Why the ITT Census should never be a surprise

Posted on October 2, 2026 by John Howson

How early in the annual ITT recruitment cycle can you confidentially predict the outcome? I asked myself this question when, earlier today, someone looked up a post on the blog that I wrote in February 2022. Not much of a Christmas Present | John Howson

Based on the data from the end of January 2022 for courses starting that autumn, I wrote the following

‘In summary, there is a degree of caution about the data in this monthly release, but there is almost certainly work still to be done to avoid another year of under-recruitment and a tight labour market for schools in 2023’

This was my cautious way of saying that a further year of trouble lay ahead. Even I, at that time, could not have predicted how far away from the targets the outcome for that year’s recruitment was to be. Of course, the targets may well have been too high, just as the current year’s targets may well be too low in some subjects. Nevertheless, recruitment outcomes were brutal. See STEM subjects ‘late recruiters’? | John Howson and More on the ITT census | John Howson as well as a number of other posts during December 2022 discussing the ITT census and its findings.

Over the course of more than 25 years studying monthly trends in recruitment, I believe that by the end of February in a normal year – Covid pandemic years being an unforeseen exception – it is possible to predict trends from that month’s data. This is because, by then, applications from final year undergraduates and discontented new graduates are in decline as finalists concentrate on exams and final coursework to be replaced for the next six month much more by career switchers.

Crucially, in Jue and July new graduates that haven’t found a job may swell the number of applicants when there is a tight graduate labour market. If there are plenty of graduate jobs, and the application rate until June has been subdued, a late bounce is unlikely.

In the past three years, application data has been made more challenging to interpret because of the large influx of applicants from ‘the rest of the world’. These applicants may account for as much as 25% of the total number of applicants. Even if they are made ‘offers’ will they obtain the necessary visa to come to England, and then will they be allowed to teacher here? So far, this is an issue in some subjects, but not across the board.

Should the DfE react to poor recruitment data? An interesting question. They did react in 2013 in July when I ventured to suggest some subjects would not hit their targets. You can read what happened in my book ‘teachers, schools and their vies on education’ available either n Amazon or directly from myself via the comments section.

Suffice to say, I think that was a face-saving exercise, but the substantive point remains. Can and should the government intervene in a cycle to help recruitment. Hopefully, with falling rolls and the threat of AI, they won’t need to. However, it is worth remembering that the Training Grant was announced in a March, and had an immediate effect upon recruitment.

Teacher shortages are commonplace across the globe

Posted on September 30, 2026 by John Howson

OECD has today published the 2026 edition of ‘Education Indicators At a glance’. Education at a Glance 2026 | OECD The section on teacher shortages has already received several comments on LinkedIn and elsewhere. I though I might look in some detail about the United Kingdom section in the ’country report’ about teacher shortages.

On the face of it, the UK fares well compared with other countries. Apparently, only 2.9% of teachers in state schools are not fully qualified. I wonder what the percentage would be for Further Education?

Teacher shortages

Shortages of skilled workers have affected many sectors across the OECD in recent years, and the teaching profession is no exception. Teacher shortages manifest in different ways across education systems: in some countries, a lack of fully qualified teachers is reflected in a higher share of non-fully qualified staff, while in others a significant number of teaching positions remain unfilled.
Non-fully qualified teachers refer to teachers who do not yet meet all the requirements to be recognised as fully qualified teachers under national regulations. In most countries, they either possess the required academic qualifications but lack mandatory certification or teacher training, have completed the required teacher training but do not hold the required academic qualifications, or lack both. In England, 2.9% of all primary and secondary teachers in public institutions were not fully qualified in 2024/25, below the OECD average of 9.1% (Figure 1).
Countries use two main approaches to measuring teacher shortages. The first approach estimates shortages before or at the start of the school year based on projected recruitment needs. The second approach measures shortages by counting the number of positions that remain vacant at the start of the school year or shortly after it begins. England uses the second approach, and 0.6% of all teaching positions in public secondary education were unfilled at or shortly before the start of the 2024/25 school year (Table 2). Education at a Glance 2026: United Kingdom

However, it is important to delve into what’ ‘Qualified’ actually means.

