Category Archives: media

DfE and Teacher Vacancies: Part Two

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The DfE is spending more money supporting their latest venture into the teacher recruitment market. Schoolsweek has uncovered the latest moves by the government to challenge existing players in this market https://schoolsweek.co.uk/dfe-leans-on-mats-to-boost-teacher-job-vacancies-website-take-up/ in an exclusive report.

The current DfE foray into the recruitment market follows the failure of the Fast Track Scheme of two decades ago and the Schools Recruitment Service that fizzled out a decade ago. The present attempt also came on the heels of the fiasco around a scheme to offer jobs in challenging schools in the north of England that never progressed beyond the trial phase.

The present DfE site rolled out nationally two years ago this month. How successful it has been was the subject of a Schoolsweek article earlier this year. https://schoolsweek.co.uk/dfes-teacher-job-website-carries-only-half-of-available-positions/  This blog reviewed the market for vacancy sites for teachers last December, in a post entitled Teacher Vacancy Platforms: Pros and Cons that was posted on December 7, 2020.

In that December post, I looked at the three key sites for teacher vacancies in England. TeachVac; the DfE Vacancy site and The TES. As I pointed out, this was not an unbiased look, because I am Chair of the company that owns TeachVac. Indeed, I said, it might be regarded as an advertisement, and warned readers to treat it in that way.

There is an issue with how much schools spend on recruitment of teachers. After all, that was why TeachVac was established eight years ago. The DfE put the figure in their evidence to the STRB this year at around £75 million; a not insubstantial figure.

Will TeachVac be squeezed out in a war between the DfE backed by unlimited government funding and the TES with a big American backer? At the rate TeachVac is currently adding new users, I don’t think so. After all, the DfE site doesn’t cover independent schools, and in the present market I believe that most teachers want a site that allows access to all teaching jobs and not just some. That benefits both TeachVac and the TES as well as other players in the market, such as The Guardian and Schoolsweek, as well as recruitment agencies.

How much the DfE will need to spend on ensuring they cover the whole of the state-funded job market in terms of acquiring vacancies by the ‘school entering vacancies’ method is another interesting question? As is, how much will it also cost to drive teachers to using the DfE site and not TeachVac or the TES?

A view of TeachVac’s account reveals that Teachvac provides access to more jobs for teachers at less than the DfE is going to spend on promoting their site over the next few months. Such spending only makes good commercial sense if you want to remove a player from the market.

So here’s a solution. Hire TeachVac to promote the DfE site and use the data TeachVac already generates to monitor the working of the labour market. After all, that was also one of the suggestions from the Public Accounts Committee Report that spurred the DfE into action and the creation of their present attempt at running a vacancy site.

DfE and Teacher Vacancies: Part One

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In my previous post I discussed the issue of the DfE’s vacancy site and how by viewing it a page at a time resulted in duplication of some vacancies and the inability to see other vacancies. I asked the DfE to shed light on the problem by submitting a Freedom of Information request (FOI).

I have reproduced the DfE’s response below.  Essentially, the DfE site seems sound except for anyone undertaking the view of the site by the means that I selected. Since my purpose was to check how many non-teaching vacancies were listed on the DfE site, I had no other option but to use the method of viewing the site I selected.

Those using the sorting by closing date will discover another wrinkle, but I will leave you to do so if you are interested.

The DfE site has hit the headlines in a Schoolsweek exclusive https://schoolsweek.co.uk/dfe-leans-on-mats-to-boost-teacher-job-vacancies-website-take-up/ TeachVac’s contribution to the story can be found at https://schoolsweek.co.uk/dfes-teacher-job-website-carries-only-half-of-available-positions/

I will discuss the possible implications for the teacher recruitment market in my next blog. But, here is the DfE’s response to the FOI.

