Category Archives: economic

DfE and Teacher Vacancies: Part Two

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The DfE is spending more money supporting their latest venture into the teacher recruitment market. Schoolsweek has uncovered the latest moves by the government to challenge existing players in this market https://schoolsweek.co.uk/dfe-leans-on-mats-to-boost-teacher-job-vacancies-website-take-up/ in an exclusive report.

The current DfE foray into the recruitment market follows the failure of the Fast Track Scheme of two decades ago and the Schools Recruitment Service that fizzled out a decade ago. The present attempt also came on the heels of the fiasco around a scheme to offer jobs in challenging schools in the north of England that never progressed beyond the trial phase.

The present DfE site rolled out nationally two years ago this month. How successful it has been was the subject of a Schoolsweek article earlier this year. https://schoolsweek.co.uk/dfes-teacher-job-website-carries-only-half-of-available-positions/  This blog reviewed the market for vacancy sites for teachers last December, in a post entitled Teacher Vacancy Platforms: Pros and Cons that was posted on December 7, 2020.

In that December post, I looked at the three key sites for teacher vacancies in England. TeachVac; the DfE Vacancy site and The TES. As I pointed out, this was not an unbiased look, because I am Chair of the company that owns TeachVac. Indeed, I said, it might be regarded as an advertisement, and warned readers to treat it in that way.

There is an issue with how much schools spend on recruitment of teachers. After all, that was why TeachVac was established eight years ago. The DfE put the figure in their evidence to the STRB this year at around £75 million; a not insubstantial figure.

Will TeachVac be squeezed out in a war between the DfE backed by unlimited government funding and the TES with a big American backer? At the rate TeachVac is currently adding new users, I don’t think so. After all, the DfE site doesn’t cover independent schools, and in the present market I believe that most teachers want a site that allows access to all teaching jobs and not just some. That benefits both TeachVac and the TES as well as other players in the market, such as The Guardian and Schoolsweek, as well as recruitment agencies.

How much the DfE will need to spend on ensuring they cover the whole of the state-funded job market in terms of acquiring vacancies by the ‘school entering vacancies’ method is another interesting question? As is, how much will it also cost to drive teachers to using the DfE site and not TeachVac or the TES?

A view of TeachVac’s account reveals that Teachvac provides access to more jobs for teachers at less than the DfE is going to spend on promoting their site over the next few months. Such spending only makes good commercial sense if you want to remove a player from the market.

So here’s a solution. Hire TeachVac to promote the DfE site and use the data TeachVac already generates to monitor the working of the labour market. After all, that was also one of the suggestions from the Public Accounts Committee Report that spurred the DfE into action and the creation of their present attempt at running a vacancy site.

DfE and Teacher Vacancies: Part One

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In my previous post I discussed the issue of the DfE’s vacancy site and how by viewing it a page at a time resulted in duplication of some vacancies and the inability to see other vacancies. I asked the DfE to shed light on the problem by submitting a Freedom of Information request (FOI).

I have reproduced the DfE’s response below.  Essentially, the DfE site seems sound except for anyone undertaking the view of the site by the means that I selected. Since my purpose was to check how many non-teaching vacancies were listed on the DfE site, I had no other option but to use the method of viewing the site I selected.

Those using the sorting by closing date will discover another wrinkle, but I will leave you to do so if you are interested.

The DfE site has hit the headlines in a Schoolsweek exclusive https://schoolsweek.co.uk/dfe-leans-on-mats-to-boost-teacher-job-vacancies-website-take-up/ TeachVac’s contribution to the story can be found at https://schoolsweek.co.uk/dfes-teacher-job-website-carries-only-half-of-available-positions/

I will discuss the possible implications for the teacher recruitment market in my next blog. But, here is the DfE’s response to the FOI.

Thank you for your request for information, which was received on 15 March 2021 and assigned case number 2021-0017953. You requested the following information:


On the DfE vacancy site for teachers: https://teaching-vacancies.service.gov.uk/
1. How many of the published vacancies on 16th March or nearest available date with data were duplicated; and,
2. What was the number of unique vacancies on that day for teachers in institutions operating under schools regulations displayed on the DfE Vacancy site after excluding Sixth Form Colleges, other Further Education institutions and any private sector institutions and posts not requiring a teacher such as, but not exclusively, Teaching Assistant, cleaner, Examinations Officer and cover supervisor? Vacancies providing services across MATs and not linked to a specific school should also be excluded from the total provided.

