Category Archives: schools

The responsibility of us all

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The following item was reported in several newspapers earlier this week, including The Daily Telegraph https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/04/11/child-stabbings-rise-63pc-amid-disturbing-trend-younger-knife/

NHS data shows a 63% increase over five years in the number of children aged 16 and under who have been treated for stab wounds in England. The largest increase (85%) between 2011/12 and 2016/17 was among 15-year-olds. The overall rise in the number of stabbings across England during the same period was 14%.

Now there may not be a correlation, but 15-year olds, and 15-year old young men in particular, have the highest rate of exclusions from our schools. After falling for many years, exclusions are also on the rise across much of England.

As those that know my life history will understand these two sets of statistics and particularly the one about knife crime have an especial resonance with me, as it was a teenager that stabbed me over 40 years ago in a rare act of serious and unprovoked violence that just happened to take place in a classroom in front of a group of children. As a result, knife crime has always been of special concern to me. I do view the recent upturn as a worrying trend.

Oxfordshire’s Cabinet will be discussing the County’s Education Scrutiny Committee report on exclusions in the county at their meeting next Tuesday. You can read the report in the Cabinet papers for 17th April 2018 at www.oxfordshire.gov.uk at item 6. I always hope that young people engaged fully in education will be less likely to commit these acts of knife crime.

I am also sure that cutbacks in both the Youth Service budget and that of the Youth Offending Teams across the county, along with revisions to Probation, probably haven’t helped in the prevention of such crimes. As ever, cutbacks have consequences further down the line when the money is being well spent.

In this case, changes in the nature of the curriculum probably may also have played a part since practical subjects have also too often been replaced with additional classroom time that can make life more challenging for many teachers working with pupils that don’t appreciate their efforts.

I believe there needs to be a concerted effort on the part of all responsible to once again recognise the need for behaviour management and to do everything to research and investigate the causes of exclusions in their school. Generally, persistent disruptive behaviour is given as the reasons for the largest number of exclusions. Working out how to reduce these exclusions should help allow resources to then be focused on dealing with other reasons why pupils are excluded.

It doesn’t matter whether schools are maintained, voluntary added, academies or free schools, they all have a responsibility to tackle this problem of school children carrying and using knives. Teaching Schools, National Leaders of Education and of Governance and those responsible for both training new entrants into the profession as well as designing continuing professional development will also need to ensure that they continue to make behaviour management strategies a high priority.

 

Few teachers from ethnic minorities outside London

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According to the School Workforce Survey, in November 2016, just over half of the secondary classroom teachers in London schools were from ethnic minorities. This compared with just five per cent of classroom teachers in the North East of England.

The percentage of teachers from ethnic minorities in London secondary schools only changed marginally between 2010 and 2016, increasing from 52% to 53%, whereas in Inner London primary schools the percentage, although lower, had increased from 40% to 44%. In the North East, the percentages had stayed the same at 5% in secondary sector and just two per cent in the primary sector.  The data comes from the tables in the DfE’s new leadership study discussed in the previous post on this blog. The data reveals the gulf in employment of teachers from ethnic minorities in the different regions of England.

Senior leaders and head teachers from ethnic minority backgrounds are still relatively rare in schools outside of London and parts of the West Midlands. What this study doesn’t highlight is the difficulties some ethnic minority candidates have in even entering the teaching profession in the first place. The now departed NCTL undertook a number of different studies identifying this problem and it is to be hoped that the data from those studies won’t just disappear from sight along with the NCTL.

There is some encouraging data from this DfE study, showing that in 2016 more ethnic minorities were appointed as a percentage than in 2010, except for primary classroom teachers, where the percentage ‘new to post’ remained the same at 12% in both years even though the total stock increased by two per cent over the period to 14%. The percentage of primary places on teacher preparation courses being offered to ethnic minority candidates bears further examination, since many courses are in areas where few such candidates may be applying putting greater pressure on a relatively small number of courses. Such an arrangement can produce a ceiling for the number of ethnic minority candidates that can be accepted if applicants are not spread around the country more widely.

