Category Archives: economic

Batten down the hatches

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The DfE has finally provided the August data on ITT applications. Flagged for the 22nd August publication, the data are now in the public domain. As expected, they make grim reading for anyone at all interested in teacher supply.

At this stage of the year there are two numbers that matter; the absolute number offered a place on a postgraduate ITT course, and how that number relates to the DfE’s Teacher Supply Model (TSM) and its calculation of how many teachers are needed to be trained each year.

First the good news, there are more offers in design and technology than in August last year; nearly 100 more. However, nowhere near enough to meet the probable TSM number, based upon past levels.

Now the bad news. Several subjects are at their lowest level for offers for any year since before the 2013/14 recruitment round. These include:

Languages

Religious Education

Physics

Music

Mathematics

English

Computing

Biology

None of these subjects will recruit enough trainees to meet the likely TSM number.

Physical Education

History

Drama

Will probably recruit enough trainees to meet targets, as should the primary sector, where there are around 12,000 offers. Much depends upon the numbers made offers that fail to turn up when courses commence.

In total, around 24,000 candidates have been recruited, and have either fulfilled all requirements or have ‘conditions pending’. The 13,850 of the 24,000 in the latter category are a worry. There should not be that many at this stage in the cycle. Perhaps course administrators haven’t updated the records during July and August. But it cannot be because candidates are awaiting degree results, so presumably it is either DBS checks or some other administrative issue.

24,000 is still an impressive number, and it should hammer home to Ministers in the new government how important teaching is as a career. With approaching a decade of under-recruitment to training, parts of the school system are now facing serious issues with staffing.

So, how serious is the present situation? In August 2021 there were 46,830 applicants to courses. This August, the number is 38,062. New graduate numbers have dropped from around 14% of the total to 13%, but the decline is greater in percentage terms than the nine per cent overall decline. Teaching is becoming more reliant upon career changers once again.

There have been 5,000 fewer female applicants this year compared with August 2021, and 2,500 fewer men, although the level of applications from men is still higher than it was 30 years ago when applicant numbers struggled to reach the 10,000 level.

While there has been a slight increase in applications for the PG Teaching apprenticeship route into teaching, some other routes are below last year. HE is down from 55,000 to less than 53,000 but SCITT are only marginally down from 15,000 to just over 14,600. The School Direct Salaried route has attracted less than 6,000 applications, compared with some 9,000 last year. With just 760 offers, this route is no longer of any more than passing interest in supplying new teachers to the profession.

If there is another spark of good news it is that applications to courses in London at 27,460 this August are only marginally below the 27,600 recorded last August. Might this be where a significant number of career changers are seeking to enter teaching. Should more ITT places be allocated to the providers with courses in the capital?

This is the last set of data because courses commence in September, and whoever is Secretary of State in September would be well advised to seek an early briefing from the newly appointed SRO for the ITT Reform Project as to how he will ensure sufficient high-quality teachers for all our state-funded schools. The current recruitment campaign isn’t working, and relying upon a recession to make teaching more attractive as a career is akin to crossing your fingers and hoping.

Then end of this cycle of recruitment marks my 35th year of studying trends in teacher recruitment, ever since I was appointed to the leadership team at Oxford Brookes then newly formed School of Education.

The next number that really matters will be the ITT Census, to be published late in the autumn, when the whole reality of the 2023 recruitment round will become apparent to schools.

My advice to schools, don’t wait until then, start planning now for a challenging recruitment round in 2023, whether for January or September appointments.

Leadership turnover and Free School Meals

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Earlier this summer I published a post about vacancies and the Free School Meal percentages of schools. I promised that I would look at headteacher turnover by the percentage of Fee School Meals at those schools advertising for a new headteacher this year.

The data by regions for the period of adverts from 1st January 2022 until last Friday is in the table below

1st JAN TO 19th AUGUST 20220-9.9% on FSM10-19.9% on FSM20%+ on FSM
East Midlands29%32%39%100%
East of England28%40%32%100%
London21%30%50%100%
North East21%25%54%100%
North West30%27%43%100%
South East40%32%28%100%
South West24%43%34%100%
West Midlands24%30%46%100%
Yorkshire & Humber24%27%49%100%
AVERAGE27%32%42%100%
Source: TeachVac

Now this is a crude piece of analysis, as it just takes the school and places it in one of three bands for Free School Meals percentage at the school, as recorded by the DfE. The table also incudes both primary and secondary schools, and also does not distinguish between schools that have only advertised one and those that have advertised more than once. There has been a discussion about trends in re-advertising amongst primary schools using data from one authority in another recent post on this blog.

