Category Archives: employment

Why aren’t all trainee teachers paid?

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My recent post about tuition fees and student loans Pay tuition fees of trainee teachers | John Howson reminded me that it is some years since I compared how trainee teachers were treated in comparison with another group of public servants undergoing training.

British Army officer training at Sandhurst is a 42-week course, slightly longer than the face-to-face component of a PGCE, but I expect that there are few PGCE students that don’t also work during their ‘holidays’, as, indeed, do most teachers.

The key difference, between a PGCE and Sandhurst, apart for the 24 hour seven days a week residential element to army training, is that all officer cadets receive the equivalent of £35,925 per year. I am not sure if this also contains possible pension contributions as well.

Even those PGCE students with bursaries cannot match that figure. The most generous bursaries according to the government website are £29,000 or £31,000 if a trainee is awarded a scholarship. Teacher training bursaries | Get Into Teaching GOV.UK Of course, unlike a salary, these should be tax free during training.

Bursaries are not available to all trainee teachers, only those that the DfE regards as training to be a teacher in a shortage subject. This blog has regularly commented on the somewhat arbitrary and haphazard nature of such designations, including the removal of a bursary for music in September 2026. By contrast, all officer cadets at Sandhurst are paid, regardless of the corps or arm they will eventually join, and whether there are sufficient trainees to staff all required roles.

By comparison, a graduate joining the civil service ‘Fast Stream’ scheme would earn £31,554 per annum, plus a pension and guarantee of employment, something also offered to successful Sandhurst graduates. Fast Stream | Civil Service Careers

I have to say that I think the civil service salary is not very generous, especially for working in central London, but it can increase substantially by year two, so perhaps, it might be seen as a training salary.

Of course, some trainee teachers can earn a salary. Teach First, with its salary, is similar to the civil service Fast Track in blending training and actual ‘real work’. Fast Track currently pays between £23-31,000 for trainees outside London, and up to 333,500 for trainees in London in their first year. Join our leading two-year, fully-funded teacher Training Programme | Teach First So, similar salary to officer cadets at Sandhurst for London trainees on Fast track, but considerably less for those on the Fast Track route outside of London.

With falling rolls, and better retention rates, the question for the Labour government is whether or not graduate teacher training should be brought into line with other public sector professions, with all trainees receiving a salary plus the guarantee of a teaching post? The latter might be a step too far, but if the government insists on setting training targets trough the Teacher Supply Model, then it should be expected to offer all trainees a teaching post.

Employing trainee teachers, would stop over-recruitment that is costing the government money through paying out student loans, for instance, to the 26% of primary trainees recruited above target last year.

A universal salary scheme for graduate trainee teachers would break the historical bond between trainees and higher education, established when the employer’s training colleges were forced into the higher education sector in the 1970s, following the Robbins Report. Of course, universities could compete to provide the courses for the government alongside other training providers. As they already do for school-based courses.

The present arrangements for graduate teacher training are no longer fit for purpose. The outgoing Prime Minister had little to say about teachers when preparing for government, other than a ‘retention bonus’. Labour’s style over substance | John Howson

I hope that the next Prime Minister, will consider the importance of the teaching workforce in achieving his goals for society. If so, looking at how we train teachers might be a place to start.

Headteacher turnover in England – August 2025 to July 2026

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At the end of this month, I will put together my latest annual report on headteacher turnover across state-funded schools in England. Today, the total number of vacancies recorded since the 1st August 2025 has reached 1,400. Add in re-advertisements, and the total number of different advertisements for a headship in a state school in England has reached nearly 1,650 by this morning.

Apart from seven small local authorities, details of at least one vacancy have been recorded from all other local authorities in England. In some large authorities, more than 30 vacancies have been recorded during the past 12 months.

Themes the report will consider are likely to include: the pay of headteachers, and especially the pay of headteachers of small schools; whether some schools have more difficulty recruiting a new head and what matters? This will include, location, percentage of free school meals pupils; academy or maintained school; religious or secular; large of small, and finally, the time of year of the original advertisement.

The headteacher advertisements from 1,004 schools admitting primary age children (including all-age schools) collected so far, compares relatively closely to the 1,101such vacancies recorded in a previous report compiled in December 2018. A more detailed look at longer-term trends will be included in the January updated report that will also consider re-advertisements, including the re-advertisement posted during the autumn term of 2026.

