Another Greenwich Judgement avoided

Posted on December 16, 2020 by John Howson

Greenwich in South East London already features in education law history for the ‘Greenwich Judgement’ on school choice. Today, it seemingly avoided the possibly of creating a second precedent by accepting that it would not be in the interest of local people to spend money defending any legal action by the DfE on closing schools.

As usual, there are pros and cons to both the Council’s position and that of the government at Westminster. What is lacking is a clear understanding of guidelines that fit a changing set of circumstances. The BBC’s World at One programme interviewed the Leader of Basildon Council – a Tory – where several schools are closed because of very high rates of infection. He defended that situation.

Generally, opinion is that education is a ‘good thing’ and leaving parents to arrange childcare at short notice can cause problems that should be avoided if at all possible. All the current issues were foreseeable, and the present situation demonstrates the lack of cooperative planning that is the hallmark of the present administration, and might yet be its downfall.

The issues are the same, where infection leads to transmission to higher risks groups from lower risks groups there is a danger, but within lower risks groups it is less of an issue. This appears to be the case with university students that remain in a group and don’t interact with the wider community. Schools are different, by their very community nature.

Low income, multi-generational households, especially in the non-White community, remain at very high risk from the pandemic and it is understandable that schools can play a part in the chain of transmission. But low income families have less space for on-line learning even if they have access to the technology.

So, no easy answer. But a set of criteria

Local public health officials can assess the trends and liaise with schools and education officers. Where more than a certain level of infections are present, local officials should notify the DfE of intending closure of a group of schools and provide the evidence in the same as a single school would use and there shouldn’t be an issue.

Where it becomes complicated is the notion of a ‘preventative closure’ to try to stop a spike happening. Surely, by now, we have enough evidence to set some criteria for where it is appropriate to close schools, and where it is better to keep them open?

Even with the vaccination programme, it seems likely that next term is going to be a challenging one for schools, their pupils and for parents. The clearer the agreed guidelines the better.

Thank a Teacher or perhaps not?

Posted on December 11, 2020 by John Howson

When is a holiday for teachers not a holiday? Perhaps when announced by a government Minister. In my book, an in-service day is not a holiday. The Schools Minister’s announcement of an extra day before Christmas to allow teachers to have a “proper break” from working with test and trace to identify Covid cases doesn’t seem like a real holiday to me. More of a political announcement where a Minister hopes that nobody will read beyond the headline.

Apparently Mr Gibb told the Education Select Committee earlier this week that: “We are about to announce that ‘inset days’ can be used on Friday December 18, even if an inset day had not been originally scheduled for that day.

“We want there to be a clear six days so that, by the time we reach Christmas Eve, staff can have a proper break without having to engage in the track and trace issues.”

How seriously will school leaders take the additional opportunity for in-service training? Hopefully, they will suggest training at home rather than requiring attendance at the school site. Of course, some supply teachers stand to lose a possible day’s pay as a result of this announcement.

With the looming pay freeze for next year facing teachers, I wonder how teachers will receive this badly wrapped present. A pay freeze may send some teachers overseas next year and others looking for promotion, so ‘churn’ may increase next year. At TeachVac www.teachvac.co.uk we also expect more leadership vacancies than in recent years, especially in the primary sector, as leaders decide they have had enough of muddle and mixed messages about the handling of the pandemic.

The National Education Union has published a useful set of maps showing how covid-19 cases have ebbed and flowed for primary age pupils and the 10-14 age-group during the course of the autumn term between September to the first week in December. It is not clear what moves the government has taken to ensure vulnerable staff are properly protected. Looking back over this blog, I notice I made a suggestion about identifying possible staff ‘at risk’ and ensuring that they weren’t in contact with pupils. Figures for the cost of supply staff suggests that this wasn’t taken up as an idea.

Certainly my idea of employing NQTs without a teaching post as supernumerary staff wasn’t acted upon. I wonder whether this would have been a cheaper option than boosting the profits of the supply agencies.