I have dealt with your request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (“the Act”).


For context, the total number of live vacancies on Teaching Vacancies on 16 March was 1,386. As of 1 April, there are 2,330 live vacancies on Teaching Vacancies.

1. How many of the published vacancies on 16th March or nearest available date with data were duplicated?


For the purposes of this request, we have considered a ‘vacancy with data duplicated’ to be a vacancy with the same job title as another vacancy published by the same organisation which was also live on this date. The total number of vacancies meeting this definition on 16 March was 37 (2.7% of all live vacancies).

2. What was the number of unique vacancies on that day for teachers in institutions operating under schools regulations displayed on the DfE Vacancy site after excluding Sixth Form Colleges, other Further Education institutions and any private sector institutions and posts not requiring a teacher such as, but not exclusively, Teaching Assistant, cleaner, Examinations Officer and cover supervisor? Vacancies providing services across MATs and not linked to a specific school should also be excluded from the total provided.


Further Education institutions and private sector institutions are not permitted to list roles on Teaching Vacancies. Technical restrictions are in place to prevent this.


The total number of live vacancies on 16 March that were not at sixth form colleges, across a MAT or at multiple schools was 1,344 (97% of all live vacancies). Of these, the number of vacancies ‘requiring a teacher’ was 1,169 (87% of these live vacancies).


For the purposes of this request, we have defined ‘requiring a teacher’ as a listing with a job title containing the phrase ‘teacher’, ‘head’, ‘principal’ or ‘ordinat’ (as in coordinator or co-ordinator), but not containing any of the phrases ‘TA’ (in upper case only), assistant (but not in conjunction with ‘head’ or ‘principal’), ‘intervention’, ‘admin’, ‘account’, ‘marketing’, ‘admission’ or ‘care’. Structured data is not available on whether roles require a teacher, because the relevant fields are either optional for schools to complete or do not exist because they relate to vacancies that are not within the service’s Terms & Conditions. To obtain this information, vacancies have been filtered by relevant words and phrases. As a result, some teaching roles will have been excluded in counts of non-teaching roles and vice versa.

ITT: not all plain sailing

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Normally during a downturn in the economy, and the associated rise in unemployment, teaching does well as a career choice, and applications for places on graduate teacher preparation courses surge; they only peak when the labour market shows signs of picking up again.

The trend during the pandemic of the past year has been slightly different to this pattern. Yes, overall applications, and applicant numbers are up, as commentators that just look at the overall numbers have noted. However, for those more concerned with the details, the picture is more nuanced.

In primary, applications have not yet reached the peak seen in the 2016/17 round, and are some 5,000 or so below that level, and only 8,000 applications above the low point reached in March 2020 before the full extent of the current pandemic had become clear. There may be a warning here about the desirability of becoming a primary school teacher among the group that society has relied upon to ensure an intake of high quality new teachers each year. The public data doesn’t allow for any further comments, but someone should be taking a look at the detailed data.

It is in the secondary sector that the outcome is more nuanced. Three subjects stand out for concern. In biology, overall applications are down on March 2020, by around a thousand, to 2,360. While there will be plenty of chemistry trainees this year, with applications double what they were in March 2020, physics, as a subject, seems unlikely that it will meet its target for the year unless applications pick up in the second half of the year. As a result, any shortfall in biology may leave school struggling for science teachers for September 2022, if demand return to more normal levels next year.

In geography, applications are down by around 300 this year on last, meaning offer levels are not much above the low levels seen seven and eight years ago. However, with ever more history trainees competing for jobs, schools will be able to replace geography teachers with humanities teachers. Whether their quality of subject knowledge will be acceptable is an issue for others to debate.

Design and technology, the ‘ugly duckling’ and neglected child of the school curriculum is a real and serious concern. Applications by mid-March were just 760, compared with 820 at the same point in 2020. That’s application and not applicants. As a result, offer levels are at their lowest point for March for any year in the last decade.

