Author Archives: John Howson

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About John Howson

Former county councillor in Oxfordshire and sometime cabinet member for children services, education and youth.

Canards

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In the 1990s when Chris Woodhead became head of Ofsted he mentioned a figure of 15,000 poor quality teachers that needed removing in an early interview. That figure became stuck in the minds of journalists and was trotted out for many years even though it wasn’t often supported by any evidence. We now have a similar situation with the 40% of teachers that allegedly quit the profession in their first year of teaching. This figure goes right back to an interview Mike Tomlinson gave, I think but haven’t checked, to The Guardian when he took over from Mr Woodhead. Recently, it gained a new lease of life when used by ATL’s general secretary at their annual conference this spring. Here’s what I wrote on May 8th

Teacher supply was an area of interest following the teacher associations annual conferences. I was surprised, and not a little disappointed, to see the General Secretary of ATL use data from 2011 – data from during the height of the recession – to discuss recruitment and staying-on rates for teachers in 2015. It may well be that in London and the South East more teachers will leave during their first year, but in 2011 the problem for many teachers was finding a job in the first place. This year the problem for some schools has been finding a teacher at all.

Although Sam Freedman and I don’t share the same political views we do share a regard for the accurate use of data and his comments at http://samfreedman1.blogspot.co.uk/ say what I think, although the statistics he mentions for secondary trainees are in Table 6 with table 5 covering undergraduate courses.

That at least two leading recruitment agencies have used the 40% statistic to support their promotional campaigns is disappointing, as I would have hoped for a little more maturity from them.  Anyhow the figure is now firmly in the public consciousness and will reappear from time to time when thoughtless commentators discuss teacher supply problems. as this is an issue likely to remain in the headlines we can expect to see the figure used regularly.

But, there is no use just moaning. We need an agenda for action on teacher supply. Here are some suggestions;

– Pay the fees of all graduate trainees from 2015 entry onwards – this will be especially helpful to career changers that have paid off previous fees and will need to repay the £9,000 as soon as they start teaching

– Look to how those training to be teachers that have links to communities can be employed in those communities and more mobile students can be encouraged to move to where they are needed.

– Make sure teacher preparation places are more closely linked to where the jobs will be. This means reviewing places in London and the Home counties – not enough – and the north West – probably too many in some subjects and sectors.

– look at trainees that cannot find a job because we trained too many of them and see whether with some minimal re-training they might be useful teachers. This applies especially to PE teachers this year – some might re-train as science teachers or primary PE specialists and art teachers if they can work in design part of D&T.

– ramp up the 2015 autumn advertising campaign spend, including an early TV and social media advertising spend that at least matches that of the MoD.

– split the teacher preparation part of the National College away from the Leadership and professional development elements and put someone in charge that understands the issues- Sir Andrew Carter springs to mind as an obvious choice.

– look at the NQT year support now that local authorities don’t have the cash to help. This may be vital in keeping primary teachers in the profession, especially if anything goes wrong at the school where they are working.

None of these are new idea, and many were in my submission to the Carter Review that can be found in an earlier post. What is clear is that the new government cannot continue with an amateurish approach that marked some of the tactics towards teacher supply during the last few years. With many thousands more pupils entering schools over the next few years we cannot create a world class school system with fewer teachers.

National Funding Formula

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I have been reminded that my last post didn’t explicitly mention the need for a new funding formula for schools. This has been such a long-running saga, started under the Labour government and not brought to a conclusion during the coalition that I confess it slipped my mind.  My apologies to the F40 Group of local authorities that have long campaigned for better funding for their parts of England.

I suppose one good thing to emerge from the coalition was that both the Pupil Premium and Universal Infant Free School Meals were funded at the same rate across the whole country and not pro-rata to authorities on their other funding levels for education. There are those that might argue that the funding wasn’t enough, but it was the same for all. However, that doesn’t obviate the need for a coherent plan for education funding that can be justified on a rational basis. Any reforms must accept the consequences of the raising of the learning leaving age to eighteen. In rural areas the continuation of the old transport rules that assumed staying in education post sixteen was an option need urgent reform.

