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Monthly Archives: August 2025
Is discipline worse in schools?
It was interesting to hear Laura McInerney and Tom Bennett on the ‘Today’ programme on BBC Radio 4 this morning discussing whether or not behaviour was worse in schools these days than in the past. Both are experienced commentators, and Tom led a review in 2017 for the then government, about behaviour in schools. It is also interesting to see the BBC taking an interest in schools. The World at One last Sunday (also BBC Radio 4) devoted the whole of the programme to an analysis of the SEND issue. Interestingly, there was no government spokesperson available on Sunday, so they had to make do with the chair of the Education Select Committee.
The discussion this morning was around whether or not behaviour had worsened in schools, and if so, why? The usual suspects, covid and mobile phones were trotted out in support of discipline being worse in schools, along with families facing multiple challenges, but there were precious few facts.
One way of measuring the state of discipline in schools is by looking at the number of permanent exclusions each year by schools. The largest single reason each year for these exclusions is always ‘persistent disruptive behaviour’. So, this might be seen as a good proxy measure for how schools are faring in relation to discipline in the classrooms. Of course, this measure doesn’t pick up low level disruptive behaviour, but it is reasonable to assume that there is a correlation between the different levels of behaviour in schools.
Looking back over the past 30 years, the level of recorded permanent exclusions was 10,440 in 1998/99. The level fell to 5,040 in 2010/11. In the latest year, 2023/24 there were 10,885 permanent exclusions. On the face of it, discipline is getting worse again, but is only back to levels last seen at the end of the last century.
I would like to suggest to causes not mentioned on the ‘Today’ programme: teacher supply and school funding. Is there a causal relationship between the fact that permanent exclusions were at their lowest when schools were fully staffed, and had experienced a period of several years of significant funding by government. By contract, permanent exclusions seem to rise when there is difficulty staffing schools, and when funding is less than might be expected in a civilised society.
So, is the answer as simple as proper funding and staffing if you want fewer exclusions? The age and experience of the teaching force might also play a part. More experienced teachers, as I can testify from personal experience, are much less likely to face discipline issues then new entrants, especially if they are unqualified.
In the latest statistics on exclusions, 13 of the 25 local authorities with the lowest rates of permanent exclusions were London boroughs. This just adds more evidence to my thesis that if the rest of the country were funded like London, schooling would be in a much better place across the country. Although I was also pleased to see Oxfordshire in 10th place overall for the lowest rate of permanent exclusions.
Headteacher vacancies: even in August
More than 40 years ago, I first started counting heads. That’s actually headteacher vacancies, not actual heads. With some spare time on my hands, I thought that I would go back to my roots and look at what is the current state of play this August?
Of course, August is a quiet month, and there are currently fewer than 60 headteacher vacancies listed on the DfE website that is the main go-to place these days, just as the TES was in the 1980s.
The DfE vacancy website still contains some of the flaws created when it was established. Anyone trying to use modern methods of’ scraping’ jobs will come across the random duplication outcome that has been a feature of the site ever since its inception. I am not sure whether it was deliberate or a fault in the coding, but it always used to annoy me when I was running TeachVac to see the same job repeated in the listing more than once.
The alternative, pioneered by TeachVac was to ‘scrape’ school websites where schools placed their jobs. However, for obvious reasons, not all schools placed headship vacancies on their website. Presumably not to let staff and parents know of the impending departure of their headteacher.
At least with headteacher posts, there is no problem deciding whether the vacancy is a repeat listing or a re-advertisement. Headteacher posts are unique, and thus easy to track.
Anyway, what did I learn from collecting the first 50 vacancies? Special schools were over-represented, with eight such schools looking for a headteacher this August. As a part of the White Paper on SEND, I hope that the government will consider the staffing and training of staff for the special school sector that has long been a Cinderella, and if not bullied by the bigger primary and secondary sectors, it is certainly still in search of a fairy godmother.
There are only two secondary schools in the list, and one is a 10-14 school, and the other a private school. That doesn’t surprise me, as secondary schools usually sort out headship vacancies well before the start of the school year. If there is an unexpected vacancy, then there is often a deputy head that can ‘act up’ until an appropriate time to advertise the vacancy.
Of the 50 or so primary schools, including one First School, 17 were faith schools: ten Roman Catholic; six Church of England and one other Christian faith. These numbers don’t surprise me in the least; indeed, I would have been surprised if there were fewer Roman Catholic schools in the list. All the years I monitored headteacher vacancies, Roman Catholic schools often featured prominently in any listings.
The relative absence of schools from London and much of the South East is interesting, but I need more data to say anything else than that.
