Category Archives: leadership

Prudent measure or wasted opportunity?

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The DfE has recently published details of the revenue balances held by academies and Trusts. Academy trust revenue reserves 2019 to 2020 – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) Unlike maintained schools that follow the local government financial year, the academies financial year follows a September to August pattern, broadly in line with the annual cycle of school life. The different financial years would make comparisons between the two sectors difficult, but doesn’t prevent comment and analysis about the state of finances in either sector.

The DfE document contains this useful summary

Summary

At the end of the academic year 2019/20

• 95.9% of trusts had a cumulative surplus or a zero balance.

• 4.1% of trusts had a cumulative deficit.

• The average revenue reserve across all academy trusts was £1.15 million.

• The average surplus balance, of trusts with a surplus, was £1.22 million.

• The average deficit balance, of trusts with a deficit, was £376,000.

• The total cumulative surplus across all academy trusts was £3.17 billion.

• The total cumulative deficit across all academy trusts was £42.1 million.

• The total net financial position of all academy trusts was a cumulative surplus of £3.13 billion.

Trusts average reserves – In 2019/20 average revenue reserves across academy trusts were £1.15 million, compared to £0.96 million in 2018/19, an increase of 20%.

In 2019/20 the average surplus balance was £1.22 million, compared to £1.05 million in 2018/19, an increase of 16%.

The average deficit balance in 2019/20 was at £376,000, compared to £381,000 in 2018/19, a decrease of 1.3%.

Trusts average reserves as a percentage of income – average academy trust reserves as a percentage of a trust’s income stood at 11.4% in 2019/20, compared to 10.8% in 2018/19.

This last fact will no doubt raise some eyebrows, as putting more than one pound in every ten received into reserves doesn’t suggest a system in the financial crisis that is the regular message from the frontline in education. Of course, putting cash aside to pay auditors bills and other future expenditure is a prudent idea. However, saving across a Trust for a specific project benefiting only one school is somewhat against the spirit of budgets being devolved to schools, and one of the criticism that used to be levelled at local authorities when they were responsible for schools.

Removing local democratic accountability for schooling should not have allowed unelected bodies to either build up large reserves or to favour certain schools over others. I have always maintained that the concept of revenue funding is to provide the funds to educate the pupils of today and not to save for the future education of others. Perhaps it is time that the National Audit Office had another look at the nature and purpose of these reserves held by academies and the Trusts to which they belong?

History and headship

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Sometimes when searching the web for something another link is thrown up. Today, I rediscovered this piece I wrote for the Education Select Committee way back in 1998, nearly a quarter of a century ago.

I have only included just the first part here, but the whole piece can be read at House of Commons – Education and Employment – Report (parliament.uk) and reveals how useful a good archive policy is for future historians. Worth noting that even in 1998 I was already using the term Chair not Chairman.

Memorandum from Mr John Howson, Education Data Surveys Ltd

THE ROLE OF HEADTEACHERS

LEADERS MUST BE ABLE TO MANAGE, BUT NOT ALL MANAGERS ARE LEADERS

  1. The intention of the House of Commons Select Committee on Education and Employment to consider the role of headteachers is welcomed.

The impact of headteachers on their schools

  2. There is no doubting the important role that a headteacher plays in the life of a school. As the leading professional, the headteacher has a strategic role to play in the success of the school. Just as successful companies, hospitals, regiments and governments function more effectively with strong leadership, so the same is true of schools.

  2.1 Academic studies both here and elsewhere suggest that successful leadership is a combination of situational and personal leadership skills. That is matching the abilities of the individual to the task in hand. One issue with heads is that, as they are generally appointed for an indefinite period, a change in the situation a school faces may require a change in the skill mix needed. This may result in the current head of the school under performing. This problem can also be observed in the corporate sector. Fixed term renewable contracts would offer a solution to this problem but would come with a price tag attached. The loss of tenure would require additional rewards for the additional risks to be accepted.

  2.2 In the early work of the National Education Assessment Centre, a joint venture between Oxford Brookes University and the Secondary Heads Association, it became clear that successful heads need a clear set of educational values. The values should underpin their work and heads must also recognise how to put their values in to practice. For instance, timetabling is not a mechanical “value free” activity. The classes a newly qualified teacher is asked to teach may determine how long they stay in the profession.

