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.

Some reflections on the NfER webinar on teacher supply

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Regular readers of this blog that listened to this webinar will have learned about some interesting data from Jack Worth’s presentation, not least the effect of bursaries on recruitment into training.

Here are some of my reflections

Keep in Touch Scheme

Absolutely needed. I drafted an idea for such a scheme earlier this year.

Part-time and flexible working

Good idea, but only if it increases recruitment. Needs research into balance between those working full-time and those only working part-time and effects on pupils and school ethos. Still, it is a better option than a procession of supply teachers.

Diversity and protected characteristics

It is 25 years this year since a Minister at the Department first addressed a conference on attracting a wider range of individuals into teaching. I have produced two significant reports for government and one for a teacher association during that time, both highlighted the issues that were discussed today. London is doing better than the rest of the country, but ‘young, White and female and able-bodied’ still seems to characterise the majority of those accepted into teaching. Some groups still find it disproportionally hard to become a teacher. There is a need to review where ITT places are located in relation to under-represented groups, and what happens if a particular group applies in large numbers for a particular course?

Here are some issues not mentioned this afternoon

Middle leadership and teacher shortages – discussed in the previous post on this blog

Teaching as a global profession – good or bad for recruitment into schools. No mention of iQTS this afternoon.

Tutoring as a career alternative to teaching or combined with flexible working in schools?

Many years ago, I wondered whether groups of teachers could band together to increase their pay by offering their services not as employees but as consultants. A group could take on teaching contracts alongside tutoring, delivery of professional development and creation of teaching resources as well as adult training and research to provide a varied career. The contract could specify the delivery but not the person delivering it. However, most people that enter teaching aren’t entrepreneurial, so such an idea probably wouldn’t work.

Underlying all the points being made during the webinar was the issue of the free market in teaching. Teachers can decide where they want to teach and if lucky can be paid a bursary to train to teach in a private school. As one speaker said, and has been apparent whenever there is a teacher shortage, teachers are more likely to end up in ‘good’ schools rather than challenging schools when demand exceeds the supply of teachers. Unless there is a change of attitude, levelling up is an impossible dream or a political con trick.

Should we link training places to schools on an expanded Teach First model whereby entrants to training are linked to schools and paid a salary from day one with pension contribution on top. Preparation, like the famous Project X of UCLA, should be linked to the demands of teaching in challenging schools and not how to teach in successful schools.

Finally, the new model of mentoring reminds me of what were once called Advisory Teachers. Mentoring might work better if the issue of the Middle Tier had been worked out rather than in the same disjoined way that school placements are created.   This is another area where a discussion of free market versus planned provision might be useful.

It will be interesting to see what the White Paper has to say on any or all of these issues. However, White Papers can often identify problems, but may not lead to solutions.

Labour Market for Teacher: don’t overlook the middle leadership needs of schools

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The labour market for teachers can be divided into three main segments: classroom teachers; middle leaders and senior leadership. The first and last receive the most attention from researchers, but middle leadership needs are often overlooked and can be under-researched. This seems to be the case in the latest NfER research into the labour market for teachers published today. Teacher Labour Market in England – Annual Report 2022 – NFER

The market for middle leaders is closely tied to the classroom teacher market because middle leaders start off as classroom teachers. How quickly they will be promoted depends upon the subject or specialisms. In some subjects, where there are lots of part-timers, promotion can come swiftly. Music teachers working in small secondary schools have been known to be in charge even as NQTs, but hopefully such a state of affairs is rare these days.

Of more concern are the subjects where there has been chronic under-supply of new entrants into the profession. Last week, I talked to a group of headteachers under the auspices of the Corporation of London about this issue.

Here were my findings in relation to the possible supply of middle leaders in just one subject: design and technology.

The ITT Census for 2013, conducted by the DfE, recorded some 410 people preparing to teach design and technology via a range of different routes.

After one year of teaching, the number left in the profession was no more than 340 or, allowing for some dropout before completion of their courses, perhaps 5%, then only 320 would still have been in teaching.

Fast forward five years, and using the DfE wastage rates as reported to the STRB, then the remaining numbers of this cohort left in teaching might be in the range of 250-320 teachers.