Finally, I was struck by this paragraph from the report of an Ofsted virtual visit to a secondary school in early November

Teachers have checked what pupils remember and used this knowledge to help them plan lessons. Overall, they have found that the areas pupils needed help with before lockdown are even more of a priority now. For example, pupils who previously found reading tricky now need extra help. You are using some of the COVID-19 catch-up premium to address this by employing extra staff and purchasing additional resources.

Recovering the damage done by covid-19 to children’s education is going to be a key task for 2021 and beyond.

Teacher Vacancy Platforms: Pros and Cons

Posted on December 7, 2020 by John Howson

In this post, I look at the three key sites for teacher vacancies in England. TeachVac; the DfE Vacancy site and The TES. Now this is not an unbiased look, because I am Chair of the company that owns TeachVac. Indeed, it might be regarded as an advertisement, so treat it in that way if you read on.

TeachVac is in the process of filing its accounts for the year to June 2020 with Companies House. The DfE doesn’t file accounts, and the TES has filed accounts up to the end of August 2019, with a forward comment about the possible effects of the covid pandemic in the year to August 2020.

All three sites cost teachers nothing to use during the last year. However, the DfE site only offers vacancies in state schools, and only a proportion of those schools. TeachVac estimates that in 2020 the DfE proportion of vacancies for teaching posts never rose above 40% of the vacancies open to teachers across both state and private schools. So, the DfE is worthwhile if you only want a job in a state-funded school. Both TeachVac and the TES offer vacancies in state and private schools, although TeachVac doesn’t cover all private schools with pupils below the age of eleven. The TES coverage depends upon those prepared to pay to advertise vacancies on their platform.

Both TeachVac and the DfE site have no direct financial cost to schools. However, the DfE site does require schools to input vacancies into the site. This is optional for TeachVac, and most schools are happy to rely upon the automatic vacancy collection process operated by TeachVac. The TES has a number of options, all require schools to pay for their vacancies to appear on the TES job site and be matched with teachers.

TeachVac also offers users a monthly newsletter on the state of the market for teachers.

The operating cost for TeachVac in 2019/20 was just £1.10 per vacancy processed. Neither the DfE nor The TES publishes a similar figure, but the TES accounts would suggest their cost per vacancy is much higher than that of TeachVac. To find out the cost of the DfE site would need a parliamentary question.

So, are teacher associations, governors and school business managers and those responsible for local authorities, diocese and MATs recommending TeachVac as the most cost effective means of displaying and matching vacancies? Of course not.

Are they recommending teachers to use Teachvac, some are, others aren’t. Course leaders preparing teachers are now recommending TeachVac as a place for trainees to look for their first vacancy. Those trainees are sticking with TeachVac to find subsequent jobs and promotion opportunities.

I am proud of the achievements of the TeachVac team in driving down costs of vacancy advertising. Next the team will start to look at other parts of the recruitment journey to see if there are saving to be made in other areas as well.

Incidentally, if anyone wants to sponsor the TeachVac site, my investors are always open to discussions.

Head Teacher Vacancies increase this autumn

Posted on December 2, 2020 by John Howson

More head teachers are quitting this autumn. TeachVac, the national free vacancy service for the education market in England reported a 20% increase in advertised vacancies for primary head teachers in the three month from September to end of November 2020 compared with the same period in 2019.

The figures recorded by TeachVac www.teachvac.co.uk were:

2019 276

2020 329

There was no such corresponding increase in secondary school headship vacancies. However, that might be down to the greater number of academies in the secondary sector, and a different attitude to filling in-year vacancies by such Trusts..

This increase comes during what is normally a quiet period for recruitment at the start of a school-year.’

The concern must be that this is an early warning sign of a large outflow of head teachers at the end of the summer term next year. Are there deputies willing to step up to the top job? The pressure of head teachers during the past year has been immense, with some having had little or no time away from school since the start of the pandemic.

Over the year to the end of November TeachVac recorded 1,383 vacancies for primary head teachers compared with 1,315 during the same period in 2019. So far, in2020, there have been 355 recorded vacancies secondary school head teachers, compared with 342 in the period between January and the end of November 2019.