Anyway, urban areas, not surprisingly, have the highest percentages of schools in the 20% plus grouping, with London having 50% of advertised headships from such schools, compared with 28% of headships in the South East and 32% in the East of England falling in this grouping; both areas with high employment and significant areas of affluence. The South East had the largest percentage of schools in the lowest groups of less than 10% of pupils in the school eligible for Free School Meals. This compared with just 21% in London and the North East regions schools that have advertised for a new headteacher.

If I have time, I will look at both re-advertisements and create a standard number based upon the size of the school roll to consider whether this has any effect. Separating out primary and secondary schools, and perhaps schools of a religious character and other schools might also be interesting.

We can expect the current average of 22.5% of pupils eligible for Free School Meals to increase as any recession bites. How much may depend upon how government help with energy bills is counted in a family income total.

ITT places need a review: but not behind closed doors

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A quarter of a century ago I had a job at the then Teacher Training Agency. My post was titled as ‘the Chief Professional Adviser on Teacher Supply’. The job title was an oxymoron since I wasn’t a chief and I had no professional qualification for the job. However, I did have experience in researching teacher supply and I have continued to do so after my departure from the TTA, after only one year, and up to the present day.

The re-accreditation of teacher education providers, started after the Market Review, was set fair to become a case-study in how not to manage change even before today’s Schoolsweek story about the need to manage ‘sufficiency’ ITT review: DfE forms ‘sufficiency’ group amid places fears (schoolsweek.co.uk) Interestingly, today, the DfE also published the terms of reference of the civil servant responsible for ITT reform as the Senior Responsible Officer. DfE major projects: appointment letters for Senior Responsible Owners – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

Schoolsweek in their story concentrate on the fact that the government has launched a teacher training “sufficiency steering group” amid fears its ITT market review will slash provider numbers by a third and leave England with a shortage of places.

As I remarked in my previous blog post about the re-accreditation process, the battle between quality and sufficiency of places across the country has always been settled in favour of quality providers with scant regard to geography. End ITT deserts | John Howson (wordpress.com) I argued that was a mistake.

However, the maintaining the current number of courses at a time when pupil numbers are falling in the primary sector, and will stop increasing soon in the secondary sector may not be sensible, and does need a re-think. If that re-think provides a better geographical balance, all well and good. However, does it also need to provide for a range of different type of provider; from higher education to school-based routes, as well as salaried trainees to courses funded through the student loan route?

These ground rules really should have been settled before the re-accreditation process commenced. Worrying about sufficiency half-way through could make a mockery of the whole process.

There is also the issue of how to handle shortfalls in recruitment, should they arise. Will providers be paid to stay in business even if they fail to recruit sufficient trainees to cover their costs?

An open discussion at the time off the Market Review about how and where we train teachers and how many we need to train would have prevented the current atmosphere of suspicion surrounding the whole process of re-accreditation.

With teaching now having become a global profession, we cannot afford to make a mess of the management of the process of preparing the next generation of teachers. However, it has to be recalled that the present policy of quality taking precedence over location has led to an uneven distribution of courses across the country. Schools, and even universities, don’t have to train teachers, and it is well worth remembering that fact.

I hope the next Secretary of State will want to work with the sector on ensuring high quality teacher preparation provision spread across the country to meet the needs of schools. However, I am not holding my breath.

School Uniforms: Good idea or extra cost burden?

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This September, schools will have had to update their websites to take account of the Education (Guidance about costs of School Uniforms) Act 2021. This was a Private Members Bill, passed last year. The provisions, although requiring more work from schools, are no doubt timely for parents where schools have taken the new Act’s sentiment and coupled it with dealing with the effects of the present cost of living crisis.

