Category Archives: economic

Sobering data on ITT needs

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Perhaps the most sobering paragraph from the STRB Report issued yesterday:

“Overall, 76% of those employed were in high skilled employment, which compares to 75% in the previous year. ‘Primary education teaching professionals’ was the fifth most likely professional job and ‘Secondary educational teaching professionals’ the sixth. Of those in employment, 8% were working as education professionals.”  My emphasis Source Graduate Outcomes 2019/20: Summary Statistics – Summary | HESA in School Teachers’ Review Body 33rd report: 2023 – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

The other two main sources of teacher supply are career changers and returners

New graduates are a key source of entrants into the profession, and there needs to much more research into trends in graduate behaviour. How are changes in the mix of subjects studied by new undergraduates likely to affect the number of entrants into teaching in three years time? A surge in business studies undergraduates and a decline in those studying English might well have repercussions for teaching.

Similarly, where home graduates’ study can affect entry into teaching. Two decades ago, it was clear that the most common recruitment ground for primary trainees was in the post-1992 university sector and especially in the smaller former colleges of higher education that used to be the main providers of undergraduate ITT. Does this trend still hold true? What percentage of Teach First entrants come from universities without ITT provision? indeed, is there an index of recruitment by university and course over a period of time?

I raise these issues about the somewhat amateurish approach to marketing, an area of recruitment that received some criticism from the second panel that appeared in front of the Education Select Committee earlier this week. Marketing is not just about the obvious front end of adverts, but also about making sure that activities are focused where they can have the most benefit. In that respect, the DfE needs to ensure that all evidence it collects is shared with course providers to help them in their marketing efforts.  

Of course, all this may be happening, as I am outside of the loop these days, but if so, then it should be clear to government what is needed to increase recruitment into the profession.

Clearly, what is not needed is late and confused messages about pay. Waiting until mid-July to announce a pay settlement means that while other employers can entice new graduates with starting salaries for September, teaching has been recruiting with that hand tied behind its back. It is also worth remembering that teachers not on salaried training courses start earning a year later than their colleagues that graduate straight into employment: those friends also don’t add to their student debt levels as a result of their job in either the private or public sectors.

Perhaps the glimmer of hope in another study by ISE quoted in the STRB Report was that “Employers expected that the economic recession into 2023 would lead to a decrease in the number of vacancies in the coming year.” (para 20, 33rd STRB Report). However, so far, there seems little sign of this recession.

STRB and teacher recruitment

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Before 2015, the STRB (School Teachers’ Pay Review Body) used to report no later than March in most years, School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB) reports – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) However, since the Conservative Party took over the sole management of the country in 2015, the publication of the STRB’s annual report, along with other pay body reports, has moved to July each year.

Such a date, so late in the annual government business cycle, at a point where departments should already be gearing up the next round of economic arguments within government, is unhelpful in many ways.

Obviously, it leaves The Treasury unsure about government expenditure, assuming the suggestions of the STRB are both accepted and fully funded. If one or other of those assumptions isn’t correct, but pay scales are increased from the September, then it places a burden on schools to find the cash to pay any increases, as I discussed in an earlier post. Sunak’s blunt axe | John Howson (wordpress.com)

The lack of clarity around starting salaries also makes recruitment into the profession potentially more challenging. A significant proportion of those entering the profession are still required to make a financial sacrifice to train as a teacher. To do so not knowing what either the possible salary they will receive during training – if paid on the unqualified scale – or their potential starting salary, if on a fee-paying course, is not an incentive to enter teaching. This may be specially the case for the important group of career switchers that are needed during the present dip in the number of new home-based graduates in their early 20s.

Once the new generation of graduates from the last baby boomer generation exits university, in a few years’ time, this may be less of an issue, assuming higher education entry rates hold up, and those most likely to become teachers don’t opt for apprenticeships or direct entry into the labour market and a salary immediately after leaving school.

Governments have always faced economic crises, lucky the Chancellor with benign economic headwinds, and must take difficult decisions. 101 years ago, the Liberal Government faced with the massive increase in government expenditure sanctioned by a government to fight the first world war, and seeking to restrain sky-high rates of taxation, looked for areas where public expenditure could be reduced – or cut – an exercise known after the chairman of the committee, Lord Geddes.