Recorded vacancies for assistant head teachers and deputy head teachers have fallen so far in 2020 when compared with 2019. In the secondary sector, there has been a small increase in vacancies at both grades during 2020.

The three months between January and the end of March normally constitutes the main recruiting season for new leadership appointments. Approximately half of all such vacancies are advertised during these three months.

Reflections from a round table presentation

Posted on November 30, 2020 by John Howson

Foundation for Education Development Round Table

Part of 150^th Anniversary of the 1870 Elementary Education Act

A synopsis of my presentation

Education workforce

Teacher supply over the past 150 years, and certainly since World War Two, has been a perpetual cycle or more accurately a sine wave, moving from shortage to surplus to shortage, mostly governed by the coincidence of the economic and demographic cycles.

All schools are often only fully staffed when pupil numbers are low and the economy is in recession. A buoyant economy; rising birth rates and increases in length of education have created shortages that have most affected schools serving our more deprived communities.

The current situation

What are some possible issues within the workforce? Here are three dichotomies to consider:

Career Development

Personal Goals v System Needs

At every stage there can be tensions between the career goals of teachers and the needs of the system to fill vacancies at every point in the system from classroom teachers to head teachers in schools and the many roles beyond schools that need expertise in teaching. For example, the tension over seen in supporting candidates for headship when a school may lose a highly able deputy.

However, schools with a good track record of staff development attract staff that want to work in such environments and the turnover is more than compensated for by the staff attracted.

Teachers need support at every stage of their careers and currently CPD is not treated with the attention it deserves.

Where to work

Market v Direction

England has a very market-based approach to teaching jobs. A teacher is in charge of their own career and there is still little advice available. When should you seek more responsibility? Is it ever too late to look for a new post? Is there hidden discrimination in appointments?

In some countries, teachers are civil servants, and are directed where to teach. New teachers may serve early stages of their careers in challenging locations that contain posts that are otherwise hard to fill. Governments in England have dabbled with the idea of ‘direction’ from Fast Track to the coalition government’s desire to parachute heads and middle leaders into certain schools and the discussion of ‘super-heads’, but the market system has so far triumphed. That triumph has been at a significant financial cost to schools and teachers.

Both approaches have advantages and challenges. As noted, one approach is expensive, with schools spending millions of pounds on recruitment advertising for a process that should cost less than £3 per vacancy. (TeachVac data) The other takes away freedom from individuals – that freedom was a reason I became a teacher not a civil servant. But, as teaching is becoming a global career, can we afford to lose large numbers of teachers overseas?

Making teaching an Attractive Career

Intrinsic v Extrinsic Factors

Teachers don’t usually join just for the pay, but there are few other ‘perks’. Teachers work an ‘employer-directed form of flexitime and on balance have seen other workers catch up on the holiday front, This year has revealed how important teachers are as key workers and how well regarded they are by sections of society. Their workload needs to be constantly monitored and the implications of the changes in technology on re-training are not insignificant.

Finally, the importance of both

Morale and Accountability

These are not alternatives, but essential considerations for an effective teaching profession. Overload accountability and create low morale and there is a problem. At present we need to ensure teachers and leaders feeling drained by their efforts don’t leave the profession because they feel under-valued, especially by government.

To end with a personal plea: To celebrate the 150^th anniversary of State Funded Schooling

Make ‘TEACHER’ a reserved occupation term

And as a bonus, create some Regis Professorship of Education as well, to demonstrate the status of the profession.

No Tsunami of Applications

Posted on November 26, 2020 by John Howson

Earlier today UCAS released the first data on the 2021 recruitment round for postgraduate teacher preparation courses. The data are for applications up to the 16^th November. Last year the data were for Monday 18^th November 2019. In addition, there are applications through the DfE’s new service for which no data are yet available.

Now, it is always dangerous to read too much into the first month’s figures, but thirty years of looking at the numbers does allow me to make some observations.