Using TeachVac data on vacancies, something not available to NfER, recorded vacancies for design and technology teachers with a TLR were 390 in 2020; 470 in 2021 and 230 to date in 2022. Now some of these might be ‘recruitment’ TLRs with little leadership demands, but if even half are genuine middle leadership positions, then they will make a significant demand upon the remaining teachers from the 2013 cohort.

When a single cohort is not large enough to provide sufficient middle leaders there can be a temptation to require leadership of teachers before they are secure in their grip on teaching and learning. It should be possible to use the DfE’s databases to check how soon TLR2s are awarded to teachers in shortage subjects and in what type of schools?

The need for challenging schools to appoint inexperienced teachers to middle leadership positions in the teacher shortages of the early 1970s was the topic that led me to start my research into the labour market for teachers, and also to establish in 1978 an early leadership development course for middle leaders in Haringey’s secondary schools.

Professional development for middle leadership is as important as ever as is ensuring a sufficient supply of teachers with the knowledge and experience to take up middle leadership roles.

Labour Market for Teachers

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Tomorrow the NfER will publish their report on the Labour Market for Teachers. I assume it will say very similar things to the TeachVac Report published in January. A copy of which is available on request

Of more concern at present is not the 2022 labour market – lots of vacancies; not enough applicants in many subjects – but the outlook for 2023.  For more on 2022 see Recruitment 2022: a rough ride to come | John Howson (wordpress.com)

A quick analysis of the DfE’s ‘Get into Teaching’ site reveals that there are still high percentages of courses with the ‘vacancies here’ flag waving. Top of the list is the small number of ‘science’ courses, with 96% of those courses showing vacancies earlier today. Not far behind is Physics, with 93% of the 783 courses showing vacancies.

Interestingly, on 6th March, there were only 777 courses listed. Even though the DfE provides a range of filters, how do you select the best course from 783 varieties? One interesting factor is that a search on Physics ‘QTS only’ courses willing to consider those with a Third-Class degree, such a search brings up 47 courses. Most of the providers of these courses are located in or around the London area or are located in the wider South East region.

When is the government going to provide a strategy that allows all training places in Physics to have a realistic chance of being filled? It isn’t possible to level up, especially in areas with selective schools and many private schools, if there are insufficient teachers in a particular subject or phase. That’s been obvious for many years, but, apart from bursaries, little has been achieved, especially with the failure of the salary scheme option within School Direct.

The good news, well comparatively good news, is that only 42% of the 104 psychology, as opposed to physics, courses currently have vacancies. In PE, two thirds of courses still have vacancies, higher than might be expected for mid-March.

Even 1,412 out of the staggering 1,677 course options for those wanting to train to teach in the primary sector still have vacancies.

Of course, applicants don’t know whether a course has one vacancy or many from the DfE website. These days adding such a feature should be relatively easy to do, even if only in the form of a set of traffic lights: green for lots of space; amber ably quickly; red few spaces left and course might be full by the time your application is received.

I hope the DfE is conducting some evaluation of how the users find the DfE’s site listing courses. Perhaps a map of locations for the course’s teaching base and schools used for practical elements might be another useful addition?

Of course, if the DfE makes any changes to places available all the current evidence might be of little more than historical value. Postgraduate initial teacher training targets: 2022 to 2023 – Official statistics announcement – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) There will apparently be an announcement in April.

TeachVac launches new service for schools

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The DfE Vacancy site for teachers is still a muddled mess. Eight years ago, well before the DfE woke up to the idea that the internet could be used for low cost but effective job matching, I helped create TeachVac http://www.teachvac.co.uk and made it a free service for schools and teachers.

The basic rationale was simple – modern technology can cut the cost of finding a job and schools could save money as a result. After the Public Accounts Committee complained that the DfE didn’t have a grip on the labour market for teachers, the DfE set about creating a job board of their own.

At the start of the pandemic, I offered to share vacancies that the DfE didn’t upload with them to help to create a single free platform for teachers. Go away, I was told.

So, TeachVac still offers a free service, but is now launching its premium service whereby a school can ensure its vacancies are at the top of the list of matches a teacher receives each day. The service also provides a reminder after a few days so that teachers see the job more than once. Schools also receive labour market updates each month. All this for £500 per year for secondary schools and even less for primary schools across both state and private sectors schools.

