Category Archives: leadership

CEOs pay: what’s happening?

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A recent Chartered Institute of Personnel Development survey found that median pay for bosses of the UK’s biggest companies hit almost £4m last year – up from about £3.5m in 2016. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-45183881

That set me thinking about the work the DfE undertook earlier this year in relation to the pay of CEOs of Multi Academy Trusts and whether or not the findings had been published anywhere?

Readers will recall that Eileen Milner, the chief executive of the Education and Skills Funding Agency, wrote in February to the chairs of 87 MATs employing individuals earning more than £150,000, asking them to explain their rationale for doing so by early March and to justify paying these salaries.

The intervention comes two days after the Department for Education minister, Lord Agnew, said that no MAT boss should receive a larger pay increase than their teaching staff and that CEOs should have their pay cut if there is a downturn in the performance of their schools. It follows a similar letter sent in December 2016 to single-academy trusts paying leaders more than £150,000. Lord Agnew’s February letter can be accessed at https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/683075/Lord_Theodore_Agnew_letter_to_chairs_of_academy_trusts.pdf

Further letters appear to have been written to some MATs in April and July seeking more information. These can be found at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/letters-to-academy-trusts-about-levels-of-executive-pay 28 letters were sent in December 2017; 88 in February 2018 and a further 96 letters in either April or July 2018. With a final return date of 20th July, the EFSC should now have sufficient information to publish a report on the state of the most highly paid staff in the public education service.

There may be an issue relating to pensions should those not undertaking any teaching or direct site leadership of a school remain in the Teachers’ Pension Scheme. In the past, when becoming local authority staff most would have moved out of the TPS into the relevant LGPS for their authority. I don’t’ know how LGPS scheme managers and trustees, of which I am one for Oxfordshire’s scheme, would approach the arrival of such highly paid staff so near pensionable age, but the DfE does need to make clear the boundary for who can belong to the Teachers’ Pension Scheme even if they aren’t actually in a school?

The level of salaries paid to senior staff in the school system is clearly a matter that won’t go away. After all, perhaps 100 MATs paying more than most local authorities pay their Director of Children’s Services must be of concern in term of expenditure, especially once pension and other on-costs are added to the basic salary.

The problem really dates back to the Labour government and the development of Executive Headteacher roles without the government making it clear how such professionals should be paid. However, the seeds of that confusion date even further back into the early 1990s and the refusal to police the upper end of the Leadership Pay Scale for large schools facing recruitment difficulties. Failure to deal with a problem doesn’t always make it go away; sometimes it allows it to grow into a serious issue that is much harder to tackle as is now the case with the pay of CEOs of MATs.

 

 

 

Welcome -U- turn on EdTech

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Readers with long memories, or at least those who were around in 2010, will recall the Tories famous bonfire of the QUANGOs. Michael Gove was an enthusiastic supporter of the movement, axing the GTCE and BECTA and starting the process that lead to the disappearance of the NCTL and all the good work it had undertaken in both leadership and initial teacher education. There were other less visible casualties of which some survived in the private sector whilst others disappeared.

Axing rather than reforming BECTA, the long-standing QUANGO (Quasi Autonomous Non-Government Organisation) on EdTech was a short-sighted move that has back fired on the government. As a result, I welcome today’s announcement that the government has once again recognised the importance of technology in education.

Throughout my career, this is an area I have championed, from the early use of video cameras to record both PE lessons for skills development and rehearsals of plays to improve the schools’ entry into one-act play festivals in the 1970s, through both my time at a teachers’ centre – sadly missed professional development hubs much more engaging that the teaching schools of today – to my time in a School of Education in the 1980s where student were required to create a tape-slide presentation for one of their assignments.

Even during my brief stay at the TTA in the 1990s, I helped commission the famous internet café stand at careers’ fairs that replaced the coffee table and a couple of armchairs plus a few posters that was the staple fare before then as the main means of selling teaching to graduates..