Women continued to make headway in the secondary sector between 2010 and 2016, taking a great percentage of all post up to headships, where there was no change, with a disappointing low figure of 38% in both years. However, in the primary sector the picture was almost exactly the opposite, with women taking a lower percentage of posts in 2016 than in 2010 up to deputy head level. There was a slight increase in the percentage of both deputy and heads that were women in the primary sector between 2010 and 2016, to 80% and 73% respectively.

Not surprisingly, as the retirement boom ran its course, the result was a younger teaching force at all levels by 2016, although, as pointed out in the previous blog post, the length of time required to become a head teacher didn’t decline in the same way as it did between 2010 and 2016 for other promoted and leadership posts.

 

 

 

Leadership trends for schools across England: A DfE Report

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The DfE has today published an important new piece of research about the school workforce, concentrating mainly on observations about Leadership roles. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/school-leadership-2010-to-2016-characteristics-and-trends

As a purist, I cannot get my head around the use of headteacher rather than head teacher but, apart from that grumble, there is much to welcome in this study. In my ways it fills in the gaps since the end of my annual reports for the NAHT (nd from time to time ASCL as well) that appeared between the late 1990s and 2012.

As these are no longer available to open view on the NAHT web site, I have reproduced the key issues from the 18th Report, and last in the series, at the end of this blog. This is because the DfE report, authoritative as it is, doesn’t then move to discuss in detail some of the potential policy implications arising from their findings. To provide one such example. If it takes a teacher potentially 16 years to become a secondary head teacher, then what are the implications for promotion possibilities for mature entrants with career experience outside of teaching? A use of the Sankey diagrams by age group of entrants to the profession might help answer this question.

The DfE Report also compliments TeachVac’s analysis of leadership vacancies during 2017 in the primary sector across England issued this January, and still available on request from enquiries@oxteachserv.com

The DfE Report comments that teachers with a senior leadership role (headteacher, deputy or assistant headteacher) form a small proportion of the overall teaching population, smaller in secondary (10.8%) than primary (18.5%) schools, which has grown since 2010 (up from 9.7% and 18.1% respectively). This growth was mainly in assistant heads, which have increased from 3.5% to 5.2% of teachers in primary schools and 5.6% to 6.5% in secondary schools between 2010 and 2016.

However, there are a greater percentage of classroom teachers in primary schools than secondary schools. This means fewer teacher in the primary sector have posts with salary additions due to additional responsibilities than in the secondary sector. This is the result of the subject related nature of teaching in secondary schools since the development of the comprehensive school model in the 1960s and 1970s replaced the class teacher model previously used in the secondary modern schools, and the elementary school sector before the 1944 Education Act. Such a divergence of staffing models is still reflected today in the formation of principles behind the DfE’s Common Funding Formula.

Those with an interest in school leadership will find both the report and the accompanying tables repay detailed study. I look forward to reading updates over the next few years. However, they will need to bear in mind the important change in the secondary sector during the period of the DfE’s analysis in relation to the creation of academies and the implications for issues such as the retention of school leaders.

Extract from: The Staete of the Leadership Market for Senior Staff in Schools 2011/12

18th Report issues – September 2012

By Prof John Howson & Dr Almut Sprigade

Each year this survey provides a dynamic picture of the state of the labour market for senior staff appointments on the Leadership Scale in publically funded schools. It complements the picture provided by the School Workforce Survey that allows an understanding of the state of the labour market for a particular date in November.

The most important questions that this survey addresses are; what are the trends in the demand for senior staff, and is the market able to meet them, both now and in the foreseeable future? Of course, even within the three different grades of head, deputy and assistant head associated with the Leadership Scale there are many different sub-markets associated with geography, type of school, phase of education and source of public funding.