The nature of the head’s task

  3.1 There is a popular belief that any competent manager could run a school just as they could any other business. This view muddles up the requirement for professional knowledge with the need for operational support and strategic direction. It is particularly important to understand this issues as the nature of the head’s role has changed during the past decade. It has been transformed from that of just a leading professional to a multi-functional role encompassing the management of education service delivery within a highly fragmented marketplace.

  3.2 Whilst schools are about learning it is right that they should be led by a chief executive with an understanding of the practice of education and a vision to promote the development of the school. It is also right that the head should be expected to justify the direction the school is taking and account for its improvement to non-educationalists. The governing body and particularly its chair serve as the first point in the chain of accountability. In that sense the often discussed comparison between the head as a managing director and the chair of governors as a non-executive Chair of the Board has some merit as an exemplar. In the most recent edition of “Management Today”, the journal of the British Institute of Management, an editorial headed “Yes, the public sector does manage” suggests that “it was time conventional businesses looked again at the abilities of those managers whose skills have been forged in the glare of the public sector”.

  3.3 There are, however, unfortunate side effects of carrying any industrial metaphor too far. Western management theory for too long was based upon scientific principles that resulted in hierarchical structures. These may have been appropriate for a factory environment but were not suitable to professional organisations where rigid structures make team working difficult. The introduction of newer management theories during the 1980s and 1990s has resulted in a fresh look at organisational theory. Teamwork is acceptable with the leading professional being seen as “primus inter pares” with their colleagues rather than at the top of a pyramid. The term “Senior Management team” is now common in the educational leadership literature and normal in adverts for senior staff posts. This approach is not without its risks since it does not remove the need for a leadership function; it just changes the manner in which it operates.

  3.4 The STRB workload survey in 1996 reported on the extent to which heads are able to teach. Conventional wisdom is that the larger the school the less a head will be able to teach. Overall the Study (Table A2) showed primary school headteachers either teaching or undertaking associated tasks such as marking and lesson preparation for an average of 10.6 hours a week. Secondary heads spent on average 6.8 hours a week on such tasks. As a percentage of their working weeks this represented 18.9 per cent of the primary school head’s weeks and 11.1 per cent of the secondary head’s week. However, both heads had longer working weeks than did most other teachers. Primary heads worked on average 55.7 hours a week and secondary heads 61.7 hours. These totals compared with primary classroom teachers who worked 50.8 hours and secondary classroom teachers who worked 48.8 hours. When compared with a similar 1994 study also conducted by the STRB both primary and secondary heads seemed to be working longer hours; up from 55.4 to 55.7 for primary heads and up from 61.1 to 61.7 for secondary heads.

  3.5 The nature of the task of headship must be set against the context that schools operate in. For much of the past thirty years schools have been faced with a period of constant change. During most of the past decade a declining resource base has accompanied this change. DfEE statistics show the average unit of funding per full-time secondary pupil fell from £2,400 in 1990-91 to £2,290 in 1995-96 based on adjusted figures (DfEE Education and Training Statistics for the UK 1997—Table 1.3). In the same period funding per full-time primary pupil rose slightly from £1,590 to £1,690.

Wish list for the new Secretary of State

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The replacement of Mr Williamson as Secretary of State probably wasn’t much of a surprise. There isn’t a manual on how to handle a pandemic, but some issue were pretty obvious from really early on. Strategic thinking isn’t easy, and UK corporate management has not always managed it, so we shouldn’t be surprised that some Ministers don’t find it a real challenge.

Anyway, we have a new Secretary of State, and here are some of my top issues for him to consider.

Consider raising the free transport age for students from 16 to 18. The leaving learning age has now encouraged staying-on, and it is time to help the levelling up agenda by ensuring 16-18 year olds receive the same treatment in terms of transport as when they were at school. There would be a cost, not least because some 16-18 year olds attend further education colleges some distance from their homes, but the present arrangement affects the choice some 16 year olds make about what to study.

Finally remove the ability of schools to handle their own in-year admissions and create a common local scheme, as for September admissions. This would help both parents and local authorities ensure a place for children forced to move during a school year. Schools might also review their induction arrangements for such children to ensure they aren’t overlooked and set up to fail.

Take a long hard look at the teaching profession in the light of the market review. Make objectives clear. Can we construct a system than ensures enough teachers in the right places for all schools using a preparation route appropriate to the individual, whether they be a school leaver; a new graduate or a career changer. Encourage more under-represented groups into teaching and ensure the preparation course is financially fair to all and not a burden to some while others receive a salary.

