Category Archives: leadership

AI in education: tackling the third revolution

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Earlier this week, I sat in on a webinar hosted by the Education Policy Institute about Workforce Sustainability in the modern school system. The recording of the webinar can be accessed at Workforce sustainability in the modern school system Inevitably, much of the discussion was around how AI might make a difference to schools. AI is the third wave of the IT revolution, after the initial microprocessor revolution of the late 1970s and early 1980s, and the arrival of the web and the development of means to access it from desktops to mobile phones, and even watches, from the mid-1990s onward. AI has the possibility to significantly impact on the school system as we know it even more than the previous two ‘revolutions.

The impact might be in four areas

Recruitment – this will be cheaper, faster and more complex as both candidates and recruiters strive to make use of AI to help them secure either the perfect job or the best candidate, whether it be a teacher or any other post in a school.

Administration – compared to the days of pen and paper, typewriters and adding machines, technology in the past 50 years have vastly changed how processes are handled, and especially how data can be analysed. EPI even have a Model, described in the webinar, for assessing how MATs are operating. AI offers much more power to create systems with less need to burden teachers. Tracking individual learning will be far enhanced, well beyond what is possible even today.

Learning – AI could transform how students learn. No longer will teachers need to worry about coping with a range of abilities in the same learning setting: AI will tailor the learning package to the individual and make the learning experience stimulating enough to motivate every child. In doing so it could fundamentally change the role of a teacher, removing some of the drudgery and enhancing the personal interactions with learners. But, will the lightbulb moments teacher value so much disappear?

The contract between The State and families – will the current 190-day requirement to attend a ‘school’ or face sanctions that has existed since 1870 in England be replaced by a different sort of model where learning is at the pace of learner, and qualifications are obtained when ready. Could AI be used to identify those children not making progress, and offer support that families would be required to accept? I don’t expect such a radical change anytime soon, but it would be worth looking at how different groups in society see schooling today and what they want from it as the twenty first century enters the second quarter of the century.

What is certain is that the State needs to participate, and not leave everything to the market. There is a lot of profit to be made from AI, and schools represent a large potential market. The first step will probably be to agree on standards and certification for learning materials so individual schools and teachers can be sure what they are using are high quality learning materials. This is much more important that the debate over banning mobile phones in schools, but receives much less attention from politicians.

Ethnic minority groups still excluded from teaching

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Yesterday, the NfER published a report about ethnic minorities and the teaching profession; from entry to leadership. Ethnic disparities in entry to teacher training, teacher retention and progression to leadership – NFER sponsored by Mission 44.

This is an issue that has concerned me for the past 30 years since I first wrote an article for the then NUT (now NEU) in their magazine abut the future of the teaching profession. The article asked whether or not the teaching profession was destined to be ‘young, white and female’. A decade later, I produced two reports for those in government responsible for teacher recruitment about, firstly, all minority groups in 2008, and then specifically ethnic minority groups in 2011. The latter report concluded the following:

‘Of three hundred graduate would-be teachers; 100 each from the Asian, Black and White groupings used in this study:

 24 of the white group, 14 of the Asian group and just nine of the Black group are likely to fulfil their aspiration of teaching in a state funded school classroom.

Even in the sciences, where shortages have been the greatest out of three hundred would-be science teachers there would be only some 34 White teachers, 17 Asian teachers and 11 Black teachers.’ (Howson, 2011 author’s copy)

The NfER report has concluded over a decade later that:

‘There are significant ethnic disparities in postgraduate ITT rejection rates among UK-domiciled applicants that are not explained by differences in applicant and application characteristics. The persistence of ethnic disparities that are not explained by the applicant characteristics that we can observe in the available data suggests that discrimination by ethnic background is likely to play a role, although we cannot definitively rule out other factors (such as differences in qualification levels or work experience).’

In the 2008 report I helped produce, we also concluded that it was sometimes challenging to identify rationales for outcomes about ITT recruitment.  Take an example of a course with 20 places and 100 applicants; 60 women and 40 men. Assuming all are graduates with the same class of UK degree – unlikely, but there can be too many variables to make easy judgements possible – how do you allocate places. One possibility is on a first come, first served basis. So, if men apply later than women, as is often the case for new graduates, they may find all the places allocated by the time that they apply.

A fair distribution might be 12 women and 8 men offered places, based upon all applications. Now add another category, ethnicity. Where do you place that, ahead of gender? Again, what of the timing of applications. Should there be a cut-off date for ITT applications whereby all applications received by that date are assessed together, rather than on a first come, first served basis, as at present?

