Monthly Archives: April 2020

ITT Applications: Some surge; some not yet

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Applications to subjects such as art and design and business studies have shown some of the largest increases in applications over the period between mid-March and mid-April– note this isn’t the same as an in applicants, because applicants may make a number of applications to different courses.

There have also been increases in subjects such as chemistry; mathematics; music, religious education, many of the European Languages and Computing. On the other hand, applications for design and technology; drama and history have remained at similar levels to last year. There are actually fewer applications for both physical education and geography, continuing the trend seen earlier in the year. Perhaps the most disappointing number, is revealed in the fact that applications for physics courses have also remained flat, at just some twenty or so applications below last April.

In terms of applications to the different sectors, the extra applicants have targeted the secondary sector; where applications are up from 40,560 in April 2019, to 43,270 this April. By way of contrast, applications for the primary sector courses fell from 32,350 in April 2019, to 31,920 this April.

Most of the extra applications are concentrated in and around London, with the East of England; South East and London regions accounting for the 680 of the 710 or so additional applicants. The number of applicants registered in the North East was actually below the April 2019 number; falling from 1,350 to 1,310. Although more applicants were registered in all age groups, the increase in those in the 30-39 age group, from 4,160 to 4,310 stands out as worthy of note. Relatively few new graduates have so far chosen to apply, as might be expected at this point in their courses, even though they may be facing a great degree of uncertainty over their futures.

The School Direct Salaried route and higher education courses seem to have borne the brunt of the decline in applications for primary sector places, with the Apprenticeship and School Direct Fee courses recording increases, and SCITT applications remaining broadly the same as last April.

In the secondary sector, all routes have recorded more applications, with higher education and School Direct fee courses experiencing the greatest increases.

As a result of the increase in applications to the secondary sector, there is little point in discussing the number of offers that have been made in the different subjects, as it is too early to tell anything about the quality of the additional applicants. However, as I hinted in last month’s report, this recruitment round is likely to take on a very different outlook than was being predicted even as recently as February. Indeed, it may well turn out to be the best recruitment round in some subjects since 2013.

My best guess is that with the increased number of those seeking benefits after being made redundant, and the possibility of some graduates having employment offers withdrawn as firms struggle to reduce their costs, we will see further increases in applications over the next couple of months.

Will the DfE consider the need for recruitment controls once again, in order to ensure government expenditure on student loans does not exceed a certain level as part of the need to cap some areas of government spending? Might some bursaries come under threat as part of any package of emergency changes forced upon the government?

 

 

 

 

Tidying Up

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One of the side effects of isolation is the time to do those jobs you have been putting off doing for ages. In my case, this includes tidying up part of my study. However, as I a great believer in ‘creative chaos’ rather than the clean desk method of working, I find it all too easy to become distracted.

The latest distraction has been around two unique books in my collection. Both were given to me as leaving presents. In both cases I had made it clear to colleagues that the normal envelope passed around the staff wasn’t what I wanted. If people wanted to thank me for my time with the organisation, then they need to use their intellectual capital not their cash.

When I left Brookes University in 1996 to join the then Teacher Training Agency as its ‘Chief Professional Adviser on Teacher Supply’ to quote for the press release issued at the time, I asked staff for something that either inspired them in their own education or had been important to them in their career either as a teacher or working in an education establishment. They were kind enough to put the resulting collection to a book, and then to allow me to add some thoughts of my own. I have always wondered whether this might form the basis of an interesting anthology.

The second book was presented to me when I retired from Times Supplements in 2011, just under three years after they had bought my company. My then deputy, crafted a book containing many of the columns that I had written for the TES over the 11 year period when, in one form or another, I churned out a weekly piece, usually about numbers somewhere in the school system. In those days the government produced many more statistics than it seems to do these days.

In the past few years, I have returned to that compendium from time to time, either to check a fact or to reflect how some things have changed and others have stayed the same.

As many regular readers know, I wondered about stopping this blog in January with the 1,000th post. This is the 20th post since then, so that was a New Year resolution that didn’t last. But, looking at the other books, set me thinking whether I should produce two more? Firstly, a collection of the first 1,000 posts on this blog: the good; the bad and the plain indifferent, and secondly a shorter collection of the ‘best’ posts selected by readers?