In one location I know well, one academy is offering a free blazer to every child entering Year 7. However, another academy that is changing its name this September is requiring all pupils to have the full new uniform. Blazer, tie and PE T-shirt must be purchased from the nominated supplier. For those without access to the internet, the supplier’s shop is probably two bus rides away across town. Although a faith school, the school’s website doesn’t make any obvious reference to assistance, especially for families with more than one child at the school: not much evidence of Christian Charity, although the same school has support for Ukrainian refugees.

The need for charity to start at home is emphasised by the fact that many local authorities have scrapped grants for uniforms that were once commonplace. Authorities can still make grants of up to £300, but few can afford to do so.

As a twin, I well recall the costs of kitting out two boys for secondary school at the same time. That summer, our holiday was with relatives, perhaps to save for the cost of uniforms plus accessories.

One school site I viewed recently even required a calculator priced at £16.99. no doubt it is useful for every pupil to use the same one; but it does erode the concept of ‘free education’, especially when the school’s accounts for 2021 revealed a balance of over £1 million pounds, partly helped by the delay in constructing new facilities. Might this be a case of my old bugbear, transferring revenue into capital and expecting parents to make up the deficit?

Of even more concern than the cost of school unforms to many families in rural areas is the cost of actually reaching school each day, especially if the school is just under the three-mile limit for free transport or the child is aged 16-18. The situation is compounded where there is now no local bus service or convenient rail station.

For any young person wanting to attend a further education college or be faced with a mandatory change of school in an 11-16 plus sixth form set-up, the cost can be serious. Whether it is enough to put-off some young people from studying expensive courses, where students required to purchase expensive equipment to take the course, we just don’t know.

Free school meals have received a lot of publicity, the other costs to families associated with schools, especially in rural area, where wages are often lower than the average, and some workers must live in tied-accommodation, has received less consideration.  Swop shops and second-hand stores may help, but governing bosies should be mindful of the costs of attending their schools, especially for families where several children are attending at the same time. And, then there is the in-year costs to consider, such as school trips.

Teamwork: the skill for the future?

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In my first lectureship in higher education, during the early 1980s, at what is now the University of Worcester, I introduced an assessment task that involved students collaborating together to produce a presentation using recorded sound and images. Fortunately, the External Examiner was farsighted and endorsed the idea. Later, in the 1990s, while part of the leadership team at Oxford Brookes University, their School of Education developed several modules that required students to work together on assessed coursework.

Why am I mentioning these events today? The DfE has just published an interesting piece of research about skills needed for the future workforce across a number of different sectors. Skills needs in selected occupations over the next 5 to 10 years – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

In the research it says that:

‘Improvement is needed in how teamwork skills are taught across educational and professional settings Workshop participants identified weaknesses in the previous and current development of teamwork skills in schools, universities and workplaces. It was suggested that engaging university students with teamwork learning can be very challenging. Some speculated on individualised versus collaborative pathways to academic achievement, comparing BTEC and A-Level students’ different attitudes to teamwork. It may be that assessment structures with less focus on individual attainment allow for increased development of collaborative and creative skills in young people.’ Page 33 footnotes omitted

This led me to wonder whether at both GCSE and A level there ought to be opportunities for collaborative learning as well as the traditional individual competition for grades? Could it replace the extended individual project?

Elsewhere in the report there is a focus on the need for greater digital literacy.

‘Digital literacy is becoming a basic skill requirement for the majority of occupations across all sectors in the UK labour market, including productivity software tools such as spreadsheets and word processing programmes. OECD PISA analysis has also shown that educational access to technology and subsequent building of digital literacy is increasingly important across the globe, leading to better academic performance and competence. Basic digital literacy skills are considered to be those needed to carry out tasks such as communication via digital applications and internet searches or navigation.’ Page 11 footnotes omitted

The report also acknowledges that the collection, handling and analysis of data will also be important across the future workforce: something that is music to my ears after years of collecting data about the teacher labour market for teachers Labour Market Report – January to July 2022 (teachvac.co.uk)

Now the purpose of schooling is not just to prepare children for adult life, but how far it should balance the need to progress to higher education against life beyond education is an interesting debate. Team games obviously help with developing skills and after this week I hope there will be no more talk of selling of school playing fields for housing or other uses. But not all pupils enjoy sport and different teams need different skills sets.

