Category Archives: politics

More pay for teachers?

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Is there light at the end of the tunnel for teachers’ pay? The latest update on projected pupil numbers through to 2027, issued by the DfE earlier today, suggest that the Treasury might now be able to see the point where teacher numbers will stabilise and, thus, the pay bill can be estimated with a greater degree of accuracy than when pupil numbers are on a rising curve.  The data is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/national-pupil-projections-july-2018

Civil servants will probably have had access to this data for some time, and it is possible to at least theorise that recent indications of more cash for schools, and specifically for teachers’ pay, might be as a result of an awareness of these numbers. I haven’t heard anything about the pay of other workers in schools, many of whom are far less highly paid than teachers, and don’t have the advantage of a Pay Review Body to provide oversight and guidance. Hopefully, they won’t be forgotten.

So, what are the latest numbers suggesting? In the primary sector the annual rate of increase is expected to fall gradually to NIL for 2020 and 2021, before decreases are projected (between 0.3% and 0.7% each year) until the end of the projection period. This is principally due to the lower birth projections in Office of National Statistics new population projections. The overall population in state-funded primary schools was 4,607,000 in 2018, and is projected to be 112,000 lower in 2027 at 4,494,000. Depending upon how class sizes are affected and the future for smaller schools under the present funding arrangements, this decline might mean 5,000 to 6,000 fewer teaching posts if cash goes into increase pay for existing teachers rather than reducing class sizes. As the teaching force gains more experience it also costs more to employ, so the level of retention is also important in determining the number of teachers that can be employed, especially once the decline in pupil numbers reaches Key Stage 2 where class sizes are not controlled by law.

In the secondary sector up to the end of Key Stage 4, the rate of increase in pupil numbers is expected to reach around 3.1% for the next two years before slowly dropping to NIL by the end of the projection period in 2027. As a result of these increases, the overall population in secondary schools is projected to reach 3,267,000 in 2027, some 418,000 higher than it was in 2018 and a 14.7% increase over the whole projection period. The increases will continue to feed through to the Key Stage 5 school population until at least the end of the 2020s. These numbers suggest that over the time period under discussion there might be a need for between 20,000 to 25,000 extra teachers, and possibly even more depending on the shape of the curriculum and any changes in teaching methods.

As the DfE points out, ‘There are inherent uncertainties in projecting the future size of the pupil population. This is particularly true for early age cohorts, which are the most immediately dependent on projections of future birth rates.’ Higher fertility rates and lower than expected migration could mean a difference of around 100,000 either way on the central projection. As the time period shorten, then the level of certainty can become greater and projections on teacher numbers also become firmer.

However, teaching might once more start looking like an attractive career, if you take the long-term view.

 

Out of the shadows

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Last evening I went to a truly wonderful concert at Blenheim Palace in Woodstock. Probably best known as the birthplace of Sir Winston Churchill, the Blenheim estate has developed a range of different activities over the past few years including many musical events. Last night’s concert was not staged by some mega-star, in fact none of the musicians, singers and dancers were professionals at all.

In the splendid setting of the Palace’s library, the Oxfordshire County Music Service performed their Buddies at Blenheim concert. Last night’s concert brought a flavour of their show stopping performance delivered in the Royal Albert Hall last November as part of the Schools Prom season.

What make Buddies unique as a concert is the fact that the Buddies Ensemble and heart of the concert features a collaboration between pupils from the special schools across the county and pupils from a range of other schools.

Performing as one choir, the Buddy Ensemble sang three pieces, including one of their own composition. At the Royal Albert Hall there were nearly 600 young singers from Oxfordshire, last night the library could only accommodate some 50 or so to provide a taste of what the experience in London must have been for those lucky enough to witness it.

At the end of the evening the Buddy Ensemble joined many of the other young players, singers and dancers in a finale entitled ‘Love can build a bridge’. Not only was this sung, but it was also signed by the whole choir, and the chorus by the audience as well. A fitting end to a great evening.

Music has been an important part of the cultural life of our education system since at least the end of the Second World War. There have been times when it has been under threat; the early 1990s and during the recent period of austerity and the transfer of funding to schools from local government are just two such periods when it has faced great challenges. Oxfordshire has found a way to navigate these crises, and still flourish as a service under inspiring leadership, as the collaboration between pupils with SEND and others in the Buddy Ensemble so clearly demonstrated.