Do please leave a comment and a suggestion either if you think it a good idea or if you think it a mere vanity project that should be discarded without further ado.

Either way, it is always good to hear from readers and I am still wondering who it was that downloaded every posts on Christmas Day 2019, creating a record score for views on any one day during the history of this blog.

 

Who have schools been kept open for?

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Coronavirus (COVID-19) attendance in education and early years settings – summary of returns. The DfE has today published a summary of four weeks’ of the educational establishment data up to 4pm on Friday 17 April 2020. This includes the Easter Bank holiday days when, of course, very few children used the school facilities available. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-attendance-in-education-and-early-years-settings

Picking the headlines form the returns the DfE state that

  • The attendance rate among pupils in educational establishments was around 1% during the week commencing 13 April 2020, which would have usually been part of the Easter holidays for most schools. Attendance was initially above 3% in the week commencing 23 March 2020.
  • The number of teachers in attendance has also fallen since then, suggesting that establishments are adapting to lower numbers of pupils and the latest advice on social distancing.
  • It was estimated on 16 April that 65,000 children were attending early years childcare – about 4% of the number of children who usually attend childcare in term time.

12,800 establishments provided a response to the DfE survey on Friday 17 April. This represents 52% of all establishments. The key findings were adjusted by the DfE for non-response (the report includes a note on the methodology for dealing with non-response and scaling up):

  • 61% of establishments were open – around 15,100 establishments. This has been stable during the most recent two weeks, having decreased since the first week of partial closures (when around 19,000 were open).
  • The most recent data suggests around 84,000 children attended an educational establishment on Friday 17 April, representing 0.9% of pupils who normally attend. Our analysis suggests that attendance on Monday 23 March was over 3% and that the attendance rate gradually fell – reaching 1.3% on Monday 30 March then 0.9% on Monday 6 April. Attendance during the following two weeks remained stable. This two week period of lower attendance corresponds with the Easter break, although for some parts of the country this would have started on 30 March and so attendance may increase from 20 April. In general, attendance has been higher mid-week.

24,000 of the children in attendance on Friday 17 April were classed by schools as vulnerable, down from 29,000 on Friday 3 April. We estimate this represents around 5% of all children and young people classified as ‘Children in Need’ or who have an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP).

  • 62,000 of the children in attendance on Friday 17 April were classed by schools as children of critical workers, down from 85,000 on Friday 3 April. We estimate that this represents around 2% of all children of critical workers, down from around 3% on 3 April.
  • These were cared for by 59,000 teaching staff and 43,000 non-teaching staff. The number of teachers in attendance continues to fall having been around five times this figure at the start of the first week of partial closures, suggesting that establishments are adapting to lower numbers of pupils and the latest advice on social distancing.

This is an impressive report to be produced so quickly. Sadly, we cannot tell from this report whether certain parts of the country are doing better than others at managing the education scene in these different and difficult times as the data is solely for England as a whole at this stage.

No doubt, the DfE that is calling local authorities on a regular basis, and presumably the larger MATs and diocese as well, now has a handle on what is going well in some parts of the country, and where there are still issues.

Officers, CEOs of MATs and headteachers will now be thinking about how the structure of a return to a post-modern world in the real sense of the term will be handled. The last thing we want or need is schools becoming transfer sites for the virus, and a spike in patients working in education settings because of a poorly thought through return to school.

One question also now emerging is; show Year 10 and Year 12 pupils be required or offered a chance to repeat the year that they will have missed nearly half of? If so, how can it be handled?

Government response to crisis predicted?

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The Insight team’s article about the handling of the present emergency, written up in yesterday’s Sunday Times, must have made uncomfortable reading for some. However, a visitor to this blog this morning also reminded me of Dominic Cumming’s famous essay in the autumn of 2013 about the education system in England.