In England, possession of QTS allows teachers, not, interestingly, a reserved occupation term, to teach anything to anyone at any level. For the past 25 years, I have been asking for QTS to be linked to phase and subject studied in ITT. However, apart from in the Liberal Democrat Manifesto in 20025, there has been no political appetite to limit QTS in any way. I still think that is a mistake. The over-supply of PE and history teachers has helped keep school fully staffed during the recruitment crisis that started way back in 2013, but may now be coming to an end.

It is also worth pointing out that schools can be fully staffed in England by adjusting the curriculum, and dropping subjects they cannot staff. The other alternative, as OECD noted, is using less well-qualified staff. The figures on combined versus separate science at Key Stage 4 between different types of school are stark. The former can be staffed with teachers with less subject knowledge than the latter. If you don’t pass the 11+, you probably won’t study Physics as a subject by KS4 | John Howson

I was surprised that OECD appears to have accepted the DfE data at face value and not to have a definition that would deal with the fact that QTS is so broad as to be meaningless at both primary and secondary school levels.

No song for Labour?

Posted on September 29, 2026 by John Howson

Traditionally, the Labour Party conference used to end in song. Historically, it was the Red Fag that was belted out by delegates, many of whom had learn to sing both in school and in church, chapel or other place of worship. Go to a funeral or a wedding these days, and singing is often either desultory or non-existent, except for a few brave souls. Partly, this is down to the decline in attendance at organised worship, but partly, especially for weddings, it may be down to the decline in music teaching in schools.

Yesterday, I was told of an initiative to revive school choirs https://www.cloreduffield.org.uk/clore-school-choirs-and-singing-programme

However, it will take more than a few philanthropic gestures to revive music in our schools. The subject has now reached a crisis point in state schools across England. I don’t expect the number of new trainees to meet the DfE’s target this autumn. Sadly, It is not as if missing the ITT target in music is something new.

ITT census	% of target recruited
2019/20	80
2020/21	122
2021/22	71
2022/23	62
2023/24	27
2024/25	40
2025/25	65

My expectation for the 2025/26 outcome is somewhere between 80-85% based upon September acceptance numbers through the DfE recruitment to ITT portal data published yesterday – see my previous two posts for more details.

The improvement to around 80% is because the target for this September has been reduced by the DfE from a high of 820 trainees needed in 2024/25, to a new low of 260 two years later for the 2026/27 intake.

ITT target	2021/22	2022/23	2023/24	2024/25	2025/26	2026/27
Music	540	470	790	820	565	260

In part, the reduction in the target is the result of not adding unfilled places in one year to the target for the next year. That was a policy I have always said, since it was tried in the 1990s, was a mistake. Schools cannot absorb more than a certain number of teachers each year, and they always start the autumn term fully staffed for the timetable that they have produced.

Change the timetable, and cut an examination subject, and a school is unlikely to offer it the following year in its options package, especially if it might not recruit a teacher needed to teach the subject, and someone else might need to make way for the restoration of the subject to the timetable. Once gone, it is hard to recover without a change in policy.

Of course, falling rolls will mean a reduction in demand for teachers, assuming school funding doesn’t improve – quite likely, and that retention remains at current levels – also likely with a faltering graduate job market. But is the cut to 260 places for music, a cut that would certainly justify the removal of the bursary sensible? The DfE seem to think so, after having run the Teacher Supply Model, based upon current input data. I am less sure.

So far in 2026, there have been over 500 vacancies for teachers of music and heads of department, so by year-end in December that total might have increased to somewhere between 550-600 vacancies across the year in state schools.

How does that compare to possible supply? In 2025/26 the ITT census recorded 367 music trainees. Allowing for wastage, both in-course and post-course that might reduce the available number to less than 300 or about 50% of vacancies, leaving the other 300 to be filled from returners or other sources.