Firstly, the increase in applicants domiciled in England, from 6,290 in 2019 to 7,420 in 2020, does not include large increases in applicants from the younger age groups, and is skewed towards applicants domiciled in the London Areas.

Change in applicant numbers by age of applicant

Age 2020 round 2021 round change

21 and

Under 1510 1550 40

22 970 1040 70

23 630 730 100

24 420 570 150

25-29 1200 1490 290

30-39 940 1160 220

40+ 620 890 270

All 6290 7420 1130

Source UCAS Reports A 2019 and 2020 November data

For example, in the North East, applicants in November 2019 totalled 380. This November, the number is 390. In London the total was 890 in 2019, and is 1,300 this November. Similarly, in the South East Region, the increase is from 910 to 1,150. So, over half of the increase in applicants is accounted for by just two regions in England.

Although early days, should we be concerned that the number of male applicants aged 21 or under, final year undergraduates, has dropped from 360 last November to 300 this year? One to watch as the number of men over 40 applying has increased from 160 to 250. Overall, there are just fewer than 200 more male applicants this year compared to last year at this point in time.

More applicants means more applications, and the total increased from 17,840 in November 2019 to 21,710 this November. Again, as expected, London has done well, with an increase from 2,740 applications by last November to 4,120 this November. In the North East applications only rose from 1,090 to 1,110.

Both primary and secondary sectors have benefitted from the increase in applicants. Applications for primary sector courses are up from 7,980 to 9,890, and for secondary courses, from 9,860 to 11,790.

All types of provider have seen increases, but one of the smallest increases is in secondary SCITT applications, up from 1,320 to 1,360.

Almost all subjects have seen an increase in applications – data on applicants by subject isn’t published in the main reports.

Arts and humanities subjects has seen some of the largest increases in applications. Even Physics has 240 applications this year, compared with 180 at this point in 2019. Art has seen applications double from 240 to 540, and even Design and Technology has 190 applications this year compared with 140 in November 2019. But, this might mean an increase an applicants from 50 last year to no more than 70 this year. Still, an increase is to be welcomed.

How long will this increase in interest in teaching last? There has been an article in SchoolsWeek recently suggesting it might be short-lived. After the start of the financial crisis it took just three years before teaching was starting to struggle to attract applicants to the profession. This time, with the pay freeze, who knows? More thought when the next set of data are published.

Report to the APPG Teaching Profession November meeting

Posted on November 24, 2020 by John Howson

This report to the APPG notes the state of the labour market for teachers during September and October; a report from the EPI on men and teaching and the section of the Migration Advisory committee Report that dealt with teaching as a career.

Teacher Labour market – current thoughts

Teacher Shortage over: well almost

The latest data from UCAS about postgraduate ITT numbers for September provides a first view of what the outlook for the year is likely to be. The September data will provide the basis for the likely supply of teachers into the labour market for September 2021 and January 2022 vacancies.

In view of the shock to the economy administered by the covid-19 pandemic, it is not surprising that there were nearly 7,000 more applicants in 2020 than in 2019. Up from 40,560 to 47,260 for those in domiciled in England. The number placed or ‘conditionally placed’ increased from 28,500 to 33,800. This is an increase of around 20% on last year.

The number of applicants placed increased across the country, although in the East of England the increase of only 120 was smaller than in the other regions. In London, the increase was in the order of an extra 1,000 trainees placed on courses compared with 2019.

More applicants from all age groups were placed this year, although the increase was smaller among the youngest age group of new graduates. This might be a matter for concern. Over, 2,000 more men were placed this year, compared to 4,500 more women. This is proportionally a greater increase in the number of men placed.

There was much more interest in secondary courses, where applications increased by nearly 14,000 to more than 81,000. For primary courses, the increase was near 6,000 to just over 53,000. The difference may be down to the date the pandemic struck home, and the availability of courses with places still available at that point in the cycle. Many primary courses will already have been full by March.