Make the term teacher a reserved occupation term so that those banned from teaching cannot still use the term. teacher

Make a teaching qualification less generic. For a start, make it the right to teach either primary up to eleven or secondary not below eleven, and abolish the ‘middle’ level route. In the longer term make it more specific in relation to subjects and specialisms within the primary sector. And do something about qualifications and staffing for the growing SEND sector where there are often more unqualified teachers than in other sectors. At the same time review training numbers for educational psychologists and other allied professions that support our children and their schools.

Look at what funding might do to small primary schools now the birthrate is falling. Decide whether keeping schools in rural communities is a sensible idea or whether government is prepared to see many closures as school become financially non-viable due to restrains on per pupil funding.

There are no doubt many other issues, not least the future of expensive public examinations at age 16 and the content of a curriculum for the 21st century in a multicultural society, along with issues about school meals, uniforms and the developing gender agenda.

August lull in teaching jobs

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The announcement that vacancies across the economy have picked up will be good news for those teachers unable to find a teaching post. As is normal, August is a quiet month for teaching vacancies, although there are some new vacancies still being posted every working day, as those registered with TeachVac www.teachvac.co.uk can testify.

Of course, with many of their administrative staff working term time only contracts, schools in some cases will be saving jobs for the return of those staff who can then post them on the school website and elsewhere.

The return of jobs in the wider economy is likely to affect recruitment into teaching as a career, especially if the bounce in wage growth were to continue while wages in public sector positions were affected by a government imposed wage freeze. The first real evidence on how the wider economy is impacting upon teaching as a career will come with the new recruitment into ITT season, although that will be further complicated by the new arrangements controlled by the DfE. Data should be available by late autumn.

Evidence from TeachVac shows that it is growing in use as a platform for teachers looking for teaching jobs and still has many more teaching jobs on offer than the government site run by the DfE. Registrations at https://www.teachvac.co.uk/ continue to grow

Mutterings about the changes to the ITT curriculum and the degree of DfE control over the sector may have an impact, especially if some universities decide to offer ITT outside the government envelope and continue with research and professional development activities as their main focus.

Although the country will need to train fewer teachers in the years to come as the fall in the birth rate impacts on schools, the system cannot withstand too high a degree of uncertainty and reorganisation with there being some effects on the labour market for teachers. No doubt the private sector will be watching carefully what happens as it still draws on the government funded university sector for many of its new teachers.

Urgent action needed to prevent teacher supply disaster

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Teacher supply is in a mess. This month has produced the government’s consultation on ITT, the STRB Report and associated pay freeze for all teachers unable to negotiate individual salaries and today the latest UCAS data on applications and offers relating to teacher preparation courses starting this autumn.  While applications for primary sector courses remain buoyant, applications for secondary courses have now fallen below the level reached in July 2020.

Secondary
Applications for Secondary CoursesMarchAprilMayJuneJulyAugust
2015429904838053210574806291066020
2016438204857053600592206371066700
2017404404528050040557106068064760
2018339403922046660525305883064150
2019346004056047270532505944064890
2020359404327051030594707106077330
20214391051090559806148065990
Source TeachVac from UCAS data

The month on month addition to applications is well below last year – applicants may make applications to several courses- and more in line with pre-pandemic levels. This is concerning in view of the evidence from recruiters that graduate jobs are not recovering as fast as other parts of the labour market. Even more alarming is the disparity between subjects. Here is my view of what is happening in key secondary subjects in terms of ‘placed’ applicants and those made or considering ‘offers’.

Modern Languages and geography might be described as disaster areas in terms likely trainee numbers this year. Neither subject will meet predicted levels of demand set out by the DfE.

On the other hand, PE and history are matching last year’s record levels and Chemistry is another bright spot, with more than 200 more applicants placed or with offers than last year.

Physic and design and technology won’t recruit enough trainees, and although physics is still doing better than two years ago, design and technology is another disaster area, with trainee numbers possibly heading for their lowest levels since 2013/14.

Art is fine, with numbers double those of two years ago. The same is true for music, although this year’s numbers are down on last year.

Religious Education has seen numbers return to the level of two years ago.

Business studies has lost ground on last year, but is well above two years ago.

Computing has lost much of last year’s increase, although is still above the level of two years ago.