The current age profile of the teaching profession – see 36th Report of the STRB for details, should be relatively helpful for headship vacancies, with a respectable number of possible candidates within the age-groups from which headteachers are traditionally drawn.

The market for secondary school headteachers is usually more buoyant than that for headteachers of primary schools, partly because the ratio of deputy heads to headteachers is greater in secondary schools.

Each year, a number of headteacher switch to another schools. Sadly, just reviewing vacancies cannot identify the number of such moves.

Another issue is that of the undefined term ‘Executive Head’. The term can mean a variety of different things, from just head of a single school to headship f a couple of schools to a post in a multi-academy trust with responsibility for a group of schools. This year, my study of vacancies has largely only considered vacancies for a headteacher of a single school, whatever their title. However, a couple of vacancies for ‘executive heads’ of infant and junior schools with the same school name have been included, as I consider that they are effectively one unit.

I first started collecting data about headteacher vacancies more than 40 years ago in the early 1980s, many of the issue I encountered in those early studies are still visible today.

Finally, are all vacancies now advertised? An annual check of the headteachers’ name on the DfE site containing school information should provide the answer, but it may be complicated by any interim headteachers pushing up the totals. No doubt AI can solve that problem. I will consider it for the report next January.

Pay tuition fees of trainee teachers

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The House of Commons Treasury (Select) Committee today published its report into university tuition fees. One of its conclusions was that;

2. 3. 4. The student loans system is complex. The terms and conditions of loans must be examined within the context of the entire system. The overall level of subsidy provided by the state to the individual is the defining factor in how the loan then operates. (Conclusion, Paragraph 17) Although the government claimed that its subsidy is in the region of 30% to 40%, we saw evidence indicating that individual contributions from students graduating today could be as high as 95%. That was not what the government or Parliament intended, when Parliament agreed the Plan 2 legislation. Society benefits from individuals going to university. Therefore, society should contribute to the cost of an individual’s higher education. We agree with Sir Philip Augar that the split between state and individual should be around 50:50. Terms and conditions matter. Even a very clever system that strikes a generally acceptable balance between the taxpayer and individual contributions will not be sustainable in the long term, if individual terms and conditions within that system are deemed economically or politically intolerable by stakeholders or loan holders. (Conclusion, Paragraph 18)

Student loans: Broken and unfair? My highlighting in bold

Reading that conclusion made me wonder how much should someone wanting to be a teacher expect to pay in tuition fees and interest on the loan in order to enter the profession?

Does it matter that a twenty two year old will pay far more in tuition fee repayments, due to interest costs, than someone entering teacher training in their thirties from a high paying job in London with their original undergraduate loan paid off? The twenty two year old will likely be paying interest on their combined undergraduate and ITT tuition fees for their whole teaching career.

Does it matter that if you are on Teach First, a graduate teaching apprenticeship, or some other route that pays a salary, you will incur no extra student debt training to become a teacher? Should there be equity between routes into teaching?

Yesterday, in my post about teachers’ pay, I revealed how poorly teachers were paid compared with many other graduate professions. Are teachers paid a fair wage for being a graduate? | John Howson

Now for a bit of history. When the Labour government took power in the summer of 1997, and decided to introduce tuition fees for courses including postgraduate ITT courses, I was still working at the then Teacher Training Agency, as its Chief Professional Adviser on Teacher Supply.

Frank Dobson, as Secretary of State for Health was adamant that trainee nurses should not pay tuition fees, although I need to remind myself whether or not he took the same line about the professions allied to medicine and for trainee doctors.

David Blunkett, as Secretary of State for Education, took the line that undergraduate trainees should pay tuition fees, but that the State would effectively pay the fees of those on approved postgraduate courses leading to QTS. One consequence of this decision, a decision that I recall discussing with a senior civil servant at the Department, was the decline in undergraduate ITT, especially for secondary subjects: it still lingers on for would-be primary school teachers.

One of the more pernicious and short-sighted decisions of the coalition government that emerged after the 2010 general election was to remove the payment of tuition fees by the government for postgraduate ITT courses.

I have always opposed that decision. A better solution would have been to rebate the tuition fee once a teacher started working for the State. To make it fair, it would have been necessary to ensure all those gaining QTS, and having paid tuition fees, were offered a teaching or other government funded post. Those working for private school or outside teaching would still have had to repay their loans.

