Why do some schools suspend more pupils than other schools?

Posted on April 23, 2023 by John Howson

The levelling up debate seems to have somewhat been overshadowed recently by the concerns about Ofsted, and the issues with worker’s pay and conditions. However, the problem of how to increase success rates for some schools hasn’t disappeared.

As I have written before on this blog, the lack of any local ability to intervene in the absence of government funding stream for levelling up, means that improvements are often haphazard, if they even happen at all. Academy chains could shunt pupils out of their schools, and leave others to cope, and failing schools have limited support outside of opportunity Areas or other places with special funding.

For a long period of time, part of Oxford city – that city of dreaming spires – has been divided into two; the generally, affluenct and successful North and West of the city, and less well-off south and east, as the ONS data from the 2021 starkly reveals. Not so much a case of the wrong side of the tracks, but the wrong side of the river Cherwell – not, note, the river Thames.

As a result, it is perhaps not much of a surprise to find that two of the state-funded secondary schools within the city – both located in the south of the city – have places in the top 200 secondary schools by the rate of suspensions during the Spring term of 2021/22 school-year. Fortunately, neither is in the top 100 schools, and for both they are probably faring better than they were a few years ago.

This an issue that the government’s Social Mobility Commission Social Mobility Commission Quarterly Commentary: March 2023 – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) might wish to explore in some detail.

Five of the 20 local authorities with the most schools in the top 200 secondary schools are authorities with selective secondary schools. One is a south coast unitary with a disproportionately large number of its non-selective schools in the list of the top 200 schools. Like Oxfordshire, it is an authority unlikely to attract extra funding for its schools under levelling-up, but there must be an issue to explore as to why so many of its schools are in this list?

A few years ago, University Technical Colleges used to feature strongly in this type of list, but closures and presumably some better understanding of transfer at fourteen has reduced their number to four, two of them being the only schools in their authority in the list.

The extent to which feeder primary schools for these 200 schools also feature in the list would be an interesting exercise to undertake. Also, it might be interesting to ask why one county has only one school in the list, whereas an adjacent unitary has three schools?

There is something of a north-south divide in the list and relatively few schools in London are in the list: an interesting turnaround from the last century, when I am sure that there would have been more of the capital’s secondary schools in the list. No doubt, the strength of some of the academy chains located in the capital has made a difference.

Merry-go-round of Ministers has repercussions

Posted on April 17, 2023 by John Howson

I am grateful to freelancer and former TES journalist, Adi Bloom, for this interesting fact

Between the start of July and the end of October last year [2022], there were four new education secretaries, as well as a succession of junior ministers. And, between them they held 133 events labelled “introductory meeting to discuss the organisation following the ministerial reshuffle”.

This paralysis no doubt was replicated across government. Adi has written a witty piece on her LinkedIn page about the current Secretary of State’s possible icebreaker meeting with the key trade union (professional association) general secretaries of the teacher groups that readers might with to search out. In passing, I wonder whether Secretaries of State ever hold such meeting with trade unions representing the non-teaching staff in schools that now outnumber teachers?

Anyway, the essential point is whether this rapid turnover of ministers may have contributed to the government’s challenges over public sector pay. Might a Cabinet with more experience of their department, running to more than a few days tenure, have anticipated the implications of public sector pay review bodies controlling pay rises each year and a rapid an unpredicted increase in inflation better than seems to have been the case.

Might ministers, such as the Secretary of State for Education, that had been in post for some time, and thus more secure in their portfolio, have both had better relations with civil servants in order to have been able to ask questions about pay policy and recruitment and retention of the teacher workforce and have struck up some sort of rapport with teachers’ leaders? Possible as a scenario, but unlikely I grant you, but impossible with such a rapid turnover of minsters?

Much must also depend upon the character of the individual as Secretary of State, and their willingness to create inter-personal relations with key players in the education landscape. The absence of the Secretary of State from the ASCL conference, plus a relative lack of appearances in the media raises the question as to whether the present incumbent of the top job at Sanctuary Buildings isn’t one for the limelight. Some that have held the office or Secretary of State have enjoyed the public nature of their role while others, were rarely seen in public, and their stewardship goes largely unremembered.

We have now entered that phase of the life of a parliament where it becomes more of a challenge to create policy, except in areas where ministers have direct control. Intermediaries can now drag their feet secure in the knowledge that a general election is likely to be no more than 18 months away, and that the present government isn’t likely to be returned with the same majority as a present, even if it is returned at all.