Thank you for your request for information, which was received on 15 March 2021 and assigned case number 2021-0017953. You requested the following information:


On the DfE vacancy site for teachers: https://teaching-vacancies.service.gov.uk/
1. How many of the published vacancies on 16th March or nearest available date with data were duplicated; and,
2. What was the number of unique vacancies on that day for teachers in institutions operating under schools regulations displayed on the DfE Vacancy site after excluding Sixth Form Colleges, other Further Education institutions and any private sector institutions and posts not requiring a teacher such as, but not exclusively, Teaching Assistant, cleaner, Examinations Officer and cover supervisor? Vacancies providing services across MATs and not linked to a specific school should also be excluded from the total provided.

I have dealt with your request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (“the Act”).


For context, the total number of live vacancies on Teaching Vacancies on 16 March was 1,386. As of 1 April, there are 2,330 live vacancies on Teaching Vacancies.

1. How many of the published vacancies on 16th March or nearest available date with data were duplicated?


For the purposes of this request, we have considered a ‘vacancy with data duplicated’ to be a vacancy with the same job title as another vacancy published by the same organisation which was also live on this date. The total number of vacancies meeting this definition on 16 March was 37 (2.7% of all live vacancies).

2. What was the number of unique vacancies on that day for teachers in institutions operating under schools regulations displayed on the DfE Vacancy site after excluding Sixth Form Colleges, other Further Education institutions and any private sector institutions and posts not requiring a teacher such as, but not exclusively, Teaching Assistant, cleaner, Examinations Officer and cover supervisor? Vacancies providing services across MATs and not linked to a specific school should also be excluded from the total provided.


Further Education institutions and private sector institutions are not permitted to list roles on Teaching Vacancies. Technical restrictions are in place to prevent this.


The total number of live vacancies on 16 March that were not at sixth form colleges, across a MAT or at multiple schools was 1,344 (97% of all live vacancies). Of these, the number of vacancies ‘requiring a teacher’ was 1,169 (87% of these live vacancies).


For the purposes of this request, we have defined ‘requiring a teacher’ as a listing with a job title containing the phrase ‘teacher’, ‘head’, ‘principal’ or ‘ordinat’ (as in coordinator or co-ordinator), but not containing any of the phrases ‘TA’ (in upper case only), assistant (but not in conjunction with ‘head’ or ‘principal’), ‘intervention’, ‘admin’, ‘account’, ‘marketing’, ‘admission’ or ‘care’. Structured data is not available on whether roles require a teacher, because the relevant fields are either optional for schools to complete or do not exist because they relate to vacancies that are not within the service’s Terms & Conditions. To obtain this information, vacancies have been filtered by relevant words and phrases. As a result, some teaching roles will have been excluded in counts of non-teaching roles and vice versa.

8th Birthday

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Today, 25th January, is the 8th birthday of this blog. Last year the blog’s 7th birthday was a very special occasion, as it coincided with the 1,000th post. This year, the blog has reached 1,106 posts, including this one. Last year, in the celebration post, I mused about stopping at 1,000 posts as viewer numbers were falling away. Throughout the spring there were relatively few posts, but then came the pandemic and a new impetus to communicate education stories.

The blog has also found a new audience in the USA, were visitors numbers have never been higher than in the past six months. Indeed, the autumn witnessed a resurgence in readership, with views in October 2020 being higher than in any month since January 2018, when the fall off in views started; reaching a low point in February last year, of fewer than 20 views a day that month.

The most read post of the past twelve months was the one about the PISA Study entitled ‘Poverty is not Destiny – OECD PISA Report’ that has had 1,592 views since it appeared on the 30th September 2020. I hope that the most recent post ‘Jacob’s Law’ will do similarly well, as it also deals with a very important issue.

In the past year, the posts have totalled some 63,000 words, for an average of around 550 words per post. That’s close to my aim of creating easy to read posts of around 500 words. There have been 128 likes of the posts, and 75 comments, including my responses to comments from other people.

The past year also witnessed the 50th anniversary, earlier this month, of the start of my teaching career, and I celebrated that event with a special post.