To quote just one paragraph:

The education of the majority even in rich countries is between awful and mediocre. A tiny number, less than 1 percent, are educated in the basics of how the ‘unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics’ provides the ‘language of nature’ and a foundation for our scientific civilisation and  only a small subset of that <1% then study trans-disciplinary issues concerning the understanding, prediction and control of complex nonlinear systems. Unavoidably, the level of one’s mathematical understanding imposes limits on the depth to which one can explore many subjects. For example, it is impossible to follow academic debates about IQ unless one knows roughly what ‘normal distribution’ and ‘standard deviation’ mean, and many political decisions, concerning issues such as risk, cannot be wisely taken without at least knowing of the existence of mathematical tools such as conditional probability. Only a few aspects of this problem will be mentioned.

I first used this in a blog post on the 13th October 2013. I especially wonder whether the comment that

…. and many political decisions, concerning issues such as risk, cannot be wisely taken without at least knowing of the existence of mathematical tools such as conditional probability …

Might have come home to roost as the present outbreak bites ever deeper into national life? Why, for instance, is the government not commissioning the BBC to create a single on-line learning tool instead of setting up a competing organisation? All it needed was to ensure the BBC used UK technology to create the platform rather than to waste scare resources when we should be saving every penny we can.

On the same subject, those that have viewed my LinkedIn page will know of the graph demonstrating TeachVac is still well ahead of the DfE vacancy site in terms of teaching posts on offer. Why waste school staff time uploading to the DfE site when we can offer a more comprehensive solution.

Indeed, as Chair of TeachVac’s parent company, I would be willing to approve a free feed to the DfE site for the summer term to show what can be done.

Schools will need to cut costs in the future, and recruitment is not one that they should be expecting to spend lots of money on from now onward. However, until there is a single site carrying most teaching vacancies, schools will still want to try other methods.

The full text of Dominic Cummings essay was located at:   http://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/804396/some-thoughts-on-education-and-political.pdf

 

 

 

Is the Sunday Times correct on schools re-opening?

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What seems like a lifetime ago; but in reality was just a month ago on the 20th March, I published a piece on this blog with the following first paragraph:

COVID-19 PM’s Suez?

How a Prime minister deals with a crisis sometimes seals their fate. Chamberlain did not survive the switch from phoney war to Blitzkrieg, and Eden paid for the shambles of Suez with his job. How our current Prime Minister handles the next few weeks will seal his fate.  I never thought I would be writing these lines, especially in a situation where the current government has such a large majority. But even a large majority cannot protect someone in Number 10 Downing Street if both the opposition and significant parts of his own Party want a change of leadership.

Since then our prime Minister has caught the virus; been in hospital and is now recovering. During the past month, schools have managed a rapid re-assessment of their role and the manner in which pupils can learn. This wasn’t the way anyone envisaged celebrating the 150th anniversary of state schooling, but it has fundamentally challenged the traditional classroom-based method of learning.

However, it has also revealed that whatever method of instruction or learning is in operation,  some pupils won’t or cannot benefit from the basic structure that works for the majority. Some have special needs and some are disadvantaged socially; some have both challenges. How a Society deals with this issue is, for me, a mark of its inclusiveness. I would also add that the present situation in which we find ourselves gives the lie to those that thought there was no such thing as Society any more.

Strategic thinking is still in short supply. There are group of Year 13 students, now to be assessed on their work before the outbreak that could form a useful coordinated volunteer force organised by their Sixth Form Tutor and reporting to the local hubs.

Apart from the obvious use of their talents to produce PPE on the schools’ 3D printers; sowing machines and other D&T resources they could be reducing the traffic jam of delivery vehicles clogging up suburban streets by trialing last mile cycle delivery from transshipment points to see how this would work. If petrol pumps are a transfer risk for the virus, we could use some as pump attendants, at least for vulnerable customers so that they could avoid touching the pumps and know that only the person serving them had handled the filling mechanism.

I am sure that readers could think of other such tasks that might then be offered to unemployed workers as the school system re-opens, and these Year 13 students head for higher education in the autumn.

The talents of the population are not in doubt, but what is to me challenging is how effectively the government is managing the strategy. At least, here in Oxfordshire, the reports of the functioning of the school system under lockdown are good. But there may still be looming challenges around the future of some schools within the private school sector if the forthcoming economic winter is as harsh as we are being told that it might become.

 

Should trainee teachers be job hunting?