During the election campaign I met sixth formers of all abilities in both further education and schools that had faced considerable challenges to be able to continue their education. With subsidies to rural bus services under renewed threat this is an unfair burden on young people living in the countryside. If we tried to take away the free travel enjoyed in London there would no doubt be a great outcry.

There is no doubt that what funding there is will increasingly be taken up by increased pay. In those parts of the country, notably London and the Home Counties, where recruitment is at its most challenging it won’t take long for teachers to recognise that the new pay freedoms mean they can ask for more in their pay packets and leave it up to school leaders and governing bodies to decide how to manage the consequences of saying ‘no’.

One outcome is likely to be larger classes, especially in the secondary sector. However, judging by the downward trend in pupil-teacher ratios seen in recent years the system should be able to handle some worsening in ratios and larger class sizes. But, that makes planning teacher supply just that bit more difficult, as trainee PE teachers are no doubt finding out to their cost this year.

Schools will have to look for ways to cut costs, and recruitment advertising is one obvious source of savings as we have shown with TeachVac. By providing a free service to secondary schools that now covers promoted posts as well as main scale vacancies we have created a platform that could save school many millions of pounds as well as providing them with more information about the state of the labour market. If you haven’t visited www.teachvac.co.uk they pay a visit and register. The site will shortly be extending to cover leadership vacancies directly input by schools and I will announce that development on this blog as I will our future plans for extending into the primary sector.

Welcome Back

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So we have the same Secretary of State. Will it be the same Department or will the Prime Minister seek to abolish the Business department and return FE and HE to Education, while sending Children’s Services to Health or somewhere else?

Regardless of any organisational change, there are a number of policy issues to be resolved over the next few years.

As I hinted in my last post, teacher supply and probably training, need urgent ministerial attention. Splitting the teacher training part of the NCTL away from CPD and Leadership might be a smart move, even if in the short-term it means bringing it back in-house in London. At least it would be close to Ministers.

Then there is the future governance of education. The small band of Commissioners aren’t enough to deal with all the issues in both the primary and secondary sectors. So, further reform will be needed here. As many Labour councils won’t embrace the academy programme, primary schools in these areas will grow larger as Councils strive to prevent a loss of control. A firm hand is needed, not least because in those Tory authorities that did embrace the academy agenda and created Trusts over which they have no control, are still left holding the blame when anything goes wrong. I suspect Kent will have something to say on this matter after the arbitrary closure of an academy in the west of the county just before the announcement of the allocation of places to pupils.

If the Conservatives want more UTCs and Studio Schools for 14-18s then they will have to solve the leadership issue. In recent weeks I have had several journalists and researchers contacting me about how bad the leadership crisis is at the present time? Since I gave up that research some time ago I don’t really know, but it seems sensible to ask the question; if we create more schools, do we have enough leaders in waiting? There may be more of an issue in the primary sector where lack of career direction and encouragement, as local authorities saw the cash for this disappear into schools, may have lasting effects until the governance issue is sorted out and a new middle-tier can take responsibility for the career development issues schools aren’t interested in.

Pay and conditions will remain a concern, as the Liberal Democrats were prepared to recognise during the election campaign. Motivating the workforce may also be a major concern for the Secretary of State in the coming months; here a good appointment of Schools Minister will be vital as someone the profession can work with on a day to day basis.

Regardless of whether the Department is re-structured, Ofsted will need reform. If there are no advisory services to do the positive things in changing schools a totally negative inspection regime, or even one that looks that way, risks not only resentment but also loss of authority if the profession refuses to take it seriously.

Then there is the issue of selective schools.  The Secretary of State will need to make it clear whether she agrees with selection at eleven or whether she considers that is an idea that has passed its sell-by date now everyone stays-on to eighteen. At the same time she will need to make clear where she draws the line with regard to the profit motive? Can schools now be run for profit; if so, should she signal that she expects the fee-paying schools to all be run for profit and to abandon their charitable status. It would, seemingly be odd to have three classes of schools; for profit state funded schools; non-for profit state funded schools; state supported charitable institutions that can also charge fees for the education component of their work.