The covid-19 pandemic has shaped all our lives, and the lack of statistics, not least about attainment, has influenced what posts could and could not be scribed. The blog still aims to look at stories behind the numbers, but also now ranges more widely across the education landscape.

Today also makes a special day for TeachVac, the free job board for teachers www.teachvac.co.uk where I am chair of the Board. A significant milestone in registered users was passed today. The platform has retained some 77% of all registered users, a higher figure than this blog. But, then it serves a different purpose.

So, what lies ahead? I hope to keep this blog going for another year, and aim to reach its 10th birthday in January 2024. However, other distractions could always mean a premature end to my writing, especially if viewing figures once again slide away to a level where the effort does not seem worthwhile.

After all, I might have a new career writing travel books, based upon the success of Twin Tracks https://www.facebook.com/twintracksthebook price £12.99 if ordered directly from the Facebook page or web site or by email to me.

Thanks for reading; keep safe and remember that education is a wonderful job, despite what many parents have discovered.

Time for Jacob’s Law

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The naming of a young person in Serious Case Review Report is rare. But this week the Report into the death of Jacob in Oxfordshire contained his name. The family gave permission, and hope it will ensure the report is more widely read and acted upon. If so, it is a brave decision, and one that I applaud.

You can read the Report at https://www.oscb.org.uk/oscb-publishes-a-child-safeguarding-practice-review-concerning-jacob/ Full report link at bottom of the press notice

Three agencies, the Police, Children’s Social Services and Education have learning points to take from the Review. In this blog, I will concentrate on the education aspects, as they contain a message heard before on this blog.

Jacob was born in Oxfordshire, later moved to Northumbria, where I suspect he was educated in a First School, and then a Middle School, before being moved in Year 6 to an ‘alternative education provision’ – presumably a PRU?

In July 2017, note the date, the family returned to Oxfordshire. The Report concludes that:

5.1 He was not on roll at any education provision and was a child missing education for 22 months

Jacob’s mandatory need for education was not provided by Oxfordshire County Council when he lived at home and when he was in the care of the local authority both in and when out of county for 5 months. Four educational settings were asked to take Jacob on roll, however largely due to his perceived behaviours and risks to other students he remained off roll for almost 2 years. Jacob’s family were offered the right of appeal when places were refused. His situation was considered by education panels such as the In Year Fair Access Panel and Children Missing Education to little effect and his needs were overseen and monitored by various professionals, including the Virtual School and the Independent Reviewing Officer Service whilst in local authority care. There were no formal dispute resolutions raised14 by Children’s Social Care and his situation was not escalated to the Education Skills and Funding Agency (ESFA) as it should have been.

Had this been an isolated case then this would be understandable, but a month before Jacob arrived back in Oxfordshire I had had an exchange in public with the Cabinet Member for Education at the June 2017 Cabinet meeting of the County Council. Not all questions are for political gain, and this was one where I genuinely thought that there was an issue to be addressed. The question asked:

Oxfordshire county council CABINET – 20 JUNE 2017 ITEM 4 – QUESTIONS FROM COUNTY COUNCILLORS

Question from Councillor Howson to Councillors Harrod and Hibbert-Biles “How many children taken into care over the past three school years and placed ‘out county’ have had to wait for more than two weeks to be taken onto the roll of a school in the area where they have been moved to and what is the longest period of time a child has waited for a place at a school in the area where they have been re-located to during this period?” 

As you will see, I asked both the Education Cabinet Member and Cllr Harrod for Children’s Social Services and received this answer:

Answer Over the past three years it has been exceptional for a Looked After Child to be taken onto the roll of an out of county school in under two weeks. Indeed, of the nine cases of primary age pupils we’ve looked at, the quickest a pupil was placed was 12 days (there were two) and the slowest was 77 days. For the 22 secondary age pupils the picture is even worse, with 3 weeks the quickest placement and a couple taking fully 6 months to get some of our most vulnerable young people into a stable school setting.