In the light of today’s Treasury Committee’s conclusion that they, ‘saw evidence indicating that individual contributions from students graduating today could be as high as 95%.’, I believe that the current Secretary of State should either revert to the pre-2010 situation or find some other way of relieving trainee teachers of the burden of tuition fee debt.

Sadly, I think there is little that can be done for previous generations of teachers still weighed down with tuition fee debt, except perhaps a deal with mortgage companies to allow the debt to be transferred to extend a mortgage to repay the capital and allow the remaining debt to be paid at a lower rate of interest than the government charges.

Alternatively, schools, MATs and local authorities might look at ways of taking over the debt at a lower interest rate.

I think it says something about the teaching profession, and its professional associations that the issue of the burden of tuition fees for teachers has not been a higher priority.

Perhaps the present evidence from the STRB and Treasury Reports might persuade the professional assoiations into action on behalf of their members.

Action from the Liberal Democrats, my Party, and a participant in the 2010 decision to make trainee teachers pay fees, would also be welcome; I am not holding my breath.

Are teachers paid a fair wage for being a graduate?

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Last week, the DfE published the latest report from the School Teachers Review body (STRB) School Teachers’ Review Body – THIRTY-SIXTH REPORT – 2026 This is the 36th Report from this body. Its recommendations on pay were accepted by the Secretary of State.

While the headline increases in pay, in percentage terms, seem generous, in reality they are part of a catching up exercise of a similar type to that which caused the hard-fought battle with resident doctors in the NHS.

Here’s what the STRB said about teachers’ pay over the past decade and a half:

• The real-terms value of median teacher earnings has fallen since the early 2010s. The fall in real teacher pay has been greater than that for other professional occupations.

• When comparing teachers’ pay to that of other professional occupations by age and region using data from the SWC and the ONS, teachers fell below the comparators in all groups. The gaps between median teacher pay and that of other professionals was greatest in London.

• Based on proprietary benchmarking data, starting pay for teachers is between the lowest quartile and median for roles of comparable size and scope.

These three comments seem to justify the pay rise, and it is not a generous settlement in a vibrant labour market for graduates. If that market cools between now and 2027, possibly because of the effects of AI on entry level jobs, it will be interesting to see what the next STRB pay report suggests.

The STRB summed up the situation in the most recent period as follows:

In 2024-25, for the Rest of England and London, teachers’ median earnings were below those of the comparator groups for all age bands. The gaps between teachers’ earnings and those of the comparator group were greatest in London.

Across most age categories, the relative earnings of teachers deteriorated from 2014-15 to 2019-20, both in the Rest of England and London. After a slight improvement in 2020-21 during the COVID-19 pandemic, this downward trend for relative earnings continued across all age categories to 2023-24. Over the latest period, between 2023-24 and 2024-25, the relative earnings of teachers have slightly improved, although their median earnings remain below other professional occupation counterparts.

Overall, teachers aged 21 to 30 compared least favourably against the other professional occupations, both in the Rest of England and in London. Those in the oldest age group (over 60) compared most favourably, although are still behind relative earnings of those in other professional occupations. Page 70

In summery the STRB concluded that;

Our analysis of real-terms pay changes over time suggests that the competitiveness of teachers’ earnings compared to the whole economy, wider public sector and to professional occupations, was lower in 2024/25 compared to 2010/11. Figure B.10 shows how the real-terms value of teachers’ median earnings fell throughout the early 2010s. The chart shows there was some improvement for teachers between 2018/19 and 2020/21, prior to the pay pause in 2021/22, and a period of decline to 2023/24. There was some improvement in 2024/25, however we estimate that teachers’ median gross earnings in 2024/25 were 13.9% below their level in 2010/11 in real terms. Median gross earnings for the whole economy were 0.6% below their 2010/11 level, whilst median gross earnings for professional occupations were 9.2% below their 2010/11 level, in real terms. Page 71

One issue potentially facing the STRB could be the problem of a single pay scale for all teachers when the labour markets for primary and secondary school teachers are operating in very different ways. However, it would be a brave government that tackled this issue. Most likely, a move on allowances, and how they are offered, could be the obvious way to tackle over-supply in the primary school labour market, and areas of shortage in the secondary school teacher labour market.

The STRB had something to say about the axing of bursaries from some ITT subjects.