Higher education seems to have been the main beneficiary of the wave of additional applications. Applications to high education courses increased from 55,000 last year to nearly 65,000 this year. Applications for apprenticeships reached nearly 1,600 and there were 1,800 more applications to SCITT courses. The School Direct fee route attracted nearly 6,500 more applications. However, the School Direct Salaried route only attracted 200 more applicants this year, and the number placed actually fell this year, by around 300 to just 1,470. Does this route have a future?

In most secondary subjects, more applications are recorded as placed this year than last. Geography, languages (where classifications have changed) are the key exceptions, with fewer recorded as placed than last year. Even in physics, there has been a small increase on last year. However, the increase in design and technology is not enough to ensure the DfE’s Teacher Supply Model (TSM) number will be reached. This is also likely to be the case in physics, chemistry and mathematics. Fortunately, in the sciences, there are far more biology students than required by the TSM number.

I am also sceptical as to whether all the history and physical education trainees will find teaching posts in their subjects next year, because the excess of students placed to the TSM number is such that it is difficult to see sufficient vacancies being generated even in a normal year. If fewer teachers leaves than normal, then the excess may be significant and these trainees might well want to look to any possible second subjects they could teach.

At this point in time, it looks as if 20202/21 round will start with a significant increase in applications over the numbers at the start of the last few years: we shall see.

Seealso:. https://www.nfer.ac.uk/media/4143/the_impact_of_covid_19_on_initial_teacher_training.pdf

The data on vacancies recorded during September and October 2020

The recorded level of vacancies during October was around 30% below the number recorded during October 2019 with less than 4,000 vacancies recorded during October this year compared with more than 5,000 during October 2019.

As with other months this autumn, primary vacancies have been holding up better than those posted by secondary schools with the vacancies across the primary sector down by only some 13%. In the secondary sector, English, down by 50% on October 2019 and mathematics, down by more than 45% are amongst the subjects recording some of the largest declines in vacancy totals. By contrast, music has only recorded a fall of around 14% and art a fall of 24%. However, with not even 150 vacancies between the two subjects, these are not major recruiters of teachers.

Traditionally, the end of October marks the conclusion of the annual recruitment round. Most vacancies appearing from now onwards will normally be geared towards appointments for September. In this case that will be September 2021. In a normal year there are few vacancies advertised for an April start. It is too early to tell whether 2021 will be different in that respect.

Leadership vacancies remain another bright spot in an otherwise challenging recruitment market for job seekers. Head teacher vacancies have remained at very similar levels to October 2019. While there have been slightly fewer deputy and assistant head teacher vacancies across the secondary sector, this has been offset by higher vacancy levels in the primary sector for posts at these levels.

Most notable at this time of year is the high percentage of temporary and maternity leave vacancies advertised in the primary sector. During October 2020, some 20% of recorded primary vacancies were listed as a result of a teacher taking maternity leave and a further 28% were listed as temporary positions, some of which may also have been as a result of a teacher taking maternity leave. Overall, only just over half of the primary posts were offered as permanent positions during October 2020.

Although the percentage of vacancies resulting from a teacher taking maternity leave was similar in the secondary sector, at 19% of October vacancies, there were far fewer temporary vacancies advertised. Such vacancies only accounted for 10% of the total vacancies during October. This meant that permanent vacancies accounted for more than 70% of vacancies in the secondary sector during October. A much higher percentage than in the primary sector.

Men in teaching EPI Report

EPI, the Education Policy Institute, published a short report entitled ‘Trends in the Diversity of Teachers in England’ that is largely about gender diversity in teaching. The report brings up to date some of the data that can be found in m post on this blog from April 2020 at:https://johnohowson.wordpress.com/2020/04/09/are-new-graduate-entrants-to-teaching-still-predominantly-young-white-and-female/

Interestingly, although the report does put the issue into the wider context of the attractiveness of teaching as a career, and the lack of women taking degrees in some subjects such as physics, it doesn’t really consider the fact that some of the change may be down to teaching also becoming relatively less attractive to women, especially primary school teaching.