Sadly, as the whiteboard programme showed, there has often been a tendency to put the phone before the mast (to update the cart before the horse metaphor) when it came to new technology in education. How many boring presentations on OHPs in the old days and PowerPoint these days have you say through by educators that ought to know they needed a bit of training to make best use of the technology. Still, this was the profession that axed voice coaching as not academic enough for education degree courses, so perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised at the lack of understanding of technology in teaching and learning by policy makers.

I would start with requiring all those that work with teachers in training to have a qualification in the use and development of education technology. As a geographer, I would have interactive earthquake and volcano sites open on a whiteboard in my classroom and challenge pupils to indicate anything unusual. Do that with Key Stage 2 pupils, and I guess many would soon know more about earthquakes and volcanoes than their teachers.

I think that Caroline Wright, Director General at the British Educational Suppliers Association summed my view up perfectly when she said:

I am delighted that the Department for Education’s plans place teacher training and support at the heart and soul of their future approach to EdTech and recognises that EdTech, when introduced as part of a whole school strategy, has the power to help improve pupil outcomes, save teacher time and reduce workload burdens.

As TeachVac has demonstrated in the field of teacher vacancies, technology can be very disruptive to existing orthodoxies, but that is not an excuse to do nothing and cling on to the past. –U- turns are never easy, but this one is both necessary and long overdue.

 

 

More pay: fewer teachers: worse PTRs?

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The 28th Report of the School Teachers Pay Review Body, published earlier today, provides a great summary of many of the points made on this blog over the past year. There are some good tables and graphs that summarise the situation regarding pay, recruitment and retention very well overall. However, the STRB might have looked at the primary sector in more detail, rather than just regarding it as a sector with a uniform set of issues. Data on leadership trends is also a bit on the thin side, which is surprising given that both associations representing school leaders are consultees and commented on concerns about recruitment.

The big issue arising from the Report is the extent to which schools will be able to afford the pay rise both for teachers and that to support and ancillary staff as well. As I suggested in my earlier post, before the report appeared, the settlement is going to cost schools real money. A secondary school with 60 teachers can expect an increase of perhaps between £70,000- £100,000 on its pay bill once on-costs have been taken into account. That’s a couple of classroom teachers or a review of the senior management team and perhaps one fewer deputy head and more reliance on assistant heads and teachers with TLRs?

I note that the STRB made the point, as I did earlier today, about the timing of their reports and the budgetary cycle in schools. How much did business managers put in the budget for this pay increase? Judging by the number of vacancies in the secondary sector so far this year, probably not as much as has been awarded in at least some schools.

How will the independent sector respond to this increase? This year saw the first reported decline in enrolments in their schools in the published DfE data on schools and pupils. Will it be possible to raise fees to cover the increases or might those schools be constrained in the increases on offer?

As I suggested in the earlier post, changes in recruitment on to teacher preparation courses as a result of the pay increase won’t be apparent until the 2020 recruitment round for new teachers. By then, secondary schools will be well into their growth cycle.

There is a very interesting chart on page 47 of the STRB Report showing the proportion of postgraduate entrants by different routes into teaching for 2016/17 and 2017/18. The DfE in their evidence stated that  2017/18 was the third successive year in which over half of recruitment to postgraduate ITT was to school-led routes, with such routes accounting for 53% of ITT recruitment in that year. (Para 2.13) The chart shows that although true, there was a decline in 2017/18 compared with the previous year in the percentage of trainees on school-led routes.

Finally, it is always difficult to proof read documents prepared at the last minute, as some of the posts on this blog bear testimony. However, the footnote 3 on page 12 suggests a degree of wishful thinking.

PTR Rankings remain surprisingly constant

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In my previous post I used Pupil Teacher Ratios (PTRs) as a measure that is largely consistent over time in the manner in which it has been calculated to discuss overall changes in the staffing levels of schools. One slight change in how PTRs have been calculated has been the classification of unqualified teachers and instructors within PTRs and the increase in school-based preparation courses. This may have caused some PTRs to look better than they actually are in reality.