Perhaps, The Labour Party’s Leader’s speech on the ‘class ceiling’ was no accident, because it is those trying to crash through the ceiling that experience the worse outcomes of any pay restraint that leaders to teacher shortages. As I pointed in an earlier post, out, identifying the issue is one thing; solving it needs policies, and they were in short-supply in the speech from Sir Kier Starmer last week.

Perhaps, as suggested in the 1920s, rather than just telling schools to save money, the government might be more draconian in enforcing savings to pay for increased pay. But then, this, sadly, isn’t an area where the present government has had a good track record in recent times.  

Interesting government dashboard

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Government statisticians at the DfE and across the civil service have been undertaking some interesting analysis of where graduates work – by sector and academic qualification level– and how the numbers change over time. The basic source is tax returns, so the data is obviously subject to a time lag and backward looking. Nevertheless, there is some interesting data to discuss in relation to the education classification. LEO Graduate and Postgraduate Outcomes, Tax year 2020-21 – Explore education statistics – GOV.UK (explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk)

Now, I assume that ‘Education’ as a grouping will include both state and private schools plus further education.  The dashboards contain a wealth of data about those working in many sectors, including education; one, three, five and ten years after graduation. Data is provided for different academic levels, of which Frist Degree and Level 7 qualifications (taught and research) are probably the most useful.

Education is also one of the sectors where the number of graduates decreased between one and three years after graduation, but increased again between three and five years; presumably because of the influx of career changers outweighing the numbers leaving. By ten years, the overall number has fallen, as would be expected. How Education compares with other sectors might be worth considering, to see the extent to which retention is not just an issue for the Education sector.

As the time period for the ten years covered in the analysis includes the years when there was either a public sector pay-freeze or wage levels in some parts of the country lagged parts of the private sector it is possible to see that the Education sector in London is at the lower end of reported median earnings for the different sectors, whereas in the North East median earnings after ten years for the education sector appear more competitive. This may well be because the opportunities for graduates in the North East are less than in London and the South East, and the lack of demand has an effect on salary levels.

The Sankey charts of regional flows show how relatively little movement between regions there is for those with Level 7 qualifications on entry into the Education sector. However, ‘abroad’ does feature in the table, showing that teaching as this blog has said, is now a global profession and those with Level 7 qualifications in education are moving overseas by the ten year point from graduation.

When the STRB Report is finally released by the government, it will be interesting to see the extent to which this type of data has been used in the discussions about the pay of teachers compared with that of other graduate professions.

Pay may not be the only factor persuading graduates to work in education, but it must have some effect on numbers choosing the profession when the economy is able to offer other opportunities for graduates.

Indeed, as the wider economy hires more graduates, the need to keep teaching competitive in pay and conditions terms will become even more important. As this blog has pointed out before, the porter of the nineteen-century became the forklift truck driver of the twentieth century and is now the warehouse software engineer of the twenty first century. Neither of the first two were likely to be drawn from the ranks of those that could be teachers: the modern group of software engineers most certainly are graduates that could have become a teacher.

Missions still need funding

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In February, Sir Keir Starmer outlined his five missions for the Labour Party – one wonders, will they appear on a pledge card, as once before – and the fifth one was ‘raising education standards’ according to a BBC report at the time Keir Starmer unveils Labour’s five missions for the country – BBC News

After a recent announcement about teachers, dealt with in my blog at Labour’s style over substance | John Howson (wordpress.com) came a Leader’s speech today on the subject of what the Labour Party would do about policy for education.

In reality, education seemed to mean schooling, skills and early years, if the press reports are to be believed. Interestingly, the BBC has now substituted the word ‘pledge’ for the term ‘mission’. An example of ‘word creep’, perhaps? Actually, it seems more like sloppy journalism if the text of the speech is to be believed, as it starts by referring to ‘mission’ not pledge. Read: Full Keir Starmer mission speech on opportunity, education and childcare – LabourList

At the heart of the speech seems to be these two questions

‘So these are the two fundamental questions we must now ask of our education system: are we keeping pace with the future, preparing all our children to face it?

And – are we prepared to confront the toxic divides that maintain the class ceiling?’

The speech was about class and opportunity as a means of raising standards. Sir Keir has clearly moved on form the famous ‘rule of three’ and now favour a five-point approach, so we had

Apart from the already announced increase in teacher numbers and the retention bonus, there was little about either how the new education age would be delivered or how it would be paid for. No pledge to level up post 16 funding, so badly hit under the present government.

