The DfE’s ITT Census for 2021/22 was published yesterday – see previous post for the headline data. Over time, it will be possible to mine a great deal of information form the open-source information now provided by the DfE.

Those schools signed up to the new TeachVac service Are you overpaying to advertise your teaching posts? | John Howson (wordpress.com) for a registration fee of £100 plus VAT and  maximum annual charge of £1,000 plus VAT will be able to ask TeachVac staff to match this data with regional data for their area to help predict possible local labour shortages during 2022. So, if you are a school governor, headteacher or work for a MAT or diocese do read what is on offer and go to Teaching Jobs School Vacancies – The National Vacancy Service for Teachers and Schools (teachvac.co.uk) and hit the red tab at the top labelled New Matching Service

Taking physics as an example, the DfE data shows that the 537 trainees in the census are spread unevenly across the country.

Government Region	HEI	SCITT	Grand Total
East Midlands	29	21	50
East of England	16	15	31
London	57	77	134
North East	12	6	18
North West	58	16	74
South East	66	45	111
South West	37	10	47
West Midlands	34	13	47
Yorkshire and The Humber	33	22	55
Grand Total	342	225	567
Source TeachVac from DfE ITT census 2021

Approximately 43% of trainees are located in London or the South East, with just eight per cent located with providers in the West Midlands. This can be important because London and the South East contain a significant proportion of the country’s independent secondary schools. Such schools are more likely to advertise for a teacher of physics than do most state schools.

Many of the remaining selective schools are also in London and the South East, and they are the state schools most likely to advertise for a teacher of physics rather than a teacher of science. If just a quarter of the trainees in London and the South East opt to teach outside the state sector, this reduced the pool national to little over 500 trainees many of whom will be on school-based courses and not looking for a job on the open market.

A slightly different picture emerges for design and technology

Row Labels	HEI	SCITT	Grand Total
East Midlands	23	10	33
East of England	13	16	29
London	20	43	63
North East	4	7	11
North West	16	5	21
South East	21	21	42
South West	21	11	32
West Midlands	52	9	61
Yorkshire and The Humber	25	24	49
Grand Total	195	146	341

Source TeachVac from DfE ITT census 2021

Here the North West looks like an area where recruitment will be a real challenge whereas the West midlands seems relatively, and it is only relatively, better off for teachers of this subject. However, we know nothing about specialisms with the subject.

This type of information is key to sensible recruitment planning and should play an important part in discussions about the working of the leveling up agenda in education at the level of the school.