Equally, ministers can leave difficult decisions to their successor to deal with. It’s worth recalling that under the coalition’s fixed term Parliament Act there would have had to have been an election this year. Perhaps the current Prime Minister might use that as an excuse for an autumn election is next month’s local elections are really frightful?

Teachers work long hours in term-time

Posted on April 12, 2023 by John Howson

The DfE has now published their latest school leaders and teachers’ workload survey as part of their regular series of surveys about the working lives or teachers and school leaders. Working lives of teachers and leaders – wave 1 – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

On workload the key paragraphs are that

Average working hours for leaders in both primary and secondary schools remain substantially lower than they were in the 2016 Teacher Workload Survey (TWS) but are slightly higher than those reported in the 2019 TWS.

The average working hours for teachers were significantly lower than reported in the 2016 and 2019 TWS; however, this reduction was driven by reduced primary teacher hours specifically, while working hours for secondary teachers were not significantly different to those reported in the 2019 TWS.

In a similar pattern to that found in the Teacher Workload Surveys, secondary leaders reported working longer hours than primary leaders (58.3 vs. 56.2 for primary leaders), but secondary teachers reported working fewer hours than primary teachers (48.5 vs. 49.1 for primary teachers).

There were further notable differences by sub-groups of respondents. For full-time leaders, reported average hours were:

• Higher for leaders working in primary (57.2) or secondary (58.6) school than leaders working in special schools / PRU / AP (54.7)

• Higher among leaders working at academy schools (58.4) than those working in LA maintained schools (56.6).

For full-time teachers, reported average hours were:

• Higher for teachers working in primary (53.2) or secondary (51.2) schools than teachers working in special schools / PRU / AP (48.2)

• Higher for leading practitioners (54.4) and classroom teachers (52.4) than ECTs (49.9) and unqualified teachers (46.8)

Satisfaction with workload

Most teachers and leaders disagreed that their workload was acceptable (72%) and that they had sufficient control over it (62%).

This is a slight increase on the TWS 2019, where just under seven-in-ten (69%) of those surveyed disagreed their workload was acceptable, though it is a considerable decrease on the TWS 2016, where almost nine-in-ten (87%) disagreed.

Combined, over half (56%) of teachers and leaders thought that their workload was both unacceptable and that they did not have sufficient control over it.

Predictably, those who disagreed that their workload was acceptable reported higher working hours (an average of 51.6 for those who disagreed vs. an average of 43.7 for those who agreed).

More experienced teachers and leaders were also more likely to disagree that their workload was acceptable: 66% of those who had been qualified for up to 3 years disagreed with the statement compared to 73% who had been qualified for over 3 years.

Perhaps not surprisingly, head teachers and others on the Leadership Scale were more likely to report the use of flexible working arrangements, including working at home than were classroom teachers. However, it is not clear whether the question was confined to the normal working day or at any time? As there was also a question about PPA time taken off-site that may have subsumed some home working for non-school leaders.

Perhaps one of the least surprising findings was that teachers’ views on pupil behaviour were also correlated with school Ofsted rating31, as three quarters (75%) of those in schools with an outstanding Ofsted rating labelled pupil behaviour as good or ‘very good’, compared to just under three-in-ten (28%) of those in schools with special measures/with serious weaknesses.

This finding may correlate with higher staff turnover in schools this more adverse Ofsted ratings. Given that many schools won’t have had a rating for sometime now, this suggested the deep-seated nature of discipline issue sin some schools that are aggravated by any shortage of teachers in the system.

There are some disturbing percentages around the area of teacher well-being, but that’s for another post.

Overall, it is possible to see why teachers have joined in the general public sector display of industrial action and that although discipline isn’t the factor that it was a generation and more ago, other issues, such as marking and preparation frustrate and concern the present generation of teachers.

22% more teaching vacancies

Posted on April 3, 2023 by John Howson

How challenging has the teacher labour market been during the first three months of 2023? Certainly, there has been a recorded increase in vacancies compared with the first three months of 2022 in many secondary subjects as the data in the table shows.