Now that apprenticeships are firmly back on the agenda, there are issues to resolve in the curriculum and in examinations. The arts, so long a success story of education in England, are being squeezed out along with sport if trends in advertised vacancies mean anything. Other subjects will disappear if teachers cannot be recruited. What is the future for CGSE now all will be in education or work related training until eighteen? Was Labour prescient in suggesting GCSEs might become unnecessary in the future?

There is much to do with early years as well, especially around those families that don’t see the value of education. That they are holding back the life chances of many of their children is accepted by many of us, but needs to be better communicated. This should be something politicians of all parties can agree upon. Then there are groups such as Travellers that all too often fall below the radar of politicians, but deserve better from society. The same is true for other groups whether young carers, those with SEN not severe enough to be really appreciated and those on the wrong side of the digital divide. Hopefully, the next five years will still be a time when government recognises their need for improved education.

But, my main message remains that, if we cannot recruit enough teachers, then we cannot create a world-class education system.

Normal service has now been resumed

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Regular readers will have noticed the absence of posts on this blog during the past few weeks. This is mainly because I have been involved in the general election as the Lib Dem candidate for the Banbury Constituency. This was an interesting exercise, and will probably be the subject of a discussion in more depth in another post.

Compared with previous elections education didn’t really hit the headlines very much during the campaign; although I am pleased that it featured on the front of the Lib Dem manifesto and that public sector pay increases and extending free school meals to all primary pupils were on offer as part of the Lib Dem campaign announcements. Even tuition fees didn’t really feature all that much in the debates.

So what else has been happening? The DfE stopped publishing statistics after 31st March when parliament was dissolved. The last to appear showed the continued improvement in attendance levels by pupils. However, buried in the numbers was a possible interesting issue of rural attendance and also data that could initiate the need for a discussion as to why school attendance is so poor in parts of the relatively affluent South East of England? If there’s time, I will discuss that concern in more detail in another post.

Teacher supply was an area of interest following the teacher associations annual conferences. I was surprised, and not a little disappointed, to see the General Secretary of ATL use data from 2011 – data from during the height of the recession – to discuss recruitment and staying-on rates for teachers in 2015. It may well be that in London and the South East more teachers will leave during their first year, but in 2011 the problem for many teachers was finding a job in the first place. This year the problem for some schools has been finding a teacher at all.

TeachVac, our free recruitment site for schools, trainees and now all secondary school teachers, has tracked sufficient vacancies in business studies and social studies to have exhausted the 2014/15 cohort of trainees. Design & Technology might well see its trainee pool eliminated next week. If you want to know the details for other subjects then register at www.teachvac.co.uk either as a school or a teacher and then download the full report.

Even more worrying is the fact that applications to train for 2015 through the UCAS graduate process remain stubbornly some 5,000 below the end of April last year. Even on a 20% conversion rate that would put acceptances at 1,000 below last year: and there weren’t enough trainees in many subjects last year. In my mind, the teacher supply issue is the number one problem facing the new Secretary of State and it is time for some radical thinking. This is especially the case as Teach First, the government supported charity also seems to be struggling to attract applicants into teaching in some subject areas; at least at levels compared with recent years.

So, now it is back to business and it will be interesting to see how quickly the last few weeks are relegated to the history books.

Ship no longer looks as steady

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The publication today by UCAS of the end of cycle report for the 2014 teacher training admissions scheme has produced some interesting new data that raises questions about some of the assumptions in my previous post. You can find the report in full at: https://www.ucas.com/sites/default/files/utt_eoc_2014_eoc_15_03_27.pdf

As this was the first round of the new system it may be dangerous to read too much into the data, and there is no guarantee that this round will be exactly the same as the last one, but if it is then we really do have to start taking the matter of teacher supply seriously.