The school sector is undergoing a period of significant change, especially in its governance, and such moves may affect the labour market, especially during any period when existing schools seek to change their status. This may, for example, have affected the number of deputy and assistant head posts advertised by secondary schools during the period when they converted to academy status. It is difficult to see why otherwise during a period of declining pupil numbers there should have been an increase in deputy head vacancies.

The key issue during recent years has been the effect of retirements on the labour market. Once again, this year, retirements have been the dominant reason for headship vacancies and a significant reason in the vacancies for both deputy and assistant headships. However, it seems likely that the peak year for retirements has now been passed, and that whilst remaining at a high level they may decline over the next few years. This assumption is based on the continuation of an orderly market with no sudden upturn, perhaps due to an unpredicted change in pay, pension or conditions of service.

According to the School Workforce Survey conducted in 2011 (DfE, 2012) there were just fewer than 4,000 primary heads in the 55-59 age group, along with 878 secondary heads, and 299 special school heads, making a total of around 5,200 head teacher likely to retire within the next five years. Assuming there is an equal distribution across the age range that equates to around 1,040 departures each year for each of the next five years. To this figure must be added a number of early retirements, say around a third of turnover if the figures in this report can be grossed up for the market as a whole. That would add somewhere around 900 departures to the total, providing for around 2,000 of the total of 2,678 recorded advertisements this year. This would represent some 75% of current turnover compared with just less than 70% recorded in this survey in the current year. However, if any of those in the ‘other category’ were actually retirements, then the difference might be smaller. On a worst case scenario of high early retirement plus expected levels of age-related retirement the turnover of head teachers might be expected to be around the level seen in 2010-11. Now that the abolition of the mandatory NPQH has widened the pool of eligible candidates, the question is whether the supply side can provide enough candidates considered as suitably qualified by governing bodies and whether there is sufficient appetite for the role from those candidates?

The evidence of application levels from this survey suggests that in schools that are neither at the extremes of the pupil number ranges nor associated with certain other characteristics, such as being a Roman Catholic school, the demand for the post of head teacher is sufficient to ensure most schools that advertise at the appropriate time will be able to make an appointment. However, the supply for certain more specialist segments of the market may be less secure. The fate of Roman Catholic schools, where recruitment has been an issue for most of the past two decades, shows that schools do eventually make an appointment. Evidence of how they perform during any interregnum and whether the appointment of a temporary head teacher can affect short-term performance might be worth investigating further.

It may, of course, be that the current wage freeze on teachers’ pay is spurring interest in leadership posts since promotion offers one way for a teacher to increase their salary when there are no cost of living increases. However, if that is the case with relation to applicants, it does not seem to have been the case with appointments, where a minimum period of service appears to be seen as relevant to an appointment as it ever was; more than five years’ service being required for an assistant headship; 10-15 years for a deputy headship; and more than 15 years for a headship. The age at which mature entrants to the profession reach this length of service may affect their chances of promotion, especially if they do not reach 15 years of service before the age of 45.

Although the number of returns from schools in the London area was below average there was some evidence that these schools were finding some difficulty in filling leadership posts, and especially for the more junior or more specialised vacancies.

The increase in advertised deputy posts in the secondary sector should mean that the supply of deputies will remain adequate even if vacancies for headships remain above the longer-term average. However, there were little more than 1,200 primary deputy posts advertised during 2011-12 compared with just over 2,000 headship advertisements. As 40% of headship appointments went to deputy head teachers, this suggests a demand for around 800 deputy head moving into headship each year or three quarters of new deputy head appointments. The position is further complicated by the fact that most appointments are probably from candidates who do not relocate when taking up a headship. This means that there needs to be a sufficient spread of candidates across the country.

The percentage of women being appointed to headships in the secondary sector does not yet reflect the percentage of female teachers working in secondary schools, and it would be helpful to establish whether or not women have the same success rate at interview as their male counterparts. A similar exercise for ethnic minority candidates might also be useful, especially now that the benchmark of the NPQH has been removed.