The main reason for this completely unacceptable state of affairs is that the Council has no power to direct an academy to admit a Looked After Child. The only way we can force an academy’s hand is to get a direction from the Educations & Skills Funding Agency and this, as you can see from the foregoing times, can be a very long winded bureaucratic process.

The fact that it takes so long for academies to admit our Looked After Children shows how doggedly our officers pursue the matter; I suspect that many other local authorities simply give up when they meet an intransigent academy that doesn’t want to take responsibility for educating their vulnerable young people.

The minutes of the meeting note my supplementary question and the response as:

Supplementary: In response to an invitation from Councillor Howson for the Cabinet Member to work with Councillor Howson and the labour opposition to see what could be done Councillor Hibbert-Biles recognised that it was a national situation, and she would be asking for a meeting with local MPs and relevant minister.

How distressing to read the national recommendation in the Serious Case Review that:

Recommendation 2: This Review asks the Department for Education to acknowledge the education key learning and findings from Jacob’s Review and provide feedback as to the effectiveness of the Education and Skills Funding Agency process in resolving issues in a timely manner. The Review asks the Department of Education to provide statute and guidance to local areas and their communities on how to manage the Governance arrangements with academy run schools and local education departments who currently cannot be mandated to accept children on roll.

And in the local recommendations that:

Action Plan 2: The Education System

The key learning set out below is fully addressed in this action plan for children in the education system in Oxfordshire, overseen by the Chair of the OSCB Safeguarding in Education Sub-Group Key Learning:

An education system that ensures:

1. The paramount importance of the role of schools in keeping children safe

2. An education package is put in place in a timely manner for those children who may show challenging behaviours

3. Those children missing education are known and action is swift

This Action Plan should pay particular attention to ensuring: – Restorative work to resolve the fragmented arrangements between academy schools, alternative provisions and the local authority to ensure collective ownership – Policy and procedures to track when children are not on roll – The function of Education Panels in Oxfordshire (In Year Fair Access and Children Missing Education) – The local application of the Education Skills Funding Agency intervention – Education packages for children who may be at risk of exploitation and also present a risk to others.

For those that read the whole Report, there is further evidence on page 31 and footnote 56 of other issues about school admissions around the same time.

Here’s what I wrote on this blog on the 23rd June 2017:

In my post on 11th June, after the outcome of the general election was known, I suggested some issues that could still be addressed by a government without an overall majority. First among these was the issue of school places for young people taken into care and placed outside of the local authority. They have no guarantee of access to a new school within any given time frame at present. It seemed to me daft that a parent could be fined for taking a child out of school for two weeks to go on holiday but a local authority could wait six months for a school place to be provided for a young person taken into care.

The Cabinet Question reproduced above then appears followed by:

I found the answer deeply depressing. However, the good news is that MPs from the three political parties representing Oxfordshire constituencies have agreed to work together to take the matter forward. Thank you to MPs, Victoria Prentice, Layla Moran and Anneliese Dodds, for agreeing to seek action to remedy this state of affairs.

If readers have data about the issue elsewhere in England, I would be delighted to hear from you, so pressure can be put on officials nationally to ensure a rapid change in the rules.

I had forgotten that unique letter signed by every Oxfordshire MP after I had made my suggestion.

Nothing happened. Jacob died. We cannot wait any longer.

The DfE must act now to ensure all children have a school place within a specified time frame, whether they move to a new area or are excluded by a school. There must be a register of unplaced children of school age that is regularly reviewed by a senior officer and a politician in each local authority, and Ofsted should update the Secretary of State each year about the national picture.

It is time for a Jacob’s Law. His death will not then have been for nothing.

Read more on this BBC Report into the case https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-55841644

Leadership trends in schools- 2020

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TeachVac www.teachvac.co.uk the free to use teacher vacancy site is putting together its annual reviews of the labour market for teachers in England. The first of these is on leadership turnover in schools.