111. The number of bursaries available for 2026/27 has been reduced across a range of subjects, with others seeing a reduction in the bursary value. The bursary values for Biology and Geography are both down by 21,000, while Modern Foreign Languages and Design Technology are down by 6,000. Art, Music and Religious Education are down by 10,000 to zero, with English down by 5,000 to zero. We also note that for Business Studies, Music, Religious Education, Modern Foreign Languages and Design Technology, the reduction in bursary value coincides with the failure to reach target entrant numbers in 2025/26. P101 My emphasis

There is also an interesting table (B21) that provides evidence to support my posts over the past year querying why music and also Religious Education lost their bursaries. Pages 100 to 102, and especially table B21, where music and Religious Education were placed in the top three subjects for the lowest percentages of ITT placed filled, provide cogent evidence for the need for an explanation as to how bursaries are allocated to different subjects?

I think the STRB are sending a coded message to the DfE in this report about the lack of bursaries in some of the subjects that struggle most to recruit. The DfE’s answer, backed by HM Treasury, would no doubt be that there are few graduates in these subjects to entice into teaching, so the bursary would be paid to those already choosing teaching as a career. Funny how that argument doesn’t work for physics or mathematics.

A couple of other interesting nuggets for the STRB report:

• In 2024/25, male teachers had higher earnings overall than female teachers across all school types. Median earnings were higher in secondary schools than in primary and nursery schools.

• Based on proprietary benchmarking data, starting pay for teachers is between the lowest quartile and median for roles of comparable size and scope. …. The comparative basic salary position of leadership roles in primary schools is generally below the market base salary data, whilst roles in secondary schools are better aligned to the market base salary data.

• The full-time equivalent (FTE) teacher workforce decreased by 0.1% or 432 between 2023 and 2024. Secondary schools once again saw the largest absolute increase in teacher numbers.

• The proportion of teachers from an ethnic minority background remained stable, with 89% of teachers across state-funded schools being white. The proportion of white teachers is higher in nursery and primary schools than in secondary schools and increases with seniority in leadership roles.

Finally, a word about leadership pay. The STRB concluded that:

2.25 The comparative salary position of leadership roles in primary schools falls below the market salary data in all regions, whilst leadership roles in secondary schools are better aligned to the market salary data. P11

After a year of tracking headteacher vacancies, I do wonder why anyone would take on a job both teaching and leading a small primary school for a salary of little more than £60,000 from September when a classroom teacher with no responsibilities, and a similar length of service could be earning nearly £53,000.

Little more than £10,000 extra, for both the loss of the 1,265 working time protection and all the extra responsibilities, seems like a gross imbalance in differentials. This is especially the case when all primary leaders, and not just headteachers, work on average 5.1 hours more than classroom teachers. Table B14 page 91.

I will say more about the issue of headteachers’ pay when I publish my review of headteacher vacancies for 2025-26 at the end of August.

The saviour for the government when considering future pay is ‘falling pupil numbers’. This issue makes the need to recruit teachers, especially with the current age distribution of those teachers in employment less of an overall challenge.

However, as indicated earlier in this post, dealing with the consequences of different primary, secondary and further education labour markets may be a real issue for the next STRB Report.

Dear Secretary of State – updated

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Two years ago, after the general election, I posted this open letter to the new Secretary of State. With the possibility of a cabinet reshuffle following the arrival of a new Prime Minister, I though it was worth taking a second look at my thoughts of two years ago, and what has changed.

Posted on July 6, 2024

At this important time in our history, I thought that I would post my views for the new Secretary of State for Education

An Open Letter to the Secretary of State for Education

Dear Secretary of State,

You have a tough job ahead of you. Firstly, you need to clear up problems resulting from the campaign promise of 6,000 extra teachers. Those of us in the know, are aware that this September, as for the past few years, all the training places for new secondary school teachers are not being filled. Those gaps need to be filled before you can start on adding 6,000 new teachers to the total.

We don’t have 6,000 more teachers, and training targets have been cut in many subjects, so reaching what you and I might have thought of as 6,000 extra teachers seems unlikely, and the pledge will be subject to a sleight of hand to show it has been achieved.

Don’t think of an easy way out, such as upgrading some teaching assistants to teachers, because it is teachers for the secondary schools that we need, not more teachers for primary schools.

And then, there is the state of our school buildings. Even before the concrete crisis, many of our primary schools were time expired, and many are more than 150 years old. There needs to be a programme of replacement and, for those that will remain, a programme to help make them carbon neutral or even sources of renewable energy. After all, school playgrounds are not being used for their key purpose for 95% of the year. How can we make them earn their keep for the rest of the year, by being sources of renewable power?