Mathematics has retained the gains of last year, but English has some 600 fewer applicants placed or with offers, taking the subject back to 2017/18 levels.

Finally, biology is a bit of a puzzle. Last year numbers reached record levels, but this year they are less than half those levels and currently below likely DfE predicted need levels. This may be a reaction to the state of the job market for trainees last year.

The DfE has today also published the ITT profiles https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/initial-teacher-training-performance-profiles-2019-to-2020 This reveals a drop in employment in state schools, so maybe course tutors are being more cautious about offering places to trainees that might not fin a teaching post in 2022?

Whatever the reasoning, this will be another bad year for teacher supply, and with a pay freeze it isn’t likely to improve any time soon. Indeed, this year may be the longer period of under-recruitment to target in some subjects since I first started looking at the data on ITT applications in the early 1990s.

Although ITT numbers will need to reduce in the future, as the effects of the falling birth rate work through the system over the coming decade, on these numbers there will still not be enough trainees to meet the needs of all schools in all subjects.

The DfE’s market review of ITT has already affected market sentiment among providers. Now is not the time to totally de-stabilise the market and hope everything will be alright in the future new world. Maybe it is time for the Education Select Committee to take a look at what is happening.  

Fewer pupils creates problems

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The DfE has released its annual update to pupil projections. This is of immediate interest both to ITT providers and those responsible for planning school finances going forward into the medium term. The publication and associated tables can be accessed at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/national-pupil-projections-july-2021

Actual (2020) and projected pupil numbers by school type, England
  2020202120222023202420252026
State-funded nursery & primary schools4,6474,6354,5974,5314,4544,3954,345
 year on year change -12-38-66-77-59-50
State-funded secondary schools3,0033,0723,1333,1933,2313,2283,216
 year on year change 69616038-3-12
State-funded special schools113117119120121120119
 year on year change 4211-1-1
Alternative provision settings15161717181818
 year on year change 110100
Total state-funded schools7,7787,8397,8657,8627,8247,7617,699
 year on year change 6126-3-38-63-62
Projections on pupil numbers

The DfE make the following important point about the numbers:

This year only a simple update to the 2020 model has been created with the addition of newly available 2019 national population estimates and births from the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

The reasons for this are:

  • There are no new ONS national projections giving new estimates of the future overall population
  • The 2021 school census data shows notable decreases in enrolment in nursery and primary schools and alternative provision compared to previous years. These are expected to be temporary, as a result of the pandemic, rather than long-term changes. However, using this data results in decreases across future years which are not considered to be realistic estimates of the pupil population over the next ten years.

The new 2019 ONS data provides additional information on factors such as whether birth figures have continued the drop seen since late 2016. Therefore feeding this data into the existing model provides a useful update on expected future pupil numbers. 

The various views on whether or not the fall is temporary must be of great importance. A loss of 300,000 primary school pupils in six years with the current funding formula for schools in place will have significant implications.

For those preparing primary schools teachers for entry into teaching the implications could come as soon as this autumn if entry targets for 2022 announced by the DfE using the Teacher Supply Model take account of the start of the reduction in pupil numbers.

For the secondary sector, there are probably a couple more years at present levels for teacher preparation courses before reductions in popular and fully subscribed subjects along with recruitment controls come into force once again.

Of course, with the DfE controlling the application process it will be interesting to see how the different parts of the DfE interact with each other, especially in view of the recent ITT Market Review.

The years of relative planet are going to be followed by some years of belt tightening across the education sector. The announcement on pay may not be unrelated to these figures on pupil numbers.

QTS for life?

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Re-reading my submission to the Carter Review https://johnohowson.wordpress.com/2014/06/23/a-submission-to-the-carter-review/ from way back in 2014, made me think that the recent Market Review of ITT discussed in the previous two posts on this blog missed another important point. Because it was focused on the delivery mechanism and content of ITT and not the candidates undergoing the training in deciding how to create world class teachers it missed discussing some important issues, such as should QTS last for life and can a world-class profession continue with a QTS award that allows any teacher to teach anything to any pupil with no check. What is the point of a subject knowledge requirement if at the end of a course a PE teacher can be employed to teach science on the basis that they have a sports science degree?