	Music	ITT census
	2013/14	380
	2014/15	375
	2015/16	355
	2016/17	355
	2017/18	295
	2018/19	300
	2019/20	320
	2020/21	483
	2021/22	390
	2022/23	301
	2023/24	214
	2024/25	345
	2025/26	367
estimate	2026/27	240

With the reduced target of 260, the likely outcome, based on the September offer number is for around 230 trainees at the end of the year, with less than 200 available to work in the state sector in 2027, based on past trends.

Vacancies would need to fall by around 200 in 2027 for that number of new teachers to take up half the vacancies. If vacancies were to remain at 600, admittedly an upper estimate, then new entrants to the labour market might only be able to fill a third of vacancies. This would be grim news, and leaves me with two conclusions

The Teacher Supply Model has cut targets too far too soon

The removal of the bursary has affected recruitment, but the effect has been masked by the cut to the ITT target.

In the real world, unless I am wrong, fewer children will study music from September 2027/28 onwards – that’s the next school-year.

Is that what the government wants? I don’t know, but I do know that there is a risk of music disappearing as an examination subject unless more music teachers are recruited.

I was told, an unverified number, of just 190 entries in the North East Region for music at A level this summer. How many of those were from private schools? I will see what I can find out from the published statistics.

Music is changing, but that change won’t happen nor will music continue to support growth in the economy through orchestras, popular music and other trends if we let music die in the majority of state schools.

A world where music is created by Artificial Intelligence and not by humans, will be a less enjoyable place in which to live.

The ITT Census versus September acceptances

Posted on September 28, 2026 by John Howson

In my previous post, I said at the end of the post that I would look at what any differences between the August ITT acceptance data issued by the DfE earlier today, and the ITT census to be issued in December 2026 might be, by looking at the difference between those accepted in September 2025 and the ITT Census of December 2025.

In reality, this task has proved something more of a challenge that I had expected. This is mostly because of the late announcement of the targets for September 2026. These were not announced until April 2026, by which time many subjects had already made offers in excess of the new, and lower, targets. The fact that the targets for 2026 were in many subjects drastically reduced has made the analysis almost impossible.

Because of the reduction in the targets, it is possible that the outcome of the 2026 ITT Census could be the best year in terms of hitting targets since 2012, especially once Teach First and any other non-DfE portal recruitment is factored into the census.

However, there are a few subjects that rely almost entirely upon the DfE portal for recruitment that we now know are very unlikely to meet even the revised target for September 2026.

These are: Business Studies; Classics, Drama; Religious Education and the catch-all ‘Other’ that includes media and communication studies, social studies, citizenship and psychology.

Although how the ‘other’ subjects grouping reaches a target of 2,035 places remains a bit of a mystery. As I have advocated elsewhere, it is now time to breakdown the ’other category’ into its component subject targets to allow for meaningful discussions about teacher supply. With around one in eight places in the ‘other’ category and the category recruiting very poorly it is time for a more meaningful discussion about the classifications used by the DfE for its IIT targets.

A reminder of how the targets have changed this year when compared to the previous year

		2025/26	2026/27
Total		26,920	20,800
Primary	Total	7,650	5,520
Secondary	Total	19,270	15,280
	Art and Design	680	605
	Biology	985	675
	Business Studies	900	1,200
	Chemistry	730	690
	Classics	60	75
	Computing	895	565
	Design and Technology	965	620
	Drama	620	370
	English	1,950	1,980
	Geography	935	685
	History	790	520
	Mathematics	2,300	2,000
	Modern Foreign Languages	1,460	1,085
	Music	565	260
	Others	2,520	2,035
	Physical Education	725	655
	Physics	1,410	810
	Religious Education	780	450

Some years ago, the total was nearer 40,000 trainees, so this has been a dramatic reduction.

When were secondary trainee targets last as low as 15,280? Not for some time. I will do a search and see if I can find out the last time the targets were this low for both primary and secondary trainees. As these targets now include almost all routes, it will be interesting to see whether when they were last this low were there no ‘off target’ numbers such as the former employment-based routes?