(Jobs Found in Date Range: 01-01 To 31-03 in Years 2022 and 2023

Government Office Region: All
Local Authority: All

Subject	2022	2023	Percentage
Art	527	670	+27%
Business	636	654	+3%
Classics	110	111	+1%
Computer Science	1191	1519	+28%
Dance	42	41	-2%
Drama	358	368	+3%
DT	1643	2049	+25%
Economics	307	232	-24%
Engineering	7	0	-100%
English	2566	3392	+32%
Geography	1046	1429	+37%
Health and Social Care	160	124	-23%
History	748	841	+12%
Humanities	231	388	+68%
Law	32	31	-3%
Mathematics	3327	3942	+18%
Media Studies	75	110	+47%
MFL	1736	2208	+27%
Music	647	782	+21%
Pastoral	272	370	+36%
PE	906	1187	+31%
Philosophy	63	56	-11%
Psychology	307	286	-7%
RE	835	979	+17%
Science	3955	4839	+22%
–Biology	310	353	+14%
–Chemistry	438	429	-2%
–Physics	526	580	+10%
SEN	431	445	+3%
Sociology	133	137	+3%
Total	22291	27190	+22%

Source: Teachvac www.teachvac.co.uk

Chemistry is the only major subject to have recorded a fall in vacancies compared with the first three months of 2022, and the fall was only two per cent or just nine vacancies below 2022.

Overall, TeachVac has recorded a 22% increase in secondary sector vacancies, with English recording a 32% increase from 2,566 to 3,392 vacancies during the three months. Geography has recorded a 37% increase in vacancies and pastoral type vacancies increased by 36% compared with the first quarter of last year.

As the number of trainees entering the labour market is lower than in recent years, the next few weeks when the labour market for teachers reaches its annual peak will be challenging for many schools seeking to make appointments for September 2023, especially for schools in and around London where the competition between state and private schools for teachers is at its most intense.

This lunchtime, the BBC World at One invited three conservative supporters – one MP and two think tank commentators – to discuss the challenges facing the teaching profession. All agreed that there were deep-seated issues of both pay and conditions of work than will need to be addressed if state schools are going to stop the departure of teachers from the profession and encourage more new entrants into teaching.

The rejection of the current pay offer made by the government by NEU members means strikes will now continue into the summer term and the examinations season unless Ministers can squeeze more cash out of HM Treasury.

I don’t envy those trying to construct school timetables for 2023-24 school year especially in challenging schools with a high staff turnover. Ofsted should take the recruitment crisis into account when inspecting schools. TeachVac will happily offer data comparing schools being inspected with the norm for the local area.

Youth Theatre in action

Posted on March 21, 2023 by John Howson

Last evening I attended the Chipping Norton Theatre’s Youth Theatre production of ‘Tales for the traveller’s inn’ an adaptation of some of Chaucer’s tales for the 21^st century by young people of different age groups.

Chipping Norton is fortunate to have its own theatre. The main auditorium was originally built as a salvation Army citadel, in 1888. After some years as a furniture warehouse, it was rediscovered in 1968; fundraising began in 1973, the theatre was registered as a charity in 1974, and it opened as a theatre in 1975. It subsequently acquired adjoining properties to provide space for a bar, gallery, green rooms, offices and rehearsal space.

The Youth Theatre is part of their outreach work and last night’s production included children from a wide range of different ages from Year 4 upwards.

The hard work and original scripts were visible for the audience packing the theatre to see. There were some real stars in the making on display last evening and the mixture of mime, music and the spoken work went well with the themes behind Chaucer’s timeless tales. Fr many of these young people it will have been their first time on a full-size stage and they performed admirably.

The Theatre at Chipping Norton has an extensive outreach programme including putting on 41 mental health workshops in schools; providing 970 art packs for children from low income families; sourcing 9,000 lunches for local families and providing 45 free holiday workshop places for children on Free School Meals.

Sadly, tonight is the final production, but I am sure it will be playing to a full house of family, friends and locals. It was a privilege to have been invited to attend and to witness the work of both the young people and their tutors. The arts can provide so much enrichment to the lives of those that both participate and also those that just come to watch.

Thank you to the hardworking team at Chipping Norton Theatre and I look forward to returning next year.

Do means matter?

Posted on March 16, 2023 by John Howson

The DfE has published some performance data for academies and multi academy trusts Multi-academy trust performance measures (key stages 2, 4 and 5) – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) The outcomes are quite rightly heavily hedged about with qualifications about how schools have become academies, and also that schools differ in size, character and parental choice. Indeed, I wonder whether the original reason for why a school became an academy, perhaps more than a decade ago is still relevant?

