Category Archives: justice

Funding schools for needs not pupil numbers

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Following on from yesterday’s post about the report from the Children’s Commissioner on children growing up, I talked this morning to a head teacher about some of the issues which faced them on a daily basis. According to the Children’s Commissioners report, their school is in an advantageous area for growing up. https://www.childrenscommissioner.gov.uk/resource/the-childhood-lottery-the-hardest-places-to-grow-up-in-england/

Yesterday’s report worries me because small pockets of deprivation within areas singled out as successful by reports such as that from the Children’s Commissioner may not have the mechanism to deal with their localised problems.

The school whose headteacher I was talking to is part of MAT, along with another school in the same postcode. Across that postcode, are two maintained schools, (one VA/one VC), and schools in three other multi-academy trusts, one with six schools, one with three schools and two MATs with two schools each.

How do you manage strategy for the area in such circumstances. No doubt health and social services can have area boards, but who has the power to bring together schools to work out a common approach to local issues?

Probably not at present the local authorities, both upper and lower tier, although through its Children’s Services the upper tier authoritiy does manage, social services, youth services and youth justice. Should it once again be given strategic powers for local areas? Central government has tried such an approach with ideas ranging from Blair’s Education Action Zones (EAZs) to the Conservative government’s Opportunity Areas policy. Most of these failed to improve education outcomes for the localities where they intervened. Would a more local approach have succeeded? Certainly not without resources.

I am led to wonder whether the present funding formula for schools is fit for purpose during a period of declining rolls.  Pitting schools against schools to recruit pupils doesn’t guarantee schools the resources necessary to ensure pupils achieve outcomes: some pupils need more resources than others. This was recognised with the Pupil Premium, but seems to have been overlooked in terms of the failure of local decision-making that has resulted from a fractured system of decision-making.

One example quoted to me was how trauma in pupils is addressed. This might arise because a parent was handed down a prison sentence, and the family name appeared in the local paper. How traumatic is that for a nine-year-old. Then, there are those living in overcrowded flats, sometimes in tower blocks. How traumatic is that to a seven-year-old.

All too often the simple administrative solution is to  create an EHCP for the child rather than to work with the school on funding to deal with the in-school issues resulting from the trauma, and to work to reduce exclusions that might result, even with an EHCP, and support better learning outcomes. Of course, all staff in all agencies are working under great pressure, so shortcuts can be an easy solution.

My thesis is that schools in a locality should once again be part of a system that acknowledges their needs, and that across a large administrative area, needs between schools may be different. Money is a help, but also a common set of values is also important.

What worries me is that a high percentage of schools in challenging areas are church or faith-based schools. What part are faith leaders playing in making sure that the schools they are responsible for serve their communities as effectively as possible. In the same vein, what part do local politicians play in ensuring the best outcomes for their residents?

Nationally as the Children’s Commissioner identified in her report, we need funding for targeted areas, but, in addition, we also need vision and the will to effect change on the part of both local and national politicians.  We need to create a school system capable of dealing with the challenges of all our children whether they are growing up in challenging area within a mostly great place to live or one of England’s deprived communities.

Growing up in England: The Children’s Commissioner’s Report

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The Children’s Commissioner, Dame Rachel de Souza, has issued a comprehensive report on growing up in England. ‘The Childhood Lottery: The hardest places to grow up in England’ The Childhood Lottery: The hardest places to grow up in England | Children’s Commissioner for England The data comes from matrixes across the Commissioner’s six pillar of work

Health: health services and outcomes

Care: social care and outcomes

Community; policing, youth justice and services available to children in l where they live

Education: jobs and skills: schools and  post-16 plus educational outcomes

Family: housing, play , poverty and family life

Better world: the environment, children’s voices and citizenship

The data are for the 150+ upper-tier authorities, so London boroughs, metropolitan districts, unitary councils and the remaining shire counties. As a result, the authorities range in size from Rutland to Lancashire and Kent. Some areas are more homogenous than others: some are contiguous with health, police and other non-local government functions, while others are part of larger organisation for policing and health with policies set outside the local authority areas. Some functions are split between upper and lower tier authorities, such as housing and recreation facilities.

Despite these issues, that in some cases make the average for the authority not reflective of its different parts, and highlight some of the issues with dashboards, discussed in a recent post on this blog. Are dashboards useful? | John Howson this is a powerful report bringing together lots of useful data.