I would content that design and technology is an important subject, and the DfE needs to address where the future stock of teachers is to come from? An urgent look at the details of applicants and why only 190 offers have been made is needed. In reality, this could be a few as 100 actual applicants offered places on design and technology ITT courses by mid-March.

Nearly half of the growth in applicants can be found in the London and South East regions. Whether this means that some rebalancing of ITT places might be required, as these are the two regions with the greatest demand for teachers, is no doubt a matter for active discussion. It would be foolhardy to leave places unfilled in other parts of the country whilst turning away acceptable applicants from London, especially as London often produces a higher percentage of BAME trainees than other parts of England.

Next month the blog will consider the different routes into teaching, and how they are faring and also revisit the issue of the age profile of applicants.

Another nail in the coffin of 3-tier schooling

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Somerset County Council is to reorganise some of its remaining three tier schools into a more usual pattern of primary and secondary sectors according to a BBC story.

Council approves changes to Somerset schools

Somerset County Council has approved changes to nine schools in the Crewkerne and Ilminster area – saying that while the majority of responses to a public consultation had opposed the plans, no viable alternatives had been put forward. Pupils in the schools will move from a three-tier system (infant or junior, middle and upper) to a two-tier system (primary and secondary), with the change prompted by financial instability resulting from low pupil numbers. The Cabinet member for education and transformation said the decision marked a “significant milestone” following a “long and difficult journey”. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-somerset-56430254

Three tier patterns of schooling, similar in nature to the private sector, pre-prep, prep and secondary school model were introduced into the state system in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Usually they were introduced in response to both the move towards non-selective secondary education and the most efficient use of school buildings following the requirement of the 1944 Education Act to remove the remaining all-age elementary schools. All-age schools became briefly fashionable again with the advent of academies, but I have yet to see any research evidence of whether they work any better than the dominant system with a break at eleven.

A few three tier systems still linger on, especially in Northumberland and a few other areas, but for the past two decades authorities have been unwinding most of the systems. There were two models at the height of the three tier approach. A switch to secondary at age 12, where the schools educating children up to twelve were regarded as primary schools and those with a break at 13. The 9-13 schools in those systems were regarded as secondary schools. This compromise affected the funding arrangements for pupils depending upon which system was in operation. Buckinghamshire used the former system whereas Bedfordshire chose the latter.

In Oxfordshire, the City of Oxford, in 1974, at the point where it lost its status as a County borough and became a district council with no further responsibility or schooling, opted for a three tier system of schooling, even though the rest of the county had opted for a two tier comprehensive system. In those days, the city was run by a Conservative administration, and there are those that think the choice of a different system to the county system reflected a view on the loss of perceived status by the city politicians. Certainly, it took until the end of the 1990s before the county achieved a single unified system of education. That lasted a mere decade before the arrival of academies once again fractured the landscape asunder.

Three tier systems had some impressive supporters including Sir Alec Clegg in the West Riding of Yorkshire. But, in the end, they were never destined to be more than a footnote in the history of state schooling in England.

Fire Chiefs support school sprinkler system for new schools

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Those readers that have been following this blog for some years will know that one of the few matters that The Daily Mail and I both agree upon is the need to fit sprinkler systems in new schools.

On the 15th April 2019 this blog carried a post headed ‘Install Sprinkler Systems’. This followed a call to ensure all new schools had sprinkler system built into them during construction.

Zurich Insurance, a major insurer for local government risks has now come out in support of this suggestion in a new report. A review of their view can be found in this link to pbctoday https://www.pbctoday.co.uk/news/health-safety-news/fire-risk-in-schools/81974/

I fully support the recommendation that all schools should be built with sprinkler systems for the reasons cited in my blog post of April 2019.

Zurich found that the average school posed a fire risk 1.7 times greater than non-residential buildings. When compared to 2.9 million non-household properties, school buildings were also three times more likely to fall into the ‘high’ fire risk category (58% vs 20%).

Now the National Fire Chiefs Council has added their voice to those calling for the compulsory fitting of sprinklers in schools.

Over the last five years, 1,100 classrooms have been gutted by fire, with 47 schools destroyed among a total of 2,300 fire incidents – while just 2% of buildings were fitted with sprinklers. The National Fire Chiefs Council is calling for sprinklers to be mandatory in all new schools, in line with Scotland and Wales.