One key statistic from the UCAS Report was that over the whole cycle 52% of applicants secured a place. As we know, acceptance rates were higher for university courses than for school-based provision. What we didn’t know was that acceptance rates declined the later a person applied in the cycle. Now some of that may be due to courses becoming full between an application and consideration by the course provider. However, I doubt that was responsible for acceptance rates as low as 46% towards the end of the cycle. UCAS note in the report that the former GTTR Scheme had a 43% acceptance rate in 2013, so despite the lower acceptance rate on school-based courses universities do seem to have either had better quality applicants or been willing to take more risks with those that did apply to prevent a greater shortfall in new teacher numbers.

The report also notes that by the end of February, 71% of applications had been received. On that basis the 28,000 or so applicants in the system by mid-March 2015 this year might be joined by another 8,500-9,000 applicants this year during the remainder of the cycle. That would mean more than 4,500 acceptances still to come once all the 28,000 had been processed.

As a result, the missing 5,000 applicants by mid-March 2015 compared with mid-March 2014 may mean a drop of 2,500 in numbers recruited through the admissions process. That’s a scary number and might possibly take recruitment down to no more than 26,000 Trainees. For those that really want to worry, and feel like sleepless nights, I recommend a look at Figure 39 on page 46 of the UCAS report. This shows that acceptance rates fell away sharply after May last year. Now some of that may be due to courses becoming full, but if so there is a need to devise a trading system of spare places to be able to offer candidates in subjects where the overall total won’t be met a place. Just over allocating, the system used by NCTL at present, doesn’t seem to be working.

Whether some courses would remain viable at current levels is a matter for consideration. I wonder whether the NCSL ITT group that met earlier this week have yet discussed safety measures for ensuring providers can stay in the market or whether they are just prepared to let market forces decide where provision is delivered.

Because the admissions system is new, comparisons with previous years are not really possible except on the overall number of applicants. UCAS recorded 54,015 applicants. That is probably the lowest number of graduates applying for teacher training since 2008 when the number was 51,616 through GTTR. Realistically, the overall number was higher that year because the employment-based routes didn’t recruit through UCAS. The last time the number dropped below 50,000 was probably early this century.

Has the ship steadied?

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Data released from UCAS this morning shows that total applications for postgraduate teacher preparation courses still lags behind the same point in 2014. By mid-March 2014 there had been over 102,000 applications from more than 33,500 applicants. This year at roughly the same mid-moth point in March applications were around 85,500 and applicant numbers were approaching the 28,000 mark. In terms of applicants, the gap has widened by around a further 200 applicants during the mid-February to mid-March period. With around 34,000 places on offer there are still not enough applicants to fill every place, even if all were suitable.

Higher education seems to be bearing the brunt of the reduction, with applications down from more than 53,000 in 2014 to fewer than 40,000 in March 2015. That said, although applications to SCITTs have risen, but there are more of them this year, applications to School Direct are down in both categories. The reduction is not a localised issue, but appears in all age groups and across all regions of England. This will make the downward trend more of a challenge to reverse in the remaining period of the recruitment round as it is difficult to know where to focus advertising to gain the most effect. We must just hope that the TV advertising campaign makes a difference by next month.

Although at this stage of the year interpreting ‘offers’ under the system that allows multiple offers to be made is more difficult than in the past, it does seem that in the primary sector the total number of ‘offers’ currently in the system is down on the same point last year by  possibly as many as 400 candidates.

The situation in the secondary sector is more challenging to unravel because of the manner in which UCAS present the statistics. However, it seems likely that there may be slightly more ‘offers’ in the system than at this point last year. The anxiety is that they may not be in the traditional ‘shortage’ subjects but in languages, where there seems to have been a large increase in applications, and possibly in physical education. Physics and mathematics have probably reached a level that is sustainable with present bursary and scholarship arrangements if applications continue at the current rate, but the numbers won’t be high enough to meet the level of training places allocated. In many other subjects, demand still remains at levels that are worryingly low and will be insufficient to improve on recruitment totals from last year unless the ratio of acceptances to applicants is altered, especially on School Direct where relatively more applicants weren’t offered places than on other types of course in 2014.