Mixed results across the ITT targets this September

Posted on September 28, 2026 by John Howson

Earlier this year, (in April) the DfE slashed the targets for new trainee teachers, citing falling rolls. In some case, this won’t have made a difference because either the new target was still unattainable or those in ITT had already exceeded the new target, and presumably couldn’t or wouldn’t withdraw offers already made.

So, what does the landscape look like this September, now that the DfE has released the data that will be close to the final outcomes for courses, at least those recruiting through the DfE portal. The Teach First, and other such programmes must be added to the data. However, before the ITT census there will undoubtedly be some dropouts or no-shows to courses. As a result, the September numbers accepted should provide a good idea of the basis for calculating the number of new teachers emerging onto the state school labour market for September 2027. (Take of 6% for in-course-wastage, and then 15-20% of the remainder for those not wanting to teaching state schools – these are conservative percentages). This means there may well be shortages in some subjects, especially the arts that Labour seemed to want to espouse, as the table shows.

The final percentages for mathematics and physics may well depend upon how many overseas students can obtain a visa, firstly to study and then to work in England?

It really is time to open up what the DfE means by ‘others’, and include some more actual subjects in the list. Computing may be the first subject to be benefitting from concern over the loss of jobs to AI.

I very much doubt whether the total for music, biology, religious education, design and technology, geography and English will be enough to meet the needs of schools in 2027. Rolls across the country just are not falling that fast, whatever is happening in London.

I am not sure what the DfE has calculated for the effects oof VAT on the private school sector, but if numbers fell in that sector, the sector would need to recruit fewer teachers. This would only have an impact if it was a reduction in overseas student numbers, as, presumably, home students would transfer into the state system, requiring more teachers, even at the worse pupil-teacher ratio of the state sector.

Where are acceptances down on last year?

Applications submitted were 62,633 this year, compared with 55,637 last year. However, accepted numbers were down from 26,714 to 24,850 meaning an increase of more than 4,000 applicants rejected.

The number of acceptances fell across all age groups, larger falls were in the age-groups normally associated with career switchers, and there were relatively small falls for new graduates. This is encouraging news for the long-term health of the profession, as younger trainees that stay the course should provide for the cadre of future leaders.

Most of the fall in acceptances were of females: down from 17,918 to 16,189, with males just declining from 8,516 to 8,382. This may reflect the greater number of females that apply for primary sector courses.

More worrying is the fact that while acceptances from ‘rest of the world’ applicants remained steady at 1,440 this year compared with 1,428 last year, most UK regions witnessed a decline in acceptances. There were 9,661 acceptances for primary phase courses compared with 9,887 last year, while secondary phase acceptances declined from 16,829 to 15,190.

Apprenticeships bucked the trend, witnessing more acceptances (1,453 against 1,310 for PG and 261 against 198 for degree apprenticeships). Salaried route acceptances slumped from 618 to just 304, presumably as a result of the apprenticeship route, which may be cheaper for schools.

Finally, all training provider regions witnessed a decline in acceptances, with fewer than 1,000 trainees across the North East region being accepted ( 911 compared with 1,078 last year).

If I have time, I will compare the 2026 September acceptances with census to measure whether there is any significant amount of change between the two datasets.

Vocational education: Closing doors or widening opportunities?

Posted on September 25, 2026 by John Howson

The education of young people has had quite an airing over the past week. At the Liberal Democrats conference, Munira Wilson MP, the Party’s Education spokesperson at Westminster, gave a platform speech that foreshadowed the announcement by Lucy Powell, the Secretary of State, about post-14 vocational education.

You can see Munira’s speech on YouTube. I suggest starting at 1 hour 38 minutes into the video lib dem conference 2026 autumn saturday afternoon session – Search

In her speech, Munira raised one of the key dilemmas of education. How to promote ambition without encouraging many young people to leave their communities to seek to achieve their ambitions? Many that leave our rural and coastal communities (the source of another debate at the conference) to fulfil an educational ambition, often at university, never return.