Here are some of the headlines from the draft report.

  • More leadership vacancies were recorded in the primary sector during 2020, while vacancies recorded in the secondary sector during 2020 remained at a similar level to 2019.
  • In the primary sector some 1,497 head teacher vacancies were recorded. The number for the secondary sector was 387 vacancies during 2020.
  • For schools advertising during the 2019-20 school year, there was a re-advertisement rate for primary schools of 28%: for secondary school headteacher vacancies, the re-advertisement rate was lower at 23%.
  • Schools in certain regions and with other characteristics that differentiates the school from the commonplace are more likely to experience issues with headteacher recruitment.
  • There were a similar number of vacancies for deputy heads in the secondary sector during 2020 than 2019. Fewer vacancies were recorded for the primary sector.
  • Secondary schools advertised slightly more assistant head teacher vacancies during 2020 than during 2019. There were fewer vacancies recorded in the primary sector during 2020 than in 2019. 
  • Tracking leadership vacancies has become more challenging as the means of recruitment have become more diversified in nature.
  • The covid-19 pandemic had a significant effect on the senior staff labour market from April 2020 until the end of the year.

What might be the outcome of the new lockdown? As the majority of vacancies at all levels in education are for September starts in a new job the later the more senior vacancies are advertised the more pressure on vacancies for other posts. Normally, half the annual volume of headteacher adverts appear in the first three months of the year. Will that pattern be replicated this year? Perhaps it is too early to tell. Will headteachers, and especially headteachers in primary schools faced with more problems than normal and lacking the level of administrative support that their secondary school colleagues enjoy just decide enough is enough and take early retirement? Will the pay freeze make matters worse, especially if pensions still rise in line with RPI?

TeachVac will be watching these trends for senior staff turnover, along with others in the labour market. Often in the past, a rising level of house prices has been bad for senior staff recruitment in high cost housing areas as staff can move to lower cost areas, but it is challenging for staff to move into those areas without incentives. The Stamp Duty relaxation has pushed up housing prices, at least in the short-term. Will these increases have an impact on leadership turnover?

The current age profile of the teaching profession should be favourable to the appointment of senior leaders but, as this blog has pointed out in the past, there may not be enough deputy heads in the primary sector with sufficient experience to want to move onto headship at the present time.

All these trends will need monitoring carefully as 2021 unfolds.

If you want the full report or data for specific areas, please contact enquiries@oxteachserv.com

London graduates flock to teaching

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Data released today by UCAS for applications by December 2020 to graduate teacher preparation courses revealed a big jump on the numbers over the figures from the same time in the previous year. In the London region, the number of applicants domiciled in London increased from 1,580 in December 2019, to 2,550 in December 2020. The number of applicants in London this year exceeded the combined total of applicants in the North East and Yorkshire and The Humber regions wanting to become a teacher.

Although there were increases in applications across all age categories, only 400 more undergraduates have applied, compared with 900 more in the 25-29 age group. More than 500 extra applicants in the 40+ age group had applied by December 2020, compared with the number that had applied in December 2019.

Although there were more applicants for primary courses, bringing the number to the highest December level since 2016/17, there was an even larger increase in applications for secondary courses. These increased from 15,950 in December 2019 to 22,730 on the same date in December 2020. Overall, applications increased from 29,330 in December 2019 to 41,520 in December 2020.

As a result of the increase in applicants, many secondary subjects registered totals for ‘Place, Conditionally Placed or Holding Offers’ in December 2020 that were double levels seen in December 2019. Only in geography and English, among the larger subject areas were the increases significantly more subdued. In business studies, a traditionally difficult to recruit to subject, offers increased from a paltry 10 in December 2019 to more than 100 in December 2020. This may be the first year for some years that this subject recruits sufficient trainees to meet government expectations.

Even in physics, offers increased, from 40 in December 2019 to 140 in December 2020.   For some reason UCAS did not report on the gender breakdown of applicants this month, normally found in Tables A7-9 of their report. As UCAS do not report on the ethnic background of applicants, there is no further overall breakdown about the characteristics of applicants, other than their age and geographical domicile.