Next month the figures will be affected by the Easter break and, although this is less of an issue in these days of electronic applications, it is still a factor to be taken into account. Thus, the next set of data that can form a realistic comparison between 2014 and 2015 will come in May, after the election. The data will no doubt be an early headache for the new Secretary of State, assuming we have one by then.

London needs teachers

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An analysis of the first 5,600 vacancies recorded in TeachVac www.teachvac.co.uk the free service for schools and teachers that allows schools to place job announcements and those vacancies to be matched with trainees, teachers and returners looking for a classroom teaching post in a secondary school, has thrown up some interesting information.

Firstly, it looks likely that any secondary school looking for a teacher in the autumn term will have to rely either upon returners or using the services of agencies of others prepared to search for applicants. The trainee pool in most subjects is likely to be exhausted by the summer if the current level of advertisements continues, especially if April is the peak month for recruitment advertising, as it has been in past years.

Of course, the rumblings from the ASCL conference about schools budgets may mean that schools have fewer vacancies to advertise than they would wish. But that may be counter-acted by above average wastage from the profession if other surveys from the teacher associations are correct.

Anyway, what is clear from TeachVac is that around half the vacancies in many subjects recorded so far this year are in just three regions of England; London; the South East; the East of England. This is despite the over-representation of Teach First in London compared with the rest of the country even though it now has a role across the country.

The presence of above average numbers of private schools in and around London may account for the higher levels of posts in the separate sciences and in many vacancies for teachers of specific languages in this part of the country. Elsewhere, the tendency is still to advertise ‘science’ vacancies and for ‘language’ teachers. Although numbers are small, London and the South East account for two thirds of recorded vacancies for teachers of classics.

Unless they are just advertising locally, and not using their own web sites, schools in the North West of England have advertised around 25% fewer vacancies than schools in London so far during 2015. It may be that the large number of trainees in that part of the country means that more schools can offer more posts directly to trainees without needing to advertise a vacancy. Before the advent of academies such behaviour might have been regarded askance in some quarters.

Teachers of PE may struggle the most to find a new job for September unless vacancies increase sharply in the remainder of the year, as may teachers of RE looking for a teaching post in the south West.

Next week will see the publication of the March data on applications through the UCAS unified admissions system for teacher preparation courses starting this autumn. These courses will provide the bulk of new entrants to fill secondary classroom teacher vacancies in 2016. Hopefully, the new TV campaign will have boosted applications, although it may be April before any effect can really be noticed. Without more applicants 2016 looks likely to be an even more challenging recruitment round than this year, especially if dropout rates from preparation courses are also on the increase, as has been suggested to me.

Can a leopard change its spots?

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It was interesting to see Michael Gove, he of the Academies Act 2010 and comments about blobs, launch the new ‘Conservative Right’ think tank recently. Students of the history of the past two hundred years will enjoy his selective pickings from the past. Here are a few about education;

Arthur Balfour introduced an Education Act which dramatically extended state support for schooling and helped emancipate working class children from the prison house of ignorance.

No mention of the 1870 Act that first introduced State Education presumably because that was an outcome of Gladstone’s Liberal government

In Churchill’s Wartime Government it was Rab Butler who extended yet further the reach, and liberating power, of state education.

Of course, the government that introduced the 1944 Education Act was a grand coalition. That fact doesn’t rate a mention either.

Here is Michael Gove’s summing up of his stewardship in of education.

But now, thanks to this Government, there are new schools – academies and free schools – based in our poorest neighbourhoods which are sending more children to top universities than some of our most famous private schools.

The academies programme has ensured the country’s best head teachers have been given responsibility for our most challenging schools. The free schools programme has meant that some of the best primary schools in this country have been set up in just the last few years – and in some of our toughest areas. Alongside these new schools a new curriculum that sets high standards for all and the investment of more than two and a half billion pounds in the pupil premium have helped raise achievement for all children. And that is a progressive achievement of which we can all be proud.

