these were the two signs that I saw that stuck in my mind. The first, because we have no word sign for pedestrian crossings in the United Kingdom at that time, the transport Ministry preferring pictograms. The second because, although only a couple of years after the Cuban Missile crisis, there were no signs in Britain of what people should do if the threat of nuclear war became a reality. Were the British just more phlegmatic, or just further away from the action? I suppose an ICBM from the USSR could have hit New York, and in the UK were were still more concerned about the threat of a conventional war. In the late 1960s, the British Armed forces still had over 50,000 troops stationed in Germany in case of a threat from the East.

As an aside, that threat in the summer of 1968, while I was in North America, came when Russian troops invaded what was then Czechoslovakia and put an end to the ‘Prague Spring’. In the USA, the threat turned out to be internal, not least to the Democratic Party with assassinations, and the riots outside the Democratic Party’s convention in Chicago.

But, back to the point of this post. After three days in Dubai and a visit to Fujairah, another Emirate in the UAE on the Gulf of Oman, I have seen no signs of either anxiety about what has been happening in the Gulf for the past six months, nor any warning to the population of what to do if there was a drone or missile attack. All feels exactly as it has been on my other visits to Dubai, the last of which was a recently as 2024. The building boom goes on, with ever more extravagant design for high rise buildings: bits chopped ot, bridges connecting two buildings at a high level, and almost any other non-functional design you can image, and a few you probably cannot.

To add an education note; the UAE, and especially Dubai is an important location for British-style schools, many independent schools have offshoots here, free from the demands of the VAT-person. There is also the offshoot of one state school: something I wrote about earlier. see What is the role of the State in schooling? | John Howson There are also many schools for the nationals from the Indian sub-continent that make up much of the workforce in Dubai where employees have been able to bring their families.

i did wonder whether I should have tried to export Drone Football as a new game on the back of the World Cup, but this was a holiday, so perhaps that’s for another time. If you are interested, drop me a note in the comments and I will put you in touch with the organisers of the game in Oxfordshire.

Are teachers better paid?

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Way back in 2014 I wrote a post that attracted a significant number of views Be a teacher: earn £12-15 per hour? | John Howson (More than 1,500 in the month it appeared, and many more since).

As August is often a slack time for new data, I thought it would be interesting to see how teachers have fared financially since I originally wrote that post in 2014.

Interestingly, the government view of teachers no doubt helps to define the profession in the public mind, and that of some journalists and commentators, as one that doesn’t need to work very hard to earn a living. Hence the following statement for ‘Employee Earnings in the UK: 2025’

  1. Full-time is defined as employees working more than 30 paid hours per week (or 25 or more for the teaching professions). Employee earnings in the UK – Office for National Statistics

I don’t find that helpful, even though it is the minimum and it flies in the face of the DfE’s own diary research. See Working lives of teachers and leaders wave 4: qualitative report – GOV.UK and Working lives of teachers and leaders wave 4 research report page 24 that contains the following:

Hours worked

Teachers and leaders both reported working fewer hours on average in their most recent full week of work in 2025 compared with all previous years (Figure 3.1).

Average weekly working hours were as follows:

• leaders: 55.5 hours, down from 56.6 in 2024, 57.4 in 2023 and 56.8 in 2022

• teachers: 46.9 hours, down from 48.1 in 2024, 49.4 in 2023 and 48.7 in 2022

Among leaders, this pattern was driven by those working full time in particular (56.5 hours vs. 57.6 in 2024, 58.2 in 2023 and 57.5 in 2022), while for teachers, average hours were lower among both those working full time and those working part time.

The good news is teachers, and school leaders, are working fewer hours; the bad news is that they are still working nearly a 10-hour day during term-time. Why should the government still set the starting benchmark for a full-time teacher at 25 hours?

Anyway, assuming teachers work for 195 days a year (190 with pupils and 5 other statutory working days) and ten hours a day, to include the weekends, and that make 50 hours a week, close enough to the 46.9 hours of the diary study.