A further complication is around differential rates of application. Historically applications from those identifying as black African males were mostly received by a small number of courses. Even if those courses only took those applicants, there would still be an issue at the macro level, and no other groups would have access to those courses.

In 2008, we also discovered larger courses were generally better at recruiting diverse cohorts from a larger pool of applicants. Does a move to a more school-based ITT system make recruitment of minorities more or less likely?

This is an important issue for society, and one that I hope this latest report helps stimulate discussion around whether changes are needed in ITT.

Green shoots, but still issues with the teacher workforce in schools

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This week the DfE issue the annual data collected in last Novembers census. There are two main sets of data, those on the school workforce and those on schools and their pupils. This blog looks at the Workforce data. The DfE link is School workforce in England, Reporting year 2024 – Explore education statistics – GOV.UK

Here are the key points as identified by the DfE.

  • There are 468,300 FTE teachers, which is an decrease of 400 since last year and an increase of 26,900 since 2010 when the school workforce census began. Trends differ by school phase; state-funded nursery and primary schools saw a decrease (2,900, -1.3%) whereas there were increases in secondary (1,400, 0.7%) and special and Pupil Referral Units (900, 3.2%). 
  • There are 288,800 FTE teaching assistants, which is an increase of 5,900since last year and an increase of 67,300 since 2011 when the census began collecting support staff information.
  • Pupil to teacher ratios are similar to last year: 20.8 pupils per teacher in nurseries and primary schools (the same as last year), 16.7 in secondary schools (down 0.1) and 6.5 in special and PRU schools (up 0.1).
  • The number of teachers entering and leaving service both decreased, though the number of entrants continues to be higher than for leavers. This, combined with changes in working patterns and an increase in teachers without qualified teacher status, resulted in a marginal decrease to the number of teachers in England.
  • 9 in 10 teachers remain teaching in state-funded schools in England one year after qualification. 
  • Teacher vacancies and temporarily filled posts decreased in November 2024after three years of increases.

Here are my comments:

 PTRs: looking over the longer period since 1975, primary PTRs have improved from 24.0 to 20.1, some 3.2 pupils better, whereas in secondary schools the change has just been from 17.0 to 16.7, albeit this is 0.1 pupil per teacher better than last year despite all the comments about funding. By the way, I do wish the DfE would not use up and down in relation to PTRs as it can be misleading.

Workforce: Here there is both good and bad news. The bad news is that the 16999 New entrant numbers were well below the average of the past 14 years, and some 9,400 below the peak reached in 2015/16. The good news is that this should mark the low point of the present cycle, and numbers should increase from next year onwards. Deferred entrants were also below the average for the past 14 years at just 2,710

And now more good news. Returners to teaching were up to their highest level since 2014/15 and entrants new to state schools were above the 14-year average, but below last year’s number.

Taken overall, entrants in total at 41,736 were the lowest recorded for any year in the past 14. Thankfully, this is less of a concern with pupil numbers falling in the primary sector across much of the country and likely to fall in the secondary sector as well over the next few years.

Age of the workforce: While the DfE is happy to note that “A third of the teacher workforce is aged 30 to 39”, this disguises the fact that teachers under the age of 29 now only account for 17.6% of the workforce. This is where the school leaders of tomorrow will be mainly drawn from. In 2016/17 teachers in their 20s accounted for 23.2% of the workforce. With cuts to ITT targets over the next few years more than likely, the age profile of new entrants might be something worth considering in order to ensure adequate leadership candidates in the 2040s.

Ethnicity: there has been some further improvement in the number of teachers from ethnic minorities, but the teacher workforce is not yet representative of the population as a whole.

Support Staff: interestingly, despite all the talk about budget issues, numbers rose. Are teaching assistants being used to replace more expensive teachers as a result of budget pressures. If so, it is interesting to see more administrative and other support staff being employed. More than 2,600 non-teaching staff are once again employed in leadership positions, reflecting the diversity of roles with a school in the 2020s.

Finally, the fact that there were more drama teachers employed by schools than all design and technology teachers should give pause for some thought abut the curriculum schools are able to deliver.

The Spending Review and savings

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Next week will set the direction for government spending over the rest of this parliament. Although education is a ‘protected’ department that may not mean as much now as it did last year at the time of the general election.

Changes in the geopolitical situation, and an economy where the green shoots are barely peeking through the surface, and could be killed off by the equivalent of one night of freezing temperatures doesn’t bode well for the education sector. This is especially the case when set against falling school rolls and the crisis in the higher education sector. The skills sector might be the one bright spot, and it wouldn’t surprise me if that is where most of the investment will be directed.

