Sad end to term

Posted on July 10, 2023 by John Howson

It is now more than nine years since a teacher died after being stabbed in her classroom by a pupil. The news today from Tewksbury reminds us that although rare, and nowhere near as common as such incidents in the USA, teaching is not an entirely risk-free activity, as I know from personal experience.

My thoughts and best wishes are with the stabbed teacher, their family and any pupils that witnessed the attack. I hope the teacher was no badly hurt. Below, is the post I wrote when the teacher was stabbed to death in her classroom in 2014.

Condolences | John Howson (wordpress.com)

Condolences

Posted on April 28, 2014

The news of the stabbing to death of a teacher in Leeds is both truly shocking and saddening at the same time. Fortunately, such deaths in schools are rare in the United Kingdom, and it is no small irony that this fatality happened in a Roman Catholic school in a challenging area just as the death nearly 20 years ago of head teacher Philip Lawrence did in north Westminster. We may live in a post-Christian society, but the Churches still offer education in many of the more disadvantaged areas of our country.

My thoughts and condolences are with the family and friends of the teacher, as well as the pupils and those that work at the school, and the wider local community. Nearly 40 years ago, I was the victim of a classroom stabbing by an intruder that could in different circumstances have ended in a fatality. As a result, I can understand something of the grief such an unexpected event give rise to. Fortunately, unlike in my day, there will no doubt be extensive counselling offered to all concerned. I don’t know the circumstances of this stabbing, except that the news bulletin says that it was a female teacher in her 60s who presumably had been at the school for some time. More will no doubt come out over the next few days and then at the subsequent trial.

The Court of Appeal has recently taken a tough stand on the carrying of knives, and rightly so if we are to reduce the incidence of violence still further in society. But, despite all the draconian laws it is impossible to entirely prevent attacks where there is a will to do violence to another.

Finally, perhaps the Secretary of State might consider a memorial in the new offices for the DfE after they move to Whitehall in 2017* that recognises the sacrifice of the small band of teachers that have given their lives to their profession. There may not be many of them, but they deserve not to be forgotten.

*Such a move never took place, but the idea of a memorial might still be worth considering.

STRB and teacher recruitment

Posted on July 9, 2023 by John Howson

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

Posted on July 7, 2023 by John Howson

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

Posted on July 6, 2023 by John Howson

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

Posted on July 5, 2023 by John Howson

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.

	2017/18	2018/19	2019/20	2020/21	2021/22	2022/23
NQT Entrants rate	5.3	5.3	5.2	4.5	4.9	4.7
FTE number of entrants	23,406	23,473	22,925	20,146	22,096	21,653
Returner Entrants rate	3.8	3.8	3.7	3.5	3.2	3.7
FTE number of entrants	16,595	16,869	16,305	15,771	14,663	16,737
Deferred Entrants rate	0.6	0.6	0.6	0.6	0.9	1.0
FTE number of entrants	2,772	2,626	2,616	2,883	3,861	4,750
New to State Entrants rate	1.0	1.0	0.8	0.7	0.7	1.1
FTE number of entrants	4,291	4,248	3,519	2,984	3,392	4,814
Entrants rate	10.8	10.8	10.3	9.3	9.7	10.5
FTE number of entrants	47,064	47,216	45,365	41,784	44,011	47,954

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.

One law for parents …

Posted on July 3, 2023 by John Howson

‘School sends children home because of a lack of staff’. The BBC have been running a story about a special school, part of a multi-academy trust that has been sending children home on certain days because of a lack of staff. Oxford pupils miss school amid special needs staff shortage – BBC News

The shortage of staff in the special school sector is nothing new. Indeed, I commented upon the use of unqualified teachers in that sector in a previous post. However, should any school be allowed to send pupils home because of staff shortages?

In 2017, (how time flies) the Supreme Court discussed the responsibilities of parents that contract with the State to provide schooling for their children for free. The case was Isle of Wight Council v Platt and the judgement can be read at Isle of Wight Council (Appellant) v Platt (Respondent) (supremecourt.uk)

The highest court in the land imposed a heavy burden on parents with regard to school attendance – paragraphs 31 onwards set out their reasons for doing so. In reaching their judgement, the court went further than the previous decision made in the 1930s, and placed even more restrictive reasons for parents being allowed not to send a child to school.

The court did not consider the opposite scenario of the responsibility of the State to parents that trust their child to the State to educate. Lord Denning did discuss this in Meade v Haringey in 1979 at the end of the Winter of Discontent, but that case never came to trial as the strike ended and schools re-opened.