Apart from the wonderful and ground breaking work of the Buddy Ensemble, there was an excellent rendition of Corelli’s Concerto Grosso op 6 No 2 in F Major that was exactly suited to the setting of the library, especially for those of us fortunate enough to be placed directly in front of the musicians. The Oxfordshire Youth Flute Choir also provided a superb performance of the Overture to the Barber of Seville by Rossini, played on a range of different flutes. But it is invidious to select these examples from a night of wonderful music and ground-breaking originality that show cased the best of the youth of Britain.

On Friday evening, in another wonderful setting of Dorchester Abbey, there will be an end of term concert. But both before then and for long after the bringing of the pupils in our special schools out of the shadows and into the light must be the abiding memory of what education can achieve.

 

Design Matters again

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I heard on the Today programme this morning about the initiative by the V&A Museum in London to boost the status of design and technology as a subject in our schools. Looking back over the posts on this blog, it seems several years now since the subject generated a post on its own. Maybe this is because of the overwhelming narrative that the only subjects of worth are those in the EBacc, so beloved of Ministers.

This blog has never accepted the view that the EBAcc represented a broad and balanced curriculum, and has certainly made the point that subjects more related to real life and the working world of many millions of citizens deserves more appreciation in our schools. Can our schools currently help produce the next generation of designers to power future companies that will rise to the heights of Apple?

The recent commemorations of D-Day reminded me both of the part played by Hobart’s funnies in the landings and of the importance of the Bailey bridge, an early example of which can still be found on Port Meadow, just down the road from where I live in Oxford. Both are examples of good design fitting a purpose.

However, there will be a problem teaching design and technology as a subject to everyone in our schools unless there is a real push on recruitment into teacher training.

Design and Technology currently languishes as the subject at the foot of the recruitment table, with the worst record on the percentage of required places on ITT courses being filled. The V&A could help to inspire a scholarship scheme such as for physics, chemistry and some other subjects, as part of the conference it is hosting today. If design and technology is so important, then so are those that teach it.

There is a lot of information around, not least on TeachVac, about where the schools trying to recruit design and technology teachers are located, but it requires more forensic analysis of the School Workforce Census to discover those schools where the subject has either been eliminated from the curriculum or severely curtailed. I also suspect that in some cases art and design and technology have become merged into a single department or faculty with consequent effects on both curriculum areas.

I am sure that toy manufacturers can also play a part in awakening more interest in the subject by creating making toys rather than playing screen-based games. If in order to progress and win a game you needed to demonstrate making skills that might prove an incentive for the learning how to make and mend rather than use and throw that so characterises many areas in our consumer society from fashion to food. If we make our meals, are we less likely to waste the food?

Design and technology needs a series of champions to raise the profile of the subject in our schools. I hope that the conference as the V&A, a wonderful repository and showcase for the applied arts, design and technology will be the start of the revival in the fortunes for the subject in our schools.

Better identification or more pupils with SEN?

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The DfE data on pupils with special education needs in schools at the January 2019 census data confirms what everyone has been saying about the absolute number of such pupils being on the increase, as might be expected when pupil numbers overall are increasing. However, the percentage of pupils with both SEN and the need for an Education and Health Care plan (EHCP) has also increased. https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/special-educational-needs-in-england-january-2019

As the DfE puts it, across all schools, the number of pupils with special educational needs has risen for the third consecutive year, to 1,318,300 (14.9%) in January 2019. This follows a period of year on year decreases from January 2010 to 2016. Over this period, the overall decrease was driven by decrease in the proportion of pupils with SEN support, while the percentage of pupils with a statement or EHC plan remained stable at 2.8%.

The percentage of pupils with SEN Support, those with identified special educational needs, but no EHC plan, followed a similar pattern rising to 1,047,200 (11.9%).

271,200 school pupils had an EHC plan in place in January 2019. This is an increase of 17,500 since January 2018. The percentage of pupils with an EHC plan has risen to 3.1% of the total pupil population in January 2019, after remaining constant at 2.8% from 2007 to 2017.

These figures show why both the high Needs Block of funding is under such pressure and also why local authority SEN transport budgets are also costing local taxpayers more each year. Moe pupils means more schools and it is to be hoped that in parts of England where there are many small local authorities the forward planning by the ESFA is robust enough to deliver these places at the minimum additional travel costs to taxpayers.