For around 70 local authorities, a time series of overall PTRs can be constructed stretching from 1974 to 2017. These include the Outer London boroughs; the metropolitan district (forming the main conurbations outside London) and a number of shire counties where a unitary council has not yet been abstracted from within the 1974 boundaries created when the former county boroughs were changed to two tier County and District councils.  There aren’t any PTRS for the inner London boroughs, because in 1974 these boroughs were part of the ILEA and reported as a single unit until the ILEA was broken up into its constituent boroughs.

Although the time series could be traced back until 1974, I have only been able to find Statistical Bulletins on PTRs back until 1979; the last year of funding decided by the Labour government that was defeated later that year by Mrs Thatcher’s Conservatives.

Looking at the PTRS for the 71 mainland authorities, one is struck by the fact more than a third of local authorities retain a similar ranking position at the start and end of the 38 year period (with change of +/- 10 places in each list). This is especially trueof six local authorities with the most favourable overall PTRS in 1979. Two of them still occupy places in the six local authorities with the most favourable PTRS in 2017. All six are in the top 11 authorities with the best PTRS in 2017.

At the other end of the table, the two worst shire counties in 1979 have improved their positions slightly, but Oxfordshire remains in 17th worst place in the list – exactly where it was in this list of local authorities in 1979. In 1979, some local authorities still had three tier systems and those with Sixth Form Colleges had their staff included in the PTR tables as part of the secondary sector. Changes to one or other of these systems may account for some of the large movements within the ranking.

Overall the worst PTR in 1979 was 21.1, whereas in 2017 it is 19.8; an improvement of 1.3 pupils per teacher. This may have been partly paid for by a deterioration of the best placed authority in the list. The best PTR in 1979 was 15.1 – leaving aside the Isles of Scilly as a special case. In 2017, the best placed PTR was 16.1: one pupil per teacher worse than in 1979.

If PTRS continue to deteriorate over the next few years, as seems likely at present with increasing pupil numbers not fully providing for additional costs, then may be by the end of 2019 PTRs will be the same as they were in 1979 across a larger number of local authorities whether they have academies; free schools or retain maintained schools.

 

 

Bad news on exclusions

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Exclusions from school rose again in 2016-17, confirming the upward trend in exclusions that commenced in 2013/14, in both the primary and secondary sectors. Exclusion rates are still falling in the special school sector for permanent exclusions although they seemed to have stopped falling for fixed term exclusions. DfE Data for 2016-17 was published today at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/permanent-and-fixed-period-exclusions-in-england-2016-to-2017

In terms of trends, there doesn’t seem to be a lot that is new. Years 9-11 are the key danger points where a pupil, usually a boy and more likely with certain other characteristics in terms of ethnicity, free school meals and probably attainment, is likely to reach the end of the road as far as the school is concerned and end up being excluded. How hard schools try to deal with these pupils is shown by the fact that despite the worsening of Pupil Teacher Ratios, Persistent Disruptive Behaviour remained the most common reason for permanent and fixed-term exclusions. Such persistent disruptive behaviour accounted for 2,755 (35.7 per cent) of all permanent exclusions in 2016/17. This is equivalent to 3 permanent exclusions per 10,000 pupils and was up from 2,310 the previous year. Few pupils still seem to be excluded for single dramatic events compared with those where schools have struggled to contain poor behaviour over a period of time.

However, there were rises in permanent exclusions in almost all categories except for bullying, although the numbers in that group are too small to be confident of a real reduction, especially as fixed term exclusions for this reason did increase over last year’s figure.

There is considerable variation in the permanent and fixed period exclusion rate at local authority level. The regions with the highest overall rates of permanent exclusion across state-funded primary, secondary and special schools were the West Midlands and the North West (at 0.14 per cent). The regions with the lowest rates were the South East (at 0.06 per cent) and Yorkshire and the Humber (at 0.07 per cent). However, the region with the highest fixed period exclusion rate was Yorkshire and the Humber (at 7.22 per cent), whilst the lowest rate were in Outer London (3.49 per cent). These regions also had the highest and lowest rates of exclusion in the previous academic year.