As has already been mentioned, Roman Catholic schools continue to find appointments more challenging than do other schools, with fewer applicants and smaller shortlists. Neither is per se a bad thing, but if they result in more unfilled vacancies then the process for schools is both more expensive and time consuming, and potentially unsettling.

There have always been fewer problems recruiting deputy and assistant head teachers than in recruiting head teachers and, generally, that has been the picture again this year although some primary schools appeared to have found difficulty in appointing an assistant head, and this may need further investigation as to the type and location of schools facing problems.

Overall, 2011-12 was another year in which the demands of the labour market were generally able to be satisfied by the supply of candidates putting themselves forward to fill the vacancies on offer. However, it is worth noting that a small number of schools that failed to appoint after a first advertisement continued to face problems when re-advertising their vacancies. If they are located in areas where support for the middle tier is now weak it is not clear what help would be available to them. As more schools become academies this may become more of an issue until a governance structure is worked out for schools.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Is London leading the teacher job market in 2018?

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Will the STRB have to take a long hard look at where teachers are needed when deciding how to make the pay award this year? I ask this question because TeachVac www.teachvac.co.uk, the free to use recruitment site that matches vacancies for teachers with applicants, where I am the Chair, can reveal the importance of London in the teacher job market during the first quarter of 2018.

According to DfE statistics, in January 2017, London schools taught some 16% of the nation’s children educated in state-funded schools. The assumption might be that these schools might require a similar proportion of the nation’s teachers.

There are several challenges to this assumption. Firstly, more teachers may be required because pupil rolls are rising faster in London that elsewhere in the country, especially in the secondary sector. Secondly, London, as a region, educates more children in independent schools than other regions. While London accounts for some 16% of children in state-funded schools, it accounts for 26% of those educated privately in recognised independent schools. As such schools generally have smaller classes and larger numbers of post-16 pupils than many comprehensive schools, their presence will probably increase the demand for teachers needed to work in London. TeachVac handles vacancies from both state and private schools. Thirdly, teachers in London may be more prone to either move around or move out of teaching: including going to teach overseas.

So what did TeachVac find during the first quarter of 2018?

Recorded main scale vacancies placed by secondary schools January – end of March 2018

London England % Vacancies in London
Business 110 355 31%
Music 68 244 28%
RE 75 301 25%
Social Sciences 55 227 24%
Geography 142 595 24%
PE 87 382 23%
Science 500 2229 22%
History 92 412 22%
IT 75 358 21%
Languages 195 936 21%
Art 54 278 19%
Total 2379 12423 19%
Mathematics 318 1813 18%
English 274 1566 17%
Design & Technology 62 454 14%
Humanities 16 129 12%

Source TeachVac.co.uk

As far as the levels of vacancies for main scale teaching posts in the secondary sector are concerned, London schools seem to be advertising more vacancies than might be expected, even allowing for the higher than average number of pupils in private sector schools.

The most interesting feature of the table is how it is the smaller subjects where the relative demand is highest in London. In English and mathematics, London’s share of the national vacancy total is possibly even below what might be expected, given the percentage of pupils in the private sector. I think this may be explained by the significant presence of Teach First in London schools and the importance of both these subjects to the Teach First programme. On the other hand, the subjects at the top of the table mostly do not feature so prominently in the Teach First programme: perhaps they should.

April is the key month for recruitment at this grade, and TeachVac has already experienced a bumper start to the post-Easter period, even though many schools are officially on holiday. TeachVac can link every vacancy on its site to a job posted by a school. The TeachVac site contains no vacancies from agencies or other sources, a factor, as the Migration Advisory Committee found some years ago, resulting in an inflation of the figures to a point where they can become almost meaningless. As a ‘closed site’ that only sends jobs to registered applicants TeachVac also cannot be browsed by those wanting to extract a finder fee from schools.

Finally, it seems as if the DfE may launch a trial of their own service later this month. do test TeachVac at the same time and with the same parameters and let me know how TeachVac measures up to the DfE’s millions of pounds of expenditure on the project?