The EPI paper, while revealing the genuine concern about the issue, doesn’t point out that at the end of the 1990s when the economy was also doing well, the percentage of male graduates accepted into teaching through the UCAS graduate entry system (then administered by the GTTR) was as low as it is now, and possibly even lower in the primary sector.

Percentage of men accepted onto graduate teacher preparation courses

1998 31%

1999 30%

2000 29%

Source GTTR annual Report for 2000

The EPI paper is also correct to draw attention to the fact that men generally decide to apply later in the recruitment round than women, suggesting possibly that the attraction of teaching as a career is less strong for some male applicants. This is possibly also borne out by the higher departure rates from teaching for men, although some may remain in teaching, just outside of state-funded schools.

Linking the evidence to wage rates, where public sector workers have not fared well compared to other graduates in the South East, is interesting but doesn’t explain why Inner London schools have the second highest percentage of male teachers. Perhaps, this is the Teach First effect?

So what might be done? EPI have some good suggestions. In taking over the admissions to teacher preparation courses, the DfE might want to look at how the process across the year might be more neutral in terms of encouraging diversity among both applicants and those placed.

However, one issue has always been that some course providers attract a disproportionately high percentage of applicants from certain groups. Male Black African applicants at one time largely only applied for places on four courses, and some early years courses rarely if ever saw a male applicant.

Finally, the media has a role to play in stereotyping certain careers. The anguish of those that suffered child abuse, mostly at the hands of men, may have deterred some men from choosing careers such as teaching.

But, that’s not something just looking at statistics as both EPI and my blog does, can tell you. As the EPI paper concludes, ‘it is important to understand the root cause of why more male graduates don’t choose teaching.’

Migration Advisory Committee – teaching conclusions

Teachers of all Modern Languages struggling to find a teaching post may be surprised to discover that the government’s Migration Advisory Committee believes that their subject should be added to the list of shortage subjects. The Report from the MAC https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/922019/SOL_2020_Report_Final.pdf tackles the issue of secondary teaching on pages 606 onwards.

For anyone familiar with recruitment patterns in teaching, using data on job posting in August collected by a company called Burning Glass may raise some eyebrows. August is after all the least representative month for teaching vacancies, except perhaps in Scotland where school return from their summer break up to two weeks earlier than in England and Wales. Previously, Mandarin was on the list of shortage subjects, but not teachers of other languages.

TeachVac has recorded fewer vacancies for teachers of modern languages this year compared with last year since the start of the covid-19 pandemic, so the data from Burning Glass seems curious to say the least.

There is no mention of business studies as a shortage subject in the MAC report even though TeachVac has consistently pointed out that the subject tops the list of subjects where schools have found recruitment a challenge. Perhaps there is a pecking order of subjects that typifies their status. Following the Prime Minister’s announcement this summer about a focus on skills, it is even more difficult to see why business studies is not even considered by the MAC in their report.

The fact that the MAC doesn’t even seem to have taken into account the DfE’s own vacancy site is also curious. As a result the outcome of the data analysis on secondary teaching must be open to discussion.

The MAC decision seems based on the fact that The APPG on Modern Languages was concerned about shortages and that an above average number of EEA nationals made up part of those students on teacher preparation courses. The fact that these courses filled more of their places than say, design & technology isn’t mentioned.

The MAC noted that: We recommend, in addition, adding all modern foreign language teachers within SOC code 2314 (secondary education teaching professionals) to the SOL. Overall the occupation has a relatively low RQF6+ shortage indicator rank and is less reliant on migrant employees than the UK average. Statistics show a gradual rise in the number of entrants to ITT (England only). However, there is also some evidence of shortage, particularly for MFL teachers, a subject more reliant of EEA employees. Page 610

Interestingly, the MAC see no reason to add either primary teacher or FE lecturers to the list of shortage subjects. The former is understandable, the latter strange in view of some of the skills areas on the list. Did the MAC ask whether there was any difficulties in recruiting lecturers in these areas? On the face of their report it seems they treat FE like primary teaching as a single sector, whereas secondary teaching was looked at in more detail down to subject level.