There are dangers here. Oxfordshire is ranked equal 11th with York, and the fourth best county to grow up in England. But, tomorrow, I will be at a workshop , initiated by an Oxfordshire-based multi-academy trust, aiming to improve the lives of children in the most challenging part of the county’s urban landscape. (The report classifies Oxfordshire as rural). The issues in this area would have been highlighted if district councils had been used as the data point instead of upper-tier authorities. Parliamentary constituencies, where most of this data is probably kept somewhere for MPs questions, might have been an even better and more equal frame of reference, allowing different between both Tottenham and Highgate within Haringey to have been judged separately.

Rural areas may also have a bit of a raw deal: you can’t count bus data where there are no buses. The data on childcare placement more than 20 miles from their home doesn’t discount kinship care that might be valuable, but not local in a large rural county.

However, it is easy to carp, and one cannot but praise the efforts of the Children’s Commissioner. The survey may also reveal how weakened local government has become. Take youth justice: how many councillors attend local committees to discuss approaches to this vital topic. Do cabinet members for Children’s Services even know that they often have this responsibility?

I was fortunate, when a Cabinet member, to have both a Director of Children’s Services and a Youth Justice lead that kept me informed, and allowed me to understand the importance of this area. On the other hand, the Health and Wellbeing Board was a challenge for me, as it covered so many different areas, and children’s health didn’t have a sub-committee. The fact that Oxfordshire is a Marmot County had nothing to do with me as a cabinet member for children’s services.

There are messages for politicians at all levels in this report, not only about childhood, but also into young adulthood. Sadly, many adults face the same problems, and solving those issues might also help future generations of children and young people growing up in a divided England.

Social mobility and the far right

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The announcement that that Social Mobility Commission is to be abolished was announced when I was on holiday. As a result, I have only just caught up with news of its demise – one of the few QUANGOs to escape previous culls. While the term ‘class’ for its replacement within the civil service may be more ‘in your face’ than ‘social mobility’, I suppose it fits better with the debate about ‘White working class boys’ that has featured in many discussions about educational attainment during the past decade.

I am sad to see the Commission abolished. Taking work back into government departments inevitably makes policy discussion less transparent, and places greater emphasis on the work of think tanks. The Commission has had something of a chequered history, as might be expected given its role and the fact that rt worked under a Conservative government for most of its life. I documented one such event in this blog post from 2017 Social Mobility Commission | John Howson that interestingly also mentioned AI, and the risk of the rise of the ‘far right’.

‘With the IT revolution once again picking up speed, and predications of massive job losses from the growth in Artificial Intelligence awakening the Luddite mentality in many of us, the Commission must act not only as the government’s conscience on social mobility, but also as a source of genuine new policies that are radical and forward thinking. More of the same just won’t work.

We have seen in Germany that the failure to ensure the success of the economy across the whole country has inevitably led to the rise of the far right in politics. Social mobility is important, but we cannot ignore those left behind. They must not become the poor relations kept, for ever, out of sight.’ Social Mobility Commission | John Howson Still, it is sad to see a Labour government abolish it.

I had a number of discussions with officials at the commission over the years, most notably about teacher supply matters. The following post followed the publication of one of the Commission’s reports in 2019  We cannot ignore those left behind | John Howson and also shows that, even under Conservative control, those of us from all political parties concerned about the issue of deprivation and education were able to have our voice heard: such is the value of good quality scrutiny.

One of the key outputs from the Social Mobility Commission was its annual State of the Nation Report. It will be a disappointment to lose that scrutiny, and I hope civil servants will either want to continue it or ask The Office for National Statistics to take it over. Here are a couple of links to my blog posts about the report:

Class rules: not OK | John Howson

Industrial revolutions alter a country’s geography | John Howson

Birds of a feather | John Howson

As I write this on a Sunday morning, I am reminded of the phrase in Matthew’s gospel at Chapter 26 and Verse 11: ‘The poor you will always have with you.’

That statement is not an admission of defeat, but a call to arms’. Abolishing the Social Mobility Commission must not weaken our mission for a more equal society. Now, I wonder where that advocation will feature any policy resulting from the spending of the £76 million pounds received by a political party this week?