Across all pupils with SEN, Speech, Language and Communications Needs is the most common primary type of need at 22% of pupils. This had previously been Moderate Learning Difficulty, which has decreased to 20%.

Among pupils on SEN support, Speech, Language and Communications Needs is also the most common type of need, at 23%. Of those with an EHC plan, Autistic Spectrum Disorder remains the most common primary type of need with 29% of pupils with an EHC plan having this primary type of need. This has increased from 28% in January 2018.

The number of pupils in state-funded special schools has increased by 6% to over 120,000. This represents 9% of all pupils with SEN. The former trend towards integration now seems to be a feature of the past as numbers of SEN pupils in independent schools has also increased. 7% of all SEN pupils are placed in an independent school.

Special educational needs remain more prevalent in boys than girls, 4.4% of boys and 1.7% of girls had an EHC plan, both small year-on-year increases. Similarly boys were almost twice as likely to be on SEN support – 15% compared to 8% of girls.

SEN is most prevalent among boys at age 9 (23% of all boys), and for girls at age 10 (13% of all girls). SEN support is most prevalent among primary age pupils, before decreasing as age increases through secondary ages.

For EHC plans however, as age increases the percentage of pupils with EHC plans also increases, up to age 16, where nearly 4% of pupils have an EHC plan. However, it is not clear how many pupils with identified needs have been flagged by the NHS before they enter into education. This would save schools both time and resources and ensure early help for some children.

With the new focus on mental health, something schools have always been acutely aware of as an issue, I would not be surprised to see the number of pupils with SEN continue to increase over the next few years. The DfE will also need to consider how to help teachers keep as many of those that can manage their learning in mainstream schools to do so.

 

 

Small schools: what’s their future?

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Last Thursday, the DfE issued a raft of statistical information. The data about teachers has been covered by this blog in a number of different posts. As a result, the data from the January School Census that covers schools and their pupils has had to wait its turn. Happily, there is now time to reflect upon the data.  https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/schools-pupils-and-their-characteristics-january-2019

In terms of public expenditure implications, the important news is that there are more pupils to be funded, as the rise in the birth rate of a few years ago starts to work its way through the system. Overall, there were 84,700 more pupils in education in England in January 2019 than in the previous January. This is despite any trend towards home schooling or off-rolling.

The bulk of the increase, 69,500, came in the secondary sector.  Assuming more of the increase to be in Year 7, then this probably required some 3,500 more teachers. Not all will have been recruited, as some schools will have falling rolls at sixteen and in a few cases still, at fourteen due to movement of pupils to UTCs and Studio Schools.

The number of primary pupils increased by 10,800; an insignificant increase on a pupil population of 4,730,000 pupils. This levelling off in the primary school population, and its possible reduction in a few years’ time, has implications for the system that will be discussed later.

It’s worth noting the increase in the number of pupils in special schools, of some 6,500. How far this is an awareness of extra need and how far schools looking to place pupils that cost more to educate than a school normally receives cannot be identified from the data. However, by January 2019, almost all pupils should have converted from a Statement of SEN to an EHCP.

It is worth noting the fall of 900 pupils in independent schools. It isn’t easy to identify where that trend is coming from, but some of it might be as a result of local authorities reassessing the cost of placing SEN pupils in such schools, and instead now using cheaper state funded provision and thus contributing to the increase in numbers in special schools.

The most concern in policy terms arising from this data are the future shape of the primary school system. While there are 13 primary schools with over 1,000 pupils, there are almost 2,000 primary schools with 100 or fewer pupils. Together these latter schools account for approaching one in eight primary schools. Some will be infant schools, where a merger with a junior school could create a primary school, as has already happened in many instances. However, where these small schools are already primary schools, how will their future be assessed? Does the present funding arrangements permit local authorities and academy chains to retain such schools, both for the good of their communities and to prevent very young children having to take bus journeys to and from school each day? Some counties with small communities that are widely distributed will certainly face this problem, even if they aren’t already doing so. So far, I haven’t heard anything from the Leadership contenders about this matter.

London is a different country

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Among the more detailed numbers published yesterday by the DfE in the plethora of statistics about the school workforce in November 2018 was a breakdowns of the data by individual school; by local authority and by region of the country, with London further subdivided into Inner and Outer London, thus making ten regions in all.