The present government is lucky in that the weakening job market means recruiting new teachers will be easier, and the pressure for pay rises might also abate if the choice is more pay for some and redundancies for others. Unions would, in my view, be wise to tackle conditions of service rather than majoring on pay rises and the risk of confrontation with a government that has been generous so far, but might not want to see the limits of that generosity tested.

So, might there be saving to be made?

If there are school closures, will this allow the most expensive and inefficient buildings to be removed from the estate. Why spend time taking out asbestos, if you can just close the school? How would such a policy be managed? Frankly, I have no idea, but to let market forces prevail might have an unnecessary cost attached. So parental choice or rational use of buildings?

And then there is the muddle of academies and the maintained sector.

I looked at the accounts for the period up to August last summer for the 30 single academies and Multi Academy Trusts with schools in one local authority area. The total pay bill for their single highest paid employee came to around £4 million pounds. Now, take out of that total the Trusts where the headteacher is the single highest paid employee, and the total might be around £2 million. Cut this to just five trusts: one each for the two main Christian Churches (CofE and RC) and one each for other primary, secondary and special schools and what might be the savings?

Then there is the audit, legal and professional fees. I doubt whether the private sector charges the same rate as local authorities do to maintained schools. Perhaps academies should be required to employ local authority services, if the quote is lower than that from the private sector?

SEND is the other area where spending needs reviewing. For many, the cost of an EHCP started early in the primary sector should be the first point of focus. Are there differences between schools in different locations, and if so, then why? Can an early diagnosis save costs.

What of Education Other than at School packages? How much are they costing the system, and why are they necessary in such a growing number of cases?

With 150 plus local authorities, how much might be saved from present budgets in order to support investment in teaching and learning in the new world created by the latest technological revolution?

Do teachers lack for good career advice?

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A quarter of a century ago, I started a career clinic on the pages of the TES when it was still part of News International. I recall going to Admiral House, their then HQ, and presenting a live webinar where teachers posed question on line, and I dictated the answer in real time to a typist and the answers then appeared on the web. Later, between 2008 and 2011, I answered over 5,000 questions in a twice weekly on-line clinic.

I recall these memories, not to boast, but to ask whether anything is now better for teachers? Do MATs help their staff with career development. Do mature entrants receive any advice about careers when they train to be a teacher, or is the emphasis from the DfE’s website onwards just about bringing them into the profession? I am inspired to ask these questions having read laments about the challenges around returning to teach in the UK after a spell abroad.

Now it maybe your partner has returned to the UK for job reasons or the geopolitical situation makes teaching overseas a risk at a particular moment I time.

Here in England, who is telling teachers what the consequences for their careers will be if the Spending Review doesn’t compensate for falling rolls across the school system, and VAT has been imposed on private schools? What does the 6,500 extra teachers mean for your career as a thirty-something teacher of English in a council area now run by Reform?

I assume that the professional associations provide support. Indeed, I used to run seminars on ‘managing your teaching career’ for one of them. But, when there is a teacher shortage, and rolls are rising, teaching posts are easy to come by. That won’t be the picture for much of the next decade, whatever government is in power.

Then there are those that want to leave teaching and either set up their own business, as consultants, curriculum content creators or just tutors. Where do they turn for advice?

Fifteen years ago, I charged £100 for a CV appraisal and a phone conversation with teachers and double that for school leaders. What might be the going rate today?

With universities facing cutbacks, should they start being entrepreneurial and offer career services to teachers? What about the big recruitment agencies that make money from schools. How much do they reinvest in the sector?

Today is an interesting day to write this post, as tomorrow is the 31st of May, the traditional date for final resignations for those leaving at the end of term. This year’s output of new teachers will be particularly aware of how successful they have been in finding a job already. If they and their colleagues haven’t found a job yet, what is someone going to do about that in the face of the huge expansion of in-school graduate apprenticeships announced recently by the DfE. How will the axing of Level 7 apprenticeships affect serving teachers and their career ambitions?

Lots of questions, but few answers. I would welcome your views and comments.

How will the Apprenticeship Levy changes affect schools?

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Will the changes to the Apprenticeship Levy announced today affect schools? I have argued before I this blog that the Apprenticeship Levy is in fact a tax on schools, and especially primary schools, as their individual budgets often all below the threshold for paying the levy, but, unless they are small stand-alone academies, they pay the Levy. This is because they are either maintained schools, where the local authority is the employer, or they are part of MATs or other arrangements where the salary bill crosses the threshold for paying the levy.

Now, a tax may not be a bad thing per se, especially if the proceeds are used for the good of those paying it. When it was first introduced some local authorities were slow to ensure the proceeds of the Levy were used by schools, and ended up returning unused cash to HM Treasury. Hopefully, that doesn’t happen anywhere today.