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026

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Hurrah for Section 61 and 62 of this new Act of Parliament. These two sections extend control over in-year admissions by local authorities to include academies. This has been achieved by inserting new clauses in the existing legislation, in order to widen the reach from just non-academy schools, historically controlled by local authorities, to now include academies and, I assume, free schools.

Regular readers will know that I started a campaign for this change way back in 2017, after I discovered how long it was taking to place children taken into care in a new school on some occasions, if that school was an academy. See Support ‘Looked After’ young people’s education | John Howson and Don’t forget Jacob | John Howson along with various other posts over the years on this blog.

The previous Children’s Commissioner also campaigned on this issue, and I raised it in November 2024 in questions to the Minister of State at the DfE when he spoke to the ADCS conference in Liverpool that year.

I hope the relevant sections of the new Act will be swifty enacted, rather than just sitting on the statute book.

There is then the issue of selective schools and children that would have attended them if taken into care before the selection process took place.

I hope that local authorities with selective schools in their area will ensure that such children are able to be placed in such schools. After all, a child should not go from the top set in a comprehensive school to a school that will not stretch their abilities to the full.

Now that education is expected of all up to eighteen, it is also important to discuss whether local authorities should have similar powers over the 16-18 age-group and education? This would include further education colleges and the 14-18 sector and studio schools and UTCs that might be a bit of anomaly under some readings of the new clauses in the 2023 Act? Hopefully, some one will tell me that I am wrong on this point.

Here is Section 62

62Power to direct admission: extension to Academies

(1) In section 96(8) of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998 (schools subject to local authority powers to direct admission of individual pupils), for “a maintained school” substitute “—

(a)a maintained school, or

(b)an Academy school, other than one specially organised to make special educational provision for pupils with special educational needs.”

So, my thanks to all that have made this change come about. It has taken too long, but hopefully it will help to reduce the break in schooling for those taken into care that have to move school because of the distance of their new placement from their existing school.

There is much else in the Act to welcome, but where is the Curriculum Review and the need to teach citizenship now the government ahs reaffirmed its intention to reduce the voting age from 18 to 16?

Celebrating 100,000 Blog Visitors: A Thank You to Readers

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Yesterday evening this blog received its 100,000 visitor, according to WordPress statistics. I would like to say a very big thank you to everyone that has read a post on this blog since I started it, way back in early 2013. According to Chat GPT, only 5% of blogs started in that year still survive. This blog not only survives, but is also thriving.

From time to time, WordPress suggest I make a charge to visitors to read previous posts. I have steadfastly ignored those blandishments in favour of open access for all. I am sure that policy has helped gain me extra visitors.

However, writing a blog does take time and effort, and if you know a library that might like to book of the 2013 posts, some of which WordPress no longer allows access to, please suggest they buy the book either as a e-book from Amazon or as a paperback from myself through the email at: dataforeducation@gmail.com

Once this book has covered its costs, I will publish another on the 100 most read posts – with a bit of commentary as to why they might have received so much attention. To date, posts about teachers’ holiday entitlements lead by a long way. It seems like the myth of long holidays is deeply engrained in the public’s psyche.

As someone that failed their English Language examination at age 16, I never thought that I would write a column for the TES between 1997 and 2010, and this blog since 2013. Sub-editors taught me a lot, and on-line software has helped. Interestingly, I have experimented recently with turning the text of a blog post into a webinar conversation. If you ae interested, I will leave you to search the 2026 posts for an example.   

In the past, comments were more frequent that they are these days, although ‘likes’ still seem to crop up from time to time. My thanks to those that ‘like’ every post I write. I am not used to having such a fan base.

My especially thanks to, Janet D, Frank S and Sue B for their many comments. Along with teachingbattleground, they make up the most frequent commentators over the years on my posts. Frank was at school with me, and I still remember his part in TCS plays.

Where now for the blog? Well, I hope to keep it going for some time yet, as there is certainly plenty of material to write about. My special field is the labour market for teachers and, especially, headteachers, where I have more than 40 years of data from my research. Later today, I will post, as my next blog post, about how my findings compare with a report that was published yesterday. AI can do some things, but it still has much to be taught to make it even more useful as a research tool.

So, once again, thank you to my audience, whether you have just read one post, have delved into the archive as part of research for a project, or are one of the small number of regular readers.  