Changing the rules on preparation courses without looking at the ‘downstream’ consequences is a bit like closing the stable door before you have even put the horse inside. What’s the appropriate preparation to teach humanities if it contains elements of history; geography and even religious education? Do you need post ‘A’ level qualifications in each subject area to be able to teach it? As far as I can tell, the Market Review is silent on this type of discussion. Then there are the subjects taught at Key Stages 4 & 5 that are barely recognised in the Teacher Supply Model but where schools actively recruit each year. These subjects include, economics, psychology, sociology and law. Most of these subjects have more posts advertised each year by schools than does Latin, a subject recognised by the DfE in the Teacher Supply Model.

As already alluded to, the issue of moving from training to employment is a discussion that merits more attention that was paid to it in the Review. It is appropriate to assume that the best quality trainees are the first to secure teaching posts: a sensible assumption if the market works properly. Such an outcome would leave the weakest students sometimes without a teaching post for September, but available to fill the vacancies that arise for the following January, often due to maternity leave arrangements. How should the system deal with these teachers-in-waiting? Ignore them as at present? Hope that they will pick up supply work? Ensure every teacher passing the training component is offered a teaching post for September of at least one year in duration?

A Review that talks about world class teachers and deals with initial training and professional development, but ignores the realities of life, won’t easily achieve its aims for the system as a whole. The issue of the length of time a teacher could spend working as a supply teachers was tackled some time ago, but the issue of a gap between completing training and starting teaching in the subject and phase of your training has not really been addressed. I think such an omission is a mistake.

I am sure that the All Party Parliamentary Group on the Teaching Profession and its associated Special Interest Group or SIG will be taking a look at the Review before the summer.

Job market still patchy

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How easy have teachers looking for jobs this year found the labour market? The following table, taken from TeachVac data www.teachvac.co.uk for vacancies recorded between 1st January and yesterday in the secondary sector for schools across England suggests demand is still below that witnessed in 2019 in many key subjects.

Subject20192021Percentage +/- (The nearest whole %)
Art978795-19%
Business840842+0%
Classics97108+11%
Computer Science12631237-2%
Dance9261-34%
Drama496435-12%
DT18121870+3%
Economics370355-4%
Engineering5774+30%
English41593028-27%
Geography13421149-14%
Health and Social Care167190+14%
History1054914-13%
Humanities417337-19%
Law4257+36%
Mathematics47123669-22%
Media Studies176109-38%
MFL21251990-6%
Music886796-10%
Pastoral259214-17%
PE13831178-15%
Philosophy6860-12%
Psychology307441+44%
RE809909+12%
Science56424245-25%
–Biology401368-8%
–Chemistry515427-17%
–Physics647552-15%
SEN324513+58%
Sociology124169+36%
Total3000125745-14%
TeachVac http://www.teachvac.co.uk analysis of teacher vacancies in 2021

Now, in some cases this may be because a better supply position, with more new teachers exiting preparation courses this year, resulting in fewer re-advertisements by schools. Without a dedicated job reference code – something I have been advocating for years – it is difficult to distinguish unfilled vacancies re-advertised from new vacancies except in specific categories such as a head of department or headteacher posts, where there is only one such post.

Nevertheless, the reduction in vacancies for mathematics teachers of 22%, and for science teachers of 25% does suggest a better balanced labour market than in 2019, when schools were suffering from the recruitment into training problems experienced in 2018. Interestingly, despite the fall in the birth rate, demand for teachers for the primary sector is buoyant this year.

One unknown, going forward, is how the global school market will respond to the pandemic over the next twelve months and whether or not teachers from England will once again be attracted to teach overseas in any significant numbers. Will there also be fewer EEA citizens willing and able to teach in England? Time will tell.

Still, at this point in time, schools can feel reasonably confident of filling late vacancies for September 2021 and vacancies for January 2022 in mot subjects in many parts of the country. There will be local shortages, but apart from some vocationally orientated subjects such as business studies and design ad technology, nationwide issues are unlikely to surface.

Pupil Teacher Ratios (PTRs): An update

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The publication last week by the DfE of the school census discussed in the previous post on this blog means that a time series analysis of changes in PTRs can be undertaken using the DfE’s new ‘construct your own table’ tool.

PTRs are useful as a guide because they can provide evidence of changes in the trends of school funding, especially when most of that funding comes from pupil numbers. The measure is not perfect. Older teachers cost more than younger one, so schools where staff stay put after being employed at NQTs cost schools more each year until they reach the top of their scale. This extra cost isn’t recognised in the funding formula.