Lord Denning’s comments in the case can be read at Meade v Haringey London Borough Council – Case Law – VLEX 793965949 The paragraph relevant to the present situation is in paragraph 3.

As I read the statute, it was and is the duty of the Borough Council – not only to provide the school buildings – but also to provide the teachers and other staff to run the schools – and furthermore to keep the schools open at all proper times for the education of the children. If the Borough Council were to order the schools to close for a term – or for a half-term – or even for one week, without just cause or excuse, it would be a breach of their statutory duty. If any of the teachers should refuse to do their work, the Borough Council ought to get others to replace them – and not pay the defaulters. Likewise if the caretakers refuse to open the schools – and keep the keys – the Borough Council ought to demand the return of the keys and open up the schools themselves if need be. For this simple reason: It is the statutory duty of the Borough Council to keep the schools open. If they should fail to do so, without just cause or excuse, it is a breach of their statutory duty.

These days, one must assume that either mutli-academy trust trustees have assumed the responsibilities formerly with local authorities in 1979 or that Regional School Commissioners acting on behalf of the DfE have responsibility for academies under their remit. Whoever is responsible, unless either a court rules otherwise or the law has been changed since 1979, it would seem that there is a statutory duty to open schools, and by implication to staff them during a school term. Of course, fire, plague or pestilence might cause temporary closure, but, as during the covid pandemic, schools were required to stay open for certain children.

I guess that a parent will need to bring either a judicial review or a case against a school that sent children home. Judicial Review is an expensive process, so perhaps a Council, acting as a corporate parent, could bring the case on behalf of all parents.

It would be interesting to see how the Supreme Court balanced the rights and responsibilities of parents with the duties of the State in providing education. I am reminded that in the late 1940s the then Minister of Education summoned a Council because a school lacking a hall after bomb damage was not offering a daily act of corporate worship. What might that Labour Minister have made of schools sending children home due to staff shortages?

Labour’s style over substance

Posted on July 2, 2023 by John Howson

I woke up this morning to news that the Labour Party had some new proposals to end the teacher supply crisis. Strangely, the press release section of their national website hasn’t posted anything, so I am reliant on what the BBC has said for the following thoughts. Labour plan to give teachers £2,400 to stop them quitting – BBC News

In passing, the Labour Party website generally doesn’t seem to be up with events, something that surprised me for a national Party aiming for government. But there are some issues, such their relationship with other political parties, and stories of suspensions and expulsions of members that I am sure they would want to bury. Still, that is all for another day and another place.

What are Labour suggesting and why do I say that it is style over substance? Firstly, there is nothing to ease the pain of training. No fee payments, as agreed when Tuition Fees were introduced by Tony Blair’s government. This would have been an excellent opportunity for a headline along the lines -well it’s not up to me to do Labour’s work for them.

Instead of targeting trainees and entrants, we get a survivor bonus according to the BBC story

The plans to improve retention rates, announced by Labour’s shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson on Sunday, would see new incentive payments awarded once teachers had completed a training programme known as the Early Career Framework, which covers their first two years in the classroom.

Apparently, the payment would be £2,400 or only between a gross one-off five to ten per cent payment of what a teacher would be earning at that point in time, before tax, national insurance and pension deductions. Less, with a £30,000 starting salary. Paying this to all survivors, regardless of the help or salary they received during training would according to Labour cost £50 million. I wonder what paying fees and a training salary to make all trainees equal, and it easier for career changers to become a teacher, would cost?

Labour’s other key promise is welcome, but even more hollow when you burrow down into what it means in reality.

The [Labour} party says it would also make it compulsory for new teachers to have a formal teaching qualification or be working towards one – a requirement scrapped by the coalition in 2012.

Sure, Gove made a headline announcement that academies did not need to employ qualified teachers: and most academies ignored this freedom, as they often did with the freedom to pay classroom teachers different salaries. However, it hasn’t stopped all schools employing unqualified teachers when they cannot find a qualified one to fill a post. After all, it was the Labour government that changed the name of these staff from ‘instructors’ that clearly demonstrated that they were not qualified teachers, to the more positive term ‘unqualified teachers’, and also created a pay scale for them.

Curiously, there were fewer unqualified teachers by headcount working in schools last Novermber (2022) than in November 2010, the first census after the end of the last Labour government – 14,389 in 2022 compared with 15,892 in November 2010 according to the DfE’s Workforce Census.

Ensuring all teachers are qualified, and qualified in teaching their subject or phase, something the Labour announcement doesn’t offer, must be a requirement. However, Labour doesn’t say what schools, faced with a vacancy, should do if a qualified teacher isn’t available: send children home? The lack of a credible answer to this question makes the policy no more than idle rhetoric about trainee teachers not about solving the teacher supply crisis.