30th April update

A, my thanks to you, the readers for the best April ever for the blog. 2,000 readers over the courses of the month!

Thank you.

Teaching; a well behaved profession

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A recent post on LinkedIn asked about whether a ban from teaching, with the possibility of a request for reinstatement after a set period of time was appropriate as a punishment for a drink driving offence by a teacher? This set me thinking about the Teaching Regulation Agency (TRA) that oversees the handling of conduct cases against those working as teachers. The Agency also handles requests for Qualified Teacher Status. Their latest report and accounts can be found at:  Teaching Regulation Agency Annual Report and Accounts 2024-25

Drink driving cases involving teachers that come before the TRA are relatively rare. There have been around 12 hearings between January and August 2025 where this was the main issue in relation to misconduct by a teacher. Interestingly, while, overall, cases against male teachers significantly outnumber those heard against female teachers, in drink driving cases there were only three hearings against male teacher compared with nine against female teachers. In three cases no order was made, the finding of the case proved and the associated publicity were deemed enough of a sanction. In the other cases, the teacher could seek to have prohibition notice set aside after a period of between two to five years. If successful they would then be returned to the register of qualified teachers.  

The TRA annual report for 2024-25 notes that there were only four prohibition set-aside hearings during the year for any imposition of a prohibition notice, of which two were successful. So, it seems unlikely that any of these teachers will return to the profession, at least in a regulated setting. As I have noted before, ‘Teacher’ is not officially a reserved occupation terms so, rather like estate agent, anyone can use the term. I would have liked to see the present Bill before parliament provide the status of a reserved occupation to the term ’teacher’, so that only those with QTS or in training could use the title.

The most common reason for prohibition so far in 2025 is misconduct of a sexual nature. This ranges from criminal convictions for anything from rape to the taking of inappropriate photographs. More than 80 male teachers, but fewer than ten female teachers, have had cases of this type of misconduct heard so far in 2025. Most resulted in prohibition orders, with no opportunity for a set-aside request. However, a few cases did allow for requests for reinstatement after a set period. These included the two teachers that had, presumably consensual, sex on school premises.

There were relatively few cases concerning teachers or school leaders interfering with examination or SATs outcomes. Of seven such cases, five resulted on ‘No Order’ and the others a prohibition with permission to request a set-aside after two years. It might seem that the profession has got the message about the need for letting children’s work speak for itself.

Most cases of ‘improper conduct’ that are not sexual in nature have resulted in prohibition with a request for set-aside after two to three years; exceptionally it may be a five-year period that was imposed. These can include single instances of primary school teachers slapping a pupil once, although such instances are mercifully rare, and often reveal the frustration that can face any teacher at any time when in a challenging disciplinary situation.

Teacher conduct is highly regulated, and there is now a considerable body of ‘case law’, so it is not surprising that many hearing are heard ‘in absentia’ as the individual may well have been reconciled to the end of their career in teaching.

The TRA Annual Report listed 297 hearings in 2024-25, with 191 prohibition notices resulting from the hearings. For a profession of well over half a million, this is a credit to the responsible behaviour of almost everyone working as a teacher.   

1,500 posts and counting

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When I wrote my first post on this blog, on the 25th of January 2013, I little though that I would reach 1,500 posts. However, despite stopping posting for 18 months, between the autumn of 2023 and May this year, while I was otherwise occupied as a cabinet member on Oxfordshire County Council the blog has now reached the milestone of 1,500 posts, including 40 so far this year since I started the blog up again this May.

Since one of the features of the blog has been commenting on numbers, here is a bit of self-indulgence. The blog has had 175,983 views since its inception, from 93,875 visitors, and has attracted 1,459 comments. The average length of a post has been between 550-670 words, although there have been a few longer posts in response to consultations and Select Committee inquiries.

How much holiday do teacher have? is the post with the most views – more than 6,500 and rising. Some posts have had no views, but are still an important record of my thoughts. The United Kingdom has been responsible for the most visitors: not a surprise, as most posts are about education in England. However, the USA comes second, with more than 15,000 views. Apart from some former French speaking countries in West Africa, Greenland and Paraguay, almost all other countries have had someone that has viewed the blog at least once.

Later this year, I will be publishing a book of the 2013 posts from the blog, and at that point they will disappear from public view. If you want to register for the book, check on Amazon after August 2025 or email dataforeducation@gmail.com for publication information. Alternatively, ask your favourite bookshop or library to order a copy.