I believe that governments should be encouraging these young people to return and set up businesses in rural and coastal communities as part of regeneration schemes.

Labour’s, Lucy Powell’s, focus was one the perennial issue within the British education system: how to resolve classroom and practical subjects at examination level in terms of parity of esteem? Labour answer is to recreate courses for 14-16 year olds in practical subjects, such as construction, care and business. New Vocational GCSEs unveiled in major shake-up to hands-on learning for teens – GOV.UK

In 2003, I wrote a paper for the Liberal Democrats entitled ‘No child left behind’ – a phrase borrowed from US President Bush – in which I advocated a 14-18 sector. I recognised that many young people at 14 were disillusioned with school, but might be brought back into education if they were offered courses more aligned with their career ambitions. Now, I understand Munira’s point that at 14 she wanted to be a teacher, but as a graduate went into a different career. Munira no doubt already wanted to go to university at 14.

But, what of those, the Newsom 50%, Half Our Future: A tribute to Sir John Newsom’s Report | John Howson that don’t aspire to stay in education. At what age should we help them on the path to a working life? In 2003, I suggested links with further education, and its more grown- up approach and better facilities than many schools can provide for practical courses.

Labour’s announcement this week, ahead of their conference, seemed a bit rushed. Nothing about where to find the staff to teach these new vocational subjects in schools? Nothing about the issue of ‘norm’ referencing in examinations. How do you ‘norm reference’ the building of a wall in a construction class or the creation of a meal in a hospitality course? Trying to create national standards will be a real challenge.

Both Munira, and then Lucy Powell, did speak about the need for more work experience in schools. Again, this is something that I support wholeheartedly, but again how do we deal with the limited opportunities in our rural and coastal communities? As so often in education, it will come down to who will pay for the transport?

However, NEETs are not just an education issue. Any government that is responsible for an economy that is not producing jobs for either young people of those made redundant in their 40s and 50s, has two choices, either benefits or some form of education and training provision, if it wants to keep down the numbers unemployed. With AI likely to recreate the job scene in a new format, the issue of the relationship between education and employment isn’t going to go away anytime soon.

Is the Teachers’ Pay Award fully funded or not?

Posted on September 18, 2026 by John Howson

Earlier this week, the Secretary of State wrote to the National Education Union(NEU) about funding for the Teachers Pay Settlement. I cannot find the text of the letter on the DfE’s website, but the NEU helpfully stated that:

The NEU has secured through negotiations with the Secretary of State for Education a fully funded pay increase for all teachers throughout England. This is a significant step. In a letter to the General Secretary of the NEU Lucy Powell outlined her proposals for funding alongside a willingness to address issues around accountability, workload, and well-being. NEU secures from Government full funding for teacher pay offer | National Education Union

Since then, doubts have been cast upon whether there is enough money for a ‘fully funded’ pay rise for all teachers. Given that the NEU was considering industrial action over pay, this statement looked like a real win for the Union.

However, this announcement was never likely to create produce a ‘fully funded’ pay increase because of the manner in which the National Funding Formula for schools operates. Schools have different mixes of staff salaries, some have many inexperienced teachers near the bottom of the main scale, whereas other schools have many long-serving teachers at the top of the Upper Pay Spine. Schools also differ in how they reward additional activities with Teaching and Learning responsibility points (TLRs). The Formula cannot take these differences into account.

Asa result, some schools would be more than fully funded and other left still needing to find the rest of the pay award.

Subsequently, it seems that the DfE assumed that the funding for the pay award will come for the saving schools experience as a result of the reduction in the employer’s contribution to the non-teaching staff pension scheme: the LGPS. That seems like wishful thinking to many commentators, including myself.

First there are a number of LGPS Pools, with different outcomes, and hence different rates of employer contribution. As a result, a school with a high percentage of staff at the top of the Upper Pay Spine, few support staff and located in an LGPS fund with one of the higher contribution rates will fare far less well from this announcement than a school with the opposite profile.