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Laura MCInerney the teacher turned editor turned commentator, and also a successful businesswoman has been discussing the question of whether trainee teachers will want to apply for jobs since their training having been so disturbed?

As a former teacher trainer, and someone that has spent many years studying trends in teacher supply I have two observations on this question. Firstly, by the end of Term 2 of their preparation most graduates fall into one of three categories; those that can be told that providing that they keep up their momentum they will pass the course and can apply for jobs if they haven’t been snapped up by the schools where they have already been working; secondly, the small group where either the selection process failed or some other factor has intervened to ensure the trainee is highly unlikely to successfully complete the course. Clearly, even in normal circumstances this group won’t be expect to be applying for teaching posts, or if they do, then their reference might not be fully supportive and draw attention to the challenges they have faced. Finally there is a small group not yet ready to be told that they ‘not yet ready to be on track to complete the course successfully’. This group might be helped to identify their needs by a supportive final term , whether to develop those classroom skills or hone their planning or assessment abilities. This group might want to defer applying for a job, but then they would in any other year be likely to be advised to do so.

The anxiety is no doubt over whether the third term learning will take place, but I don’t see why the manner in which trainees adapt to the changed , and the work currently being undertaken, should not be regarded as just as valuable as the normal curriculum of teacher preparation.

No doubt of more concern in the minds of trainees is whether the job market for teachers, that is still operating, albeit at a much reduced pace than normal for late April, will be swamped with returners to teaching that have lost their current source of income? Such is the normal pattern of events in a recession, and schools have to weigh up the value of trainees over the experience either former teachers or teachers returning from abroad can offer.

Because of the risk of an avalanche of returning teachers seeking a teaching post, I would suggest trainees don’t delay making applications and that they cast their net as wide as possible, especially if they are training for the primary sector or are history or PE teachers. Such vacancies may be in short supply and competition will be fierce.

As ever, I suggest using TeachVac www.teachvac.co.uk where I am Chairman to search for vacancies. It’s free and as far as England is concerned more comprehensive that the DfE site, as TeachVac contains both state and private school vacancies.

Good luck with job hunting whether you are a trainee looking for your first job; a current teacher seeking to change jobs or a returner for whatever reason.

 

Fewer teacher vacancies since lock down

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Laura of TeachTapp and and Freddie Whittaker have written an article in SchoolsWeek about teacher vacancies that confirms what TeachVac has been saying on Linkedin. http://www.teachvac.co.uk

Having crunched some numbers, the team at TeachVac have noted a bigger fall in primary teacher jobs than in the secondary sector. However, both sectors, and especially the secondary sector, had a very strong first couple of months of 2020.

Recorded Vacancies for Teachers by TeachVac
All
2018 2019 2020
January 5492 6386 8216
February 5056 5791 8421
March 7159 9029 9302
subtotal 17707 21206 25939
April 1799 4233 1793
Total 19506 25439 27732
Primary
2018 2019 2020
January 1910 1568 1719
February 2046 1617 2103
March 2944 2844 2491
subtotal 6900 6029 6313
April 819 1423 419
Total 7719 7452 6732
Secondary
2018 2019 2020
January 3582 4818 6497
February 3010 4174 6318
March 4215 6185 6811
subtotal 10807 15177 19626
April 980 2810 1374
Total 11787 17987 21000

Contact me if you want details of secondary subjects.

Are new graduate entrants to teaching still predominantly young, white and female?

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In the Summer of 1996, I contributed an article to a special edition of Education Review – produced by the NUT’s (now the NEU) Education and Equal Opportunities Unit – this special issue was entitled ‘reasserting equal opportunities’ and my contribution was on the issue of equal opportunities in teacher training. I concluded that article by asking the question; “young, white and female, is this the picture of the average new entrant to the profession?” (Howson, 1996)

How much has changed since then? Is that picture of the new entrant still recognisable today? This question is especially interesting, as during the intervening two decades the undergraduate route into teaching has reduced almost to nothing for secondary trainees, and by a considerable margin for those wanting to train as a primary school teacher. At the same time, the various employment-based routes such as FastTrack and the GTP (graduate Teacher Programme) have come and gone, although Teach First has stayed the course and wasn’t in existence in the 1990s. School Direct as well as apprenticeships have appeared on the scene.