When schools are gaining pupils, you might expect PTRs to improve, and when rolls start falling then PTRs might worsen, although there is likely to be a time lag to that effect as schools come to terms with lower numbers of pupils going forward. After all, no school likes to make staff redundant.

Incidentally, the fall in the birth rate and the exodus of overseas citizens will mean some tough decisions on ITT numbers may need to be made, possibly as early as this autumn for 2022 entry.

An analysis of changes in PTRs between 2016/17 and 2020/21 for the secondary sector shows only seven authorities, including the Isles of Scilly, where PTRs improved. In 13 local authorities the secondary PTR for schools across the Authority worsened by at least two pupils per teacher, with Slough unitary authority and the City of Nottingham having the largest changes in PTRS for the worse in the secondary sector. Most local authorities witnessed overall secondary PTRS deteriorate by between one and two teachers per pupil during this five year period. Historically that is quite a significant level of change for so many authorities. Now, some of that deterioration might have been due to keeping option groups going in the sixth form as pupil numbers in that age-group continued to fall but some could well be down to funding pressures across the sector.

In the primary sector, the position is more complex. Schools tend to be smaller and areas with new housing may be gaining pupils, even as other areas are being affected by the fall in the birth rate. Changes in PTRS have generally been in the range of plus one to minus one across most authorities, although during the five year period there are some outliers, notably, the City of Derby, where it is possible that the 2016/17 data point in the DfE database is a mistake. Such mistakes do happen from time to time.

It may also be a coincidence that both North Yorkshire and York unitary authority have recorded significant improvements during the five year period. A number of London boroughs south of the Thames also appear to have done relatively well during this five year period.

The longer that the National Funding Formula is in existence, it will be interesting to see what, if any effect it has on PTRs across the different authorities. Of course, if boundaries continue to be redrawn it will be impossible to tell. Happily, Outer London boroughs have had the same boundaries for more than half a century now.

Schools and their teachers

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Today, the DfE published it annual update of statistics about key features of the school system in England. https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/school-workforce-in-england for the school workforce based upon 2020 census taken last November and https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/schools-pupils-and-their-characteristics-january-2021 for school, pupils and their characteristics based upon January returns.

There are a mass of data in the two publications that will take time to work through. One highlight is that the percentage of teachers retained after one year of service continued its downward decline, but retention rates for those with longer service reversed the downward trend of recent years to register improvements. This may, of course, be due to the lack of opportunities for new jobs, both within and outwith schools that was the result of the covid pandemic. The 2021 census will confirm whether this is a reversal of a trend or just a blip.

It would be necessary to see the actual numbers and not percentages and the balance between the primary sector and secondary schools before commenting in detail on the one-year retention rate decline. The start of the reduction in primary rolls might have meant some temporary posts weren’t replaced, but the data in its present form cannot answer that question.

England is increasingly being divided into two nations in terms of the ethnicity of its teaching force. The North East still has 99% of its primary, and 98% of its secondary teachers classified as White, whereas Inner London has 27% of its primary and 35% of its secondary school teachers classified as from minority groupings. These percentages in Inner London have been increasing steadily over the past five years. There are policy implications behind the percentages, especially when the percentages are disaggregated to local authority levels. What are the consequences for Society as a whole if this uneven distribution continues?

One outcome arising from the pandemic has been the increase in pupils claiming Free School Meals – up from 17.3% in 2020 to20.8% in 2021. This represents some 1.74 million pupils. Over 420,000 pupils have become eligible for free school meals since the first lockdown on 23 March 2020. This compares to 292,000 for the same period (March 2019 to Jan 2020) before the pandemic. However, due to the change in Pupil Premium rules schools will not fully benefit from the funding through the Pupil Premium and Catch-up funds that are linked to Free School Meal numbers. As the Jon Andrews of the Education Policy Institute notes:

“Today’s figures are a further indication that the government’s change to how the pupil premium is allocated means that pupils and schools are now missing out on vital funding. These losses are found not only in the pupil premium itself but in other areas such as catch-up funding for disadvantaged pupils, which is closely linked to it.

“The Department for Education should now publish its analysis of the impact of this decision on pupil premium allocations and clarify whether any savings from this have been redistributed.”

The number of unqualified teachers has remained broadly stable across primary, secondary and special schools for both male and female teachers with a slight downward trend in the primary sector for the number of unqualified female teachers.

There is much more to explore in the detail of the time series, and I hope to write a few more blogs over the coming days.