The school children entering primary school this September probably won’t retire until 2084. What will their working life look like and should those of us concerned with education care?

Success in ITT, but at what price?

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In my previous post about the July postgraduate ITT numbers, I concentrated just on the headlines, and the potentially dire implications for the 2023 teacher recruitment round if the collapse of the economy doesn’t both stem departures from teaching and encourage more returners back into the profession.

In this post, I want to look in more detail at the data in the July numbers, now published by the DfE. Monthly statistics on initial teacher training (ITT) recruitment – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) The total number of candidates applying has reached 35,633, but this compares badly with the 44,970 of July 2021. More alarming is the fact that the ‘recruited’ total is down from 8,620 in July 2021 to 3,911 this July. That’s the number in the bag, so to say, and most likely to turn up when courses commence. Even more worrying that the number with ‘conditions pending’ is down from 23,030 to 18,699. The number of withdrawn candidates has increased from 1,281 last July to 2,010 this July.  These are not good numbers for the health of the profession.

Comparing the ‘other’ column against ‘all applications’ in the July 2021 data and the ‘unsuccessful’ against ‘all applications’ in the July 2022 data shows that across all subjects more applications have been successful.

Subject2021 Successful2022 SuccessfulDifference
Languagesna29%na
Computer Studies21%28%7%
D&T27%34%7%
Physics23%30%7%
Music28%34%6%
Art26%32%6%
Business Studies20%26%6%
Biology23%29%6%
Mathematics23%28%5%
PE22%27%5%
RE27%32%5%
English25%30%5%
Drama29%33%4%
Chemistry27%31%4%
Geography27%31%4%
History26%30%4%
Classics23%25%2%
Source UCAS and DfE data

Whether the increase in the level of success is due to similar numbers of acceptable candidates against a smaller overall pool or providers accepting candidates that they might not have accepted before cannot be determined from the data. Perhaps it is a bit of both strategies that is taking place.

Applications are lower across all age groups this round, with the key new graduate ‘21 and under’ group down from 5,650 to 4,591 candidates this July. Those who gender is recorded as male candidate has fallen from 13,350 to 10,591. This is despite the number not recorded as either men or women falling from 1,240 to 351 this July.

Applications have fallen for both primary and secondary phase courses. Down from 51,310 to 43,242 for the former and from 65,990 to 53,532 for the latter.

While numbers applying for postgraduate teaching apprenticeships increased from 3,610 to 4,427 applications; a modest increase, but, nevertheless an increase: all other routes had witnessed a decline in applications.

Hopefully, at least in the context of teacher preparation courses, this will be as bad as it will be, and next year the changes in the broader economy will once again swing the pendulum back towards the desirability of teaching as a career, perhaps aided by a recognition of the necessary rewards required to attract and retain teachers. If not, then the government will have set a record in terms of the length of the period of under-recruitment into teacher preparation courses.

Muck up or conspiracy?

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In August 2013, when this blog was in its infancy, I incurred the wrath of the DfE by suggesting that there was going to be a teacher supply crisis.

As reported by this blog on 14th August 2013 “A DfE spokesperson, helpfully anonymous, is quoted by the Daily Mail today as saying of my delving into the current teacher training position that there was no teacher shortage, adding: ‘This is scaremongering and based on incomplete evidence.’”

Regular readers know whose view of the situation was correct.

Why am I reprising this quote for nine years ago? Well, normally around the middle of the month the DfE, following the time-honoured tradition set by first the GTTR and then UCAS, publishes the monthly update on applications and offer to postgraduate ITT.

The DfE duly created the data on the 25th of July this year, but at least as far as my browser is concerned, the data didn’t appear on their web site. June’s data remained the latest in the public domain as I write this blog.  Monthly statistics on initial teacher training (ITT) recruitment – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) hopefully, by the time you read this the July data will be fully in the public domain. (The DfE updated their website with the July data sometime the same day that this post was published – thank you DfE.)

Now comes the key question: is this lack of transparency due to a processing fault within the DfE or is it due to not wanting the data widely known? Truly, the data on ‘offers’ so far this year is shocking.