My original article used data from the middle of a recruitment cycle. For this comparative piece, I have chosen to look at either end of cycle data, or DfE data about the workforce, where comparable data about trainees no longer exists in the public domain.

The late 1990s were a period similar to 2019 with teacher training providers struggling to fill all the targets for training places set them by the then Teacher Training Agency (TTA) on behalf of the government’s Department for Education and Employment, as the DfE was then known. As I wrote in the 1996 article:

“Teacher Training is entering a period of rapid growth…. The challenge may be just to fill as many places as possible if graduate recruitment in the wider labour market remains buoyant. “ Howson, 1996, 36)

Such a comment could also easily have been made about the 2018/19 recruitment round.

The first criteria considered in the original article was that of the age of applicants. In 1997, as now, UCAS was responsible for managing the application process for graduate trainees into teaching. In those days it was through the Graduate Teacher Training Registry (GTTR), part of the UCAS Small Systems Department.  These days, the process is no longer handled by a separate department with its own Board and structure, but is part of the main UCAS system.

Although different age bands are now used for age groupings it is possible to consider three groups of applicants by age; those in their 20s, 30s, and 40 and above.

Table1: Percentage of Applicants to Postgraduate Teacher Training by Gender

1997 2019 Difference 2019 on 1997
Male Female Male Female Male Female
20s 23 52 21 47 -2 -5
30s 7 11 6 12 -1 1
40+ 2 5 5 9 3 4
Total 32 68 32 68 0 0

Source: GTTR Annual Report 1997 and UCAS Monthly data for September 2019 Report A

Interestingly, the profile of applicants is now older than it was in 1997. There has been a reduction in the share of applicants in their 20s, and an increase in the share of older applicants in their 40s or 50s. However, the change in profile might have been expect to have been in the other direction with the loss of many undergraduate training places meaning young would-be teachers might have been expected to seek a training place on graduation..

Nevertheless, because there are more applicants overall in 2019 than in 1997, there were more actual applicants from these younger age groups in 2018/19, but not enough to increase their share of the overall total of applicants.

There were some 9,159 applicants in the 20-22 age bracket out of a total of 33,612 applicants in 1997, but by 2019, the number had increased to 10.960 out of the total of 40,540 applicants.

How likely were applicants of different ages to be offered a place on a course?

In the 1997 group, there was a clear association of offers of a training place with the age group of the applicant

Table 2: Percentage of Age Groupings Offered a Place on a Postgraduate Teaching Course in 1997

Age-grouping Offers Applicants % offers
20-22 5857 9159 64%
23-24 4150 7071 59%
25-26 2599 4499 58%
27-28 1397 2576 54%
29-30 964 1865 52%
31-35 1807 3489 52%
36-40 1352 2598 52%
41-45 766 1480 52%
46-50 308 655 47%
50+ 97 155 63%
Total 19297 33547 58%

Source: GTTR Annual Report 1997

Altogether, around two thirds of the youngest and new graduates were offered a place compared with less than half of graduates in the 46-50 age-grouping. The percentage for the very small number of those over 50 seeking to train as a teacher suggests that many may have sought pre-selection before submitting a formal application to train.

Interestingly, by 2019, the same pattern of a decline in the percentage of applicants made an offer by increasing age group still held good. However   the percentage of applicants being made an offer was much higher, especially among the older age-groupings. For instance, although there was only a 14% increase in the percentage of the youngest group made an offer, the increase for those in their late 20s was around the 20% mark. However, the increase for applicants in their 40s was less at between 8-13%.

Table 3: Percentage of Age Groupings Offered a Place on a Postgraduate Teaching Course in 2019

Age -Grouping Offers total % offers
21 4240 5430 78%
22 4180 5530 76%
23 3320 4370 76%
24 2420 3280 74%
25-29 6600 9150 72%
30-39 4420 6950 64%
40+ 3470 5830 60%
Total 28650 40540 71%

Source: UCAS Monthly data for September 2019 Report A (Based upon total of applicants Placed; Conditionally Placed or Holding an offer – By September only 120 applicants were still holding an offer)

The changes in approaches to the teacher training landscape between 1997 and 2019, including the reduction of undergraduate places in both primary and secondary courses and the shift post-2010 to a more overtly school-led system, does not significantly seem to have altered the attitude to older applicants.