The upward trend in exclusions in the primary sector is especially worrying, especially the increase in permanent exclusions, albeit they remain at a very low rate. As the primary school population peaks and then starts to reduce in number, it is to be hoped that exclusion will also start to fall. Better use of Education and Health Care Plans rather than exclusions might also be beneficial, especially if the NHS can start to recognise children where early intervention might assist in their education and social behaviour in schools.

The rate of fixed period exclusions across all state-funded primary, secondary and special schools increased from 4.29 per cent to per cent of pupil enrolments in 2015/16 to 4.76 per cent in 2016/17, which is equivalent to around 476 pupils per 10,000. However, this is still well below for the early years of the century. High levels of exclusions in those years also resulted in record numbers of young offenders being locked up in prisons. We must not return to those levels that were one of the more disappointing outcomes of that period in the nation’s education history.

 

School transfer costs

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Once you move from a placed base system for the governance of schools, to one where a market model is the preferred choice, it is probably inevitable that each year schools will move between Multi- Academy Trusts for a variety of different reasons. Today, the DfE has published a note on their statistic pages about the number of such moves and the financial implications. https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/academy-transfers-and-funding-england-financial-year-2017-to-2018

In the five years between 2013-14 and 2017-18, some 628 academies moved between MATs or MACs or moved from being single entities into a multi-school trust. Even though the overall number of academies managed as national schools has been increasing year by year, the percentage of academies moving has also been increasing. In 2013-14 the percentage of academies moving between or into Trusts was 0.5% of the overall total. By 2017-18, schools moving or joining Trusts accounted for 3.3% of the overall total of academies. It would have been helpful if the term financial year had been defined in the document. It must be assumed that it refers to the DfE’s financial year and not that of academies: they are not the same, and that has caused issues with the DfE’s accounts in the past.

In the days before the academy programme it is difficult to think of any local authority school being moved to another authority’s control, although whole authorities were broken up for a variety of reasons. Northamptonshire will be the next authority to see its remaining maintained schools split between two new unitary councils, after the financial problems that beset the county council earlier this yar. The DfE might like to publish data on the costs of such restructuring alongside these costs in the academy sector, just for comparison.

2017-18 was the first year that the number of schools receiving grant funding on moving between Trusts fell; from 60 schools the previous year to 49 in 2017-18. However, the savings were proportionally not as significant, as the bill over the two years such cash payments may be spread was only £370,000 less. Hopefully, there will be a larger decline in such expenditure in 2018-19.

Over the five year period, the cost to the system has been some £22 million. The DfE note explains what has been covered by this grant funding.

As the DfE explains, an academy can change trust arrangements only on the agreement of the Regional Schools Commissioner (RSC) acting on behalf of the Secretary of State (prior to 2014 decisions were taken by the Secretary of State).  It may apply to do so voluntarily – for example, a single academy may apply because it wants to benefit from the greater capacity (eg school improvement) from being part of a multi-academy trust; or the transfer may be initiated by the RSC because of concerns about the performance of the academy or the trust responsible for it.  The latter scenario is sometimes referred to as re-brokerage and is similar to intervention in local authority maintained schools, which sees them transformed into sponsored academies. Of course, before academies the local authority either had to solve the problems with the school or opt to close or amalgamate it with another school.

The largest sum identified in 2017-18 was for an academy in Stockport, where the cost identified was in excess of half a million pounds. Think what that cash might have done if used in other ways.

 

750 not out

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After celebrating its 5th birthday in January this year, this blog has now reached another landmark: the 750th post. The administrators tell me that means somewhere close to 450,000 words have appeared so far, with a word count averaging somewhere between 550-600 words per post: slightly shorter in recent years than in 2013 and 214.