Some progress on buildings, but not much, and no real policy advocacy around renewables.

Don’t get me started on funding for 16-19 year olds. That’s a battle with the Treasury you must win. At the same time, you could increase the upper age for free transport for young people in rural areas from 16 up to the de facto if not de jure leaving age of 18 from where it now stops at 16. Start by offering it this September to those staying in the same school. This is a levelling up programme for rural areas.

Rural transport, and indeed, 16-18 transport has been ignored. This is despite the fact it may contribute to NEET numbers in rural areas. I have suggested reviewing motor insurance tax for 16-18s where there is no public transport to school or college, and extending free transport to 18 for those that receive it up to age 16. No sign government understands this issue.

AI and technology are important to our country’s future, and we need to work out how they impact on our education system. Are we training new and existing teachers in a curriculum and teaching style for the future, not the past? Do we need a research body for teaching and learning in schools?

Much more to be done here; especially in training new teachers. New teachers entering preparation courses this September at age 22, might not retire until 2063. In the past 40 years we have seen, the microprocessor revolution; the internet and social media sensation, and now AI. How have we responded to this revolution, every bit as significant as the arrival of printing more than 500 years ago: we have banned mobile phones from schools.

I am sure you will have much to say about early years, and perhaps you could reverse the name change Mr Gove announced when he had your job in 2010.  Bring back the Department for Children Education and Families.

Hopefully, early years will be a success story, but outcomes need monitoring especially for those children that fall behind when they reach school. Do you favour schools having an on-site nursery? What about a qualified workforce?

There are other issues, such as higher education, private schools and the consequences of VAT on fees, and the relationship between local authorities and the academies sector, not least for children in care that you will have to deal with, but solving the teacher supply crisis is the number one priority.

Well, we have VAT on school fees and it has shaken the tree for some of the weaker schools that were also suffering from falling rolls. However, there are still not enough teachers for state schools, and private schools can attract teachers where there are shortages leaving more challenging schools with less well qualified staff. What’s the policy to deal with this problem?

The dual regime of democratically controlled local authorities nominally responsible for maintained schools and the academy sector responsible to Whitehall and with no local democratic accountability is a blot on your copybook. Following the Blair/Brow government’s line on ducking the issue of selective schools for some and comprehensive schools for others is a waste of a big majority, especially as most Labour MPs represent areas with comprehensive schools.

You could take a leaf out of David Blunkett’s approach in 1997, and pay the fees of all trainee teachers studying as postgraduates to enter the profession. Paying them all a training salary, as his successor introduced, and the coalition removed, would be another step forward. This year, it should be possible to pay the bills from the unfilled training places where the money has already been allocated by H M Treasury plus the VAT receipts from private school fees.

Training to be a teacher is still expensive in debt terms for many. Working abroad after qualification can bring higher income, and no fee repayments while abroad.

If the government is serious about education, then now is the time for action. Good luck in your first 100 days in the job.

However, will you still be in post after the arrival of the new Prime Minister? Of will we have to start all over again?

Lucy Heller: Thank you

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I suppose it was inevitable that Lucy heller would eventually leave he role in leading ARK as an organisation and its schools. Interview: Lucy Heller, CEO of Ark Schools | Tes I commend this interview with the TES magazine to anyone interested in schooling in England, and how the system works. Lucy Heller discusses many of the issues this blog has mentioned over the past 13 of the 22 years that Lucy has headed up ARK.

It is, of course, fitting that Lucy Heller should give an interview to the TES, as it was while she was working there that I first met with her, when she was running the paper, and I was writing my weekly column on some aspect of data. At that time, I was also advising those running the TES abut the implications for their business model of the switch from print to on-line recruitment advertising, and the threat to their whole way of life. The rest, as they say, is history.

Lucy Heller went to ARK schools when they had a small part to play in the education scene, and has overseen both its growth and its reputation as an organisation, not least its reputation for hiring those that have subsequently helped shape the whole system of schooling.

Regular readers will know of my preference for a local democratic involvement in the organisation and development of state-schooling. That preference does not blind me to the fact that local government these days is more concerned with children’s social services than with education, and that most of our leaders and thinkers about schools and education are now leading multi-academy trusts.