New book

Exploring Teacher Recruitment and Retention

This book is sub-titled Contextual Challenges from International Perspectives, and is jointly edited by Tanya Ovenden-Hope and Rowena Passy, and was published by Routledge on the 2nd October. The ISBN is 9780367076450 The first chapter in this collection of essays was authored by myself

Sunak’s blunt axe

Posted on November 20, 2020 by John Howson

The media is full of stories about a probable pay freeze for public sector workers, to be announced by the Chancellor next week in his Spending Review. The freeze might last for up to three years, and end in the run up to the next general election. Interestingly it is almost a century since the famous Geddes Axe was on public expenditure was announced in 1922. (cmd 1581) for anyone interested.

So what might be the consequences for schools of what I suppose we ought to call Sunak’s chainsaw to bring the technology up to date? Might there be winners and losers?

The consequences for teachers will depend upon the approach chosen, but the winners and losers may well be the same whatever method is used. It is worth saying that the government doesn’t employ many teachers, and since it made the pay scales advisory, rather than mandatory, it might be dependent upon the actions of individual schools and Trusts to achieve its goal. Local Authorities can sit on the side lines, as budgets are devolved to schools and it is Schools Forums that will have to wrestle with the consequences of any announcement on their local areas.

Let’s assume that it is the National Funding formula that is frozen at current levels for three years, without even an uplift for inflation. Unless the rules are changed, schools can decide how much of their budget to spend on salaries and whether to protect teachers over other employees? Schools in areas where there is still high employment might ask parents to increase their contributions to school funds to buy items to release cash for salary increases. Such a move won’t help the ‘levelling up’ agenda.

Who might win under a pay freeze? We might see the shortest upturn in teacher recruitment on record if maths and physics graduates identify better job prospects in the private sector once again. New entrants considering teaching or nursing, not an unusual choice for some school leavers, might opt for the latter profession if NHS workers are exempt from any pay freeze. So long as the down turn in the birth rate continues, a reduction in the supply of new primary sector teachers might be manageable. But only for a short period of time, and it will have consequences in a few years’ time on leadership appointments

Teachers that change jobs might be offered more pay, so firms involved in recruitment might benefit if teacher ‘churn’ increases as a way to gain a pay increase. As my previous blog post showed, there are ways to overcome such an outcome, but it will need more than just announcing a pay freeze.

Schools with rising rolls, and especially those with generous parents, will benefit, whereas those in areas of high unemployment and low incomes might see their best teachers enticed away to other schools or even overseas if the global economy improves on the back of successful vaccines.

Private schools, assuming they can recruit pupils, will also benefit as they won’t be forced to raise fees to pay their teachers more if state school teachers’ pay is frozen.

The ‘levelling up’ agenda might be the biggest casualty of a crude one-size fits all pay freeze. After all, it was only a few years ago, in 2014, that the Social Mobility Commission proposed a 25% pay increase for teachers working in schools in deprived areas, during a previous period of pay restraint.

Should the Chancellor work out how to include the ‘levelling up’ agenda in his announcement without totally removing schools’ autonomy over the budgets, I would be happy to reconsider my views.

£3 a vacancy

Posted on November 17, 2020 by John Howson

Finding, matching and linking teacher vacancies to interested applicants for just £3. This seems unbelievable, especially if you add in all the benefits of the data collected to help with expanding our knowledge of the teacher labour market.

But, less than £3 a vacancy is the cost TeachVac’s accountants are telling me as Chair that we spent in the school year 2019-2020 handling more than 50,000 vacancies during that time. Adding teacher capacity comes at negligible cost to the system, and with well over 90% coverage of schools across England, in both state and private sectors, and a five year track record of success, the brand is now well established in the market and offers great value for money.

However, to some extent, TeachVac has been a victim of its own success, the DfE now has a site that carries a fraction of the jobs TeachVac finds. The DfE site also requires schools to do far more work to upload jobs to the site than Teachvac requires.

