Category Archives: leadership

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.

Free School Meals and staff turnover

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Is the level of Free School Meals (FSM) recorded by a school reflected in the level of staff turnover? Do secondary schools with the highest FSM percentages record more staff turnover than schools with relatively low percentage of pupils on Free School Meals?

TeachVac can compare its data on vacancies to date in 2021 with the DfE’s published information on Free School Meals. The end of May normally marks the point where most schools have completed their staffing for September, and existing staff have reached the point where they may resign at the endo of this school year.

As a result, it was relatively easy to look at TeachVac’s vacancy data for the period form 1st January up to Friday 28th May and compare staff turnover against the percentage of pupils on Free School Meals. However, staff turnover is affected by a number of features. A new school may have relatively few pupils, but be adding staff as the school grows in size. Schools in different areas vary in size, with some schools of over 2,000 pupils and some schools in rural areas with only around 500 pupils, and no post-16 provision.

In order to take account of school size, the number of pupils on roll was divided by the recorded number of vacancies recorded by TeachVac. Thus, a school with 1,000 pupils and 5 vacancies between January and May would create an index figure of 200, whereas a similar size school with 10 vacancies would have recorded an index figure of 100. The lower the index number, the greater the turnover of staff.

This method doesn’t take account of growing schools, so it could be possible for a school with few pupils on Free School meals to still record a low index score if it was growing in size. The absence of a vacancy identifying number also complicated the issue because repeat advertisements may possibly being recorded. TeachVac does its best to eliminate such adverts.

An analysis was conducted into the outcomes in terms of recorded vacancies during the first five months of 2021 for secondary schools across the West Midlands region whose data was captured by TeachVac. The region contains rural areas such as most of the county of Herefordshire and urban areas such as Birmingham, Wolverhampton and Coventry.

The first look at the TeachVac data suggests that for schools with a Free School Meal percentage of less than 20% there is little difference in the index score. The majority of schools had a score of 300 or less, suggesting relatively high levels of vacancies regardless of the percentage of pupils on Free School Meals.

For schools with Free School Meals above 20% of the school population there was a trend towards schools with higher FSM percentages having a higher turnover index score. 16 of the 20 schools recorded with a FSM percentage above 40% had turnover indexes below 250 per pupil, and most of these schools had an index of below 200 per pupil.

One caveat must be that 2021 is not a ‘normal’ recruitment cycle. In some schools there has been an element of ‘catch-up’ in recruitment following the period between March and September 2020 when most teacher recruitment slowed to almost a complete halt. It would be possible to compare the 2021 data with that for 2018 and 2019 in order to see whether there has been a ‘covid’ effect and if certain schools have been more affected? There may also be both a rural and small school effect. As some parts of the West Midlands still have selective schools that is another variable that needs consideration.

Nevertheless, this quick first look at the data from one region does raise questions about teacher supply and the issue of policy towards ‘leveling up’. Can a market-based approach to teacher supply create the improvements in outcomes for pupils if schools with high levels of Free School Meals if such schools are finding staff recruitment more of a challenge than their neighbours with lower percentages of Free School Meals?

ITT: hiccup not a change in direction?

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Secondary schools across England might want to start thinking about their staffing needs for 2022 and 2023. Evidence from the data released earlier today by UCAS about application levels for postgraduate ITT courses reveals some disturbing trends.

This time last year, the pandemic caused something of a flurry of applications to train as a teacher. Applications have continued to increase this year and are currently about 24% higher for primary sector courses- where supply is generally adequate – but only 10% higher for the secondary sector overall. Within that sector there are some significant increases, but also some worrying numbers in terms of applications.

Looking at the key curriculum subject,s there must be concerns that in IT, design & technology, geography, languages, business studies and physics there will not be enough applicants of suitable quality to meet the number of places on offer. In business studies and physics there are more applicants than last year, but current trends suggest that unless there is a wave of new graduates seeking to enter teacher preparation courses over the summer the targets won’t be universally met.

In languages, the total number of applications this years is down in most languages on the May 202 number. The same is true for design and technology, where applications are down from 1,190 in May 2020 to 980 this May. So, far only 260 applications have been offered places, with just 30 fully placed.

A significant proportion of the increase in applications are in subjects such as history (+1,100) PE (+1,000) and mathematics (+1,830), whereas geography has 650 fewer applications than last year and biology around 2,000 fewer. History and PE are not subjects where more applicants are needed to meet targets, although more should equate to more choice and better teachers.

These numbers don’t suggest a golden age for secondary school teaching as a career, and should do more than cause a pause for thought at the School Teachers’ Review Body.

In the North East region the number of applicants, at 1,450 this May, is actually around 50 below the figure for May 2020. Fortunately, in London there are some 1,300 more applicants than last year and around 700 more in the South East. Applicants are also still remaining in the process, withdrawals are holding at 23% of applications, and are only up from two to three per cent of applicants.

Another interesting straw in the wind is that there are has been virtually no increase in applicants over the age of 40 when compared with May 2020 total for this age group. Younger career switchers are still looking at teaching as a career, but the increase in new graduates still remains sluggish. This is an area where better data would help flesh out the real picture in the secondary sector. How many of the applications for PE have come from personal trainers that have seen their business disappear? And why are applications for design and technology so low. At current levels, it is difficult to see a future for the subject in our schools, a point made in the past by this blog.