I am sometimes asked about my favourite post. With 1,500 to choose from, that’s difficult, as many haven’t seen the light of day for a decade or so. However, Am I a blob? From 2013, was fun to write, and the posts about Jacob’s Law finally brought about a change in the legislation over admissions in the current bill going through parliament.

Most posts have been written, as this one is, in one session from start to finish, with editing just to tidy up my thoughts. Some are more passionate than others, and many are about teacher supply issues, where I am also researching a book on the subject covering the past 60 years of ‘feast and famine’. Much of the recent history has been well chronicled in this blog.

Thanks for reading, and for the comments. Who would have thought that someone that failed ‘O’ level English six times would end up writing a blog!  Funny old world.

Reducing exclusions from schools

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Reading the Youth Justice Board Bulletin this week alerted me to a new publication about a piece of research into exclusions by schools led by the University of Oxford. Equity-by-Design_Excluded-Lives.pdf  The report contains the following in its conclusion

‘Addressing inequality in education requires a radical rethink that shifts the focus from accountability on school academic performance to accountability for the inclusion and wellbeing of the child in balance with achievement and attainment. We believe that ‘Equity by Design: Our Children, Our Responsibility’ contributes to this essential process’. (page 8)

The report also notes that ‘The challenge for schools in England and the current Labour government in its policy development is how to address issues of equity and inclusion in schools in a period of multiple pressures on school leaders and staff, their pupils, and available resources. These pressures are reflected in high and rising levels of exclusion that disproportionately affect vulnerable and marginalised children and their communities.’

All worthy stuff, but the lack of a focus on staffing in schools, especially in view of the interactions with adults being the most common reasons for an exclusion was a bit of a surprise to me.

‘Training from Initial Teacher Education/Initial Teacher Training to the National Professional Qualification for Headship should address inclusive and relational practice and its implications for teaching and learning, behaviour policies, and pastoral care, as relevant to the context, role, and stage of professional development of staff.’

I found their conclusions on staffing wordier that useful. I hope they meant that all staff need to be trained to be aware of circumstances that might escalate into an exclusion, and that training should be tailored to the circumstances of the school. It is important for schools to identify what percentage of exclusions result from interactions with non-teaching staff that don’t seem to rate a mention in the report.

Still, the support in the report for a collaborative approach that involved local authorities did cheer me up.

‘Local area collaborative infrastructure models.

In order to tackle what we identified as the somewhat fragmented middle tier, policy development should encourage and enable trusts, schools, AP, FE, LAs, Local Inclusion Boards, and Family Hubs to form local partnership ‘Inclusion Groups’ based on collaborative working and the sharing of learning with joint accountability for decisions.

The remit of these ‘Inclusion Groups’ would be to collaboratively identify local needs and to reconfigure where responsibilities should lie to address and meet these needs. By doing so they will be able to determine provision for individuals and decide on the overall approach and its implementation.

These Inclusion Groups should enable LAs to support and challenge schools/trusts as well as empower headteachers and other partners to request action. They should also develop family hubs and other co-location models and work with local communities and third sector partners. Their work should Reviews’ and they should report back to partners annually. Additionally, the role of education should be strengthened in local multi-agency safeguarding arrangements and partnerships.’

However, I am worried about the funding for such inclusion groups and who is to take responsibility for them in the fractured world of education that exists at the present time.

With exclusions at around their highest levels for two decades, there is clearly an issue to be tackled. Personally, I think the curriculum is the best place to start. Reviewing the Key Stage 4 offering so that it provides a relevant for all pupils and not just for those aiming to stay on at school into Key Stage 5 would be a good place to begin any changes. However, we may not have the teachers to offer any radically different curriculum at the present time.

A new model for schooling?

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Public First have today published an interesting report on the ‘collapse’ in school attendance.

Here are the headline conclusions. ATTENDANCE-REPORT-V02.pdf (publicfirst.co.uk)

“Quite simply, too many children are currently missing school to the extent that it affects the continuity of their learning. Disadvantaged pupils who most need the security, stability and care that good schools offer, are most likely to be persistently absent – and the gap is widening. The current data points to a full-blown national crisis – and this report’s findings help to explain why.