In many respects the teacher workforce in London, and especially Inner London, is very different to the workforce in the rest of England. London is often regarded, along with New York, and a few other places, as a mega-city that is substantially different to its surrounding areas. To allow for comparison purposes, I have included data on the teacher workforce for Oxfordshire and the average for England as a whole in a table shown below.

  Inner London Inner London rank Outer London Outer London

rank

 England

(Average)

 Oxfordshire
% Male teachers 28.2% 1 25.6% 6 25.9% 24.3%
% Ethnic minority teachers 44.4% 1 37.8% 2 14.0% 9.6%
PTR (Overall) 15.7 1 17.7 =2 18.0 18.3
% part-time teachers 15.2% 10 19.8 8 23.7% 33.3%
% teachers 50+ 15.8% 10 18.2% 8 17.6% 20.7%
Average salary £45,285 1 £42,647 2 £39,504 £38,372
% of teachers with an allowance 43.6% 1 40.% 2 35.8% 31.7%
% teachers with one period of sickness 57.8% 1 56.4% 2 54.4% 52.3%
% schools reporting a vacancy 20.7% 2 23.1% 1 11.1% 10.7%

Source: DfE School Workforce Census tables. Note there are ten region including two for London.

Inner London is at the extreme in all aspect considered in the table, only ceding first or last place to Outer London in respect of the percentage of schools reporting a vacancy. With separate distinct pay rates, it is not surprising to find London toping the average salary figures, but it is perhaps more surprising to find it the top region for male teachers, with more than a quarter of teachers being men, compared to only just over 24% in Oxfordshire.

The other outstanding percentage is for the percentage of non-White teachers employed. Approaching one in two teachers in Inner London, and more than a third in Outer London, are from ethnic minority non-white backgrounds. This compares to less than 10% of teachers with such backgrounds in Oxfordshire.

Despite paying higher salaries, London schools also manage to have the most favourable Pupil Teacher Ratios in England, some three pupils per teacher better in Inner London than in Oxfordshire. This is despite the many small schools in Oxfordshire, and does indicate the funding difference between London schools and those in much of the rest of England.

Additionally, it may well be that as a result of better funding teachers in London are more likely to receive an allowance than those elsewhere in England. However, this may also be part of a drive to ensure schools are fully staffed. If so, it is only working to some degree, as London schools, and especially those in Outer London, are more likely to report a vacancy than schools anywhere else in England.

Based upon these figures, it is imperative that Ministers and civil servants look beyond London when assessing information about the teacher workforce, and especially when reviewing claims about the funding of schools.

Vacancies still a concern

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The recent data on the workforce in state schools at the time of the 2018 School Workforce Census conducted by the DfE shows vacancies rates overall at similar levels to the previous year in percentage terms, but on the increase in terms of absolute numbers. https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/school-workforce-in-england-november-2018

Given that the data is collected in November, when schools ought to be fully staffed, any vacancy is of concern. Data from before 2010 was collected each January, when vacancy levels might be expected to be affected by those teachers that departed at the end of December and how easy it was to replace them.

Nevertheless, the 1,725 recorded vacancies in the secondary sector in November 2018 was the highest number since 2014, and more than three times the level recorded in 2011, after the financial crisis. Vacancy levels fell in mathematics between 2017 and 2018. This can partly be attributed to the subject having a relatively good year in terms of ITT recruitment in 2015-15 that fed through to recruitment for teaching posts in September 2018. I expect the ground gained between 2017 and 2018 in mathematics to be lost in the 2019 census, with little indication of any improvement in 2020.

Business studies has the largest percentage vacancy level. The subject includes both commercial studies and economics.  It remain a mystery to me why this important subject group for the British Economy does not attract more help for trainee teachers through the scholarship/bursary scheme. Mr Hunt’s idea of paying off student loans for young entrepreneurs seems only likely to make the situation worse if it was implemented. Indeed, I have yet to hear about a solution to the teacher recruitment problem from either of the candidates for the Troy Party leadership.

The other measure of concern is that of the percentage of hours taught in a typical week to pupils in Years 7 to 13 by teachers with no relevant post-A Level qualification. The trend in many secondary subjects continues to worsen, even among EBacc subjects, where recruitment into ITT is buoyant. However, that may be due to changes in teaching methods as much as to a shortage of teachers in history and geography. Where schools employ a classroom teacher approach to some or all of their pupils, generally either Year 7 pupils or those having trouble learning in large classes, these teachers may not be specialists, and this can cause the number of hours taught be a non-specialist in a subject to increase for perfectly sensible reasons.