Also, making an announcement in September mean that every school budget is already set, and the only spare cash is in any ‘contingency’ line on the budget. The DfE should know that fact. As a result, this announcement looks like either something of a face-saving act or another of the Labour government’s gross miscalculations. Either way, it seems likely many schools, if not most, will have given only a faint cheer on hearing the announcement, if they managed to raise a cheer at all.

I am told that the DfE clawed back the savings from reductions in employers’ contributions to the Teachers Pension Scheme. Unlike LGPS, where there are real schemes, with investments than can go up and down, the TPS, like the Civil Service Pension Fund, doesn’t actually exist as a fund, but is held by The Treasury as a notional fund.

Wearable glasses: a need for a new school rule?

Posted on September 10, 2026 by John Howson

This post on LinkedIn caught my eye recently. It adds yet another challenge to schools trying to keep pupils and staff safe in an ever-changing world, where technology is continually throwing up new challenges.

A small request as the new academic year begins. As Meta glasses and other wearable technologies become more common, ‘covert’ recording in classrooms is going to become increasingly easy. I get that it happens, maybe it shouldn’t but it does.

Personally, I really don’t mind being recorded; if a student genuinely thinks having a recording of part of a session will help them revisit an explanation or support their learning, I’m pretty relaxed about it. ,Indeed, if the reason was genuine, I’d probably be quite happy that there’s another way for you to digest the information I’m trying to deliver.

But please ask first.

Ater reading this post, and considering the debate around mobile phones in schools, I wonder if I can see a new school rule being developed, perhaps along the following lines:

Any pupils, staff and visitors wanting to wear glasses on school premises must register a photograph of those glasses with the school office, and notify the school office of any change.

Pupils and visitors should be aware that cameras at entry points and classroom doors check anyone entering the school wearing glasses to ensure that they are of the registered design.

The rule is to protect everyone (pupils and staff) from the use of unregistered recordings within the school premises. It is just an extension of the current photo pass rules, but adapted to cope with new technology.

If we are going to be wiped out as a species by AI, sometime before my 90^th birthday, then is this issue worth worrying about. I don’t know, but I do know keeping vulnerable young people safe is an essential role for the State, and its agents, as well as private sector organisations that offer services to young people and vulnerable adults.

I would be interested to hear what others think? Over-reaction, as I think knife arches are in schools, or a sensible approach to a possible problem? What degree of risk are we willing to accept? I don’t want knife arches in schools | John Howson

It was the mass killing of pupils 30 years ago in Dunblane that started the drive to ensure the safety of those in schools. So far, compared with what is happening around the world, especially in countries where guns are commonplace, England has avoided large scale attacks, but, as I know from personal experience, one attack is one too many.

Teacher retention versus recruitment: not just a matter of economics

Posted on September 10, 2026 by John Howson

This week, the Education Policy Institute (EPI), a think tank with left leanings, published another report about the value of ensuring teachers don’t leave the profession compared with trying to boost recruitment. Their latest report is called Retain or Recruit? Microsoft Word – EPI_RetrainRecruit_September2026 and follows on from their earlier report on a similar topic, reviewed in my blog post from 2022, ‘Keeping Science Teachers in Schools Keeping science teachers in schools | John Howson Both EPI reports were supported by The Gatsby Foundation, a body that has a long and honourable history of supporting research in this field.

The latest EPI report makes three recommendations:

Fund a specialist-equivalent retraining programme

Close the data gaps on completion, post-programme teaching, and demand

Add retraining alongside bursary policy, not in place of it

Microsoft Word – EPI_RetrainRecruit_September2026 page 53.

I am all in favour of re-training, if there are the teachers with sufficient knowledge, skills and desire to retrain to do so located in the schools that need them. After all, with an open labour market for teachers, using price as a mechanism for attracting teachers to work in schools without teachers capable of delivering physics at an advanced level hasn’t worked.

However, the EPI report does need to be set into the current context of falling pupil numbers that will eventually affect the size of sixth forms. As I demonstrated in an earlier post, Are small sixth forms a good idea? | John Howson small sixth forms often don’t perform well. Is it worth making sure any first tranche of retrained teachers would be in schools with a viable future, and the possibility of a credible ‘A’ Level programme? However, this is a much wider issue than just teaching physics to ‘A’ level that a future government may need to deal with at some stage.