Almost all schools provide a starting salary, either as a point on the scale or as a cash sum. One academy adds 5% to the quoted salary. The indication of a starting salary is an improvement over the time when schools rarely quoted a starting salary for those interested in becoming their headteacher.
Whether I keep us this task will no doubt depend upon how much else I have to do, but it was interesting retracing my footsteps.
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Ethnicity issues remain for new teachers
Data published by the DfE for the 2023/24 postgraduate cohort of trainees achieving QTS (Qualified Teacher Status) showed that differences still remain in regard of entry into the teaching profession between different ethnic groups on two counts. Firstly, the percentage trainees achieving QTS, and secondly, the percentage employed in State-Funded schools.
| Ethnicity | Postgraduate | ||||
| 2023/24 | |||||
| Number of trainees | |||||
| Total | Achieved QTS | Did not achieve QTS | |||
| Total | Teaching in State-Funded School | Total | |||
| Asian / Asian British | 2,931 | 2,704 | 1,868 | 227 | |
| Black / African / Caribbean / Black British | 1,206 | 1,106 | 821 | 100 | |
| Mixed / Multiple ethnic groups | 872 | 814 | 611 | 58 | |
| Other Ethnicity | 410 | 380 | 268 | 30 | |
| White | 16,082 | 15,048 | 11,570 | 1,034 | |
The outcomes were more favourable for the dominant White group. 94% of this group achieved QTS, compared with 93% for the Black and Mixed Group’s trainees and 93% from the Asian Group.
Teachers from the White group were also more likely to be working in a State-Funded school by the time the data was collected. 77% the White Group that had achieved QTS were teaching in a State-Funded school. This compared with 75% of the Mixed and Multiple ethnic groups; 74% of the black Group and just 69% of the Asian group.
Despite the number of teachers from the Asian group not working in State-Funded schools, this group still accounted for 12% of entrants. The black group accounted for 5% of entrants and Mixed and Other ethnic Groups together made up another 6% of entrants. The White group, of some 11,570 teachers, accounted for 76% of entrants.
Sadly, it isn’t possible to track the whole journey from application to train as a teacher through to working as a teacher with QTS for each ethnic group. It is also not possible to see whether certain routes are more or less favourable to certain ethnic groups. Both those sets of data would help illuminate possible areas of concern within the process of how graduates become a teacher.
The DfE has also included some experimental regional data about outcomes that would also be useful to see by ethnic groups because, historically, the Asian and black groups applicants and trainees have tended to be concentrated in specific urban areas.
The DfE data suggested that fewer trainees achieving QTS were employed in State-Funded schools in the north of England than the south. The region with the highest percentage employed was the East of England, were 82% of those achieving QTS were employed in a State-Funded school.
Another indicator where there are no published data on trainees by ethnic groups are in respect of new graduate and career changers. For the purpose of the employment data for those with QTS, the DfE splits the trainees into two groups; those under 25 that might be assumed to be mostly new graduates and those over 25 that will predominantly be career changers. Those in the over-25 group were less likely to achieve QTS, but there was no difference among those with QTS in terms of the percentage working in State-Funded schools.
Less than 400 teachers of physics entered service in 2023/24
As a result of the latest data from the DfE, it is now possible to start to see the consequences arising from the collapse in ITT recruitment to secondary courses in 2023/24.
It is interesting to compare the turnaround from the improvement in recruitment brought about by the covid epidemic with the poor recruitment figures for just three years later.
| Year Achieved QTS | Achieved QTS | Did not achieve QTS | % Did not achieve QTS |
| 2017/18 | 25490 | 1304 | 5 |
| 2018/19 | 26402 | 1348 | 5 |
| 2019/20 | 27542 | 1191 | 4 |
| 2020/21 | 30706 | 1606 | 5 |
| 2021/22 | 29715 | 2241 | 7 |
| 2022/23 | 22437 | 1840 | 8 |
| 2023/24 | 21210 | 1550 | 7 |
The reduction in numbers achieving QTS (Qualified Teacher Status) from 30,706 in 2002/21 to 21,210 in 2023/24, a reduction of some 8,500, or more than a quarter in just three years, goes some way to demonstrate the depth of the problems with recruitment schools faced in September 2024 and even more so in January 2025.
Hopefully, these numbers represent the lowest point for secondary trainee numbers over the next few years, after adjusting for the changes in targets that result from falling rolls in schools.
The data on the percentage achieving QTS might suggest that when it is difficult to recruit trainees, more marginal candidates are offered a place by training providers, and, as a result, the percentage not achieving QTS increases.