Of more concern, and not provided in the Tables, would be any evidence of increasing levels of teachers lacking subject knowledge teaching groups in Years 11 to13. Although even here a case can sometimes be made on the basis of teaching experience and non-formally acquired subject knowledge, such as through high quality Professional Development activities.

Within the detailed tables, there is far more data on these matters, but it will take a little more time to work through the data. However, there is no room for complacency over retention and every reason, as the school population increase over the next few years to continue to express serious concern at the trends emerging in relation to mid-career retention of teachers.

 

 

 

Retention still an issue?

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The School Workforce data for 2108 published yesterday is always worthy of several posts on this blog. Indeed, this is the third in the series so for about the 2018 data. You can find the data at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/school-workforce-in-england-november-2018

Slightly fewer teachers left the profession in the year up to the 2018 census than in the previous year, 42,073 compared with 44,376. This was a reduction in the percentage of the teaching force departing, from 10.2% to 9.8%, the lowest percentage since 2013. However, apparently, only among the over-55s did the percentage of the age group leaving decline. This suggests that more teachers may be remaining in service longer and the number retiring early may be falling. Certainly, the number of recorded retirements reduced from 8,188 in 2017 to 6,294 in 2018.

This blog has raised concerns about the growing loss to the state school system of teachers with five to seven years of experience, those that might be expected to take up the middle leadership vacancies. In the data released, the DfE have updated the table of the percentage of the cohort starting in a particular year remaining in each subsequent year. This Table has data that stretches back to the 1996 entry cohort, of whom 45.9% were still teaching in state schools some 22 years later. The notes to the Table suggest there may be some under-recording of part-time teachers, by about 10%.

Of more interest is the fact that the 2018 entry cohort was the smallest since 2011, and, at 23,820, almost exactly the same as last year’s 23,829 entrants. Only among teachers with 10 years’ service was the percentage remaining in 2018 above the percentage reported last year, at 62% compared with 61.7%.

Record lows abound across the Table, with the 70% level now being breached after just four years and the 60% level after 11 years of service. Of course, there was a data collection change in 2010, when the School Workforce Census was introduced, although the Database of Teacher Records is still used to help provide a complete picture where schools do not fully complete the Census each November.

The DfE is yet to update the Teacher Compendium that put real numbers to the percentages and allows for analysis by different phases and secondary subjects https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/teachers-analysis-compendium-4 and although the overall picture is helpful to know, it is the data relating to certain subjects and teacher retention that is of even more interest, as would be data on geographical trends in retention. Do more teachers in London leave teaching in state schools earlier than those in the north of England and in the South West?

Interestingly, young women teachers under the age of 30 earn more than young men in both the primary and secondary sectors and also across both maintained schools and academies. However, the effect or differential promotion rates and greater numbers of women taking a break in service for caring responsibilities means that as a whole male teachers on average earn £1,400 more than their female compatriots. However, there are more women in the primary sector earning more than £100,000 than there are men. The same cannot be said for the secondary sector.

More facts about the teaching profession

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Those of my generation will remember the verse from the folk song about ‘where have all the young men gone?’ Written by the great Peter Seeger in the 1950s and, so Wikipedia informs me, based on a Cossack song and an Irish lumberjack tune, it became one of the most covered and well known of political folk songs of its generation.

I was reminded of the line when looking through the detailed tables in the DfE’s Workforce Statistics for 2018, published earlier today. Among men under the age of 25 there are just 3,159 working as classroom teachers in secondary schools across England compared with 2,005 working as classroom teachers in the primary sector.  Surprisingly, that’s better than a generation ago. In March 1997, the DfE recorded just 900 male primary school teachers under the age of 25 and 2,070 in that age group working as teachers in secondary schools. So, net gains all round and proportionally more so in the primary sector.

However, if you also look at the 45-49 age grouping for the number of men working as classroom teachers, the numbers are dramatically lower. In the primary sector, down from 8,215 classroom teachers to just 2,053, and in the secondary sector, from 23,602 to just 7,882, in the years between 1997 and 2018. Overall male teacher numbers fell from 31,000 to 25,311 in the primary sector between 1997 and 2018, and in the secondary sector from 90,100 to 64,513 during the same period.