This is a powerful new ally in the campaign to fit sprinklers.

Those concerned about climate change might also add that an unnecessary fire in a school, as in any building, releases gases from the burring materials into the atmosphere that could be prevented by having installed sprinklers.

The removal of the requirement for sprinklers in new schools was a short-sighted measure that ought to have been changed already. Better some water damage than the destruction of a whole school and the disruption to the education of many children.

Covid and the Teacher Labour Market in England

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We now have data from twelve months that have suffered from the effects of the covd-19 pandemic. First thing this morning, I asked my analysts at TeachVac what had been the consequences for the teacher labour market in England. They came up with the following table for all vacancies.

2018201920202021
March715990299302
April813187356080
May10170114686357
June386248283286
July93312941043
August547565543
September295538843382
October418654383721
November366242583074
December201528931811
January5492638682162622
February5056579184215167
Monthly recorded vacancies for teachers in England

Source: TeachVac www.teachvac.co.uk

Secondary teachers have suffered from a greater decline in their job opportunities than their primary colleagues. However, with the modern equivalent of ‘pool’ recruitment still in operation in parts of the primary sector, the figures are less reliable for that sector the for the secondary school sector where most schools manage their own recruitment.

Details data for local authority vacancy patterns and even those for a specific postcode are available on request, for a small fee. Data are also available for specific secondary subjects on a month by month basis, again for a small fee.

The next two months will be key ones for teachers looking for jobs. Will the market return to 2019 levels or continue to remain depressed. Much may depend upon the behaviour of the wider labour market for graduates. However, how many teachers decide to leave their jobs will also be important. It is also worth remembering that he supply of teachers leaving teacher preparation courses will not be sufficient in all subjects to meet the DfE’s estimate of need. How far ‘returners’ can make up the deficit only time will tell, but fewer advertised vacancies will also help close the gap.

I, for one, had wondered whether the pandemic and resulting effects on head teacher’s workload, might have resulted in a wave of departures. So far, in 2021, there is little evidence of any surge in departures of primary head teachers.

Although there have been fewer vacancies in London during the past twelve months, the Home Counties, and especially those parts of the Home Counties in the South East remain the part of the country driving the teacher labour market. This is not surprising as this are also contains the largest concentration of private schools. So far, these schools do not seem, as a sector, to have been badly affected by the pandemic in terms of pupil numbers. No doubt September enrolment will conform whether that is still the case.

Finally, although pupil numbers are still increasing in the secondary sector, will there be any effect from Brexit? Might some EU families return to their home country rather than stay in England? If so, could such departures have an effect on school rolls in some areas where there are large concentrations of EU citizen living in particular neighbourhoods? Comments on this point would be welcome.

More good news: but not for all

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Regular readers of this blog will know that the last Thursday of the month is the day that UCAS provides updated details of applications to postgraduate teacher preparation courses managed through their system. The numbers for February mark the half way point in the cycle between course commencements and thus represents a good time to make a judgement on what is happening in the marketplace for trainee teachers.

It is not surprising that with the economy facing the challenges resulting from the covid-19 pandemic that teaching appears a more interesting profession to pursue for graduates than when unemployment is low, and the economy is booming. However, there are not similar outcomes across the whole gamut of subjects.

This blog has used as a measure the number of applications classified as falling into one of three categories ‘Placed’, ‘Conditional Place’ or ‘Holding offer’. This is a more refined measure than using the gross total of applications, not least because each candidate can make several applications.

The news this month is that the numbers in these three categories are generally well above those for February in recent years. However, there are some exceptions to this general observation.

In geography, biology and design and technology numbers in these categories are below the same level seen last year.  Geography suffered from over-recruitment a couple of years ago, and numbers placed and holding offers have been controlled more carefully since then.

Now applications for places in biology and physics courses are on the increase, there is less incentive to recruit large numbers of biology trainees, so caution here is understandable. Design and Technology is a subject that regularly struggles to fill places, and the current nature of the pandemic may not have produced large numbers of potential teachers in this subject area.

