Monthly Archives: January 2016

Fig leaf look a bit threadbare

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It didn’t take long for the national press to take up the issue of teacher supply in 2016. The Observer, a paper that has carried several stories about teacher supply over the past few months, including covering my evidence to the Select Committee in last Sunday’s edition, has highlighted the concerns of Sir Michael Wilshaw about recruitment in coastal and deprived areas expressed in his annual report. The reporters also highlight Labour’s issues with the DfE statistics, including both the inclusion of Teach First numbers being included in the annual census of trainees and the presentation of vacancy numbers based on data collected in November. http://www.theguardian.com/education/2016/jan/02/ofsted-row-ministers-extent-teacher-shortages-michael-wilshaw

As Sir Michael Wilshaw demonstrated in his last annual report, even the DfE figures, collected at the most favourable time of the year, have been going in the wrong direction over the past few years. It is not the fault of civil servants that the only data they collect comes from a census taken in November, but the fig leaf that this provides Ministers with now looks ever more threadbare.

How can you operate a National Teaching Service if you do not know the annual demand from schools for teachers? I am interested to know if anyone has yet seen the parameters for the working of this service. As schools are already recruiting for September 2016, if the government doesn’t enable the service soon it will have an even more challenging first year of operation than might be necessary.

Who does the government have that is capable of running such a service anyway? How much will they pay the teachers; will they only recruit existing teachers, perhaps from Teach First; will it just be secondary schools offered such teachers or will primary and special schools be included; will such teachers be offered only to academies or will all schools be able to bid for such teachers? Who knows, if you do please let me know where I can find out the details.

If the Observer didn’t actually talk to Sir Michael before writing their story, but just based it on comments in his annual report, they might want to ask him about progress at GCSE in areas where recruitment is challenging. TeachVac’s preliminary investigation of 2015 GCSE 5A*-Cs results including English and mathematics, compared with 2014, suggest that in London more schools performed less well in 2015 than 2014 than did better. Now, nationally, there was an overall decline of half a per cent in this figures, so some schools doing worse than last year was to be expected. The fact that overall more schools did in London worse raises questions about whether teacher supply problems might have contributed to the outcomes, even if schools have tried to protect examination classes.

Of course, since the DfE don’t believe there is a crisis in teacher supply anywhere in the country they will have to come up with a different explanation if it is true school performance in London has faltered compared with some other parts of England.

Teacher recruitment in 2016

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How will schools looking for teachers in 2016 fare? Teacher supply was a common theme of discussions in the autumn term of 2016, so I thought I would share some preliminary analysis regarding the start of the 2016 recruitment round. Schools signed up to TeachVac, our free recruitment site that costs schools nothing to post vacancies, receive more detailed information thorough our monthly newsletter. To find out more visit http://www.teachvac.co.uk

In addition, secondary schools receive the unique update on the size of the remaining ‘free pool’ of trainees every time they upload details of a main scale vacancy. At present, this is the national picture since the NCTL seem reluctant to reveal regional data in any meaningful form, despite in 2014 telling me that they had hoped to do so in 2015. The data on regional provision in the priority subjects that they have produced is challenging to map against the actual census numbers in some subjects. As the key census table also has gaps that appear to be filled in another table, I have a word of caution about the data in the public domain. No doubt some enterprising MP will ask questions or the Select Committee will elicit the actual data from the DfE as part of their inquiry. If so, we will update the information in TeachVac.

Anyway, using the data that is available we can assume that Teach First trainees will be in classrooms and unavailable to fill vacancies, other than as qualified teachers at the end of their programme, and that School Direct Salaried trainees are also likely to be hired either by the school where they are training or another local school without an advert appearing.  As a result, these trainees can be discarded from the pool of trainees available to schools unable to access these programmes. In addition, it is worth reducing the remaining number by five per cent to allow for those that don’t complete their training programme on the higher education, SCITT and School direct fee routes.

Taking all these variables into account, the picture is broadly similar to this point in 2015. There are unlikely to be enough trainees in the ‘free pool’ to satisfy demand in business studies; design and technology – despite slightly better recruitment than last year; English – where we have concerns that the distortion produced by both Teach First and the School Direct Salaried numbers may make it difficult for schools in some parts of the country to recruit a teacher –this is a subject where the regional breakdown of recruitment into training would be especially helpful. Although the mix of science teachers may not be what schools need, the total of trainees may be sufficient across the country, even if not regionally. The same is true in mathematics.

In PE, art and probably languages, there should be sufficient trainees to meet demand. In other subjects, we need to see how schools will schools respond to curriculum changes and funding pressures before making a judgement. However, geography, music, IT and RE schools seeking teachers may struggle towards the end of the year, if 2016 follows the pattern of 2016.

Regionally, despite the presence of Teach First together with the School Direct Salaried places, we expect schools outside these programmes to struggle in London and the Home Counties when it comes to recruitment of main scale teachers. As these are the parts of the country with the greatest concentration of independent schools, the demand for teachers from these schools is an additional pressure in the marketplace.

Teachvac has a new service this year that allows us to provide advice on salary levels offered in the marketplace. This is not yet a free service, but the team are happy to discuss details with anyone interested. 2016 looks like being another interesting and challenging year for teacher recruitment.