Key themes in recent times have included, the place of local democracy in the school system and the recruitment scene for teachers, whether into teacher training or for the labour market for teachers and school leaders. This blog has published an analysis of the monthly figures from UCAS for applicants and applications to teacher preparation courses for graduates almost since the day it started. Those post followed on from a monthly review I wrote during the first decade of the century. It that case, circulation was only to a band of paid subscribers.

My involvement with TeachVac www.teachvac.co.uk and its global affiliate www.teachvacglobal.com has allowed me to make comments on the state of the labour market for teachers and school leaders in England. However, since much of the data TeachVac holds is unique to the company and TeachVac is a free to use recruitment site for both schools and teachers it isn’t a good idea to give away everything for free, so the data has been used sparingly on the blog.

How did this blog come about? Between 1998 and 2011 I wrote a series of columns for the Times Education Supplement, the venerable and much respected publication for the teachers and their schools. When I retired from their service, I wrote for Education Journal for a year or so, but was never really satisfied by being tied down again to a publication schedule: hence, eventually in 2013, the blog.

The nature of blogging provides freedom to the creator of the pieces to say what they want when they want. Originally, it was a blog about the numbers in education. To some extent it still is, but it has widened its approach, especially after I became a Liberal Democrat County Councillor in Oxfordshire in May 2013. My experiences with schools in Oxfordshire has resulted in a number of interesting posts since then, some of which have subsequently appeared in print in the Oxford Mail.

Where next for the blog? I suppose the next goal must be to reach 1,000 posts, probably by sometime in 2020. There is certainly enough to write about.

I would like to thank the many people that have added comments to the various posts over the years. There are some regular commentators, such as Janet Downs, and there are those that have just posted a comment about one specific post. Then there are the many people that have liked various posts. Thank you for your votes of support and appreciation.

The blog is mainly read by United Kingdom readers, although recently there have been more readers from the USA than in the early days and there has always been a small number of visitors from locations in different countries around the world.

If you have read this far, thank you for letting me indulge myself and I hope to keep you entertained, informed and possibly sometimes even educated.

 

 

Good news for Didcot

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Well done to the Oxfordshire UTC. The 14-19 school received a ‘Good’ rating from Ofsted this week, after its first ever inspection. In the same week the UTC in Derby was placed in special measures.

You can read the Ofsted report on the Oxfordshire UTC at  https://reports.ofsted.gov.uk/inspection-reports/find-inspection-report/provider/ELS/141111 Schools week had some interesting statistics on UTCs recently. https://schoolsweek.co.uk/derby-manufacturing-utc-placed-in-special-measures/ Apparently, according to the report by Schools Week

“almost a quarter of the 33 UTCs inspected so far have received Ofsted’s bottom grade.

Sixty-one per cent of all UTCs inspected have been rated less than ‘good’.  Six, all grade three or four, have since closed.

 Of the remaining 27 that are still open, 14 are rated either ‘requires improvement’ or ‘inadequate’.

Most UTCs have struggled since they were established in 2010, mainly because of problems attracting enough pupils to stay financially viable. Eight have so far closed.

 In January, Schools Week revealed that almost every UTC missed its recruitment targets last year, leaving them with combined debts of over £11 million.”

The UTC in Didcot is clearly bucking the trend for UTCs as a whole and I am grateful to the person that emailed me last night after the Ofsted Report had appeared to draw it to my attention. However, I still have anxieties over its long-term future if it cannot fill all the places it has on offer.

What Ofsted have revealed is that although the Oxfordshire UTC is still a work in progress it has strong leadership and a clear vision of what it is seeking to achieve.  The school and its staff are also aware that a proportion of their pupils come to them at fourteen with a less than successful record of achievement in the school system. Unlike some 14-18 schools they are not only aware of this but also set out to change the relationship with these pupils and the education system. That’s a tough job, but like Meadowbrook, the alternative provision in Oxfordshire, where Ofsted also commented on the work with teenagers that have reacted against schooling, the Oxfordshire UTC is also winning the hearts and minds of these young people. As Ofsted commented in their summary:

Pupils, including some who had previously struggled to engage with education, are inspired by the UTC’s ethos.