I would offer emergency certification with a required training programme from day one for unqualified teachers, including those not qualified in the subject that they are teaching.

Labour final policy on staff development is again good in principle; this area has been neglected by the present government, despite the limited experience of much of the teaching force. However, the policy lacks detail, and detailing who will be responsible for implementing and paying for it?

Taking tax breaks away from private schools would probably affect the special school sector, where local authorities mostly pay the fees, more than schools where parents are responsible for the fees. Such saving would also probably be stretched thinly to pay for all the mooted changes.

Retention can be cheaper than recruitment, but by making training more attractive for all, there is more chance that schools currently unable to recruit teachers would fill their vacancies. All too often these schools are situated in the more deprived areas. These are the schools any policy should be tested against: does it improve the education of children in these schools?

For those that don’t know, I am a Liberal Democrat County Councillor in Oxfordshire

Reduced ITT numbers; who wins?

Posted on June 28, 2023 by John Howson

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.

London	2019	2022
High Achievers	641	1393
Apprenticeships	65	368
School Direct Salaried Route	1044	285
sub total	1750	2046
SCITT	253	457
School Direct Fee Route	810	496
sub total	1063	953
Higher Education	837	656
total	3650	3655
Adjust for HA		2900

South East	2019	2022
High Achievers	220	0
Apprenticeships	33	97
School Direct Salaried Route	577	175
sub total	830	272
SCITT	488	687
School Direct Fee Route	1137	828
sub total	1625	1515
Higher Education	1566	1252
total	3768	2942
Adjust for HA		3150

North East	2019	2022
High Achievers	87	0
Apprenticeships	10	19
School Direct Salaried Route	15	7
sub total	112	26
SCITT	340	207
School Direct Fee Route	413	327
sub total	753	534
Higher Education	618	375
total	1483	935
Adjust for HA		1,000

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

Posted on June 26, 2023 by John Howson

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.

Ending child illiteracy by 2025: reprise

Posted on June 21, 2023 by John Howson

Sometimes a visitor to this blog uncovers a previous post that is worth a reprise. I think that this post from 2015 is one such post. Many of the points hold good today, even to the issue of the Labour Party and tuition fees. Let me know in the comment section what you think.

Ending child illiteracy by 2025

Originally Posted on January 18, 2015

The Liberal Democrat plan to end illiteracy by 2025 announced today would mean that every child born in 2014, ought to leave primary school in 2025 able to read and write at a standard identified to lead to success in secondary school and beyond. To help them meet this commitment to end child illiteracy by 2025 the Lib Dems would boost the early years Pupil Premium to an even higher level than the primary school Pupil Premium thus recognising the vital importance of a child’s early years for learning and development.
The Lib Dems would also overhaul early years teaching qualifications by letting nursery staff work towards Qualified Teacher Status and by 2020 requiring a qualified teacher graduate in every school or nursery delivering the early years curriculum.

As a Lib Dem, I have been fighting for better early years education for decades. This aim is reminiscent of the Millennium Development goals of 2000 that sought to ensure primary education for every child throughout the world by 2015. And what’s the point of primary education if children don’t learn to read, write, count, and lay down the skills to acquire the tools they will need for their future lives as adults.
Despite a focus of attention on the lack of education success among the poor that goes back to work undertaken when Ruth Kelly was Secretary of State in the Labour government, it is still clear, as Nick Clegg pointed out, that it is those less well off in society whose children don’t make the expected levels of progress.

Labour has been hinting about cutting tuition fees if elected. As Labour was the Party that introduced them in the first place in 1997, and then increased them, requiring students to repay the cash borrowed from day one rather than when they started earning, as now, Labour must say if it favours supporting undergraduates ahead of ending illiteracy in the next parliament; it cannot do both and still stick to its spending plans.

To achieve the ambition of ending illiteracy by 2025 means providing the cash for schools and early year settings to achieve this goal. Depriving local authorities of the cash to support pre-school settings where health, welfare and education issues can be dealt with together won’t allow the goal to be achieved. Yes, the bulk of the funds should go to schools and through an early years premium, but the work needs co-ordination and that is where local authorities need funds. By all means make it a ring-fenced grant, but do not force local authorities out of supporting initiatives by cutting their funding.

Schools also need to know how to deal with that small group of parents that are indifferent to their child’s progress and don’t, can’t or won’t work with the school and pre-school setting in helping their children learn. Helping schools know what works rather than everyone re-inventing the wheel will also ensure best use of the money. Does that mean a role for local authorities?

John Howson

Education and the numbers that affect what happens

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