Although applicant numbers are increasing, there has not really been a surge. Compared with February 2020, there are some 4,300 more applicants this year. These additional applicants are spread across the country, although 1,100 are domiciled in London and a further 1,200 in the South East, leaving the remainder to be spread across the remaining regions.

Applications are up from those in all age-groups, including both career changers and new graduates, producing little shift in the percentage composition of applicants by age-group compared with last year.

The inclusion of a gender category of ‘unknown or Prefer not to say’ makes annual comparison on this factor impossible, but it seems likely that there has been little change and perhaps that men have even lost a little ground on women in percentage terms.

In terms of routes into teaching, School Direct (Salaried) remains the big loser in the number of applications, especially in the primary sector. All other routes seem to have benefited, although the rate of offering places on the Apprenticeship route seems to be slow when compared to other routes. In view of the government’s plans for teachers, the higher education sector remains resilient, and is still the choice for more applications than any other route into teaching.

As places fill, we can expect applications to reduce. However, of more interest is how the wider graduate labour market will recover from the pandemic and what effect that recovery will have on applications to teacher preparation courses.

8th March: Should schools reopen?

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Earlier this afternoon a journalist rang me to ask my views on this question. What looks like being an ‘all or nothing’ decision by the government, will please some, worry others and upset yet others? As far as the risk to the pupils is concerned the NHS data on deaths is clear:

Number of deaths involving COVID-19 by sex and age group, England and Wales, registered between 28 December 2019 and 5 February 2021
UnitNumber of deaths
   
 MaleFemale
Under 1 year20
1 to 14 years45
15 to 44 years752497
45 to 64 years7,3054,107
65 to 74 years11,5136,695
75 to 84 years22,26915,813
85 years and over22,95627,304
Source: Office for National Statistics – Deaths registered weekly in England and Wales

The risk of death to pupils is extremely low. However, there is the risk of transmission by pupils to older age groups. However, the data on vaccinations now emerging is encouraging on this issue. So, although multi-generational households with school-age children will have older members more at risk, the risk seems to be mitigated by the vaccine. The risk will obviously be higher amongst those that haven’t been vaccinated. As a result, I would encourage everyone offered a vaccine to take up the offer.

Schools will no doubt test pupils and staff on a regular basis, and cases will no doubt increase in some areas, as they did in the autumn because of the large numbers of pupils mingling in close contact. Some older staff may be more at risk, and there is a case for vaccinating school staff by age, possibly concentrating on the 40-60 age group first.

In terms of learning, what in my youth was called ‘the hidden curriculum’ or ‘the informal curriculum’ may be as important as catching up on learning facts and figures. Young people need time to reform social groups and possibly, in some cases to take out their frustrations on the nearest adults in authority. For many that will be teachers. So, between now and the summer will be a time for re-engagement with on-site learning, ready hopefully for a new school-year in the autumn. There is still the issue of assessing potential to be considered so that students know they will be treated fairly. As an exercise that will take longer than some may think.

Finally, there needs to be an investigation into what went well and were there were faults that created barriers to learning. The education system as a whole seemed to have been suffering from what one might term the ‘Arcadia Approach’ of denying technology will change the business. The lack of preparedness for on-line learning is shaming. Business as usual must not just mean schooling as it was in the past. Not least because the digital divide has been shown to be real and profound. Education for all must mean just that and not education for some to one standard and to a lower level for others.

Open schools on March 8th and work through to Easter and then take stock. and, if offered a vaccination, please take it.

Understanding Academy Finances

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Recently, I came across a new study into the income and expenditure of academies by Xeinadin https://www.xeinadin-group.com/industries/academies/ When following up on that report, I also came across another and lengthier report from Kreston Reeves https://www.krestonreeves.com/news/academies-benchmark-report-2021/ published last month.

Both are interesting in their own ways. However, neither accounts clearly for the fact that there are different pay areas within the School Teachers’ Pay and Conditions Document and the annual recommendations from the School Teachers Review Body. Now, these differences do not matter when percentages are used, but comparing on cash figures may introduce some distortion in the outcomes if the difference between MATs in Inner London and those outside the London and Home Counties pay band areas are ignored, although the Kreston Reeves report does have some regional benchmarking data for six areas of England. Whether lumping together London and the South East and seemingly totally ignoring the East of England is helpful is a matter for the reader to decide.