The Inspector went on to add that:

Since the UTC opened, some pupils have arrived in Year 10 having had negative experiences of schooling. Staff quickly get to know the pupils well, and support and reassure any experiencing stress or anxiety. Pupils gain a sense of community, security and pride during their time at UTC Oxfordshire. This equips them with great confidence and maturity.

Inspection report: UTC Oxfordshire, 22–23 May 2018

Schools cannot succeed without strong and purposeful leadership and the Oxfordshire UTC certainly has a leader creating a successful school backed by a strong team and supportive sponsors.

My more general anxiety is how the next generation of leaders for the school system will be developed? Some MATs will ensure that they create leadership pathways, but how will the stand alone academies and the remaining maintained schools ensure a leadership pipeline that is sufficient to meet the needs of all schools. This question is especially pertinent at a time when the need for career pathways for teachers that doesn’t involve whole school leadership is once again being discussed.

There are other reasons why I have concerns about 14-18 schools, but in this case I am delighted to offer my congratulations to the Oxfordshire UTC.

Buddy, can you spare a job?

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On Wednesday, during his appearance in front of the Education Select Committee, the Secretary of State’s attention was drawn to the existence of TeachVac www.teachvac.co.uk. The Deputy Chairman of the Committee, Gateshead MP, Ian Mearns, asked Mr Hinds about the DfE’s new vacancy site and the number of vacancies posted on it at present. At the same time he also mentioned the free vacancy service for schools and teachers already being provided nationwide by TeachVac. The exchange is at 1108 on the video at https://www.parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/58da6df3-da79-4b92-99cb-64a2a96d03de

Regular readers of this blog will know of my involvement with TeachVac, in my capacity as Chair of the company operating TeachVac and TeachVac Global, the site for international schools.

The DfE vacancy site is only accepting jobs at present from schools in Cambridgeshire and the whole of the North East region. Earlier today the DfE site had a total of just nine vacancies listed, and only four of those were teaching posts. Of the teaching posts, three posts had a closing date of today and the fourth closes on Monday. As a result, unless new vacancies are posted, the DfE site will have no vacancies for teachers by Tuesday of next week. All four vacancies are from two areas of the North East: there are already no vacancies posted by Cambridgeshire schools on the site.

By comparison, TeachVac has 5 vacancies for teaching posts in Cambridgeshire and 12 vacancies across the North East; all with closing dates extending into next week or beyond. One of the DfE vacancies had its closing date extended earlier today, but that is not yet apparent on the DfE site; it is on TeachVac. This is the quietist part of the year for vacancies, so the next few weeks will provide little evidence about the working of the DfE site and its capacity to handle the large number of vacancies posted during March, April and May.

The DfE site also has a significant problem with one of the posted vacancies, for a Head of Languages, with the result that most applicants probably wouldn’t find the vacancy. TeachVac uses a ‘defined’ vacancy search system, unlike the DfE’s open system that follows the type of systems used by others such as the TES.

The DfE would have saved the taxpayer a lot of money if it had just produced a portal with a list of free sites with national coverage, such as TeachVac; free sites with local coverage and paid for job sites. This would have produced a national coverage at minimal cost of time and money. Instead, there is a site that is spending public money competing with the marketplace. But, that’s alright as the Public Accounts Committee gave the DfE the green light. However, the DfE won’t have any useful data about vacancies until at least 2020 at the current rate of progress.

I also wonder how many millions will be spent on marketing their site. Again, there is a low cost solution that has political attractions for the Secretary of State, but he is going to have to ask if he wants to know what it is. Should the Select Committee want to ask me, I am happy to respond I am already updating the professional associations and other key players about TeachVac whose revamped site went live this week handling vacancies in schools across England.