These numbers must be good news for teaching, although whether this number of accepted applicants in history, physical education and art and design will find teaching posts in 2022 will depend upon how many more applicants are offered places during the coming few months. I am sure that HM Treasury won’t want to spend more on tuition fees than is necessary.

All routes have seen an increase in applications, although Apprenticeships are still limited in the secondary sector to a small increase, and there were actually 300 fewer applications to School Direct Salaried courses in the primary sector in December compared with December 2019, possibly marking yet another nail in the coffin for this route?

With the new shock to the economy generated by the third national lockdown, it seems logical to assume that teacher preparation courses will experience their best year for almost a decade, and that the teacher supply crisis of recent years will now be coming to an end.

This blog was the first to call the start of the crisis and received much criticism from those in high places for doing so. It is fitting to be able to mark the start of a period of adequate teacher supply, at least in terms of numbers.

DfE announcement on a Saturday!

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The decision to announce both a new Institute of Teaching and the recommencement of the review of the ITT market, following a pause due to the Covid-19 pandemic, wasn’t something I expected to read this afternoon.

DfE announcements on a Saturday afternoon are rarer than hen’s teeth. So rushed seems the announcement on the recommencement of the ITT Review that it is unclear whether the statement that ‘The review is expected to report in summer 2020.’ Should have read summer 2021?

Anyway the announcement of,

‘A new Institute of Teaching is set to be established in England to provide teachers and school leaders with prestigious training and development throughout their career.

… with the Institute being the first of its kind in the world.’

DfE https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-institute-of-teaching-set-to-be-established

May raise some eyebrows and questions about hyperbole in places as far apart as Singapore and Ontario.

This idea for this new Institute doesn’t seem yet to have the structure of the Area Training Organisations that existed across the country in the post-war period or even of the short-lived regional structure for leadership training in the days before GRIST and its derivatives.

Indeed, what of the wonderful National College created under the Blair government only to be axed by the Conservatives?  Admittedly that started with senior leadership and then expanded into other areas? Has it been air-brushed out of history?

To claim that the new Institute ‘will revolutionise teacher training and make England the best place in the world to train and become a great teacher’ will raise the question in many minds of what have the Tories been doing for the past ten years of trying to create a school-led training system. Is this an acknowledgement of failure?

There is no way that I believe the present system of ITT, or ITE depending on your point of view, is anything but high quality, but there is room for innovation, not least around technology and learning, as I have written in a recent blog.

The numbers quoted in the announcement also seem suspect. There are around 40,000 trainees teachers each year, so 1,000 represents about three per cent of the total. A higher percentage, of course, if targets for recruitment are not met. 2,000 early career teachers is an even smaller percentage and no figures are provided for the essential development of middle leaders where a national programme has been sadly lacking.

Where will the existing Teaching Schools fit into this new order, and how will geographical gaps be filled? Who will have oversight, and will there be a National Director of Training and Development with the ear of the Secretary of State?

A cynic might say this was an attempt to end a run of bad news for the DfE and its Ministers, and an attempt to regain the initiative. If so, I hope what emerges really does help develop the teaching profession.

Perhaps the Secretary of State can start by changing the rules about employing unqualified people as teachers. There is, after all, no point in an Institute focusing on initial teacher programmes if academies are free to employ anyone as a teacher.

A better announcement would have been that the term ‘teacher’ had become a reserved occupation term only allowed to be used by those with QTS.

Thank you America

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This month there have already been some 500 recorded visits to this blog from the USA. An especial thanks to those Americans that took the time to visit on Thanksgiving Day. There weren’t as many visits as on Christmas Day 2019, when someone downloaded all 990 posts over the course of the day, but there were some.