The link between attendance and attainment is well known. Sporadic attendance impacts children’s academic results, mental health and resilience. Those who take an occasional day (or a week, or a fortnight) off school miss building blocks of knowledge. Catching up is a treadmill that becomes unmanageable and so their learning is fractured.”

The most worrying aspect of the report is that “Disadvantaged pupils are most likely to be persistently absent.” This raises a number of questions for policymakers at both national and local levels.

How do we reset the link between education and society so that the disadvantaged see the benefits of schooling, both at the formative stage of a child’s early years and the foundation stage and also later in their approach to adulthood and the world beyond schooling.

I thought the change to patterns of schooling might come with the third wave of the IT revolution, and be driven by middle class attitudes to a pattern of schooling that has changed little over the past half century. However, Public First point to a different picture, and one where urgent action is needed to reconnect with a group in society that seemingly no longer sees the value in schooling.

Government’s have tried the stick, but this group are often impervious to fines, as they don’t have the money to pay them, and it is not worth the costs of chasing them. With a criminal justice service no longer fully functional at a local level, more draconian actions seem like tilting at windmills; a waste of effort. Rather, is it time for a campaign to win hearts and minds. Insert schooling into the most viewed soaps and TV programmes. Find and use the influences of this group in society; footballers, singers; personalities.

The education service must become more welcoming. During the recent hot spell, some school leaders put discipline before compassion and ordered winter uniforms to be worn. Is this a time for such strict action or for a different approach?

Should schools with good attendance records help fund those that need to reengage with parents, and does our fractures system enable best use of resources to meet this challenge of selling education to those that may well benefit the most from what it has to offer?

As a teacher in the 1970s, I know that some children rarely attended school, and were often disruptive when present. I welcomed their absence then. These days, I take a wider view: but forcing children into school without recognising the needs of schools as well as of parents is to deal with only one part of the problem. Please do read Public First’s report

Ethnic Minority Head Teachers: scant progress

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In October 2021, I wrote a blog about the number of ethnic minority head teachers ‘We need more black headteachers in our schools’ | John Howson (wordpress.com) I thought it was time to bring the data up to date.

YearEthnic minority Head teachers (including white minorities)
2015/20161,473
2016/20171,480
2017/20181,512
2018/20191,531
2019/20201,530
2020/20211,532
2021/20221,564
2022/20231,627

Source Annual School Workforce Census

Despite the increase of 63 in the total number of these head teachers between November 2021 and November 2022, and including all minority groups not classified as ‘White British’ in the total, there were apparently only 1,627 head teachers self-identified as from minority backgrounds in November 2022. This an increase of only around 10%, or just 154 additional head teachers from minority backgrounds, over the eight years represented in the table. There may be more, because the number that refused to answer the question increased from 117 to 192 during the same period.

During the same period, the total of ‘White’ head teachers only changed from 19,520 in November 2019 to 19,104 in November 2022.

There is better news on the ITT front, where ITT undergraduate entrants from minority ethnic groups increased from 12% to 17% of the total intake between 2019/2020 and 2022/2023. For those on postgraduate courses, the increase in the percentage was from 19% to 22% during the same period. However, I suspect that the distribution was skewed towards certain parts of the country. Sadly, we don’t easily have access to that data.

The discussion at the Select Committee last Tuesday about discrimination and unconscious bias meaning that more ethnic minority applicants were not offered places mirrored the finding from the two studies that I conducted for the then National College. Progress is being made, but slowly. My research also found that ethnic minority applicants fared better when there were fewer applicants to select from, as there was in most subjects last year. What will happen if the economy slows and the number of applicants for ITT increases once again?

Given that boys from an African Caribbean background do relatively poorly in our schooling system, it would also be interesting to know whether there is more of a challenge recruiting men form minority backgrounds than there is recruiting women and whether certain subjects struggle more than others? How many physics ITT recruits came for ethnic minority backgrounds in each of the last five years, and were they recruited mainly from a small number of courses. If they aren’t in the pipeline of learning then they won’t be there to become teachers of future generations.

For over a quarter of a century we have been urging women into science, engineering and other STEM subjects. Should we now look to do the same with other under-represented groups. As a large employer of graduates, does teaching have a responsibility to not just recruit graduates but also to influence the pipeline. After all that pipeline starts in schools.