So it is free to the DfE, free to teachers, but not as free to schools as Teachvac. Indeed, assuming there are development and hosting costs it isn’t free to the DfE. Does it cost the taxpayer more than £3 per vacancy?

School leaders are still happy to see schools spend millions of pounds on recruitment, while complaining that education is under-funded. I don’t subscribe to the argument that education funding must help prop up private sector profits, and I wonder why others with more authority than I will ever have are happy to turn a ‘Nelsonic’ eye to such expenditure.

TeachVac’s latest accounts will soon be visible to all on the Companies House website. They are filed by Oxford Teacher Services Ltd, the holding company. If you would like a sight of the latest accounts before they appear there, do make contact and I will be happy to send you a set.

We have come a long way since the days of hot metal and the moves, firstly from column inches to display advertising, and then to the introduction of colour into vacancy advertising. Shifting recruitment advertising to the web has offered opportunities, not fully exploited by the profession, to cut costs and innovate.

TeachVac has been happy to show the way, and is now looking to expand its expertise gained with teacher vacancies into non-teaching roles. Who knows, we might be able to offer all jobs in schools across England for less than a quarter of a million pounds: now there’s a thought.

Of course if you want to sponsor the site, TeachVac is happy to engage in discussions with you. Imagine, 50,000 vacancies brought to say 60,000 job seekers across the year and around the world as teaching has become a global profession. You can do the arithmetic.

I am proud of what the small team on the Isle of Wight have created over the past five years. Please tell us how we can do even better.

Nourishing beverages

Posted on October 25, 2020 by John Howson

Those with a sense of education history, in this the 150^th anniversary year of state schooling, will recall the last time a Conservative government became embroiled in a row over food and drink in schools. During the government of Edward Heath, Mrs Thatcher was Secretary of State for Education. Her term of office in education is generally remembered for two event. As Secretary of State she presided over the conversion of more schools to non-selective education than any other Minister, whilst also raising the school leaving age to sixteen.

However, it was her decision to remove the daily third of a pint of free school milk from pupils that is most often recalled as the defining moment of her term in office at Elizabeth House. The decision gave rise to the great slogan Mrs Thatcher: milk snatcher that was up there with the other food slogans of the era: ‘drink a pint of milk and day’ and ‘beans meanz …’

The milk campaign was brought back to my mind during the present campaign for free school meals to be extended to cover all of the year when schools are not in session. Then, as now, some local authorities decided to intervene. After all, this was time when local government had much more involvement with the day to day running of our schools than is the case now.

At least two authorities, including Hillingdon that is again in the news over free school meals, decided to try and stand out against the decision to remove school milk. They know that they couldn’t provide milk, but lawyers identified that there was nothing in the rules to say that they couldn’t provide other liquids. In one case it was to be orange juice and in the other what was described as a ‘nourishing beverage’. At this distance of time, I cannot recall exactly what was to constitute such a beverage, but I guess it was to be hot in winter and cold in the summer months.

In the end, nothing long-term came of these proposals, and free daily milk during term-time for all except the very youngest pupils disappeared from our schools. Later, as Prime minister, Mrs Thatcher was to preside over the wholesale dismantlement of both the school meal system and the teaching of cookery in the curriculum.

In my earliest days working with trainee teachers, sitting in a double period practical cookery lesson being taken by a 4^th Year undergraduate was one of the joys of higher education. Watching Key Stage 4 boys in chef’s whites prepare a buffet for a parent’s evening was another delight. There was a sense of purpose and engagement in a group that might have possibly been disaffected by the Ebacc curriculum.

Although you can now learn to cook using YouTube videos, it isn’t the same as working in a group and is no preparation for a career in catering.

The ingenuity of local government then, as now, knew no bounds. However, far too often today central government is unhappy with such actions. I hope, until the government sees sense on feeding children during the pandemic that local leaders will continue to come up with solutions for their local communities.

John Howson

Education and the numbers that affect what happens

Category Archives: leadership