Contact enquiries@oxteachserv.com for more information or to sign up and receive an early bird discount.

But, back the DfE site. Where, of course, teachers can only search for jobs in state schools. So, the site isn’t useful to those that don’t mind whether they work in state or private schools.

The front page of the DfE site is a real muddle. There are lists of ‘towns/cities and ‘counties’ although Chester West and Chester East aren’t counties, but unitary authorities. Towns within shire counties such as Oxford, Exeter, Chelmsford and many others don’t have a listing on the front page.  London has a single listing, not even split into the different pay area: not helpful if there are lots of vacancies in the Capital’s schools.

Milton Keynes receives a mention, but the rest of Buckinghamshire doesn’t. Still, there is a search buttons for key words and locations. A search on ‘secondary’ and ‘Oxford’ brings up 12 results. Four are non-teaching posts; two are in special schools or PRUs and only six are in secondary schools.

There is an alert function, but if it sends non-teaching posts as well as teaching vacancies it doesn’t do the job for which it is intended, unless the civil servants at the DfE think teachers that cannot find a teaching post will consider non-teaching roles and have the appropriate qualifications for such positions.

TeachVac is breaking records each month with 500,000+ matches so far in 2022, and over one million in this school year to date.

The earlier a school signs up for the premium service, the higher up the daily list of matches it will be placed. Don’t delay: sign up today by emailing enquiries@oxteachserv.com to express interest.

Buddy, can you spare a dime?

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Did schools really save money in the five-year period up to 2019-2020? The DfE has published a study showing the aim of ‘saving’ at least one billion pounds during that period was achieved. Progress in schools savings and resource management – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

The methodology of the study was to measure savings as the difference between actual non-staff expenditure in 2019-20 and what was estimated non-staff expenditure would have been in 2019-20 if schools had not changed their spending behaviour. This is expressed as the difference between the expenditure line and the counterfactual line as to where expenditure without saving would have been.

It is worth noting that the period covered was one where primary school rolls were generally on the increase, and for many secondary school rolls were either constant or falling. Academies and maintained schools also operate on different financial years, so that could be an additional complicating factor.

A significant proportion of the saving came in the final year 2019-2020. I am not sure whether that meant that the final third of that financial year for academies covered the first four months of the pandemic when, for instance, there would have been a significant drop in expenditure on school meals, as most children were forced to stay at home.

The target of £1 Billion pounds was set after the National Audit Office (NAO) report “Financial sustainability of schools” published in 2016 identified that schools would incur cost pressures of £3bn between then and 2019- 20. The DfE then produced analysis which compared schools with different levels of spending but similar pupil characteristics and levels of attainment.

According to the report,

 ‘the DfE estimated the impact of bringing the spending of the top 25% highest per-pupil non-staff spending schools down to the level of those at the 75th percentile. This analysis indicated that, schools could plausibly save around £1 bn on their non-staff spending and so this became the ambition of the SRM portfolio’ (Page 3)

It is not clear from the report whether that is what happened, or whether the schools better at managing their costs took more out of the system, thus widening the gap between those schools good at achieving savings and the rest of the sector. Since both primary and secondary schools were included, it would have been interesting to know how much of the saving was due to fixed costs that don’t alter with changing pupil numbers – it presumably cost a similar amount to heat and light a school even if pupil numbers fluctuate. The saving would be more impressive and longer-lasting if it was the variable costs that had been reduced. Primary schools often have higher fixed costs as a proportion of income, although many of these are staff costs.  

And, as the DfE note in the definitions on page 5 of the report.

‘“Saving” in this context does not mean a cash saving. We measure savings by comparing actual non-staff spend to where we expected non-staff spending to be had schools not changed spending behaviour – the counterfactual. We would calculate cash savings by taking away actual non-staff spend in 2019-20 from actual non-staff spending in 2015-16.’

And finally, it looks as if the special school sector was excluded if the study was only on primary and secondary schools. It would be interesting to know about cost pressures in that sector and whether similar saving was possible?

Teachers need CPD in using technology: nothing new there

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The DfE has published an interesting survey about the use of Educational Technology in schools. These days, unlike when I first started teaching, EdTech usually means IT related equipment. The survey can be found at Education Technology (EdTech) Survey 2020-21 (publishing.service.gov.uk) It is worth noting that the Review is based upon a survey of a limited number of schools and teachers and that classroom teachers views may less visible than views from IT specialists and school leaders.