What struck me at first glance was that as the secondary sector becomes dominated by academies there is a reduction to the mean (average). Various Secretaries of State have wanted all schools to be above average, as this exchange with Michael Gove when in front of the Education Select Committee revealed. Michael Gove’s Kafkaesque logic – Left Foot Forward: Leading the UK’s progressive debate However, I don’t think he was the only Secretary of State to fall foul of this aspiration. Academies in the group forced to change their status because of under-performance not surprisingly do less well than those that chose to become an academy.

The key question for the current Secretary of State must be what do you take from this data in terms of the ‘levelling up’ agenda? I don’t think the present incumbent of the post of Secretary of State for Education has been asked the question about averages, but that shouldn’t stop her asking the question about what policy changes are needed based upon these outcomes?

As an additional discussion point, the secretary of State might like to ask her officials two further questions. What is the relationship between the schools in these tables and the percentages of NEETs produced by different types of schools, and how can schooling work to help ensure as many as possible of our young people eventually enter the labour market at the end of their initial education and training journey? After all, we should all be life-long learners.

After last year’s aborted attempt to make all schools academies, and the mauling of the Bill in the House of Lords there is still a need to ensure the middle tier works to the best advantage for all children. Whether there is a role for local democracy in schooling is still a live issue, but not one that will feature highly at the next election.

But, regardless of who runs schools, there is still work to be done to achieve excellence for all and that no child is left behind, to quote just two aspirational messages from past attempts at improving the outcomes for our schooling system.

Of course, without sufficient teachers, the risk is of deterioration not improvement in outcomes; not what the Chancellor wants to see if the economy is to continue to grow.

Home to School transport

Posted on February 22, 2023 by John Howson

What level of transport from home to school should the State provide for parents? At present, this is an area of policy that rarely seems to be reviewed. For instance, when the learning leaving age was raised to eighteen, the rules on free transport to school were not changed. As a result, many pupils that receive free transport up to age sixteen, and the end of Year 11, no longer qualify for free transport in Years 12 or 13, even if they remain at the same school.

Yes, some local authorities do pay for SEND transport for post-16 students, but it is not a requirement to do so. TfL still provide generous free transport for young people resident in London, although the Elizabeth Line beyond West Drayton to Reading isn’t included.

The question must be: if young people in London can qualify for free bus and tram travel, why must those living elsewhere in England depend upon local rules set by the upper tier local authority? The answer, of course, is that local authorities must fund the home to school transport budget, and it needs to compete against all other priorities, whereas in London, the transport authority, TfL, foots the bill for transport costs.

Most authorities now only pay for transport over three miles (2 miles for pupils under eight, but above statutory school age) to the nearest school if selected first at the time of the admissions process. There may be different rules for selective secondary schools, and some authorities won’t pay for travel to these schools if located in the area of another authority despite the fact that most are now academies.

For instance, Essex County Council and Castle Point Unitary Authority state that:

Grammar (selective) school

Children from low income families qualify for school transport if they live 2 or more miles from the selective school.

School transport will also be provided if the selective school is closer than the nearest maintained school or academy and 3 miles or more away. School transport: Who qualifies for home to school transport – Essex County Council

This means that many parents have to pay to send a child to a selective school unless they qualify as a low-income family.

In rural areas there may not be bus services, and local authorities will only pay where a road is deemed unsafe due to traffic. Any alternative route less than three miles, even if an unlit footpath across fields, often doesn’t qualify for free transport unless an appeal panel is willing to go outside the rules.

In their 2023-24 budget, Oxfordshire has a figure of around £30 million for home to school transport, so it isn’t an insignificant issue for rural counties. The bulk of this was for transporting pupils to mainstream schools and not for SEND transport.

So here are some policy suggestions for discussion

Raise the current age level for transport to the same school from 16 to 18
Ensure SEND transport to both schools and colleges
Negotiate student fares with both bus and train operators as similar rates for same journey
Merge school transport with active travel policies to encourage car pooling or use of local community transport
Pay bike vouchers to encourage cycling to school
Review national guidelines on what constitutes ‘safe routes’ to exclude footpaths or bridleways for inclusion and only include roads
Create a national policy for travel to selective schools funded by central government as these schools are no longer ’local’ schools
Prevent state schools from running their own buses
Ensure any child offered a paid for place has the place available for a whole school year.
Amend the mileage rule to cover all sites for split site schools

The present distance rules were set many years ago. Is it still acceptable in this modern age to use a three-mile limit or should it be reduced?