Plans for Early Years

Oracy to build confidence

A review of the National Curriculum for the new digital age

The importance of vocational and work-related studies

Tackling low expectations

There was little for any progressive politician to take issue with in the speech, but little to demonstrate the drive to accomplish the fine words. Re-opening Children’s Centres will come at a price, as will changing the curriculum.

There was nothing to show how resources will be channelled into areas of deprivation and under-performance. Will Labour continue the Conservative idea of Opportunity Areas that do nothing for pockets of underperformance in affluent areas or will it revive the Pupil Premium introduced by the Lib Dems, when part of the coalition, ascheme that identified individual need, wherever it was to be found.

I think I still prefer the 2015 approach from the Liberal Democrats to end illiteracy within 10 years: something that can be measured, rather than the more nebulous ‘raising of standards’ offered by Sir Kier.

Finally, from the Labour Party that introduced tuition fees, not a word on higher education and the consequence of raising standards on the demand for places. Perhaps Labour has still to reconcile the brave new world of skills and the place of universities in the new education landscape. With higher standards will come another class ceiling at eighteen?

Welcome back to returning teachers

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How important are returners to our school system? The DfE measures returner numbers each year as part of the data collected in the November School Workforce Census. The returner numbers during the past few years have been affected by the covid pandemic, so it was important that the fall in new entrants from training last September was balanced by an increased number of returners to help mitigate the staffing crisis affecting schools.

The need for returners will be even more important next September to balance the further reduction in new entrants into training in some subjects in 2023 that seems likely on the latest data around applications and offers.

We won’t know the data on returners this autumn util next June, but the fact that there is a recruitment crisis this year is now well understood.

2017/182018/192019/202020/212021/222022/23
NQT Entrants rate5.35.35.24.54.94.7
FTE number of entrants23,40623,47322,92520,14622,09621,653
Returner Entrants rate3.83.83.73.53.23.7
FTE number of entrants16,59516,86916,30515,77114,66316,737
Deferred Entrants rate0.60.60.60.60.91.0
FTE number of entrants2,7722,6262,6162,8833,8614,750
New to State Entrants rate1.01.00.80.70.71.1
FTE number of entrants4,2914,2483,5192,9843,3924,814
Entrants rate10.810.810.39.39.710.5
FTE number of entrants47,06447,21645,36541,78444,01147,954
Source: DfE School Workforce Census Tables 2022

Although returners were some 2,000 in number higher in 2022/23 than in 2021/22, both their number and percentage was in line with the figures from the three years prior to the pandemic – the equivalent of 3.7% of the workforce, and just short of 17,000 teachers. My guess, is that schools need around 17,000 returners this year, even with the reduction in demand this September across parts of the primary sector.

Looking back into the archives, I see that in the 1980s, returners averaged between 45-50% of entrants each year. In recent years, the percentage has hovered around the low 30%s figure. In 1987, the returner percentage reached what was probably an all-time high of 58%. However, those percentages were reached on a workforce with much less turnover than nowadays.

By 2000, returner numbers were at 13,000, only a few thousand below their current levels. With the fall in rolls now apparent in the primary sector, although not yet affecting the secondary sector: that’s to come in a few years’ time, will schools opt for newly qualified teachers over returners or prefer experience to recent training? Newly qualified teachers are usually cheaper than returners, so if budgets are tight, schools may prefer teachers from training, unless the added requirements of the Early Career Teacher Framework push up the cost of employing new teachers to appoint where returners look to be a cost-effective hire.

There are also likely to be regional differences accentuated in a largely female workforce from the consequences on house prices of increased mortgage rates. Dual household earners may react differently to a period of high mortgage rates to single household earners. High mortgage rates might also force an earlier than anticipated return to the labour market of some teachers currnetly taking a career break. This sort of boost might produce some a short-lived improvement in the teacher labour market in some areas, but would be unlikely to solve to the present crisis in teacher supply.

Reduced ITT numbers; who wins?

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A review of the detail behind last December’s DfE ITT Census can shine some interesting light on how the current recruitment crisis can affect different schools.

Broadly speaking, trainees can be classified into three groups: those in school and the classroom and receiving a salary; those on school centred courses, but not salaried and finally, those in higher education or other associated courses. The first group are most likely to be employed in the schools where they are training, and so are not considered part of the pool of job seekers for September vacancies.