I am very grateful to those that read the blog and send me comments. Pre-orders for my new book ‘Twin Tracks‘ written jointly with my brother – hence the title – about our pre-covid rail tour around parts of Europe are already mounting up. In England, Waterstones are offering the book at a pre-publication discount (put John & Peter Howson in their site to place an order).Read more in the blog titled Twin Tracks.

In January, and the 1,000th post, I wrote about winding down this blog. Seemingly, that hasn’t been the case, and I am wondering whether to celebrate its 8th birthday by selecting the best 250 posts to put into a book. Would you recommend such a book to your library to buy? Do please let me know.

So, thank you to all my current, past and future readers.

Sunak’s blunt axe

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Twin Tracks

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********* NOW PUBLISHED IN BOOKSTORES THIS WEEK OR BUY DIRECT ***********

Although this blog is my personal view of education, and particularly some of the numbers around teacher supply in England, it doesn’t encompass everything I do.

Regular readers will be aware of the poem written to commemorate the sacrifice of young men in war, published as a blog post on the 4th August 2014, the 100th anniversary of the start of World War One.

Coincidentally, world War Two features in my latest book: Twin Tracks. This is an account of a journey my twin brother and I took by rail around Europe in the autumn of 2019. We wrote it as a manual to encourage others to take such trips, but it has become a record of a vanished life since covid-19 struck the world.

Twin Tracks will be published at the end of November 2020 but, as the ISBN has been allocated, it can be pre-ordered through good bookstores and other sources. The ISBN is 978-1—19163099-3-7 and the cover price in England is £12.99. Sadly, the first edition of 200 copies has now been sold out – July 2025. we are investigating a new edition covering our 2024 rail trip around Australia as well as .the chapters in the first edition.

Below is a short extract from the chapter in the book about the shadow of World War Two.

Four of the nine places in which we stayed displayed visible reminders of the war. Two of them had modern museums devoted to the war. It sometimes felt that every major city had a tank on display somewhere. We had planned possible visits to the modern museums and were glad that we had done so. There were other places, such as Budapest, where time did not allow for a visit to the military museum, enough merely to note the presence of the T34 tank outside. It would have been intriguing to have seen how the museum dealt with the tanks on the streets of the city in 1956. There are still signs of the ‘uprising’ if one has time to look.

No doubt there are signs of uprising in what was the Soviet Zone of Germany post-1945, what became known to us in the West as East Germany. Certainly, in Berlin there are more visible signs of that era, with remnants of the famous Berlin Wall that encircled the parts of the City not within the Russian sphere of influence for more than 20 years. Checkpoint Charlie, the crossing point between the American and Russian Zones is also remembered. It is interesting that the films of the Second World War have now been replaced by films about the post-1945 Cold War that often feature Berlin.

On a happier note the book also contains details of the memorable meals we ate during the trip. Here is an account of one of them.

This restaurant is worth the trip up Buda Hill for dinner. It was too cold to eat outside, so we were in the relatively small main room that is two tables wide and stretched back from the road. There was a pianist located near the door, but the music wasn’t too loud as to be intrusive.

Food was to a high standard, although the menu was not that shown on their web site, and why should it be. The best dish as far as I was concerned was the pork with puffed rice and a sauce. The baked cheesecake with red berry compote was also good. I cannot fault the porcine mushroom soup for flavour, but I did feel that the presentation could have been better thought out. The mushrooms were quartered and not sliced and for a restaurant of this quality it wasn’t the best way to start a meal from the presentational point of view. I must make it clear that I was not unhappy with the soup, but with its presentation….
The wine list was good, and there were three different Tokaj wines of varying ages. I had a glass of a very mellow 10-year-old wine. We had no difficulty in ordering in English and there was a menu in English as well. This was an enjoyable experience just short of memorable.

For anyone interested in travel, this might make a good Christmas present. Send me a comment either if you need more details or your bookshop won’t stock it. But, the first edition published by Oxfordfolio is a limited one. Signed copies are available for a small donation to the charity Children Heard and Seen.