I am all in favour of ensuring we know who teachers what to whom, and indeed what isn’t being taught in some schools because of the lack of a qualified teacher. I wonder whether this information already exists within the School Workforce database? If not, some sampling of schools might be useful. The 1999 study that I participated in showed that ‘Teaching ‘A’ Level physics was an important driver in retention of early career teachers. I guess it might also be for those retrained. We know for ‘A’ Level entries the schools not currently entering any candidates for the subject.

It is also worth recalling the EPI previously visited this issue in 2018, as I noted in my blog post Pay physics teachers more than history teachers? | John Howson when the issue of differential pay was discussed. Mechanisms around recruitment and retention incentives and equal pay for jobs of equal worth can bedevil that debate.

Finally, it is worth considering whether programme such as Teach First have a better rate of retention than other ITT routes, including apprenticeships and salaried schemes.

We all want more teachers of physics, so I hope that decision-makers consider the EPI approach seriously, as they did with pre-ITT course subject enhancement courses.

NEETS: the journey starts at six not sixteen

Posted on September 9, 2026 by John Howson

In my previous post, I looked at the PISA survey comments about teachers. I am sure that there is a degree of correlation between high-quality teaching on the one hand, and student outcomes at the end of each transition stage in a young person’s education journey on the other hand. Inputs affect outputs.

However, the equation is not as simple as that. For the most part, learners need to engage to succeed. I came across this interesting paragraph about NEETs, in a briefing note written by the Confederation of School Trusts.

‘The larger lesson is therefore that NEET should not principally be understood as a status to be

remedied after the event. It is better understood as the possible end-point of a progressive

weakening of the connections between a young person and the institutions that should carry

them from childhood into adult economic and civic life.’ Preventing young people from becoming NEET – 2026-09-01.pdf – Google Drive

While I am not a fan of academies, mainly because of the absence of local democratic involvement, it doesn’t mean that I don’t respect the work many within that sector undertake.

This briefing note is one example of what I think is a great summary of how the risk of becoming a NEET starts on day one of schooling. Along with Sir Nick Clegg when he was Deputy Prime Minister and concerned about progress of under-fives, I would also argue that the risk of a journey to becoming a NEET begins even earlier. It is interesting to re-read a blog post written more than a decade ago in January 2015. Ending child illiteracy by 2025 | John Howson

The closure of Sure Start centres was, in retrospect, one of the worst decisions of the coalition government. Sadly, like the Academies Act 2010 that produced the ‘hell for leather’ race to academisation, I wonder if the Liberal Democrat part of the Coalition Government could, perhaps, have fought harder to prevent both outcomes.

My two current suggestions are: monitor absence from day one of school or nursery and identify where any undue amount of absence starts to affect the acquisition of the fundamental building blocks of learning to read, write (if still considered necessary) and learn the basics of numeracy.

The primary system of teacher and class-based progress allied to an aim of measuring outcomes by eleven and transfer to secondary school might be worth re-considering. What percentage of those that fall behind with the basics ever catch up? How successful are interventions and the use of support staff, or are many of them just childminding? Of course, both won’t have immediate results, but we have to do more than firefighting when someone reaches sixteen.

In one of my earliest posts on this blog, in 2013, Quality Assurance v Quality Control | John Howson I discussed the issue of how you deal with failure to reach an expected standard in terms of making cars. Some of those industrial techniques apply to the learning process. Don’t wait until measurement points to remediate, but diagnose where the block to progress is taking place and intervene effectively at that point. NEETs mostly don’t want to be NEETs, and we need to find ways after 150 years of state education to ensure all that have the capability to success can do so.

The problem of ensuring enough jobs for all is someone ese’s problem. Let’s make sure the state school system no longer produces NEETs that are not capable of entering adult life and the workplace.

John Howson

Education and the numbers that affect what happens

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