The announcement by the DfE this morning of the effective abolition of the Level 7 apprenticeships, expressed by the government as: “Refocusing funding away from Level 7 (masters-level) apprenticeships from January 2026”, (DfE Press Notice) comes hard on the heels of the announcement on the 9th May for the school sector about teaching apprenticeships that said:

“postgraduate teaching apprenticeship (PGTA) courses will be slashed from twelve months to nine, aligning to the school year and getting newly trained teachers into the classroom sooner.  

Courses currently run from September to September, meaning trainees typically have to wait months before kicking off their careers, and making it challenging for schools to support apprentices while training.  

The change will be made from August this year and is expected to open up more opportunities to train to teach, as well as accelerating trainees’ journeys to the front of the classroom.” Red tape slashed to get more teachers into classrooms – GOV.UK

On the one hand, the government gives, but on the other hand it could take away in-service opportunities for teacher development where these were paid from the Levy for Level 7 courses. The outcome must not be unspent levy cash once again being returned to the government by employers of teachers and other staff working in schools.

Incidentally, school leaders should check whether the employers of those services they contract out have a policy for using the Apprenticeship Levy that they pay. If they don’t, then schools may not be receiving full value for money for their expenditure.

How will the news affect higher education departments working with pre-service and in-service teachers, and others in the education field? If there is a move away from courses where trainees pay fees towards an employment-based apprenticeship with a salary and associated benefits that might reduce interest in higher education courses. If the removal of Level 7 apprenticeships cuts enrolment on higher degrees that could be a double whammy, coming just at a time when training targets are being affected by falling pupil numbers.  This may not be an easy summer for those responsible for training teachers, even if interest in the profession is once again on the increase.

Are teacher redundancies inevitable?

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The blunt answer is probably yes. Falling rolls, and a pupil driven National Funding Formula mean that even if a pay settlement is fully funded, some schools won’t be able to cover their present levels of expenditure with fewer pupils.

In the past 50 years, during periods when school rolls were falling, some redundancies took place, but new entrants from ITT often bore the brunt of the disappearing jobs. I recall doing a radio interview around 2010 about new teachers stacking shelves in Tesco because they couldn’t find a teaching post. For some primary school trainees, it might yet come to that state of affairs again.

The key issue for the next few years is, how will HM Treasury react to falling rolls when it sees funding for schools is now largely pupil driven. The creation of a National Funding formula so heavily tied to pupil numbers was a big risk. It was easy enough to turn a blind eye at the time the Formula was being created, as rolls across the country were on the increase. However, those of us with a longer vision could foresee that when rolls were falling, school budgets would quickly come under pressure. With staffing the largest component of school spending: less cash means less staff, even when there was the buffer of high levels of reserves accumulated for a ‘rainy year’.

In the past, HM Treasury has generally allowed the spending department at Westminster responsible for schooling o keep the same funding levels, even as rolls were falling, and when schooling was a local service councils could also prop up schools from Council Tax. I doubt that such an approach will be possible this time.

Falling rolls will mean falling income for schools and hence, redundancies. Such a scenario allied to parental choice means that some popular schools will up their marketing, and ride out the crisis, but less popular schools, and I include some faith schools in that group these days, with either face closure or the need to operate with lower costs and fewer staff.

With education probably lower down the pecking order in the forthcoming Spending Review than many other departments of state, certainly below defence and the NHS, and also not scoring highly in polling with voters, I can see HM treasury wanting to clawback some of the expenditure on education necessary when rolls were higher as an alternative to tax increases.

The macro picture doesn’t look great, and the new General Secretaries of the main teacher unions are going to face a tough battle, and almost certainly industrial action against a Labour government. In such action, the losers will be those living in our most deprived communities and not the parents that can make alternative arrangements: just look back to 2020, and what happened when covid hit our schools.

We are already seeing entrepreneurs marketing courses on ‘how to recruit pupils’ to schools worried about falling rolls.

What will be done for teachers either made redundant or unable to find their first teaching post? In the 2000s, I ran a regular career clinic for the ‘tes’, and offered career guidance and seminars for those worried about their futures. Maybe, it is time for some of the bigger MATs to work together to provide a service for teachers. The first action might be to allow those facing redundancy priority look at any vacancies as they arise. With modern technology, posting jobs to a defined group before general circulation seems like a good idea, and could save on redundancy costs if redeployment is possible. Perhaps, I should restart TeachVac now I am no longer a councillor in Oxfordshire?

What should we do about children not in school?

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Is it time to start looking for a new solution to the issues surrounding children not in school? Currently too many young people are missing school for a variety of different reasons.