 

 

Welcome: Teaching Regulation Agency

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Welcome to the Teaching Regulation Agency. I mentioned part of its role in my recent post about Induction. Those interested can now read this new Agency’s Corporate Plan at https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/696833/teaching-regulation-agency-corporate-plan.pdf I am delighted to see that Alan Meryick has become its first Chief Executive. He has two female deputies, but, perhaps, it was a missed opportunity to have a women at the top of the organisation. Alan’s name will be familiar to anyone that has read the outcomes of teacher misconduct panel decisions, where his name has regularly appeared as the civil servant that acted on behalf of the Secretary of State in exercising the final judgement on the decision – subject of course to either a Judicial review or an appeal to an upper tier court.

We now know, thanks to this Corporate Plan, that the budget for the TRA for 2018-19 is just under £9 million. This money is needed not just to administer not just the misconduct section, but also all the other work of the Agency. This work includes a whole raft of administrative tasks involved in managing the State teaching workforce qualification and registration system. For example, the Teacher Qualification Unit operational delivery will include:

  • the award of QTS and EYTS to approximately 34,000 teachers who complete either a course of ITT or EYITT in England
  • processing approximately 9,000 applications from overseas trained teachers requesting recognition as a qualified teacher in England
  • delivery of up to 75,000 new online certificates to teachers through the teacher self -service portal (TSS)
  • processing more than 380,000 pre-employment checks through the online employer access service
  • recording approximately 32,000 NQT induction passes onto the database of qualified teachers
  • issuing up to 35,000 teacher reference numbers (TRN)
  • answering up to 30,000 telephone and responding to approximately 35,000 email helpdesk enquiries.

The Agency will also deal with around 1,000 referrals of serious misconduct and hold around 150 hearing of misconduct panels that can lead to a teacher being barred for the profession, but not from being able to use the title teacher.

It is interesting to see that the TRA has a vision statement as I thought that they were now somewhat tout of fashion. The TRA vision is:

We will strive to achieve excellence in all that we do, delivering a fair and consistent regulatory system for the teaching profession on behalf of the Secretary of State. We will assess applications for recognition of professional status fairly and efficiently. We will support the teaching profession by ensuring high standards of conduct are maintained, by fair, rigorous and timely teacher misconduct investigations, that where appropriate, prohibit teachers guilty of serious misconduct. We will work to maintain the high quality standards of the profession, allowing every child access to high quality education.

Sadly, nothing there about protecting who can use the title ‘teacher’.

The tasks of this new Agency are vital in securing a workforce for schools, but it cannot do anything about the shortfall of trainee numbers. The DfE is now fully responsible for any shortcomings in that direction.

Finally, the Agency still has work to do to purge the references to NCTL that still litter its information documents about teacher misconduct hearings. The Agency might also wish to consider whether it is appropriate for the panel’s legal adviser to sit alongside panel members at hearings, in case it makes them look as if they are a member of the panel itself. But, maybe their diagram doesn’t reflect the reality of the situation.

 

Daft, illogical or just plain stupid?

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The DfE’s recently published revised statutory guidance for the Induction of NQTs is dated April 2018. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/induction-for-newly-qualified-teachers-nqts The DfE website shows the Guidance as having been updated on the 1st April. Now, were this Guidance published anywhere else but on the DE’s own website, one might assume it was an elaborate April Fool’ day joke. But, one must presume that some hapless official was charged with uploading these changes on the day that the Teaching Regulation Agency (presumably TRA for short) replaced the now departed National College for Teaching and Leadership (NCTL). Whether the TRA will follow in the footsteps of the RAF and have an illustrious history lasting more than 100 years is probably not even a matter for debate. If it lasts 100 months it might be said to have done well.

This Guidance is another example of a ‘fine mess’ our school system in England has become. To quote from the document:

All qualified teachers who are employed in a relevant school in England must, by law, have completed an induction period satisfactorily, subject to specified exemptions (see Annex B).