Looking back at the period between the 2012/13 round of application for postgraduate ITT courses, and the 2021/22 round, it is clear that the total of ‘Recruited’ plus ‘Conditions Pending’ plus ‘Deferrals’ plus ‘Received and Offer’ are disastrously low in many secondary subjects this year. Leaving aside, Modern Foreign Languages, where the methodology is different this year, we see

Art, history, geography, chemistry and business studies no longer recording new records or offers and, in most cases, recording insufficient numbers to meet the expected Teacher Supply Model number. Only in history and art will there be sufficient numbers, and even in history the over-recruitment is likely to be less than in the past couple of years.

However, it is in

Religious Education

Physics

Music

English

Computing

Biology

Where the numbers of ‘offers’ look most worrying.

Jack Worth of NfER predicted earlier this year that fewer than 20% of the physics places might be filled this year in a presentation to the APPG on the Teaching Profession. His prediction now looks like it might well come about. All of the subjects in this list are hitting new lows for ‘offers’ since that 2012/13 recruitment round. The implications for recruitment of teachers, assuming the schools have the funds to recruit in 2023, look bleak.

Design and technology remain one of the few relatively better performing subjects, with more offers than last year. But, sadly, not enough to meet the required target.

With less than two months to go before courses start, and some providers closed down for the summer, there is unlikely to be a significant upturn in these numbers.

The DfE might well want to ask about conversion levels between application and offers and whether more risk might be taken with some marginal applications. The DfE will also need to ensure that they don’t de-accredit successful providers, as there is no guarantee potential applicants would choose another provider.

I do wonder whether the two contenders for Prime Minister will have anything to say about this issue, and whether anyone will even ask them?

London schools still teacher hunting

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49% of the vacancies for secondary school teachers advertised during July 2022 were placed by schools in London and the South East. The percentage increases to 60% if the East of England region is added-in.

The percentage across these three regions increases to 60% of languages vacancies; 66% of geography teacher vacancies and 71%, or not far short of three quarters, of music teacher vacances.

This means that while most schools in the north of England are probably enjoying a relatively less stressful summer period in terms of ensuring their school is full staffed for September, some schools in London and the Home Counties are still working hard at making sure that there will be a teacher for every class of pupils, come the start of term.

TeachVac has today published a detailed report on the extraordinary recruitment round between January and July 2022. For a free copy go to  Labour Market Report – January to July 2022 (teachvac.co.uk) Specific tailored reports are available on request for a small fee. These can be useful to Teaching School Hubs; ITT providers and any other group interested in the operation of the teacher labour market.

TeachVac is also currently offering schools a special deal on its teacher to job matching service of £250 for an annual subscription that unlocks priority matching for schools with its ever-growing database of teachers that are job hunting. The regular service with no upfront payment is also still available, and will cost a school no more than £1,000 for an annual subscription.

The £250 offer during August can save schools as much as £750 per year.

All the evidence is that classroom teacher vacancies for January 2023 are going to be very challenging to fill in many secondary school subjects, according to TeachVac’s analysis of labour market trends.

Middle leadership posts in some subject where there has been several years of reduced training numbers will also pose problems for some schools.

Regular readers ill know that I am chair of TeachVac and founded it as a low cost matching service in 2014.

Fewer than 400 physics teachers join state schools in 2021

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If you train too many teachers in some subjects, then then a higher percentage won’t find jobs. That’s the message for government from the latest ITT completer profiles.  Initial teacher training performance profiles, Academic Year 2020/21 – Explore education statistics – GOV.UK (explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk)

Final year postgraduate trainee outcomes by subject for the 2020/21 academic year

SubjectTotal traineesPercentage awarded QTSPercentage yet to completePercentage not awarded QTSPercentage of those awarded QTS teaching in a state-funded school
Design & Technology66691%6%3%82%
Biology2,12286%8%6%78%
Music47892%3%5%78%
English3,22990%6%4%77%
Mathematics2,81287%7%5%77%
Geography1,20392%4%3%76%
Business Studies38187%7%6%75%
Religious Education65188%7%6%75%
Chemistry89986%8%6%74%
Secondary20,36589%6%5%74%
Physics54383%9%9%73%
Total35,37187%8%5%73%
Modern Foreign Languages1,65091%5%4%72%
Other39891%5%4%71%
Primary15,00685%11%4%71%
History1,67690%6%4%70%
Art & Design91990%7%3%69%
Computing62482%11%7%68%
Drama45592%4%4%67%
Physical Education1,59095%3%2%64%
Classics6990%9%1%52%
Source DfE

Of those awarded QTS, and not shown teaching in a state-funded school, this does not always mean that they have abandoned teaching as a profession, as they may still be in teaching either in a Sixth Form or FE college or in the private sector, either in England or elsewhere in the world.