The second group may be employed by the schools where they are based, and such schools are wise to consider this option.

The third group are likely to be on the free market as job seekers for September vacancies. How have the numbers differed between 2019 and 2022? I looked at the data from the DfE’s ITT Census for three regions: London; the South East and the North East regions.

London20192022
High Achievers6411393
Apprenticeships65368
School Direct Salaried Route1044285
sub total17502046
SCITT253457
School Direct Fee Route810496
sub total1063953
Higher Education837656
total36503655
Adjust for HA2900
South East20192022
High Achievers2200
Apprenticeships3397
School Direct Salaried Route577175
sub total830272
SCITT488687
School Direct Fee Route1137828
sub total16251515
Higher Education15661252
total37682942
Adjust for HA3150
North East20192022
High Achievers870
Apprenticeships1019
School Direct Salaried Route157
sub total11226
SCITT340207
School Direct Fee Route413327
sub total753534
Higher Education618375
total1483935
Adjust for HA1,000
Source DfE ITT Census as accessed by TeachVac

The first issue is that the High Achiever numbers were all allocated to the London region in the 2022 census, whereas, in 2019, they were allocated according to the region where they were located. This has the effect of inflating trainee numbers in London in 2022, and reducing them in some other regions. I have used the 2019 numbers to compensate, but it is obviously an estimate. I am not sure why the DfE has made this change, but it is unhelpful.

The second issue is that the postgraduate numbers used in the table do not distinguish between primary and secondary courses. Part of the reduction in numbers may be down to a fall in primary course targets and allocations.

However, In the London region, the change, after adjusting for the High Achiever over-counting, resulted in a small switch in percentage terms from trainees in the first group of school-based trainees to those in the second group, with the third group of higher education classified trainees remaining at 23% of the graduate total (Not all this group are universities and some may be counted in the region where a national provider has its headquarters). However, this meant a loss of nearly 200 trainees from the free market total between 2019 and 2022. This goes some way to explain the challenges schools in London dependent upon the free market for new teachers have faced this year.

In the South East region, using the adjusted figures, the free pool percentage of trainees fell from 42% to 40% in 2022. With the reduction in recruitment, this meant a loss to the free pool of some 300 trainees, about eight per cent less than the 2019 total.

In the North East, the decline in the free pool was only around 4%, from 42% to 38%, but the decline in the actual number was nearly 500 trainees. This explains why some schools in the North East are experiencing recruitment difficulties in 2023.

As I wrote, way back in 1995, in Managing Partnerships in Teacher Training and Development by Bines and Welton (Routledge, page 213) schools that become involved the teacher preparation process can be winners in times of teacher shortages. The same is as true today as it was when I first wrote those words. 

ITT: Mixed news

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The data provided by the DfE today on ITT applications and offers for postgraduate courses contained some very mixed messages. I am not sure whether the current pay dispute within the universities sector is affecting the data or whether there are genuine differences between subjects, with larger movements between May and June in offers this year than might normally be expected.

Regardless of any data collection issues, the message is the same as ever: offer levels will not be sufficient to meet targets in the majority of subjects, and the reduction in offers in physical education and history will remove the safety valve over-recruitment to high targets in these subjects have offered schools in previous years. Barring any last-minute change in July or August, it is now safe to say that the recruitment round for schools seeking to fill September vacancies next year in 2024 will be challenging unless there is an influx of returners or a reduction in leavers and better levels of retention. Of course, the whole country won’t be affected in the same way, but schools across the South East and parts of London might expect to face similar challenges to this year. You have been warned.

Religious Education and music are two subjects struggling with offers this year, even more than other subjects. Most other subjects are doing better than last year’s dreadful position, but often the offers are little different to the year before the pandemic. However, physics appears to have recovered from last year’s historic low. Whether that is reflected by the numbers arriving at the start of the course, only time will tell.

 The 38,795 applicants by mid-June 2023 compared well with the 32,609 in June 2022 and looks like a healthy increase, but numbers recruited or recruited with conditions pending, a group that will include degree classifications from many universities this year, are down on last June’s number, albeit only slightly. Nearly 2,000 more applicants are awaiting a provider’s decision, and it would be helpful to know whether the majority of those are applicants that have applied to higher education providers?

