Category Archives: media

Merry-go-round of Ministers has repercussions

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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?

22% more teaching vacancies

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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

Subject20222023Percentage
Art527670+27%
Business636654+3%
Classics110111+1%
Computer Science11911519+28%
Dance4241-2%
Drama358368+3%
DT16432049+25%
Economics307232-24%
Engineering70-100%
English25663392+32%
Geography10461429+37%
Health and Social Care160124-23%
History748841+12%
Humanities231388+68%
Law3231-3%
Mathematics33273942+18%
Media Studies75110+47%
MFL17362208+27%
Music647782+21%
Pastoral272370+36%
PE9061187+31%
Philosophy6356-11%
Psychology307286-7%
RE835979+17%
Science39554839+22%
–Biology310353+14%
–Chemistry438429-2%
–Physics526580+10%
SEN431445+3%
Sociology133137+3%
Total2229127190+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.

Teaching not attracting new graduates

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Might history become a ‘shortage subject’ in the teacher labour market? Such a question seems fanciful in the extreme. However, the latest batch of data about applications for 2023 postgraduate courses for ITT where the trainees will supply the 2024 labour market shows the lowest March number for ‘offers’ since before the 2013/14 recruitment round. I am sure that providers are being cautious about making offers, but there does seem to be a trend developing, with non-bursary and arts subjects faring worse than the science and other bursary subjects and the primary sector applications still continuing at a low rate.

Art, religious education, music drama, classics and ‘other’ are subjects where the offers made by the March reporting date were below the March 2022 number. Most other subjects were reporting higher offer levels than in March 2022 – a disastrous month – but below previous years. Design and technology is an exception. The recovery from the low point of March 2020 in that subject continues. However, the number of offers is not yet such as to inspire confidence that the target for 2023 will be met. Offers in art and design in March 2023 were less than half of the number in March 2020.

So, what of overall progress in attracting graduates into teacher at the half-way point in the recruitment cycle? This March, there were 25,163 candidates compared with 23,264 in March 2022. However, the overall increase of just under 2,000 more applicants is fully accounted for by the 2,600 more candidates shown as applying from outside of the United Kingdom, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. London has nearly 400 fewer candidates this March compared with March 2022 as measured by the location of the candidate’s application address, and the East of England, down from 2,213 in March 2022 to 1,955 this March.

Applications are being sustained by an increase in career changers. Candidate numbers in the age groups below 25 continue to fall, with just 4,027 candidates in the 21 or under age grouping. By contrast, this year there are already 600 candidates in the 50-54 age grouping compared with 449 in March 2022. The number of candidates recorded as over the age of 65 has increased from 12 in March 2022 to 25 this March! The bulk of the career changers seem likely to be men. The number in this group has increased from 6,525 in the March 2022 data to 8,037 this March. However, the number recruited has fallen from 562 to 419, perhaps indicating that many of these older men are in the group applying from overseas?

All the increase is in applications for secondary courses. Those applying for primary courses has fallen from 28,391 in March 2022 to 27,874 this March. By comparison the secondary applications have increased from 32,551 in March 2022 to 40,193 this March.

The increase in applications from outside of the United Kingdom may well be the reason that every route into teaching has registered an increase in unsuccessful applications compared with the figure for March 2022. It would be interesting to know whether or not Teach First has seen a similar increase in applications from outside the United Kingdom.

Once the overseas applicants have been removed, the picture for March 2023 is mixed, with bursary subjects generally doing slightly better than other subjects. However, the real concern must be the loss of interest in teaching among young home graduates. Such a decline is very worrying.

Has DfE ignored the Coronation?

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Less than two months before the date of the Coronation of King Charles, and close to the end of this term, I have finally found some suggestions for schools about activities around the Coronation. Unlike Twentieth century coronations, when schoolchildren were often provided with mementoes of the day, nothing like that is planned for 2023. No mug, spoons, New Testaments or other books, as in 1953, just a few suggested activities and a photographic competition.

The suggestions was only brough to my attention after I asked a question at Oxfordshire’s County council meeting yesterday about what arrangements had been made by the DfE. At 1030 yesterday morning the Cabinet Member could not tell me of any arrangements and only sent me the details later in the afternoon after some work by the director of Children’s Services’ staff.

Royalist or Republican, the coronation is an era changing day in people’s lives, and I think the schoolchildren of England deserve better than this from their government.

All Schools

Celebrating the Coronation of King Charles III and the Queen Consort

You can check out the Coronation map to find Coronation events happening in your local area, or if your school is hosting a public event, you can add it yourself.