Many years ago, in the days of the Labour government, the early use of IT equipment in schools was chronicled in a number of surveys. I recall writing about some of the results, for instance, in the TES on 4th January 2002 when government data suggested that the average secondary school already had more than 120 computers, and the average primary school more than 20.

In those days, the internet was still new and smart phones were only for enthusiasts. I also recall commissioning a Java app for the 2005 General Election based upon the cost of the War in Iraq: but that’s another whole story.

Schools these days take IT equipment for granted, but there are still differences between the primary and secondary school sectors. The Review rightly suggests that the need for ‘A review of the digital technology used for supporting pupils with SEND.’ (Page 22).  All too often the need for accessible technology can be overlooked.

Schools clearly need more support, not least in the area of cyber security training and safeguarding pupils and staff. The decision to abolish rather than update the national support for Education Technology in the great bonfire of the QUANGOs instituted by the Conservative Ministers in the coalition government really does look like a short-sighted move, whatever the shortcomings were at the time. This lack of on-going support is recognised in the suggestions for future development contained in the Review.

Schools indicated a range of barriers to future effective use of EdTech including

Financial barriers were by far perceived as the biggest barriers, especially cost and budgetary constraints, although availability of technology in school (which is also likely to be linked to school budgets), was also cited.

Pupil barriers were perceived by teachers to be major barriers and the availability of technology (94%) and internet connectivity (90%) in pupils’ homes were perceived to be the biggest barriers to increased uptake of EdTech after cost and budget. Secondary school teachers (in particular those from local authority ‘maintained’ schools) perceived these factors to be ‘big barriers’. Pupils’ digital skills were also perceived as a barrier, although to a lesser degree.

Staff barriers, including teachers’ skills, confidence and appetite for using EdTech also represented a substantial barrier. Almost nine out of ten headteachers (88%) and three-fifths of teachers (58%) cited teacher skills and confidence as a barrier to the increased uptake of EdTech. Teachers who mentioned this was a barrier for them were less likely to say that EdTech met their needs, saved them time and reduced their workload. These teachers were also less confident in their ability to deliver remote education.

Connectivity barriers in school were also commonly mentioned, although they were more likely to be cited as ‘small’ barriers rather than ‘big’ barriers.

Safeguarding and data concerns were also mentioned, especially by secondary school teachers, however, overall, this represented a ‘small barrier’ to the increased uptake of technology. (Page 20)

Implicit in the comments about barriers may be the different funding regimes between academy chains and local authorities, whereby it is easier for academy chains to manage development and purchasing strategies than it is for local authorities under the present funding arrangements.

The use of devices reflects the difference between class-base teaching in the primary sector and subject-based teaching across most secondary schools. This difference in teaching strategy may explain why fixed units such as PCs have greater exposure in the secondary sector and tablets and other more mobile devices are to be found in great numbers in primary schools where pupils spend the majority of their time in a single teaching base.

The past two years of the pandemic has helped change the landscape for learning in schools and the future must make the best use of the skills only teachers can bring to support the learner and the best use that can be made of technology.

Depriving the deprived

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Levelling up is not just an issue for the north of England. Ahead of their Spring Conference, the Liberal Democrats obtained data about reading levels at Key Stage 2 and the percentage of pupils not achieving the expected standard at Key Stage 2 in 2019, the last set of data because of the pandemic. The most revealing data are that for the parliamentary constituencies in England – education is a devolved activity, so the data only covers constituencies in England – of which there are some 533.

My especial interest is, of course Oxford. The west of the city is in the Oxford West and Abingdon constituency that ranks 91st worst in the list at the same place in the table with Henley constituency. However, the Oxford East constituency is ranked 502nd worst out of the 533 constituencies in England. This is a really significant difference between the two parts of Oxford.

One issue that this brings into sharp focus is the problems associated with a national funding formula model for schools; a formula that is based upon the needs of a random collection of local authorities responsible for special education and although budgets go to schools not divorced from the way the overall formula is calculated. If you level up by authority, then you miss pockets of need, such as those parts of Oxford East contributing to the outcome for the Oxford East constituency as a whole.