Finally, how should any changes be paid for? Should there be a national scheme, as for the bus pass for the elderly, and should the rules be more favourable for London than for rural areas, especially where house prices may be more expensive in the rural areas than in London, and salaries don’t take this into account?

Please sue the comments section to discuss.

The pay of senior staff in academies

Posted on February 15, 2023 by John Howson

Yesterday was Oxfordshire County Council’s Budget Day. Along with the budget itself two reports were presented; one on gender pay differences, and the other a required report of the Council’s Pay Policy. The latter included the salaries of senior staff as at the 1st January 2023. During the discussion on the Council’s Pay Policy I raised the issue of the pay of senior staff in standalone academies and multi-academy trusts.

I wrote a blog about this issue The Pay of Academy Staff | John Howson (wordpress.com) after I had raised the matter once before in council in the form of a question to the Cabinet member.

In advance of yesterday’s meeting, I checked the accounts at Companies House for all Oxfordshire Secondary Schools that are academies (one school is still not an academy because of a budget deficit). By now, all academies should have filed their 2022 accounts ending in August 2022 at Companies House. However, some have still to do so, but they will be unlikely to affected the discussion about how much senior staff should be paid if the benchmark is set, as in my previous blog, at £150,000.

Interestingly, as in my last study, no MAT or standalone academy with a headquarters in Oxfordshire paid any staff member £150,000 or more according to their accounts. However, with the September annual pay increases it seems likely that inflation will have pushed two Trusts int a position of now paying more than £150,000 in salary to their highest paid employee.

Of more concern was the fact in the accounting year to August 2022, four Trusts, all headquartered outside Oxfordshire, paid their highest paid employee more than £150,000. All were in the list of five Trusts mentioned in my previous blog. I am especially concerned about one Trust with a reported top salary of £280,000 in the year to August 2022, as that is more than twice the salary of Oxfordshire’s director of Children’s Services. As the Trust is located in an area not considered high cost for property prices, and is not as large as some other Trusts, I wonder about the reasons behind such a high salary.

The DfE remained concerned enough about Academy salaries to recently publish a list of Trusts where at least one employee earns more than £150,000. The list runs more than 14 pages in length. Academies consolidated annual report and accounts: 2020 to 2021 – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) Annex 6.

This issue of pay of academy employees is relevant to local authorities because managing their remaining education functions will become more challenging because the government has failed to cap MAT employees’ pay. Recruiting staff into local government, already difficult will become even more challenging for our education service.

The present government has talked about the importance of Pay Review bodies in the public sector, but so far has exempted senior staff in MATs from pay controls. Ministers have written lots of letters urging pay restraint, but, seemingly, to no effect.

Paying extreme salaries in MATs also means higher central costs imposed on Oxfordshire schools and, as a result, less cash to spend on Oxfordshire pupils. The increase in pay of senior staff in academies isn’t the sole cause of the deterioration on Pupil Teacher Ratios secondary schools over the past decade, but it certainly hasn’t help prevent them worsening.

Are you paying too much to advertise a teaching vacancy?

Posted on January 26, 2023 by John Howson

The most read blog post this month is the one from 2020 entitled ‘How much should it cost to advertise a vacancy?’ Teacher Recruitment: How much should it cost to advertise a vacancy? | John Howson (wordpress.com) So far, yesterday’s 10^th birthday post comes in second highes, with 20 views as against the vacancy post that reviewed the publication of the tes company accounts for 2019.

Today, the tes group, now entirely shorn of it print heritage, released its accounts for 2021-22 to August 2022. The company, fronted by its UK management, is ultimately owned by Onex Partners V, part of the Canadian ONEX Group of equity investors. Their third quarter report for 2022 identifies an investment of $98 US in the Tes Global (“Tes”), an international provider of comprehensive software solutions for the education sector 18d46e0 f-a5b9-435a-a039-9849ef723683 (onex.com) page 9

So, our major teacher recruitment platform, now offering a much wider staff management service to schools, increased its UK (mainly England) turnover from £54 million to £68 million in the year to August 2022. How important both staff management and the UK are to the profit of ONEX can be determined form the following figures

Turnover 2022 2021

UK £68.2 mn £54.0 mn

Europe £ 2.9 mn £ 2.6 mn

Rest of World £ 9.0 mn £ 9.0 mn

Income

Staff

Management £61.2 mn £56.5 mn

All activities £80.2 mn £66.1 mn

TES accounts – see link above page 29

So, in the last school year the tes took £68 million pounds from UK schools, the bulk of the money for recruitment and staff management by subscriptions from schools. 84% of staff management revenue came from subscription income and, as the accounts note (page 2) this was a 26% increase in revenue, presumably as more schools and Trusts migrated to subscription packages from point of sale purchase of advertising. The profit for the operating year was £28.7 million compared with £2.3 million the previous year that was badly affected by covid.