However, it seems highly unlikely that 576 PE teachers are doing so, while just 108 design and technology teachers took the same route. However, it does seem possible and indeed likely that almost half the 69 Classics teachers trained at the public expense are teaching outside the state-funded sector. Apart from computing and classics, all the subjects in from Primary to the foot of the table are subjects where recruitment into training might have been close to or exceeded the DfE training number presumption from the Teacher Supply Model.  

Training teachers for the private sector may be a cheap price to pay if it relieves the State of the need to fund the education of pupils whose parents are prepared to pay for their education. Although there are other arguments against private education.

However, if the trainees that moved into the private school sector are either used to teach pupils from overseas or even more, now teaching is a global profession, they move to a school overseas to teach that is a net loss to the Exchequer. This is a point Mr Sunak might like to ponder following his reference to selective schools in the debate with Conservative Party members last evening.

Private schools may also account for the reason why physics had only 73% of the 500 or so potential completers working in state-funded schools. That’s less than 400 new teachers of physics for the state-school sector in 2020/21.

Disturbing profile data on new teachers

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Yesterday, the DfE published its annual survey of ITT providers, through an analysis of their outcomes

Initial teacher training performance profiles: 2020 to 2021 – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

One of the most revealing tables in the report is reproduced below.

Summary of final year postgraduate trainee outcomes for the 2020/21 academic year

Percentage awarded QTSPercentage of those awarded QTS teaching in a state school
AgeUnder 259072
25 and Over8673
DisabilityDeclared8168
None declared8873
Ethnic groupAsian8164
Black7865
Mixed ethnicity8672
Other8266
White8974
GenderMale8471
Female8973
Source DfE

For every one of the groupings in the table, the minority group or groups seem to have fared less well than the majority group in terms of their percentage awarded QTS. Whether it is older trainees, trainees with a declared disability, males or those from a declared non-white background, the percentages gaining QTS are lower than for the comparator group. Interestingly, in most case the percentage of each group teaching in a state school is also lower, although older qualifiers marginally outperformed younger new teachers in terms of the percentage teaching in a state school at 73% compared with 72%

The disturbingly low percentage of ‘Black’ teachers gaining QTS continues. Only 78% of ‘Black’ trainees were awarded QTS, the lowest percentage in the table, and 11% points below the White trainee outcome for that much larger group of trainees. The government really should investigate why this discrepancy in outcome continues each year, especially as only 65% of ‘Black’ trainees awarded QTS were teaching in a state school at the time of the data collection.

Elsewhere, the demise of the undergraduate route is such that only 4,737 final year trainees were recorded, compared with 35,371 postgraduate trainees of whom nearly 19,00 were on school-led courses, with just over 16,500 on higher education led courses. What this balance will look like after the end of the current re-accreditation process is completed is an interesting question. With falling pupil numbers in the primary sector, it seems likely that the 40,000 trainees with QTS in these profiles will mark something of a high point.

The covid pandemic affected these data in two ways. Firstly, the pandemic created a one-year increase in registrations to train as a teacher, boosting the 2020-21 cohort of postgraduate trainees, and secondly, more trainees than usual may have extended their course and will have qualified later than normal due to the effects of the pandemic. Those late qualifications will have redcued some of the outcome percentages.

Although Teach First still uses that name for its band of training, the DfE has re-named its trainees as the ‘High Potential ITT trainees’. It would be interesting to understand the thinking behind this insult to other trainees and their providers. whether universities or schools?

Finally, there is some evidence to support the thesis that the distribution of training places may not be ideal. Only 62% of those awarded QTS in both the North East and North West were employed in state schools, compared with 76% that trained in London; 78% in the South East and 82% of those trained in the East of England. Since these three regions also contain a high percentage of the national total of private schools, this is an interesting outcome, and raises a key question about the use of resources across England.