To be fair to teachers in Oxford, way back in 2011, the City as a whole ranked as the worst local authority for Key Stage 1 outcomes, so this looks like an improvement, albeit on different data.

Nevertheless, children in East Oxford need to be able to access the required degree of resources to allow them to reach parity with their peers across the city and elsewhere in England.

London boroughs are disproportionally represented in the list of constituencies with the lowest percentages of pupils failing to reach the expected standard, whereas both rural and urban areas outside of London are to be found among those constituencies with the worst outcomes.

Oxford as a university city – with two universities – has a proportion of children with English as their second languages, but it is not clear that these pupils are disproportionally located in the east of the city, since university accommodation can be found across the city as a whole.

The Conservatives adapted from Labour ideas by inventing Opportunity Areas to offer extra support to areas needing it, but I have not seen any analysis of the outcomes for such areas. Oxford East seemingly didn’t qualify.

It is worth comparing Oxford with Blackpool for reading outcomes, as both are areas with two different parliamentary constituencies. Blackpool’s constituencies are ranked 73rd and 340th while Oxford’s rank 91st and 502nd. Blackpool is, of course, an Opportunity Area: Oxford isn’t. One might well ask why Oxford is not an opportunity Area on the basis of these figures?

Perhaps it is a matter of perception rather than hard evidence. Blackpool isn’t a wealthy university town and has high levels of unemployment. Oxford is viewed as affluent and successful, and a great place to live. To live, but not, at least as far as the East of the City is concerned, to learn.

To hypothecate or not?

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Civil Servants don’t seem to be very good at procurement if you read the latest report from the Education Select Committee at Westminster into the National Tutoring Programme.  Disadvantaged pupils facing ‘epidemic’ of educational inequality – Committees – UK Parliament this has not been a success. The Secretary of State recognised this in his speech to the ASCL Conference.

The issue of procurement and value for money is something that I have written about before on this blog.  Bulk buying back in vogue | John Howson (wordpress.com) With the present pressure on prices due to the world situation, schools and the whole education sector are going to need to review their spending. If we were to take 100,000 extra children from Ukraine, as announced by the Secretary of State  Education Secretary addresses Association of School and College Leaders conference – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

‘And we have a team that’s already making plans for a capacity of 100,000 Ukrainian children that will come in and take their places in our schools.’

This will impact on funding unless the government is prepared to fully fund the extra places. Wil the funding by hypothecated, as will be the £350 per month householder grant for refugees or just added to the normal school funding round?

At least teachers from Ukraine will be able to work in England as the Secretary of State also said in his speech:

“And because teaching is an increasingly global profession, I want to attract the very best teachers from across the world.

That is why we will also introduce a new relocation premium to help with visas and other expenses for teachers and trainees moving here from abroad.

But even this is not enough: I want our country to be known around the world as the place to train and practise teaching, rivalling the likes of Shanghai, Canada and of course Finland.”

I assume that these changes will be introduced in time to help Ukrainian teachers fleeing the war with their families, as well as any Russian citizens unhappy with their government and fleeing a prison sentence for protesting against the war that might be teachers.

As my recent post on the dilemmas of teaching discussed, hypothecating finance isn’t just a national matter. Schools have to decide how to use their budgets between the needs of different pupils. In this respect, the announcements about SEND will be eagerly awaited, as funding for that sector is in woefully short supply.

Finally, local authorities especially in the shires, will be facing rising transport bills for school transport and social services visits along with other cost increases. For the past eight years, I have demonstrated how recruitment advertising can be much cheaper than it has been. Perhaps, it is now time for the DfE to get together with professional associations and other interested parties to work out how real saving can be made without reducing services. The past few years have seen an explosion of talent in education entrepreneurship. BETT would be a good place for the Secretary of State to announce new initiatives to help avoid wasting cash as has happened in the past.

Phoenix rising

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The DfE has today published a Policy Paper putting more bones on the body of the idea of a career development framework for teachers Delivering world class teacher development policy paper (publishing.service.gov.uk) To those of us with long memories it reads a bit like the early 1990s justification for the creation of the Teacher Training Agency. At that time QUANGOs were fashionable, nowadays government departments like to keep a tighter hold on policy, and don’t let the overall control of this sort of structure outside of the Department’s oversight.