The case can be made that all age-groupings seem to have benefited from the change, but this would be to ignore the increase in demand for teachers in the period leading up to 2019, as the school population increased once again, firstly in the primary sector and more recently in the lower secondary years.

Sadly, it isn’t possible to identify trends in individual subjects at this point in time because UCAS no longer publishes a breakdown of applicants by subject, as was the case in 1997. The statistics are available for ‘applications’, but not for applicants, even at the macro level of the primary and secondary sectors. However, they are available for the regional level; a piece of data not provided in 1997.

Table 4: Percentage of Applicants Offered a Place 2019

Region Offers Total % Offers
North East 1540 2060 75%
Yorkshire & The Humber 3090 4160 74%
East Midlands 2370 3250 73%
West Midlands 3400 4700 72%
South West 2520 3500 72%
East of England 2950 4100 72%
South East 4050 5640 72%
North West 3730 5520 68%
London 4820 7630 63%
Total 28470 40560 70%

Source: UCAS Monthly data for September 2019 Report A (Based upon total of applicants Placed; Conditionally Placed or Holding an offer – By September only 120 applicants were still holding an offer)

This is not a precise measure, because it depends upon a number of different variables, including the pattern of applications across the year and the available number of different places in each secondary subject and in the primary sector there were to be filled in each region. However, since most secondary subjects did not have recruitment controls in places during the 2018/19 recruitment round, the latter concern may be less important as a factor than the former.

It is worth noting that London, the region with the greatest demand for new teachers from both the state and private sector schools, had the lowest offer ratio to applicants of any region in the country. By way of contrast, the North East, where vacancies are probably at much lower levels, had the highest percentage of applicants offered a place. One reason for this may be that the graduate labour market in London is much better developed than in the North East. As a result, applicants to teaching may be of a higher quality in the North East than in London, where there are more opportunities for new graduates to secure work. More applicants in the North East may also apply earlier when courses still have vacancies. However, this has to be just speculation.

The third aspect of the original article dealt with the race of applicants to teacher training. In 1997, UCAS produced excellent data about applicants and their declared ethnic backgrounds. In the 2018/19 monthly data from UCAS there is no information about this aspect of applicants. In some ways this is understandable, since the population is much more complex in nature now than it was even 20 years ago. There are more graduates that have family backgrounds that would lead them to identify as of more than one grouping. However, this lack of regular data does mean that it isn’t easily possible to determine whether all applicants are treated equally.

In the 1996 article, I wrote that:

“It is clear that members of some ethnic groups are less likely to find places on PGCE courses than white applicants.” I added that “These figures are alarming” and that “If graduates with appropriate degrees are being denied places on teacher training courses in such numbers, much more needs to be known about the reasons why.” During the period 2008-2011, I was asked to conduct two, unpublished, studies for the government agency responsible for training teachers (Howson, 2008, 2011). Sadly, the conclusion of both studies was that little had changed in this respect.

Fortunately, it seems as if more graduates form ethnic minority groups are now entering teaching. Data from the government’s annual census of teacher training reveals that between 2014/15 and 2018/19 the percentage of trainees from a minority ethnic group increased from 13% to 19% of the total cohort.

Table 5: Minority Ethnic Groups as a Percentage of Postgraduate Trainees

Postgraduate new entrants Postgraduate percentages
Trainee Cohort Total Minority ethnic group Non-minority ethnic group  Minority ethnic group Non-minority ethnic group
2014/15 24893 3178 21715 13% 87%
2015/16 26957 3873 23084 14% 86%
2016/17 25733 3753 21980 15% 85%
2017/18 26401 4113 22288 16% 84%
2018/19 27742 4917 22825 18% 82%
2019/20p 27675 5168 22507 19% 81%

Source: DfE Initial Teacher Training Censuses

In numeric terms, this mean an increase of some 2,000 trainees from ethnic minority backgrounds during this period.

Although UCAS no longer provides in-year data about ethnicity of applicants, there is some data in their end of year reporting about the level of acceptances for different ethnic groups.