In September 2026, a teacher at the bottom of the scale, on M,1 will be paid £34,069 if working outside the London pay zone. This equates to £17.60p per hour for the 1950 hours.  Now assume that the average teacher does some ‘work’ in the remaining 13 weeks. School trips, CPD, preparation for next year, turning up at school on two exam results days, reading the tes or schoolsweek each week in order to keep informed, all adds up to work. Assuming seven weeks of work at an average of two hours per day, add an extra 70 hours to the total, bringing it to 2060 hours, and a rate of £16.60 per hour. That leaves six week for holidays, similar to most other public servants if you include public holidays.

Now the minimum hourly wage in England for an adult has been £12.71p since the 1st April 2026. So, a new teacher, at the bottom of the scale starts at around £4 per hour above the minimum wage. I assume the Low Pay Commission that recommends the minimum wage likely doesn’t take into account repayment of student debt when calculating the rate for the Minimum Wage. Teachers will, in many cases have accrued four years of student debt thy need to service straightaway at the starting salary of £34,069p. For those on Plan 5, this could reduce their income by around 40-50p per hour, reducing the hourly rate to just over £16.00p.

Is it time to review the Teachers’ Pay and Conditions to make much clearer what teachers being paid to do, and what they should either expect additional payments for undertaking the work, or genuine time off in lieu. No longer can teaching operate some unofficial form of ‘employer-driven flexitime’ that is little changed from when I joined the profession as a teacher in 1971.

Finally, anyone being pay on the Unqualified Teacher rate at the bottom of the scale, might be receiving a salary much closer to the Minimum Way. If they have an annual contract that means they need to work similar hours to their qualified colleagues, then they might even be being paid below the Minimum Wage: perish the thought.

So, enjoy August and ask yourself, are you being paid for the time you are spending on school work and furthering your career? How much might you charge per hour for tutoring?

Fewer ethnic minority graduates achieved QTS

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The absolute number of postgraduate trainee teachers from a non-white background is slowly creeping up.  Release home – Initial teacher training performance profiles – Explore education statistics – GOV.UK

The latest data, plus the data for the previous year are shown in the table.

However, the percentage of non-White trainees dropped from 75% of the total in 2023/24, to 72% of the 2024/25 trainee total.

The percentages teaching in state schools within 16 months of obtaining QTS dropped for all groups, but the decrease was largest, in percentage terms, for the Black/African/Caribbean Group, down from 74% to 67%. This is a real disappointment, and merits further investigation as to where the decline has occurred? This is a group of graduates that have regularly found obtaining a place on a teaching course more challenging than for graduates from other ethnic groups, and especially the ‘White’ majority grouping.

Despite the much larger number of White trainees, they achieved a higher percentage teaching in state schools than for any ethnic group, once again, in the latest data.

Numbers not obtaining qualified teacher Statues (QTS) also increased for all groups. Was this due to increased numbers dropping out of their course or an increase in trainees being failed at the end of the course?

More than thirty years ago, I highlighted the issues faced by graduates from minority ethnic groups desirous of entering teaching, and I have written several blogs on the topic, including  Ethnic minority trainee teachers: still huge regional differences in trainee numbers | John Howson

The ethnicity of the teaching profession is an area the new Secretary of State might want to ask officials to investigate. The diversity of our student population should be matched by a similar diversity in the teaching workforce, as I am sure it is among the non-teaching staff in our schools.

At the same time, it would be worth asking whether it is harder for men from ethnic minorities than for women from these groups to enter teaching?

As an aside, it would be helpful if ethnicity was added to gender data in the DfE’s monthly statistics on applications to train as a teacher by graduates.

Mbacc a pipedream without the teachers

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In the previous post, I considered trends in teacher supply into state secondary schools for three subjects listed as a part of the Prime Minister’s proposed MBacc. If such a qualification is to be rolled out nationally, then there will either need to be more teachers in schools in certain subjects or more young people will need to be diverted into further education, perhaps at 14 rather than 16. However, even that strategy won’t solve the music and performing arts dilemma regarding the number of teachers’ issue. Abolishing the bursary for music looks even more unfortunate in the light of the MBacc announcement.

How about the wider primary and secondary sectors?