Neither report considers the labour market for teachers nor the costs associated with it in detail, although there are discussions about both staff and supply teacher costs. Future reports might like to focus on both the costs of retention over recruitment, and the most cost effective ways of recruiting new staff.

I was interested to read in the Kreston Reeves report that:

“The full financial impact of the pandemic will not be known for a while yet. As schools went back in to another lockdown in January 2021, then the savings made in the first lockdown can perhaps be expected to recur, although as there are much higher numbers of key worker children in schools post Christmas, these savings are likely to be more modest. Where this leaves the Academy sector finances for the current academic year is anyone’s guess. The length and frequency of lockdowns, the criteria for allowing children into schools, and the education provided will all have an impact.” (Page 10)

Both reports discuss the matter of how much of a school’s budget is used for central costs of a MAT. They both seem to coalesce around a figure of 5%, although some MATs do seem to operate with either a much higher or lower percentage.  

The fact that academies are on a different financial year to local authority schools isn’t an issue for these reports, but is something that makes comparisons between the different types of schools more difficult, especially over a short-period of time.

How schools receive and spend their income is a matter for public interest, and these reports are helpful, in as far as they go, in understanding the academy sector, and especially the behaviours of MATs.

As most readers of this blog will know, I personally, prefer schools to be under the democratic oversight of locally elected councillors, albeit with a significant degree of autonomy. The fact that some schools have access to considerable letting income while other schools struggle to educate challenging groups of pupils on far less financial support is but one reason to ask for a system designed to benefit all pupils and not just some.

Undergraduate applications for Education courses

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UCAS has published a Statistical Release about the number of applications received for undergraduate courses by the January 2021 deadline. The deadline was extended by two weeks this year because of the unusual circumstances created by the covid pandemic. https://www.ucas.com/data-and-analysis/undergraduate-statistics-and-reports/ucas-undergraduate-releases/applicant-releases-2021/2021-cycle-applicant-figures-january-deadline

Normally, I don’t take account of undergraduate numbers, but I thought it worth looking at the JACS3 code for Group X that covers both teacher education and the teaching of the academic discipline of education. The numbers are for applications from applicants domiciled in England.

Overall applications for the X code area have fallen over the past decade, presumably as teacher training places have reduced in number at the undergraduate level.

2012       65,610

2019       41,250

2020       38,130

20121    42,310

The majority of applications come from women. Applications from males were:

2012       11,260

2019         4,960

2020         3,930

20121      4,820

So, although overall applications in 2021 are higher than in 2019, those from men have not recovered to the level of 2019 by deadline day.

The majority of applications come from school-leavers. For men aged 18-19 the number of applications was 3,270 of the 4,820, with only around 1,230 from all he age groups over 21.

Should there still be vocational training at undergraduate level for teachers? It is interesting that UCAS have pointed out the large increase in applications for Nursing courses. “Total applications for nursing courses have risen by almost a third (32%) to reach 60,130, with increases seen in each age group – from UK 18 year old school leavers (a record 16,560 applicants, up 27% on 2020) to mature students aged 35 and over, where for the first time over 10,000 (10,770, a 39% rise) have applied.”

UCAS also note that” the largest proportional increase in UK applicants by their declared ethnic group has come from black and mixed race students, both up 15% to 40,690 and 25,830 respectively. Applicants from the Asian ethnic group have increased by 10% to 70,140, while 11% more white students (to a total of 352,170) have applied.” There is also good news on the social mix of students, “more than a quarter of 18 year old students from the most disadvantaged areas (26.4% from quintile 1 of the UK using the POLAR4 measure, 33,960 students) have applied, up from 24.5% at the same point in 2020.”, but there is still from for more participation from students from these areas.

UCAS report that “overall, a total of 616,360 people had applied, an increase of 8.5% and a new record for this point in the application cycle.” However, perhaps not surprisingly, applications for the EU (excluding the Irish Republic) have declined this year.

Higher education still appears an attractive proposition for school leavers, this despite the tales about on-line learning and a lack of social life students have faced this year.

However, the future of undergraduate teacher training must be the focus of debate. Perhaps a generic degree working with young people might be a better option leading to an appropriate postgraduate teacher preparation course?