Today, the DfE published it annual update of statistics about key features of the school system in England. https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/school-workforce-in-england for the school workforce based upon 2020 census taken last November and https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/schools-pupils-and-their-characteristics-january-2021 for school, pupils and their characteristics based upon January returns.

There are a mass of data in the two publications that will take time to work through. One highlight is that the percentage of teachers retained after one year of service continued its downward decline, but retention rates for those with longer service reversed the downward trend of recent years to register improvements. This may, of course, be due to the lack of opportunities for new jobs, both within and outwith schools that was the result of the covid pandemic. The 2021 census will confirm whether this is a reversal of a trend or just a blip.

It would be necessary to see the actual numbers and not percentages and the balance between the primary sector and secondary schools before commenting in detail on the one-year retention rate decline. The start of the reduction in primary rolls might have meant some temporary posts weren’t replaced, but the data in its present form cannot answer that question.

England is increasingly being divided into two nations in terms of the ethnicity of its teaching force. The North East still has 99% of its primary, and 98% of its secondary teachers classified as White, whereas Inner London has 27% of its primary and 35% of its secondary school teachers classified as from minority groupings. These percentages in Inner London have been increasing steadily over the past five years. There are policy implications behind the percentages, especially when the percentages are disaggregated to local authority levels. What are the consequences for Society as a whole if this uneven distribution continues?

One outcome arising from the pandemic has been the increase in pupils claiming Free School Meals – up from 17.3% in 2020 to20.8% in 2021. This represents some 1.74 million pupils. Over 420,000 pupils have become eligible for free school meals since the first lockdown on 23 March 2020. This compares to 292,000 for the same period (March 2019 to Jan 2020) before the pandemic. However, due to the change in Pupil Premium rules schools will not fully benefit from the funding through the Pupil Premium and Catch-up funds that are linked to Free School Meal numbers. As the Jon Andrews of the Education Policy Institute notes:

“Today’s figures are a further indication that the government’s change to how the pupil premium is allocated means that pupils and schools are now missing out on vital funding. These losses are found not only in the pupil premium itself but in other areas such as catch-up funding for disadvantaged pupils, which is closely linked to it.

“The Department for Education should now publish its analysis of the impact of this decision on pupil premium allocations and clarify whether any savings from this have been redistributed.”

The number of unqualified teachers has remained broadly stable across primary, secondary and special schools for both male and female teachers with a slight downward trend in the primary sector for the number of unqualified female teachers.

There is much more to explore in the detail of the time series, and I hope to write a few more blogs over the coming days.