Not a piece of data on his achievements anywhere in site in this bit of his speech apart from the figure for the Pupil Premium. But, then numbers and statistics were never Mr Gove’s strong point. You can judge for yourself whether he can really take responsibility for the Pupil Premium and its extension to the early years. The introduction of the Service Children’s Premium was, I suspect something that came from the Prime Minister and so doesn’t rate a mention here..

I will leave readers to decide whether Mr Gove is a different type of Tory than many had thought he was or whether, just perhaps, this might be an attempt to broaden his appeal ahead of a leadership challenge if the Tories lose the general election.

Teachvac moves forward

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Teachvac http://www.teachvac.co.uk the free site where schools and trainee teachers can register and be told about vacancies for classroom teachers in secondary schools has taken the first step towards enlarging its scope while remaining a free service to both schools and teachers.

Originally launched this January, Teachvac developed to understand the market for trainees both by tracking vacancies and by recording where trainees were looking for vacancies. The site is now able to handle registrations from any teacher looking for a mainstream classroom post in a secondary school across both the maintained and private sectors. The TeachVac site will still track the requirements of trainees, but will also consider the characteristics of other teachers seeking this type of vacancy. In the future, the site will expand to include promoted posts and take in both the primary and special school sectors.

For those curious about how the site works, there are demonstration videos on both the teacher and school registration pages. The Teachvac site is now gearing up to handle the large increase in vacancies expected between now and the end of April. Schools that register receive notification of the state of the market in the subject where they post a vacancy. Each month a review of the trends over the previous month is published.

There is a growing body of data  from Teachvac about the trends in this part of the Labour market that will be of interest in the debate about teacher recruitment. Why, for instance, are so many PE teachers being trained and why did the Teacher Supply Model seemingly underestimate the need for teachers of English for a number of years? There is currently no formal mechanism to discuss these issues with government in any formal sense. I hope that after May the new government will rectify this deficiency.

News on the pay front

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The latest report from the School Teacher Review Body was published today. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/school-teachers-review-body-25th-report-2015 The report is useful in that it brings all the data about pay and teacher supply issues together in one place. Whether teachers will find it helpful will depend very much on how schools respond to the recommended changes that amount to a 1% uplift on most salary scale minima and maxima, but a 2% uplift on the top of the main scale.

Teachers looking for jobs can now bargain over salary and schools that have signed up to TeachVac are being told our view of the current status of the subject in terms of the market for classroom teachers in secondary schools every time the upload a vacancy. Yesterday, both sciences and mathematics reached the level of vacancies that suggest there have been enough jobs to remove a third of trainees from the market. Today is shaping up to be the largest since day for vacancies in some subjects so far in 2015.

But, to return to the STRB Report. What is clear is that even without taking into account the fact that teachers entering the labour market are one year older than most other new graduate entrants, pay is slipping outside London compared to other graduates. Perhaps next time the STRB will look at what graduate entrants to large firms earn after their first year and compare that salary with the rate paid to teachers after training. However, using the longer lens going back to before the recession, there is still some evidence that those teachers that joined in the early 2000s are only now starting to see their salary advantages whittled away. For me, the message seems to be; this year the 2% may just about see the government through as a pay increase, but next year, if the economy continues to grow and teaching doesn’t respond, the recruitment situation will probably become worse. The message sent out by this report from the STRB will affect the 2016 labour market if it doesn’t help recruit more teachers into training for this coming September, as the 2015 entrants are the new teachers of 2016.

Now that the TV advertising campaign has finally started, it will be interesting to see what effect it has upon recruitment. Personally, I think it is a bit late in the year and I hope that next time it runs during the autumn term when many more undergraduates are thinking about what future career to choose. Still, I suspect it may be better value for money that the banner advertising School Direct I saw outside one secondary school recently. Personally, I would have though the money spend might have had a better reach either using a social media campaign or good old fashioned press advertising. Relying on the motorists that drive by to take their eyes off the road as means of recruitment seems a risky strategy to me in more ways than one.