In the 1996 article, there was a Table showing the percentage of unplaced applicants to PGCE courses by ethnic groups in the three recruitment rounds from 1993 to 1995. What is striking about both that table, and the table below for the four years between 2014-2017 that presents the data on the percentages of ethnic groups accepted rather than unplaced, is that in both of the tables, graduates from the Black ethnic group fare less well than do White or Asian applicants. Indeed, the overwhelmingly large White group of applicants had the lowest percentage of unplaced applicants in the 1990s, and the highest rate of placed applicants in the four years from 2014-2017.

In the original article I noted that “39% of the Black Caribbean group [of applicants] accepted were offered places at three of the 85 institutions that received applications form members of this ethnic group. Thirty-nine out of the 85 institutions accepted none of the applicants from this group that applied to them.” Although we no longer have the fine grain detail of sub-groups within this ethnic grouping, nothing seems to have significantly changed during the intervening period.

Table 6: Percentage Rate of Acceptances for Postgraduate trainee Teachers

2014 2015 2016 2017
Asian 39 47 44 48
Black 27 34 30 35
Mixed 49 56 51 55
White 56 64 61 64
Other 31 38 37 39
Unknown 46 53 48 52

Source: UCAS End of Cycle reports.

Using the data from the government performance tables for postgraduate trainees, it seems that a smaller percentage of trainees from ethnic minorities received QTS at the standard time when compared to those from the non-minority community, with the percentages of those trainees both not awarded or not yet completing being greater for the trainees from the minority ethnic groups.

Table 7: Success of Postgraduate Trainee Teachers by Ethnicity

2017/18   Trainees Percentage awarded QTS Percentage yet to complete Percentage not awarded QTS Teaching in a state school Percentage of those awarded QTS teaching in a state school
Ethnicity Minority 4,311 88% 6% 6%  3,014 80%
Non-minority 22,861 92% 3% 4%  17,022 81%
Unknown 706 90% 4% 6%  503 79%

Source: DfE database of trainee teachers and providers and school Workforce Census

However, the percentage reported as working in a state school was similar at 80% for ethnic minority trainees and 81% for non-ethnic minority trainees. As there are no data for trainees working in either the independent sector or further education institutions including most Sixth Form Colleges, it isn’t clear whether the overall percentage in teaching is the same of whether or not there is a greater difference?

Conclusion

So what has changed in the profile of graduates training to be a teacher during the twenty years or so between 1997 and 2019? The percentage of trainees from minority ethnic groups within the cohort has increased. However we know their chances of becoming a teacher are still lower than for applicants from the large group of applicants classified as White as their ethnic group..

The pool of trainees is still overwhelmingly female, although there has been a shift in the age profile towards older trainees. This last change has implications, both good and more challenging, for the profile of the teaching profession. Career changers may be more likely to remain in teaching for the rest of their working lives than some young new graduates with little or no experience of the world of work. However, older trainees may reduce the possible pool of new school leaders unless those making appointments are prepared to offer leadership positions to older candidates.

However, all this may be of little more than academic interest in the present situation of a pandemic. How fast the graduate labour market, recovers, especially in London, will be a key determination of how the teacher labour market performs over the next few years and whether the gender, age and ethnic profile of those applying and accepted to become trainee teachers alters from its current composition.

Nevertheless, there are issues, not least around the ability of those graduates from some ethnic groups to access teaching as a career. There is also the continued under-representation of men seeking to join the teaching profession, but they are then over-represented in the leadership roles within education. How the government addresses the issue of equal opportunities in teaching as a profession also continues to be a matter of concern.

John Howson

Oxford April 2020

Correspondence to: johnohowson@gmail.com

Bibliography

DfE (2018) Database of trainee teachers. Accessed on 7th April 2020 at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/initial-teacher-training-performance-profiles-2017-to-2018

DfE (2018) School Workforce Census.  Accessed on 7th April 2020 at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/school-workforce-in-england-november-2018

Howson, J. (1996). Equal opportunities and initial teacher training. In Education Review Volume 10, Number 1. London: NUT.