If you have any questions about the Coronation website, please contact: coronation@dcms.gov.uk

Get involved

Downloadable materials in the Coronation toolkit

Also on the Coronation website you’ll find the Coronation toolkit – a range of downloadable materials to help with your Coronation celebrations, including homemade bunting templates, recipe inspiration and fun activities such as word searches and colouring pages.

Children’s artwork, baking creations, bunting designs and lots of other Coronation celebrations will also be showcased in a photo gallery on the Coronation website. To share your photos, tag DCMS on social media (Twitter, Facebook or Instagram) or submit your photos via email to coronation@dcms.gov.uk with the subject line ‘Coronation Creative Challenge’.

Look out for a Coronation explainer video for primary schools

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport is commissioning a short film aimed at primary school children explaining the history and significance of the Coronation. The video will be made freely available to schools for use in assemblies and lessons, and will be shared ahead of the Coronation.

Coronation Generation – poster design challenge

Award-winning educational charity, Ideas Foundation, are inviting schools and colleges across the UK to take part in a poster design challenge to celebrate the Coronation of King Charles III.

Submitted designs should reflect four key themes – community, diversity, sustainability and youth. Over the Coronation weekend, selected posters will be displayed across hundreds of digital poster sites, donated by Clear Channel UK, with the potential to be viewed by thousands of people each day.

Free downloadable resources for use in classrooms are available, including the brief, a toolkit of materials and guidance on submissions.

The deadline for entries is 30th April.

More at

Resources for Schools – Coronation of His Majesty The King & Her Majesty The Queen Consort

I couldn’t find anything on the DfE website this morning the 29th March.

Youth Theatre in action

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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 21st 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.

Golden Helloes for overseas nationals

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Yet another scheme has emerged from the portals of Sanctuary Buildings to help stem this years’ teacher supply crisis. The International Relocation Payment Scheme  International relocation payments – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) is designed to attract non-UK nationals to either teach or train to teach languages or physics. Up to £10,000 will be available for successful applicants and the scheme has different rules for non-salaried trainees; salaried trainees, and teachers.

Both fee-paying trainees and salaried trainees should receive the IRP around the end of their first term and teachers will also receive their payment at the same stage of employment subject to them teaching the appropriate subjects.

For teachers the rules include the following:

To be eligible, teachers must meet all 3 of the following requirements.

Firstly, you must have accepted a languages or physics teaching job in a state secondary school in England on a contract lasting at least one academic year.

Teachers of all languages (except English) offered in English state secondary schools are eligible to apply for the IRP. The language or languages can be combined with another subject, but must make up at least 50% of teaching time.

Physics can be combined with another subject, but must make up at least 50% of teaching time. Teachers of general science are also eligible to apply for the IRP if they are teaching the physics elements of general science. It can be combined with another subject, but general science must make up at least 50% of teaching time.

Secondly, any teacher must come to England on one of the following visas:

  • Skilled worker visa
  • Youth Mobility Scheme
  • Family visa
  • UK Ancestry visa
  • British National (Overseas) visa
  • High Potential Individual visa
  • Afghan citizens resettlement scheme
  • Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy
  • Ukraine Family Scheme visa
  • Ukraine Sponsorship Scheme

Thirdly, and teacher must move to England no more than 3 months before the start of the teaching job in September.

How to apply for the IRP

Any teacher applying will need to have started their teaching job in a state secondary school to make your application. Teach in England if you trained outside the UK | Get Into Teaching GOV.UK (education.gov.uk)

Applications will be open from 1 September to 31 October 2023. This is a short window for applications.

The obvious question is what happens if a recipient of the cash quits as soon as the funds have cleared their bank accounts, and returns home? I am sure that vetting will do everything to prevent such an occurrence, but the question is at least worth asking.

It is interesting that the DfE only cite their own job board as a source of vacancies despite the fact that the tes and TeachVac often have a wider  range of job opportunities than the DfE site.

As usual, this new scheme ignores the really serious shortage subjects such as design and technology; business studies and computing.

The DfE will need to ensure schools understand the scheme as they will be receiving applications for these posts almost immediately. They will need to be able to ensure timetables that meet the requirements, especially in the sciences where most vacancies are advertised as for a ‘teacher of science’ and not a teacher of physics.