Today’s document is a bit of a curate’s egg. The clickthrough for the Institute of Education on page 8 goes to the document New Institute of Teaching set to be established – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) not updated since January 2021, and containing quotes from (Sir) Gavin Williamson, the then Secretary of State and Nick Gibb, the former Minister.

Strangely, for a Policy Paper, readers are told to contact their local Teaching Hub to find out more than is in this relatively slight document. I hope that there is a coordinated response for those that do take the trouble to make contact.

The different strands linking together career development paths are ambitious, but necessary. However, it all looks a bit artificial and lacking in both sticks and carrots. Should teachers be required to recertify every few years or would such a move reveal the inability of the system to properly train those asked to teach our young people.

The lack of any mention of special needs, the sector with the highest percentage of unqualified teachers is disappointing, and the numeracy lobby will wonder why literacy is singled out for a specialist NPQ, but they do rate a mention?

In the end, the success of the project will come down to the cash on offer, and how career development will be paid for. The offering in today’s document is still a long way from Mrs Thatcher’s sabbatical term idea based upon the James Committee Report that was scuppered by the 1970s oil crisis. Indeed, it might be worth having a look in the library for a copy of that White Paper; Education – a Framework for Expansion that appear half a century ago.

Teaching Hubs and Regional School Commissioners are no real substitute for a coherent middle tier that can manage the local career development offering for teachers across a local area.

I would like to think that a career framework for all teachers wanting to make the profession their career for the whole of their working life will counter the notion of everyone having several different careers in a lifetime, but it is difficult on the basis of past outcomes to be anything other than sceptical about the needs of individuals rather than the wishes for a system. Will Phoenix make it out of the ashes of past attempts at career development for teachers? I am not sure based upon this Policy Document.

London teachers more likely to receive additional payments

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On 11th February 2018, I wrote a blog post about pay flexibilities for teachers, and the use of allowances. Pay flexibilities for teachers | John Howson (wordpress.com) The DfE’s 2022 evidence to the STRB, referenced in recent posts on this blog, has a table on page 65 that allows an update for the position in November 2020.

According to the DfE’s evidence to the School Teachers Review Body (STRB) in 2018 only 64%, just fewer than two out of three schools, paid any of their staff Teaching & Learning Responsibility allowances (TLRs as they are usually known). I guessed in 2018 that most of the remaining nearly 8,000 or so schools were mostly small primary schools, with only a handful of teachers and a head teacher? In November 2020, the percentage of schools paying a TLR was almost the same as in 2018, at 63.7% of schools. Presumably, it was still the small primary schools where there were no TLRs paid to staff.

Interestingly, the DfE record that 76.7% of schools in 2020, compared with 75.2% of all schools in 2018, make some form of payment to some of their teaching staff. The lowest percentages were for schools in the East midlands and Yorkshire and The Humber Regions.

In 2020, 20.7% of schools were using SEN payments, rising to 27.8% of schools in the South East of England. In the Yorkshire and The Humber Region only 14.2% of schools were making SEN payments: not far short of half the percentage of schools making such payments in the South East of England. This difference seems significant enough to need further investigation.

Even less common than SEN payments, despite all the talk about a recruitment crisis, has been the use of recruitment and retention payments to teachers; only 8.9% of schools across England were recorded as making such a payment in November 2020. However, the percentage does rise to 18.2% schools in the Inner London area – That’s not technically a region and the DfE evidence doesn’t define what it means by Inner London and whether it is pay area or some other definition. By contrast, only 4.7% of schools in the South West makes any payments to a teacher or teachers for recruitment and retention reasons. The DfE doesn’t make clear how many teachers in the schools receive such payments. It is enough for just one to teacher to receive a payment for a school to qualify for inclusion in the table.

The use of additional payments to teachers doesn’t seem to have changed much during the past few years. This despite the challenges schools have faced in recruiting teachers with some specific subject knowledge. The pressure on school budgets may well have accounted for an unwillingness to spend more of the school’s funds on extra allowances, over and above those already in the system.

It will be interesting to see how schools will react to the challenge of the £30,000 starting salary and the need to motivate more experienced staff if differentials are reduced, especially if new teachers retain the right to a lighter timetable.