The group values its software at £46 million. That leaves me wondering what the book value of TeachVac’s simple but effective job matching service should be? Perhaps the £3 million suggested by our advisers is a little on the mean side.

TeachVac http://www.teachvac.co.uk costs less than £150,000 a year to operate. Being generous, it might cost £500,000 if operating on a similar cost model to the tes. The DfE job site probably costs a bit more, but we don’t actually know how much. The question for schools, MATs and the education sector is ‘How much of the money you are spending with the tes is for the downstream activities on staff management and how much for the job bord and matching service, and is it value for money?

Assume only 10% is for the matching, that could be £5-6 million of the subscription income after allowing for the tes turnover on Hibernia and other activities. TeachVac was established to demonstrate to the sector the cost-effective nature of modern technology over the former print advertising methods of recruitment. Readers can make up their own minds over value for money when comparing the £500 annual subscription to TeachVac that will reduce as more schools sign-up, and the cost of a subscription to tes.

How challenging is teacher recruitment?

Posted on January 14, 2023 by John Howson

The staffing crisis in the NHS often receives more publicity than the festering crisis in teacher recruitment. This week, TeachVac has supplied data for articles in tes, and by the Press Association. The latter story make many local newspapers, but little impact on the broadcast media that still seems obsessed with the NHS.

Next week, TeachVac will publish its two detailed reviews: one on the labour market for school leaders and the other looking at the labour market for classroom teachers during 2022. Schools signed-up to TeachVac’s £500 recruitment deal for unlimited matches of their jobs can ask for a free copy of both reports. Copies are priced at £100 for each report to non-subscribers. www.teachvac.co.uk

Both reports comment on what is now history. January marks the start of the key recruitment round for September 2023. As part of its data collection, TeachVac, where I am chair, monitors its collected vacancies against the numbers recorded in the DfE’s annual ITT census of trainees. Of course, some of those trainees are already in the classroom on programmes that mean they will be unlikely to be job seeking for September in any large numbers. TeachVac’s index takes these numbers into account when calculating its end of week numbers.

Despite only being at the end of week 2 of 2022, I thought it might be useful to compare 2023 with 2022 at the same point. When looking at the table, it is worth recalling that in many subjects the number of trainees is lower than it was last year, so the supply side is reduced. As a result, it would take a reduction in demand for the index to improve on week 2 of 2022.

Subject	13th January 2023	14th January 2022	Difference
Computing	76%	90%	-14%
RE	80%	93%	-13%
Business Studies	70%	82%	-12%
All Sciences	85%	92%	-7%
Music	84%	91%	-7%
Languages	87%	94%	-7%
Mathematics	87%	93%	-6%
English	87%	93%	-6%
Geography	87%	92%	-5%
Art	93%	97%	-4%
PE	96%	98%	-2%
D&T	73%	75%	-2%
History	97%	98%	-1%

Source TeachVac www.teachvac.co.uk

Sadly, the reduction in trainee numbers hasn’t been offset by any reduction in demand: quite the opposite. All the subjects in the table are indicating a worse position at the end of week 2 in 2023 than at the same point in 2022; even history.

Design and technology’s apparently favourable position is due more to how badly it was faring in 2022 than to any real improvement, as it still has the second lowest index score in 2023, only business studies – the DfE’s forgotten subject – is in a worse position, and will certainly register an amber warning of recruitment challenges by next Friday.

Indeed, computing and design and technology will both also almost certainly have posted amber warning by the end of week 3! Several other subjects might have amber warning in place by the end of the month.

I am sure that the worsening trend in recruitment is why schools and MATs are signing up to TeachVac’s recruitment offer. At less than £10 per week for all a schools’ vacancies to be matched to TeachVac’s database, with no extra work required by the school than doing what it already does, must be the best deal in town. Schools not signed up with TeachVac will no longer see their vacancies matched each day. The fee for primary schools is just £75.

John Howson

Education and the numbers that affect what happens

Category Archives: leadership