Will the scheme succeed? It is only for 2023-24 at present, so might be regarded as a trial. Previous schemes, have disappeared. I don’t recall the evaluation of this one from 2016 mentioned in a previous blog post. More on BREXIT | John Howson (wordpress.com)

On a similar topic of recruiting teachers from overseas, in December the DfE issued tender RFX159 – Supply of teachers qualified outside of England. This specified within the terms:

‘The Contractor must work in consultation with the Client Organisation to prepare a Business Brief, which may include, but not be exclusive to, the following: a. scoping of the work required by the business area in respect of; i) single or multiple recruitment campaigns targeting qualified maths and physics teachers primarily from Czech Republic, Germany, Poland and USA. Further high performing countries subject to agreement. Ii) Any other recruitment and supply of teachers to English schools.’

Schemes such as this one will not solve the teacher supply crisis that secondary schools have been experiencing for far too long. After all, the Select Committee was concerned enough in 2015 to mount an inquiry and the situation now is far worse than it was then. We must not fail a generation of young people.

Snippets from the STRB Evidence

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The DfE has released their evidence to the Teachers’ Pay Review Body, the STRB. The government doesn’t shy away the problems with recruitment into teaching and departures from the profession, but, as might be expected, it does put the best possible face on the data. For instance, it noted that primary pupil numbers were now falling, and that secondary pupil numbers were likely to peak soon. However, it also noted challenges with the number of new graduates likely to be entering the labour market.

Higher education institutions. long the butt of government attacks over their role in ITT might take heart from table C3 that shows them outperforming schools in the percentage of men recruited onto both primary and secondary postgraduate ITT courses. SCITTs seem to have had a poor year in 2022/23 in that respect. High Potential ITT (Teach First to the rest of us) had a good year in 2022/23, after three poor years of recruiting men to their programme. However, their overall recruitment fell from 1,661 in 2019/2020 to 1,393 in 2022/23, although that was not as dramatic a fall as for the School Direct Salaried programme; down from 2,492 to 661 during the same period.

Salaried schemes accounted for 10% of entrants in 2019/2020, but only 6% in 2022/23. This is despite the growth in apprenticeships for graduate entrants.

Despite the anxiety about the departure of heads, leaver rates fell between 2016 and 2020 across England, from 10.6% to 8.9%. However, I expect the 2021 figure to show an upturn to reflect the fact that many heads stayed in post in 2020, to see their schools through the worst of the pandemic.

The teaching force in England is one of the youngest in the OECD, with a quarter of classroom teachers, and a third of unqualified teachers under the age of 30 in November 2021. There are still disproportionally more men in senior positions than there are women. However, at the classroom teacher level, three out of four of all teachers were women, across all sectors covered by the STRB.  

The number of newly qualified entrants fell from 26,780 in 2015 to 20,435 in 2020, presumably due to a combination of factors including the pressure on school funding; the start of the decline in primary school rolls and the problems with recruitment onto ITT courses in some secondary subjects, leaving schools having to make other arrangements.

Perhaps the most worrying figure in the DfE evidence is the fact that 8% of teachers in special schools in 2021 were unqualified. This compares with 2% in primary and 3% in secondary schools. Although the actual number is only a little over 2,000 people, compared with the 6,100 working in secondary schools, this is a disappointing situation for a sector where research earlier this week also showed teaching conditions to be poor.

Surprisingly, only 1,753 schools were using recruitment payments in 2021, although they were concentrated, as might be expected, in London and the South East. However, one wonders why the 66 schools in the North East needed to use such payments, and whether it might be a coding error in the Workforce Census? Maybe, they were all trying to recruit physics teacher or design and technology staff?

It will be interesting to see what the STRB makes of this evidence and how the current pay dispute is settled.

Are you paying too much to advertise a teaching vacancy?

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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 10th 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.

A decade of blogs

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Today, 25th January 2023 is the official 10th birthday of this blog. Earlier this month, I wrote a blog reviewing the past ten years. That was entitled ‘Don’t forget Jacob’ Don’t forget Jacob | John Howson (wordpress.com) as a salute to the, as yet, unsuccessful campaign to ensure all children taken into care or arriving new to an area can be placed on the roll of a school within three weeks, regardless of whether the schools is an academy, free school or a maintained school. Every child has a right to an education with their peers and not just at home supported by worksheets and the occasional visit from a tutor.

Supporting that campaign shows how this blog has evolved over the past decade. Started just to deal with stories around the numbers in education (mostly the school sector) it has taken on a wider role as a consequence of two events in my life. In May 2013, I was elected to Oxfordshire County Council for a North Oxford Division, and for eight years was the Lib Dem spokesperson on education on the county.