The total number of young applicants, aged under 25, is similar this year to last, so the increase is in older career switchers rather than new graduates. The number of 30–34 year-olds applying has increased from 3,545 last year to 5,088 this year. As reported previously, the big increase is in candidates for ‘the rest of the world’ – up from 2,657 last June to 7,105 applicants this June. The overall total increase masks little change in the number of applicants from most of the regions of England. However, it is worth noting that 54% of London applicants have received an offer, compared with only 15% of those in the ‘rest of the world’ group. For this reason alone, it is important not to read too much into the headline increase in the number of applicants.   

The number of offers made in the primary sector is down by 1,585 on the June 2022 figure, to just 9,182. Whether that will be enough to satisfy demand for teachers depends partly upon whether the secondary sector decides to recruit and retrain primary qualified teachers to fill their vacancies left by the reduction in history and PE teachers exiting training in 2024.

Over the summer, the DfE might like to reflect with the sector how these monthly statistics can be improved to make them more useful. We know nothing about ethnicity and little about regional breakdown of offer by subjects in the secondary sector. Both would be useful additions to the debate about whether the recruitment crisis is continuing or abating.

All agreed then: there is a teacher recruitment and retention crisis

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The House of Commons Education Select Committee held its first oral evidence session this morning as part of its inquiry into recruitment and retention. The Committee discussed with representatives of the teacher and further education professional associations their views on the present state of affairs with regard to recruitment and retention.  

It was not a surprise to hear all the witnesses explain that the present situation in both schools and colleges represented a crisis, and that there was no solution in sight. Interestingly, nobody mentioned the effects of any downturn in the economy on teacher recruitment – not even evidencing what happened at the start of the covid pandemic when interest in ITE increased sharply. There was also no mention of teaching as a global career and the growth of UK private schools overseas as a source of jobs for teachers.

Pay, working conditions and morale all came up, and were cited as areas where the DfE needed to take action. The fact that all four professional associations are in dispute with the DfE was mentioned, but the lack of the STRB Report received relatively little consideration.

Two issues discussed in detail were the question of school leadership and how attractive it is. There was the usual discussion about how to keep good teachers in the classroom and some statements about teachers not wanting to become head teachers. There was also a discussion about how teaching behaves in relation to ‘protected’ groups in society.

Talking the first issue on leadership, it is interesting to look at the recent data from the School Workforce Survey on deputy and assistant heads working in the primary school sector in the under 49 age groups and specifically, for assistant heads, the under 39 age groups.

 AHDH
FEMALE25-2938899
30-3943522571
40-4939544123
86946793
MALE25-2911143
30-391108962
40-49674888
18931893
NON-G25-2910
30-3902
40-4900
ALL25-29500142
30-3954603535
40-4946285011
105888688

There were around 6,000 assistant heads in the primary sector under the age of 40 in November 2022. That ought to be sufficient to provide candidates for deputy headships, at least at the national level.

There are somewhere around 1,500 primary headships advertised each year. With less than 4,000 deputy heads under the age of 40 that means schools will need to draw heavily on the 5,000 primary headteachers in their 40s for many vacancies. This does leave the ratio of candidates to vacancies worryingly low, especially as the recruitment round progresses, and good candidates are appointed to vacancies. I think that there is a matter for concern here that the NAHT were wise to draw the Committee’s attention to in oral evidence.

As to minority groups, there is work to be done here to encourage men, ethnic minorities and those with disabilities to take up teaching as a career. Here are a couple of links to my blogs on the topic written in past years

Are new graduate entrants to teaching still predominantly young, white and female? | John Howson (wordpress.com)

‘We need more black headteachers in our schools’ | John Howson (wordpress.com)

This is an area where clearly the DfE seems to be paying less attention than in the past. Perhaps, it shows a consequence of the lack of a dedicated unit on teacher supply, training and professional development.

Such a unit might have helped the DfE create a coherent policy to solve the current staffing crisis in our schools and colleges that should have caught nobody unawares.

Are teacher vacancy rates slowing?

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Were there really more teacher vacancies this May than during May 2022? There have been some suggestions that the answer is yes. I have seen an increase of seven per cent suggested. However, I am more cautious in suggesting any overall increase in vacancies.

Yes, there have been increases in some subjects, in some regions of England, but measuring a basket of 11 secondary subjects, no region recorded across the board increases in all subjects. In the primary sector, only the North West recorded any increase in vacancies, with a decline compared with the May 2022 number of vacancies in all other regions.