 In line with falling pupil numbers, there has been a reduction in trainee numbers in the primary sector. This has resulted in fewer numbers obtaining QTS, and even fewer of those working in the state primary school sector. The 5,882 recorded working in state schools of the 2024/25 cohort should increase as the data is refined, but it is still likely to be only halfthe number of just four years previously, when more than 10,000 new teachers were working in the primary sector at some point in the 16 months after obtaining Qualified Teacher Status (QTS).

Fortunately, those newly qualified teachers not obtaining a teaching post in England, might be able to look overseas for work. With VAT on fees for private school pupils in England, the independent sector is unlikely to offer must of an alternative to the state sector over the next few years; at least until there is some upturn in the birthrate.

I hope that course providers will take note of this data, and not over-recruit to courses in the future, as burdening students with more debt and a restricted chance of securing a teaching post is not really fair on the students.

In the secondary sector, the overall position hides some variations between subjects.

The percentage obtaining QTS among secondary trainees has been falling; from some 95% before covid, to 92-93% in the years since. The overall percentage hides a much greater change in the numbers obtaining QTS, from a Covid high of 19,070 to a low of 12,820 only two years later. Covid may have brought forward the decision to teach that might otherwise have been delayed until a future year.

Fortunately, 2024-2025 saw the number obtaining QTS much closer to pre-Covid levels. With falling rolls, the overall number of trainees, if not the mix within subjects, may be satisfactory for the DfE.

However, post-covid the state school sector lost around five and a half thousand teachers compared with the pre-covid numbers f new teachers entering state schools. To what extend these missing teachers have been replaced by new entrants through the ‘assessment only’ route, isn’t clear from the data.

In the most recent year, 2024-2025, what of the percentages in state schools by secondary subjects?

The low percentage of those qualifying for QTS in Classics instate schools, is perhaps not a surprise given the percentage of state schools that teach the subject. The fact physical education is in second position in the table, with just 59% of those obtaining QTS in state schools should not be a surprise to anyone familiar with the number of trainees recruited and the DfE’s target for the subject.

Only in English and mathematics were there more than 1,000 new teachers working in schools. Given the requirement to teach these subjects to all pupils up to Year 11, and for some in Years 12 & 13, even these numbers may be insufficient. The 234 music, and 133 business studies teachers, and the 321 religious education new entrants, are almost certainly not enough to allow the subjects to thrive in our schools, even before the desire to widen the curriculum to include more MBacc students, and fewer EBacc students.

Alongside the conversation about the curriculum, and the desire of the Prime Minister to make it more relevant for work in the 21st century, there really needs to be a conversation about how the curriculum changes can be properly staffed, so that all pupils receive a high quality education taught by teachers qualified in their subject, and not just a page ahead of the AI generated lesson plan.

Data from: Initial teacher training performance profiles: 2024 to 2025 – GOV.UK

MBacc and teacher supply

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The DfE ITT performance tables issued today allow me to write a quick post about the MBacc and the supply of newly qualified teachers over the past few year. Initial teacher training performance profiles: 2024 to 2025 – GOV.UK

Number for three key subjects are limited, as the table makes clear

Achieved QTS and teaching in a state school within 16 months of QTS

ITT YearBusiness StudiesDesign & TechnologyMusicTotal
2017/18106240220566
2018/19134236212582
2019/2020125341224690
2020/212254543371016
2021/22199292289780
2022/23155346227728
2023/24135441171747
2024/25133456234823

 Numbers have increased over recent years, and may still increase further as more data is accumulated for the most recent years. However, apart from the covid bounce, they still remain low as a percentage of state schools.

With more than 500 vacancies for teachers of music this year, even if half are filled by returners, there would not be enough trainees in any years, except for the ‘covid years’ to cover vacancies.

TVEI and the Manchester Bacc: same problem, same solution?

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I hesitate to couple together Andy Burnham, our new Prime Minster, and Mrs Thatcher, one of most marmite Prime Minsters’, but they do both seem to have an interest in the role of education in preparing young people for work.