 

 

 

Workforce worries over retention

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Yesterday, this blog took its first look at the School Workforce Census data for 2017. Jack Worth at NfER, their authority on the school workforce, has also written a much more extensive blog about the same data. This can be found at https://www.nfer.ac.uk/news-events/nfer-blogs/latest-teacher-retention-statistics-paint-a-bleak-picture-for-teacher-supply-in-england/ It is well worth a read.

One interesting dataset in the DfE Tables is that on teacher retention. The DfE has updated the numbers used in their submission to the STRB as part of their discussions on pay and conditions for teachers still covered by the national pay and conditions. The updated data doesn’t make for pleasant reading.

Year
NQT enter-ing service
YEAR 1
YEAR 2
YEAR 3
YEAR 4
YEAR 5
YEAR 6
YEAR 7
YEAR 8
YEAR 9
YEAR 10
1996
18100
16471
15204
14299
13213
12851
12308
12127
11584
11222
10860
1997
18900
17010
15023
14553
13986
13419
13041
12663
12285
11718
11340
1998
17800
15842
14418
13706
13172
12816
12282
11926
11392
11214
11036
1999
18300
16104
15006
14091
13542
12993
12810
12261
11895
11712
11346
2000
17600
15664
14608
13728
13024
12672
12144
11792
11616
11264
10912
2001
18600
16554
15252
14508
13950
13206
12648
12462
12276
11904
11904
2002
20700
18423
17181
16146
15318
14904
14490
14076
13662
13455
13248
2003
23000
20700
19090
17710
17020
16330
15870
15640
15410
14950
14490
2004
25200
22428
20412
19404
18648
17892
17388
17388
16884
16380
15624
2005
25700
22102
20817
19789
19018
18247
18247
17733
16962
16448
15677
2006
24000
20880
19440
18480
17760
17520
17040
16320
15840
14880
14400
2007
24400
21472
20008
19032
18788
18056
17324
16592
15372
15128
14640
2008
24400
21472
20008
19520
18788
18056
17324
16104
15860
15372
2009
22300
19401
18509
17617
17394
16056
15164
15164
14272
2010
24100
20967
19762
18557
17593
16870
15906
15424
2011
20600
18128
17098
15862
15038
14214
13390
2012
23300
20504
18873
17475
16543
15611
2013
23800
20706
19040
17612
16660
2014
25100
21837
19829
17374
2015
26100
22707
20358
2016
24900
21165
2017
23300

Abstracted from DfE Table 8 School Workforce Census June 2018

Although the number of NQTs fluctuates from year to year and is uprated as new entrants arrive in the profession as deferred entrants, either for the first time or from another sector, the loss of teachers is concerning. It is probably worth ignoring the 2011 data where the NQT number looks somewhat out of line for the period since 2006.

The DfE notes that numbers also underestimate teachers in part-time service, but, if the underestimate is consistent, this is only an issue where part-time working among this group of teachers is changing significantly.

The table does show how quickly teacher recruitment and retention can become an issue, especially where school rolls are on the increase, if the profession doesn’t hold on to its teachers.

The real concern must be with retention from years 6-10, where the next generation of middle leaders should start to be emerging. Assuming the 2007 cohort is split equally between primary and secondary sectors, this would mean a cohort of around 7,400 primary teachers. As the primary sector currently needs more than 1,000 new head teachers each year, the likelihood is that approaching 15% of the cohort may need to become head teachers at some point in their careers. Adding in deputy posts means that the percentage of the cohort needed for leadership positions probably exceeds 25%.

If you factor in specific demands, such as the need to be a Roman Catholic to lead an RC primary school, future leadership issues can already be predicted if the workforce isn’t prepared for leadership.

There are no regional breakdowns for retention in the tables. Such breakdowns would be helpful in predicating the pressures on future leadership appointments at a sub-national level and identifying the areas where there is the need to take early action. Perhaps, the Select Committee might ask for that data next time they talk to the Secretary of State for Education.