GTTR (Graduate Teacher Training Registry). (1997) Annual Report Cheltenham: UCAS.

UCAS (2018). End of cycle data. Author’s private collection.

UCAS (2019). September 2019 Monthly Report A & B of applicants and applications to courses. Author’s private collection

Covid-19

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Someone has suggested that I put these two poems on my blog. They are both somewhat downbeat, or even melancholy, as befits the mood when writing them. As this blog is now more irregular in its offerings, I feel able to do so.

Please keep safe and well and my thanks to everyone helping in whatever way to fight this pandemic.

Covid-19

How ironic that

We looked at never ending rain

Through sullen windows.

Just to view the sun through self-same panes

 

For, now most must not do more

Than look; don’t touch.

An almost silent spring.

Where hidden sounds emerge.

 

Was that a woodpecker’s drill?

Unheard before the clamour

Of our streets had died away

To stillness and serenity.

 

Social media replaces

Print, and nails the coffin

Of the daily newspaper

We have loved?

 

What words will disappear, so

Bandwith, router, social distance

Can appear in dictionaries?

Not curfew, coroner, shielding

Now brought back to use.

 

We fumble forward

Turning freedom on its head.

Still unwilling to surrender

Liberty for lockdown.

 

Where will we go?

We do not know.

The end from this beginning

Changes every day.

 

27th March 2020

Fears remain the same

The casual swipe of death

Pierces life’s sunset pattern.

Breaking comfort and order

Through sudden phone or text

 

We wish we’d never answered.

Such modern telegrams

Of isolated death.

Apart from loved ones.

 

Missing as former warriors

Lost in battlefields.

Lovers die surrounded

As they were, by

 

Acquaintances, but

Rarely family or friends.

This war, building daily,

To reflect the biggest battle yet.

 

No funeral for these fallen,

Taken ahead of time.

Buried with scant ceremony,

To await a future remembrance.

 

Private grief, without even

Neighbours solace offered.

But, by phone or email;

Too hard to read.

 

What will time heal?

As yet, we do not know.

But, hope eternal springs,

From life’s indomitable spirit.

 

 

Working smarter not harder

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In a previous post I alluded to the need the government to be put on a war footing in order to fight the present COVID-19 outbreak. Every day, all I hear is ‘we are working flat out’ to deal with the situation.

Well, perhaps, as the headline suggests, we don’t need so much to work flat out, but rather to use our heads a bit more. I am reminded by re-reading Churchill’s wartime memories that he took aircraft production and design away from the Air Ministry in 1940, and passed it to the Ministry of Aircraft Production. He asked Lord Beaverbrook to be the Minister in charge. He added that the air Ministry didn’t like this arrangement but that ‘our life depended upon the flow of new aircraft’. The point was well made.

Do we need to do something similar for testing? There are more than 4,000 school chemistry labs sitting idle at present. Every community in the country has one, with a technician and graduate teachers that could be retrained to undertake the anti-body tests when they are ready. Perhaps some might even be used to test for the virus if suitable cleaned and sterile?

Schools have 3D printers. Can we use them to create parks of face protectors and raid DIY and builders’ merchants for the face covering to fix to them? Task then to produce equipment for front-line pharmacy staff in the first instance since there are suggestions that they are well down the line in the PPE stakes.

This weekend a letter from the PM will be delivered, taking up Post Office resources that might be better used elsewhere. It will be accompanied by a booklet with all the current advice from government. However, I haven’t seen where this is available in large print; braille or even other languages for those not fully conversant in English. Is this a good use of resources at this time, especially if the government changes the rules on things such as business loans? Also, it doesn’t seem to remind those with bus passes of the change in use times during the crisis.

For those without cars and not in the key vulnerable groups, and living alone, this can be a tough time. Should more local stores offer ‘click and collect’ to reduce the numbers needing to browse shelves? Surely, one sanitised volunteer picker may spread less infection than a group of customers to a store, however well-spaced out they are.

I gather than some private schools are asking for either full or part fees for the summer term. It will be interesting to see how parents respond to these requests. I suspect that without fee income and the summer income many schools will struggle to cope with a six month break. We should be planning for the worst and hoping for the best.

Keep safe and well and my best wishes to all readers.