Politicians not in power, and those not running schools, each have more freedom to be more open in what they say than those that are actually operating the system, so, even though we have had to wait until her departure, Lucy Heller’s interview marks an important point in the discourse about our school system.

I entirely agree with Lucy Heller’s comment in the interview that;

There has always been a tension between the narrative politicians have leaned into about headteachers being at the centre of the system and central government’s desire to manage the detail of school life,” she says. “It is a very hard balance to strike – it would be good if government spent less time thinking about how schools should be run day to day and more about how they manage the system as a whole.

As a nation we are not good about both system leadership and understanding the role of government in policy-making. MATs can play an important role in helping keep governments aware of policy outcomes: a role once fulfilled by local authorities and their chief education officers. Lucy Heller had played that role with vision, and without seeking the limelight others might have sought.

I hope that Lucy’s public service will be appropriately recognised, and I am sure that there is more to come as Lucy moves on to the next challenge.  It has been privileged to have known Lucy Heller, and I wish her well for the future.

Exporting education: still a success story

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The DfE has published the latest annual report in the success of education as a contributor to the nation’s wealth through exporting educational goods and services. This includes both selling and providing services , and the provision of services within the United Kingdom. Of the latter, UK Higher Education is the major earner.

I have written about trends from previous reports, but not for some time.  Making money from Education | John Howson In 2021 the DfE changed the methodology for collecting the data. This year, in the report figures for 2021 and onwards are presented using the new methodology only. Release home – UK revenue from education related exports and transnational education activity – Explore education statistics – GOV.UK

The latest data are for the year 2024. The report notes that

‘total UK education related exports and TNE activity was estimated to be £36.7 billion in 2024, an increase of £7.2 billion in nominal terms since 2021. Over the same period, in nominal terms, education related exports have increased by £5.8 billion while TNE activity has increased by £1.4 billion.’

This is a good news story, although not all sectors have performed as well as in the past. Both further education and English Language training recorded improvements over the previous year, although further education fee income was down on the previous year, and both sectors had much higher earnings a decade ago, before covid.

As the report notes: ‘Higher education exports grew by £0.1 billion (0.5%) from £26.4 billion to £26.6 billion between 2023 and 2024. The low growth rate in HE exports can partly be attributed to the reduction in international HE student enrolments since 2022/23.’

This low growth rate must be a worry for the future as this has traditionally been such a key source of income from both fees and living costs.

 Between 2023 and 2024, schools’ exports grew by £0.1 billion (7.4%). This is good news for the economy, but a concern for state-funded schools if it diverts scarce teaching resources in subjects such as physics and mathematics away from upskilling pupils in state-funded schools to educate elites elsewhere in the world or in UK boarding schools.

Elsewhere, equipment sales grew from £0.20 Bn in 2021 to £0.37bn in 2024. During the same period, publishing income rose from £2.31bn to £3.15bn, and earnings from qualification awarding bodies, from £0.36bn to £0.51bn.

No doubt there is room for further growth along the lines of the export strategy Exports good, but the poor won’t be able to afford them | John Howson However, as I pointed out in my earlier post, there is also the contribution to development aid to consider alongside the income from exporting education goods and services. Sadly, as a nation we seem less interested in development aid these days.

What of the future? How will AI affect export opportunities, and will the nation’s attitude to those who are not natives cause a reduction in the significant higher education income if overseas students decide to go elsewhere to study. If that happens, will universities take their product overseas, or just retrench? How will our relationship with Europe affect education exports in the future, especially if there is a growth in Erasmus type programmes?

Finally, we do need to do more to help aspiring entrepreneurs starting out selling goods and services in the education field.

How about a university course for those wanting to start out in this field?

Oxfordshire and the defence dilemma

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Defence* and education are both important public services in Oxfordshire. The county plays home to Brize Norton – the largest RAF base in Britain; RAF Benson; Dalton and Vauxhall Barracks, plus MOD Bicester, and for good measure a University OTC plus cadet forces that also include naval elements.

There is also Shrivenham, the national Defence Academy, plus elements of the reserve forces. So, a real presence from our armed forces, even if not as significant as in West Surrey, Hampshire and Wiltshire.

Apart from its schools and colleges, both state -funded and private, the county hosts two universities and lots of enterprises selling into the education market, including a thriving publishing sector.