Because the DfE only records those with QTS teaching in a State-Funded ‘school’ it does not count those employed in a Sixth Form College or other further education college and, does not count any teachers from the cohort with QTS working in the private school sector. This latter omission might account for why only 49% of those trained to teach Classics were teaching in a State-Funded school.
| Subject | Postgraduate | |||
| 2023/24 | ||||
| Number of trainees | ||||
| Total | Achieved QTS | Teaching in a State-Funded School (of those achieved QTS) | Teaching in a State-Funded School (of those achieved QTS) | |
| Classics | 69 | 67 | 33 | 49% |
| Physical Education | 1,485 | 1,438 | 965 | 67% |
| Primary | 9,378 | 8,712 | 6,271 | 72% |
| Business Studies | 227 | 201 | 146 | 73% |
| Art & Design | 401 | 382 | 286 | 75% |
| Computing | 413 | 374 | 282 | 75% |
| Total | 22,760 | 21,210 | 15,921 | 75% |
| Modern Foreign Languages | 1,024 | 970 | 739 | 76% |
| Other | 327 | 310 | 237 | 76% |
| Drama | 246 | 227 | 175 | 77% |
| Physics | 540 | 485 | 373 | 77% |
| Secondary | 13,382 | 12,498 | 9,650 | 77% |
| Geography | 822 | 771 | 601 | 78% |
| Chemistry | 764 | 691 | 544 | 79% |
| Mathematics | 1,900 | 1,762 | 1,385 | 79% |
| Biology | 885 | 818 | 652 | 80% |
| Music | 237 | 223 | 179 | 80% |
| Design & Technology | 576 | 540 | 437 | 81% |
| English | 2,210 | 2,062 | 1,661 | 81% |
| History | 977 | 919 | 744 | 81% |
| Religious Education | 279 | 258 | 212 | 82% |
It is interesting to note that the percentage of those trained to teach physics teaching in a State-Funded school was the same as the overall average, at 77%. However, that meant that there were only 373 new physic teacher entrants into State-Funded secondary schools from this cohort. It would be interesting to know the routes these 373 took before taking up their initial posts? How many of these 373 were from the PG Salaried High Potential ITT route? (Better known as Teach First).
The relatively small percentage of physical education trainees recorded as working in State-Funded schools may well be a result of the numbers recruited into training compared with the target.
Where trainees are required to pay a tuition fee for a course, what responsibility does the government and the course provider have to the trainee to ensure that there are not way too many trainees for the number of vacancies likely to arise? If this means that the student debt is less likely to be recovered, is this a waste of public money?
In a future post I will explore some other aspects of this dataset.
Windfall profits and SEND
There is no doubt that the rise in demand for special school places over the past few years was neither anticipated nor effectively dealt with by the State. One consequence is that large amount of off-balance sheet debt being carried by many local authorities responsible for schooling in England. Another consequence, highlighted by the Liberal Democrats in a press release issued today, is what might be described as the ‘windfall’ profits being made by a few in the SEND sector. Lib Dems demand cap on SEND providers profits as top firms rake in £100m – Liberal Democrats
When the highest paid director of a company operating both care homes for children and special schools is paid over £300,000, or more than twice the salary of a Director of Children’s Services commissioning the use of places in the schools and homes, it seems sensible to question whether such use of public money should continue.
At this point, I must make clear that I am a capitalist. The 40 years I have traded on my own account and through a company, as well as held a portfolio of investments in other companies. However, there are two issues that concern me. Where should the boundary line between services offered by the State and those run by the private sector be drawn? And how should price be determined?
It is interesting, as I have noted before, that in the USA and many other countries, public transportation is just that: a service run by the State. In England it has become a battleground between the State and private enterprise and the differing political opinions. Most would expect SEND to be a public service.
What often seems to be lacking is a mechanism to regulate the costs of suppliers to the State. When the private sector funds its enterprise by borrowing to provide the services and then expects the State to service that debt with a profit element added, it seems to me like time to take the service out of the private sector, and back into public provision.
In the case of SEND school places, national and local government should work together to prove places in state-run schools that would obviate the need for private sector intervention. This means the State, in this case the DfE, being much more interventionalist than has been the case.
The Liberal Democrats, of which I am a member and activist, noted in their press release that
‘Research commissioned by the party and carried out by the House of Commons Library showed that the top handful of profiting companies each took home tens of millions a year. One Group, operators of 28 special schools, turned over just over £200 million a year, making £44 million in profit – a margin of over 20%. That profit is 150% what the company made in 2022.’
How many more teachers might the £44 million have funded? While we wait for the government to produce a White Paper on SEND, perhaps the Local Government Association should set up a taskforce to remove the need to use the private sector.
I am sure that when John Stuart Mill, the nineteenth century philosopher, said that’ it was the duty of the State to see it citizens were educated, not to educate them itself’ he did not expect the cost to the State to be more than a reasonable amount.
John Howson 