In 1982, Mrs Thatcher introduced a new scheme in what has been described in the following terms by a researcher:

The Technical Vocational Education Initiative (TVEI) was intended to instil a significant element of vocational and technical education into the curricula of mainstream schools and colleges (Williams and Yeomans, 1994). It was the first major initiative by central Government in curriculum development. The pilot was announced by then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in the House of Commons on 12th November 1982. Learning from the past Paper No. 6

The new initiative by Andy Burnham initiative is described in the following terms:

Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham said: 

“For too long the English education system has been built around the needs of just a third [sic] of young people who go to university. That means that every year, thousands go through school without a clear path into a good career. 

Our answer is the MBacc – a game-changing new plan for technical education. We’re using our devolved powers to reset the scales and give young people a clear line of sight to good jobs and the steps that will take them there. 

If we don’t make this change now, it could be the single biggest barrier to future growth – and to the life chances of young people here. The needs of our economy are changing, and right now the system is not capable of keeping pace and meeting the needs of businesses or the ambitions of the next generation.” 

Unlike the English Baccalaureate, which is geared towards the subjects top universities value, each MBacc gateway will guide young people to the subjects and qualifications most valued by the city-region’s employers. The gateways draw on the latest labour market data and provide a clear line of sight to high quality jobs in Greater Manchester’s growing economy. There will also be clear MBacc pathways for those who want careers in the emergency services or the Bee Network.  Andy Burnham unveils plan to turbocharge growth in Greater Manchester with new technical education route, the Greater Manchester Baccalaureate – Greater Manchester Combined Authority Accessed 29th  July 2026 0955

Interestingly, Burnham lists the following subject as part of the MBacc.

Engineering 

Design & Technology 

Business Studies 

Drama 

Music 

Performing Arts 

Regular readers of this blog will know that many of these are subjects that have difficult in recruiting new entrants into teaching. In the case of music, this is a subject where the DfE has slashed the ITT target. Engineering doesn’t have a target, so is probably in ‘other subjects’. Design and Technology is only filing its places as, like music, the target has been reduced

SubjectTarget 2026/27July offersFill: July viewJuly AcceptedFill on accepted
Chemistry6901460YES1302YES
Biology675629PROBABLY466POSSIBLY
Mathematics20002953YES2567YES
Design & Technology620701YES630YES
Art & Design605709YES590YES
Geography685549N466NO
Classics7545NO37NO
English19801835POSSIBLY1535POSSIBLY
Drama370318POSSIBLY263NO
Business Studies1200357NO267NO
Music260266YES220YES
Religious Education450349NO294NO
Others2035508NO414NO
History5201112YES952YES
Modern Languages10851363YES1172YES
Physics8101600YES1438YES
Physical Education6551551YES1326YES
Computing565961YES808YES

Andy Burnham must be careful not to announce a policy he cannot deliver nationally without a strategy for teacher supply, otherwise the very schools he seeks to help may be the ones that cannot recruit the teachers in a market where supply nowhere near meets demand on a national scale.

Manchester is blessed, as is the North West as a whole, with more ITT places than most of the rest of England. The test of any Prime Minister is whether he can scale up a local initiative into a credible national policy? The first step would be for Lucy Powell to take ownership of the policy.

ITT: Do bursaries work?

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Following on from the July data on postgraduate ITT preparation courses, Initial teacher training application statistics for courses starting in the 2026 to 2027 academic year – Apply for teacher training – GOV.UK  I thought that I would publish a few charts showing the number of offers made over time for key subjects. The first two are biology and chemistry

The difference this year is stark: Record offers in chemistry, and the second lowest since 2013/14 cycle for offers in biology. This suggests the presence or absence of a bursary may affect the choice of subject by some scientists that is related to the presence and amount of a bursary.

Music is a subject where the removal of the bursary has reduced the number of offers being made, although there was a slight uptick this month. Fortunately, the significant cut to the target means that there should still be enough applicants to meet the target.

Finally, geography is another subject where the target won’t be met this year. The chart shows why very clearly.

If the aim of the government is to ensure that ITT targets are met in every subject, and not just selected subjects, then there needs to be a rethink about the bursary system.

However, the bursary system is unfair to those studying other subjects in a manner that the public sector does not apply to other areas of recruitment and training.

It is time to bring teacher preparation into the 21st century: pay all trainees a living wage, and prevent over-recruitment in some subjects and the associated pressure on the Student Loan Fund.