As a result, of the county’s engagement with both sectors, today’s announcement of shortfall in defence funding may well have implications for the education sector across the county if the gap in funding defence spending is to be closed by raiding the budgets of other government departments.

The government already has a win with falling pupil numbers. This decline will release funding from education if the remaining pupils and students remain funded only at their present levels, even if inflation is taken into account.

However, there will be other implications for the education sector if the defence funding gap is to be closed, and possibly even more funding to be found for that sector, the announcement of new rules for CEOs pay in academy trusts Government plans NHS-style rules for academy CEO pay will be a shot across the bows of many MATs. I have written about this issue several times on this blog. See The pay of senior staff in academies | John Howson as an example.

I would go further and ask why there are so many MATs, each with a CEO. In Oxfordshire, the 2025 accounts for MATs operating schools in the county revealed a salary bill for the highest paid -excluding large national MATs with outrageous salary bills – of some £3.9mn for the highest paid employee of each Trust. Cut the number of trusts to say, 5, the equivalent of the former 5 divisional directors under local authority management of schools, and perhaps more than £1mn might be saved. Multiply that across England and the saving mounts up.

Then there is small sixth forms. I wrote about this issue earlier this year in a post Are small sixth forms a good idea? | John Howson This is a hard area to tackle, but with falling rolls is the current arrangements in a county such as Oxfordshire best for both the country’s finances and the outcomes for students, especially if we need more cash for our defence?

If sixth forms eat up cash, what about small schools? I favour keeping schools, and especially primary schools, in their communities. Oxfordshire has been excellent at supporting village schools, but could rationalisation save money or would the additional transport costs outweigh the savings?

However, the big transfer of cash from education to defence would be due to decisions on the pay of those working in the education sector and the funding of the sector as a whole that are taken at the national level.

Will funding return measures, such as Pupil Teacher Ratios, return to levels last seen 50 years ago when spending on defence was a higher proportion of GDP than today. What that might mean across England was laid out in my review of PTRS. (PDF) PTRS OVER TIME: A REVIEW OF PUPIL TEACHER RATIOS BETWEEN 1974 AND 2024 AND TWO PERIODS OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT RE-ORGANISATION PTRS OVER TIME: A REVIEW OF PUPIL TEACHER RATIOS

It is difficult to see anything other than challenging times ahead for education in Oxfordshire if the government is serious about more funding for defence.

 Of course, the government could just put up taxes.

*Defense for those with a Ministry of War

Hope over expectation: my view of today’s report on white working class children

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How good are the recommendations into today’s report on the education of White working-class children? Based on my analysis of this one recommendation from the report; not universally very good The Inquiry into White Working Class Educational Outcomes Here is one specific recommendation:

“Government should encourage and support more deliberate action to ensure that the highest performing primary and secondary schools admit and support a fair share of disadvantaged pupils, particularly in areas with significant white working class populations. Too often, the highest performing schools within local areas serve intakes that are significantly less disadvantaged than the communities around them. This should include clearer guidance and encouragement for schools and trusts to prioritise disadvantaged pupils within existing admissions rules, alongside stronger expectations that high-performing schools demonstrate how they are contributing to inclusion and fair access locally. Local authorities should also play a stronger role in supporting fair access, admissions coordination and inclusive place planning, building on their existing statutory responsibilities in this area.”

‘more deliberate action’ – What does this mean, since it doesn’t spell out any actions? Obviously, it means support for selective schools, as they are the highest performing secondary schools, and nowhere are they mentioned, so is the report endorsing the status quo. A selective school currently seeking a new headteacher has less than 7% of its pupils on free school meals according to the DfE website.

‘admit and support a fair share of disadvantaged pupils’ – What is being recommended for school with entry tests? And what is a fair share? Similar to the balance of the catchment area? But the location of schools is often based on history rather than current place concerns?

And for non-selective schools, how do you override parental preference and faith-based requirements?  Probably, through the school funding mechanism to encourage change in admissions criteria.

I would have liked to see some specific recommendations. A case study of how a successful school has already used the admissions rules would have been insightful.

‘stronger expectations that high-performing schools demonstrate how they are contributing to inclusion and fair access locally.’  Everyone knows what schools do to ‘expectations from government’.

‘Local authorities should also play a stronger role in supporting fair access, admissions coordination’ Ha, Ha, ha. It has taken two years of a Labour government to get local authorities the ability to control in-year admissions for academies and free schools (Clause 52 of 2026 Act). Will government back closure of faith schools if it is the best outcome for place planning: we shall see.