The differences at more senior levels are not as easy to discover as less attention was paid in the 1990s to the gender of head teachers. However, I suspect that men have more than held their own in head teacher appointments, especially in the secondary sector, where women still from only a minority of the nation’s head teachers.

The proportion of non-White teachers in the profession remains small, especially in the more senior leadership posts. Whereas some 15% of classroom teachers are not White British, along with 10.3% of assistant and deputy heads, and some seven per cent of head teachers, these numbers fall if White Irish and other teachers classified by the DfE as from ‘any other white background’ are included. BAME percentages fall to less than 10% of classroom teachers and little more than four per cent of head teachers. Many are, I suspect, located only in a few distinct parts of England.

Overall numbers of entrants to the profession were static in 2018 compared with 2017, but this masked a fall in full-time entrants that was balanced by an increase in part-time entrants. The number of full-time entrants was at the lowest level since 2011, and must be some cause for concern, especially with the secondary school pupil population on the increase. Also of concern is the fact that the percentage of entrants under the age of 25 was at its lowest percentage since before 2011, when the workforce Census started, at 26.4% of entrants.

The profession cannot afford to lose any of its youngest teachers. A future post will look at trends in the retention of teachers.

 

An Auger effect already?

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The publication of the data on ITT applications for June 2019 coincided today with the DfE’s date for publishing its annual raft of statistics on teachers and schools. The DfE data is, of course, backward facing, whereas the UCAS data tells us what to expect in the teacher labour market in 2020.

With only three months left in the current recruitment round, it is usually easy to predict the actual outcome of the recruitment round. However, with the current levels of uncertainty over issues such as the funding of schools after the new Prime Minister is elected by Conservative Party members, and assuming there isn’t a general election in the autumn, as well as what happens to tuition fees in the short-term, the past may not be a guide to the future. Nevertheless, this blog will try and made some inferences from the data as it currently stands.

Overall applications are down on last year. The current total of 32,720 applicants is some 490 below the figure for June 2018. Perhaps of most concern is the decline in ‘placed’ applicants in London and the South East, where the figure is down from 900 last year to 710 this year. There has also been a decline in ‘conditionally placed’ numbers in these two regions, although numbers ‘holding offers’ are similar to last year at this point.

There has been a reversal in the recent trend in age profile of applicants, with fewer applicants than last year in all age groups, except for new graduates 21 or under, where the number is up from 4,630 last year to 4,670 this year. ‘Placed’ applicants over the age of 25 are down this year by 130 to some 1,440. In the past, this age group has help keep applicant numbers up as younger applicants have fallen away.

The number of applications are down from both men and women, mostly as a result of fewer applicants being ‘placed’. As degree results are confirmed over the next month or so, the number of ‘placed’ applicants should increase rapidly over the next two months. This is a number that will need watching very carefully.

The data on application status by provider region (Table B6 of the UCAS monthly data) confirms that there needs to be a focus on what is happening in London. Placed numbers are down by 100, and ‘conditionally placed’ by 160, with only those ‘holding offers’ up by 50, for a net change across the three categories of around 200. Application numbers to providers in London are down by around 600. With London schools seeing growth in pupil numbers, and so far in 2019 having advertised 10 vacancies per secondary school (www.teachvac.co.uk data) these numbers must be of concern.

So far it is primary courses that have borne the brunt of reduced applications, down from 41,180 in 2018, to 38,880 in 2019, whereas applications for secondary courses are up from 52,530 to 53,250. But, before anyone hangs out the bunting and declares a ‘dance and skylark’, it is worth delving deeper into the statistics for individual subjects. History, English and biology al doing extremely well, and could recruit their largest numbers of trainees in recent years.

On the other hand, art, chemistry, IT, mathematics, music and physics are recording new lows for June in terms of those ‘placed’ and either ‘conditionally placed’ or ‘holding an offer’. Based on the evidence of previous years, none of these subjects will hit the required Teacher Supply Model number in 2019.  That’s bad news for the 2020 recruitment market for teachers.

Has the Auger Report with its suggestion for lower fees already had an effect on recruitment onto UCAS courses for this September? If so, the government must react sooner rather than later to stem any further losses ad protect teacher supply.