The North West and West Midlands recorded the largest number of secondary subjects with an increase in vacancies. The South East and Yorkshire & The Humber regions, the largest number of subjects where there was a decline on the May 2022 number of recorded advertisements for a classroom teacher or promoted post, according to TeachVac www.teachvac.co.uk where the data was compiled from their database of recorded vacancies.

So, why might there be a discrepancy in views about vacancies? One reason may be the treatment of repeat advertisements. I have long advocated a unique job number for each vacancy that accompanies it until it is either replaced by a different vacancy or the post is filled. Schools can be tardy at removing vacancies after the closing date, even when the post has been filled. TeachVac considers each vacancy it records and uses its own AI to decide whether to ask a human to review the vacancy, record it as a new vacancy, or discard it. This may account for some of the difference with other commentators.

TeachVac as a job board looks at teaching vacancies across both state and private schools. There is more work to be undertaken to see whether the slowdown has affected private schools more than state schools? The South East, a region with a high proportion of private schools, does seem to have seen more of a decline in vacancies than other regions. The Yorkshire and The Humber region had a strong year in 2022, so the decline in vacancies across that region may be a reaction to the number of vacancies recorded last year.

There is another possible explanation for any slowing of vacancies or even a downturn. In some subjects, notably design and technology, schools may finally have accepted that there is no point in advertising vacancies in the traditional manner, and either stopped advertising or moved to using an agency – hopefully on a no find no fee basis – or resorting to social media and other methods of recruitment advertising.

Of course, the uncertainty about pay levels for September may also now be causing schools, especially in areas where pupil rolls are not rising as fast as they have been, to become more cautious in their attitude to recruitment for September. Better to have unfilled vacancies and offer existing staff a new role than look forward to possible redundancies because of a lack of cash.

Looking at the TeachVac data for the first half of June, our recorded vacancies are still below those of 2022, except in England and Music, two subjects that largely resisted the downward trend in May.

There is more research to be undertaken, but perhaps the rise in mortgage rates is affecting the number of teachers either leaving the profession or in a position to take a maternity leave break that would require their job to be covered. Time will tell.

12-week Conversion course

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Finding teachers to fill January 2024 vacancies where they arise in many secondary schools will be a real challenge. Assuming that internal adjustments cannot be made to timetables, then schools will need to recruit replacement staff: what alternatives face them when seeking a teacher?

Recruit a remaining 2023 ITT graduate – few of these will be available, except perhaps in PE or history, and even in these subjects, numbers will be less than in past years, so this might not be an option for schools in some parts of England. In most subjects, schools are already experiencing challenges filling their remaining September vacancies.

Recruit a returner – possible, but unpredictable.

Entice a teacher from another school – not feasible for vacancies after the end of October and it just shifts the problem to another school.

Redeploy a teacher – an option for some larger academy trusts with the right type of contractual arrangements with their teachers, but not for stand-alone academies and other schools.

Hire a teacher from overseas – probably best done through an agency. There is the issue of visas to consider as well as their need to understand the system of education in England.

Look to hire a primary trained teacher – there have been fewer vacancies in the primary sector this year than in recent years, so some trainees are still likely to be job hunting and returners may find jobs difficult to secure.

However, to make better use of those trained as primary school class teachers in the job market to work as a teacher, the DfE should consider reintroducing a short-term conversion course.

The course could balance enhancing subject knowledge and application with the differences between class and subject teaching, and issues such as approaches to likely challenges. Primary trained teachers have ‘A’ levels, and a focus on subjects where there are shortages would release secondary trained teachers to focus on KS4 & 5 while these teachers worked primarily in Key Stage 3.

Assuming that the most able ITT graduates have already secured teaching posts for September, this type of course would also provide an extra 12 weeks of support for these new teachers, rather than leaving them to their own devices before they secured a teaching post.

Such courses could be organised by national bodies, such as Teach First or the National Institute of Teaching, but might be better arranged locally for a discrete geographical area facing recruitment challenges by a consortium of schools and trusts working with an ITT provider and a local authority.  

Funding from the DfE for such a course could be at a third of an ITT course, plus a weekly salary for participants based upon the bottom point of the qualified Teacher Salary scale as they would be qualified teachers. The DfE could fund a trial course using unspent ITT funds resulting from the unfilled places on courses during 2022-23.

With a will, there is surely still time to set up a course for this September to evaluate the usefulness of the idea.