How about a ‘virtual school’ for all children not on a ‘normal’ school roll? The Local Authority where they live would assume responsibility on day one for any child without a school place, whether the child has moved into an area, and there is no mid-year SEND place available, (or other school places) or the young person has been excluded by a school, and has not yet been assigned another school.

Then there are those for who the normal school environment is not longer suitable. They should have a clearly defined place within the education system, managed by the local authority. Only in exceptional cases should responsibility for education be ceded to those parents that ask the state to educate their children.

Many young people might remain on the roll of the virtual school for a short-period of time. However, it would ensure no child for whom the state had assumed responsibility went missing from schooling.

Using the expertise gathered from the established model of virtual schools for children in care together with the work of hospital schools and services should ensure that a body of expertise would quickly develop to ensure all young people, whatever their challenges, had a programme of schooling mapped out for them, even if it didn’t look like the established regime of the traditional school day. However, there would be an expectation of regular contact between the virtual school and the pupil, with individual timetables of learning controlled through the school.

With a pupil being on a school roll at all times, parents would know that their children were part of a framework that includes inspection and has the child at its centre, and also removes the sense of isolation many children not in school can experience. The provision of a virtual school should also reduce the need for the use of section 61 of The Children and Families Act 2014.

The ‘virtual school’ would be able to commission ‘alternative provision’ from registered providers and in some cases be able to transfer the pupil to the roll of the alternative provider, where that was appropriate.

Many pupils in the care of the new virtual school would have special educational needs, as do many children that are the responsibility of the current virtual schools for young people in care. I believe that the notion of a ‘school’ is the best way to educate such children. The virtual school would work with both the SEND sector and the NHS, but be clear what is education and what is therapy, and the responsibility of the NHS.

The present funding model for SEND doesn’t work, and leaves many local authorities underfunded, and a small number of pupils costing significant amounts, while not being on the roll of any school. A virtual school should bring in-house many of the costs currently charged by the private sector for tutoring and other learning and allow some economies of scale to be developed. But, better education for every pupil must be the main aim: no child should be left out of schooling for a single day.

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

The other crisis facing schools

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In my experience, editors usually have September, and the national annual ‘return to school’ event, as a time to ask journalists to look for a school centred story. This follows on from the useful two-week period in August when there are examination results to cover in the month when there is often little news from the political scene.

This year, editors and their journalists didn’t have to work very hard, if at all, for their ‘return to school’ story. RAAC, and the school buildings saga, was a gift send. Would the story have topped the bill at any other time of year? Who knows, as it is an important issue, but more important say that a reshuffle?

What is clear, is that by focussing just on the school buildings issue, editors are missing the opportunity to take a wider look at the health of our schools. Had there not been RAAC, and the still largely hidden asbestos issue, might the staffing of our schools have been the main story this September?

This is a much more difficult story to sell, as except in rare cases such as a special school reported to the DfE in the summer, schools don’t send children home for a lack of teachers. Instead, they cut subjects from the curriculum – I have been told of a school that is no longer offering languages in the sixth from this September; increase class sizes; reduce non-contact time for teachers and, most commonly, employ what might be considered as under-qualified teachers to teach some groups.

Because anyone with Qualified Teacher Status can teach anything on the curriculum, it isn’t easy to identify the problem, as schools, quite rightly, don’t advertise any shortcomings in the staffing of their timetable. However, extrapolating from the last School Workforce Census that provided a baseline, and adding in the results of new entrants being below the targets set by the DfE through the Teacher Supply Model, it seems clear that some schools are not properly staff this September.

Does this matter? Like the lack of a schools’ database on building issues, we don’t know whether some young people are missing grades in those public examinations we celebrate each August because of staffing issues last year or even earlier in their school lives.

This blog has charted re-advertisements of teaching post against free school meal rates in schools. I wrote a blog on this issue last month, just before the exam results season started Are we levelling up? | John Howson (wordpress.com) I won’t bother to repeat what I said then, but it would be interesting to look at examination results in specific subjects at different centres with different levels of staff turnover for a period of three to five years, to see if there is any measurable effect of staff turnover on outcomes, including entry policies.

My hunch is that it is difficult to create a ‘normal’ distribution curve for results subjects such as ‘A’ level physics if many schools cannot offer the subject, and those that do only enter those likely to be successful candidates.

Editors might like to pencil in a story for January 2024, when secondary schools facing unexpected vacancies will find recruitment even more of a challenge than for this September. What might be the effects on their results in Summer 2024 of an unexpected vacancy, especially if they started the school year this September with both a RAAC and a staffing crisis?