In 2015, I helped establish TeachVac, the job board for teachers that has flourished, if measured by the number of users and the data it has gathered, but for a variety of reasons has yet to be a commercial success: perhaps I have had too many other distractions, including this blog, to become a successful business owner.

After, ten years and 1,372 posts (including this one) that have been seen by more than 80,000 visitors from all around the world, I have to decide: what next? Two years ago, I nearly decided to close down the blog as readership had fallen dramatically from around 22,000 visitors a year to just 11,000, but I kept going. Once again, I face the same dilemma. For the past quarter of a century, I have written pieces every week, first for the TES, as it then was, and then for this blog.

Is it time to call a day? I think the unfinished business of inadequate recruitment into teaching need regular highlighting, but NfER and Jack Worth can do that as easily and with better graphics that I can do. Most of the other posts are opportunistic, and some garner very few views; In some cases none at all, as with the post about this blog highlighted above.

So, you may notice that rather than the average of some ten posts a month of the past, the number drops off from now onwards, and I concentrate on other matters.  

Thank you to those that do read the blog. It has been a labour of love to write, and I have never regretted composing these posts, although there are a few that once written never saw the light of day. Finally, last December, someone downloaded every single post that I had written. I would love to know why and what they have done with them? Happy Birthday, and thanks, especially to Frank.

ITT headlines hide a worrying message?

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Has the current wave of strikes in the public sector over pay affected applications to train as a teacher from graduates? On the basis of the data published today by the DfE Initial teacher training application statistics for courses starting in the 2023 to 2024 academic year – Apply for teacher training – GOV.UK (apply-for-teacher-training.service.gov.uk) the answer would appear to be in the negative, at least as far as the number of offers made and accepted up to 16th January 2023 are concerned when compared with the similar date in January over previous years.

Of course, January is still early in the annual recruitment cycle, and the trend over the next couple of months will be important in determining the outcome for the year as a whole. Such improvements as there are when compared with previous years do not mean targets will be reached with this level of applications, but that if the trend were to continue this year might not be as disastrous as the present cohort of trainees in many subjects.

However, computing is an exception, registering its worst ever January number of offers and acceptances. Interestingly, history is in a similar situation, but I assume that is due to greater control over offers than a real slump in applications. Interestingly, 55% of computing applicants, compared with 52% of history applicants, are recorded as ‘unsuccessful’, so there may be some more questions to be asked about how different subjects handle knowledge levels among applicants?

Overall, applicant numbers at 17.012 are just over 2,000 more than in January 2022. This means that applications are up from the 39,000 of January 2022 to nearly 45,000 in January 2023. Assuming the increase isn’t just down to faster processing of applicants, this must be considered as a glimmer of good news for the government. Even better news for the government, is that the bulk of the additional applications are for secondary subjects. Overall applications for the secondary sector are up from 20,254 last year to 25,063 this year, whereas applications for primary phase courses are only up from 18,300 to 18,824.

The bulk of the additional applications seems to have headed towards the higher educations sector, where applications are up from 18,000 to 22,00. Apprenticeship numbers are stable at just below 1,700, and applications to SCITT courses have increased from 5,400 to 5,800. School Direct fee courses are the other area with a large gain in applications; up from 11,429 to 12,761. Applications for the salaried route barely increased, up from 2,394 to 2,639.

Interestingly, the increase in the number of male candidates in January was larger than the number of women. Male numbers increased from 4,115 in January 2022 to 5,256 January 2023 whereas female applicants only increased from 10,754 to 11,581; still many more, but worth watching to see if there is a trend?

As one might expect with the interest in secondary courses, and the increase in men applying to train as a teacher, applications rose faster from those likely to be career changers than from new graduates. Indeed, the number of applications from those age 22 actually fell, from 2,098 in January 2022 to 2,064 this January. The number of those aged 60 or over applying increased from 34 last January to 72 this January; up by more than 100%.

However, all this good news has to be qualified by the fact that the biggest increase in applicants by geography is from the ‘Rest of the world’ category – up from 1,061 to 2,676. Applications from London and the Home counties regions have fallen: less good news.

Still the overseas applicants do seem to be applying to providers in London, so that may help.

The fact that the good news in the headlines is largely supported by the increase in overseas applicants must be a matter for concern on several counts. If offered a place, will these students turn up, and how long will they stay; will the Home Office grant them visas to teach in England; will places that could be offered to new graduates later in the recruitment round have been filled by these overseas applicants, and what might be the implications for how the recruitment round is managed? All interesting questions for the sector and the government to ponder.