Finally, the Postgraduate Apprentice route seems to be heading towards a situation where it will take over from the School Direct Salaried route. How much longer can that route survive with less than 200 offers in the secondary sector, and fewer than 400 in the primary sector?

If there is not an influx of applicants in some subjects between now and the start of courses, then schools will find recruitment in 2022 challenging. If these numbers are a portent of a decline in interest in teaching, then the levelling up agenda may well be wishful thinking, unless a new strategy for teacher supply is introduced.  

Bounce back

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Data from TeachVac www.teachvac.co.uk suggests that vacancies for teachers in schools in England are up by 47% between 1st April and 14th May this year when compared with the same period in 2020. Of course, that was the period at the height of the first lockdown. The increase for primary sector vacancies is even more dramatic: up by 95% from 2,770 in April and early May last year to 5,413 this year.

In the secondary sector, demand is up, but in subjects such as art, but only around two per cent. In the key curriculum subjects of the English Baccalaureate the increase is in the range of 20-30%, although IT vacancies are up by 34%, and those for languages by 38%.  Interestingly, the increase for mathematics is only 17%. This may be down to the need for fewer re-advertisements than in past years as existing teacher stay put and more of those training to be teachers actually opt to enter the classroom.

However, it is not all good news. TeachVac has ‘red’ warning out for business studies and design and technology. This means schools anywhere in England, but especially in the South East and London areas, could experience challenges if trying to recruit teachers in these subjects. The same challenge will apply for physics but, as most science posts are advertised as general science vacancies, it is not possible to quantify exactly the extent of the problem. Teachers may apply for either specific physics posts or those for a ‘science’ teacher.

Although demand in the London area is weaker than in recent years it is still higher than in many parts of England. At present, the South East Region is the region with the greatest demand for teachers. Yorkshire and The Humber Region is the area north of London where vacancy rates are at their highest in the secondary sector.

Part of the reason for the level of demand in the South East is the high number if private schools. Demand for teachers from those schools appears to be holding up well.

On the basis of the evidence from the 34,000 vacancies for teachers identified so far in 2021, the demand for teachers is once again going to become an issue in parts of England by 2023. It will be important to track the level of interest in teaching as a career over the next few months and compare it with the same period last year. If a decline in those likely to be career changers is not matched by increased interest from new graduates, then that will be an early warning sign for policymakers.

The other ‘unknown’ is workings of the international school market for teachers, and its impact on the market in England. Will there be a flood or returning teachers from say China, Hong Kong and the Middle East or will demand hold up and fresh demand take more teachers out of the home market? Only time will tell.

Leveling Up will need a new Funding Formula

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The current National Funding Formula is fine as far as it goes. However, as I have written before on this blog, it is based upon a notion of equality that resembles the ‘equal slices of the cake’ model of funding distribution. That’s fine if that’s what you want out of the Formula, and the f40 Group of Local authorities have tirelessly campaigned for fair – more- funding for their areas. Again, they are right to do so.

However, if the new agenda has levelling up at its heart, then it is necessary to ask whether the present method of distributing cash to schools and other education establishments will achieve that aim?

As the debate about the High Needs Block of funding for SEND has made very clear, some children cost more to educate than others. If you want all children to achieve a minimum standard of education then some will always cost more to achieve that goal than others. The Pupil Premium recognised this fact. Changing the date of calculation and thus excluding some children from the Premium seems an odd way to start the ‘levelling up’ campaign.

There is a key decision for government to make if they really mean to introduce a ‘levelling up’ campaign in the school sector. Do you hypothecate, as with the Pupil Premium, creating funds only to be used for levelling up purposes or do you distribute more funds generally and leave it to the schools and Trusts to manage the distribution of the cash? This approach leaves maintained schools that are not academies in a bit of a limbo as they don’t have a mechanism to ‘pool’ funds for the common good, as MATs are able to do.

When it works well, the second approach is better, as it is less of a blunt tool than the first method as anyone that has read the history of school funding over the last century will know.

There is a further issue with a Formula tied to geographical areas, as this blog has noted before. Oxfordshire is largely an affluent county, but there are pockets of deprivation in Banbury and parts of Oxford; not to mention the issue of rural poverty as well. Any ‘levelling up’ agenda must tackle these issues in addition to the more obvious areas of underperformance in education achievements.

Overlaying this issue of ‘levelling up’ is the effect on the present Formula of the downturn in the birth rate and its consequences for small primary schools. Do we want them to compete by drawing in parents willing to drive their children to such schools? An alternative is to close them and let council Taxpayers pay the cost of transporting children to other schools. Might work in urban areas, but the Tories would quickly find that save our Schools campaigns can impact more on election chances for Councillors than almost anything else except perhaps closure of a local hospital. There are also implications for the climate change agenda. I would be interested to know where the Green Party stands on this matter.

Doing nothing won’t help the ‘levelling up’ agenda, so if the government is really serious in what it is saying, then action will be needed. Making all schools academies, however repugnant the loss of local democratic control is to people like me, does offer some levers hat MATs can use, but local authorities cannot under the present rules.

It will be interesting to see what plays out over the next few months in a debate where doing nothing will have as many consequences as doing something.