And what of transport in rural areas? At present transport to selective schools is not free in most areas outside London and the other conurbations, as it is seen as a parental choice, something I campaigned about in the 2024 general election in Weald of Kent and raised in Castle Point about schools on Canvey Island during the previous General Election.

I would have liked a much more radical approach to policy recommendations, as in the section on teachers, where a revision of the apprenticeship system is advocated. Trainees should also understand what teaching in schools in working lass areas is like. Of course, if the recommendation above is actioned, some schools will look very different, as some might lose successful pupils to selective schools and be even less educationally comprehensive. Will teachers want to teach in such schools without more incentives?

Sadly, with an Education Act passed in the last session of parliament, even a new Prime Minister may find it difficult to fsecure time for more reforms, so what will happen will probably only be within the current rules and framework.

I wonder what changes we will see by the end of this parliament: I am not holding my breath, at least for the secondary school sector. In the Early Years field, I am much more hopeful because there is an acceptance that closing chidrens’ centres a decade ago was not a wise policy move.  

Still, any report that puts these issues back on the table for a little while and creates discussion cannot be all bad.

Tell me the old, old story: the working class and schools

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With the publication later today of the Star Academy Trust commissioned report into outcomes for ‘white working-class boys’, I thought I would look at what I posted when the inquiry was announced last year. Class matters more than ethnicity | John Howson

“However, I cannot help thinking that the focus of the inquiry is wrong. All the evidence suggests that of the three factors of race, gender and class, it is the third one that really matters. Yes, they are often inter-related, but looking at socio-economic data, it is often schools in deprived areas, regardless of the ethnicity of their pupils that fare less well in school performance table.”

Way back in 1982, nearly 50 years ago, I used some evidence from a book published in 1926 by Kenneth Lindsay, and entitled ‘Social Progress and Educational Waste’ about the wide variations in the percentages of children obtaining secondary education – not mandatory for all until 19944 – to discuss differences in provision for schooling across England. (Variations in Local Authority Provision of Education Oxford Review of education, Volume 8, Number 2, 1982). Lindsay, in his book, found one school in Lewisham that won as many scholarships to secondary school as the whole inner city area of Bermondsey out together.’ Differences in education by social class were commonplace.

In the 1960s, The Plowden Report into primary education found that ‘the boroughs in which expenditure [on schooling] was generally low were very much the same in 1960-61 as they were in 1950-51.’ Later that decade another report Half our Future looked at the children leaving school at 15. I celebrated its 50th anniversary with this blog post Half Our Future: A tribute | John Howson both Reports revealed the differences in outcomes for different social classes and how those gaps might be reduced.

Finally, in terms of evidence of the different education outcomes for different groups in society, it is worth reading the Oxfordshire County Council report to Education Scrutiny Committee of 16th October 2014 ESC_OCT1614R05 Educational Attainment of White Working Class Boys.pdf

So, don’t expect anything new, today, but I would like this report to be linked to the speech by Andy Burnham, also to be given today that should speak about the importance of ‘place’ and devolution in our society.  

Both Lindsay and Plowden wrote when schooling was a devolved activity, sometime described, at the time, as ‘a local service nationally administered’. Since then, the administration of schooling has become more site -based with schools operating their own budgets, but more nationally controlled from Westminster. This shift in ‘place’ doesn’t seem to have done much for the educational achievements of white working-class boys.

So, will a shift back to more local or regional decision-making move on the dial for outcomes? Much, I think depends on the interplay of the 4 ‘P’s of Education power

Parents

Premises

People

Purpose

And how they operate together.

The Conservatives, after the 2010 general election had ideas, but they didn’t work for those not wanting to go on to high education. Interestingly, although academies were free from following the National Curriculum, few looked at whether it was appropriate as a curriculum for their communities.

However, what is common to all places is the vital need to engage with effective early learning. If all young people achieve successful early in life, then, with the building blocks firmly in place, more can be achieved later. Fail early, fail often in schooling, and with failure comes disillusion and a lack of engagement.  

So, let’s continue the battle to achieve success in education for all, but it won’t be easy, and will need a view of ‘place’ that incorporates local, regional and national policy-making that supports communities and their schools.

So where does parental choice fit into this model of support? More importantly, where does a selective secondary school system fit into the thinking about the issued raised in today’s report?

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