The list of relevant schools includes a maintained school; a non-maintained special school; a maintained nursery school; a nursery school that forms part of a maintained school; a local authority maintained children’s centre; and a pupil referral unit (PRU).

Keen eyed readers will notice that missing from this list of ‘relevant schools’ where Induction is mandatory are independent school in England; academies; free schools; 16–19 academies; alternative provision academies; and city technology colleges. Induction can be served in these institutions, even in some cases independent schools, but it isn’t a requirement, as it is for NQTs working in ‘relevant schools’ as listed in the appropriate paragraph of the Guidance.

Schools in special measure – no mention of the term inadequate here- generally, even if a relevant school, cannot employ NQTs or offer Induction unless HMI have granted permission. But, that is what you might expect.

Interestingly, a teaching school that is an accredited ITT provider cannot be the appropriate body for an NQT for whom it recommended that the award of QTS should be made. However, the ban doesn’t seem to extend to other schools in the same academy chain.

So two schools next to each other. Both state-funded and employing new entrants into the profession can have very different rules governing the Induction Period of that NQT. Is that satisfactory? Should the DfE now accept that regardless of the historical nature of a school’s governance, if it is state-funded the same rules should apply to the Induction of new entrants to the profession?

Although fewer Children’s Centres now exist than was the case a few years ago, I do wonder whether they are suitable places to serve an Induction Year.  One requirement is that the Induction Year involve(s) the NQT regularly teaching the same class(es). Can this really happen in a Children’s Centre?

Perhaps the next revision might be based upon recognising the common needs of NQTs regardless of the type of school where they start their teaching careers. But, perhaps, there will finally be a wholesale review of this part of a teacher’s career following the recent consultation exercise on Strengthening Qualified Teacher Status and career progression and perhaps, the term ‘Teacher’ might finally become a reserved occupation title, only usable by those appropriately qualified and with QTS: we can but hope.

 

 

 

 

Waste not: want not

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Are more teachers leaving the profession? Well it depends upon how you want to measure the outflow: by percentage or by actual numbers. The DfE helpfully provides the base number of new entrants and then uses percentages to show the degree of wastage from the profession over time. However, the actual number entering the profession each year fluctuates, as recruitment flows and ebbs according to how teaching is seen as a career. As a result a lower percentage remaining in the profession can still mean a larger number remaining in teaching when comparing retention over a particular period of service, but for different years.
The two tables demonstrate this quite clearly.

% of Entry as NQTs remaining in state funded schools
number NQT entering service YEAR 1 YEAR 2 YEAR 3 YEAR 4 YEAR 5 YEAR 6
1996 18100 91 84 79 73 71 68
1997 18900 90 83 77 74 71 69
1998 17800 89 81 77 74 72 69
1999 18300 88 82 77 74 71 70
2000 17600 89 83 78 74 72 69
2001 18600 89 82 78 75 71 68
2002 20700 89 83 78 74 72 70
2003 23000 90 83 77 74 71 69
2004 25200 89 81 77 74 71 69
2005 25700 86 81 77 74 71 71
2006 24000 87 81 77 74 73 71
2007 24400 88 82 78 77 74 71
2008 24400 88 82 80 77 74 71
2009 22300 87 83 79 78 72 68
2010 24100 87 82 77 73 70 66
2011 20600 88 83 77 73 69
2012 23000 88 81 75 71
2013 23600 87 80 74
2014 24200 87 79
2015 25500 87
2016 24400

 

Number of NQTs enterering, remaining in state funded schools as teachers
number NQT entering service YEAR 1 YEAR 2 YEAR 3 YEAR 4 YEAR 5 YEAR 6
1996 18100 16471 15204 14299 13213 12851 12308
1997 18900 17010 15023 14553 13986 13419 13041
1998 17800 15842 14418 13706 13172 12816 12282
1999 18300 16104 15006 14091 13542 12993 12810
2000 17600 15664 14608 13728 13024 13176 12144
2001 18600 16554 15252 14508 13950 12496 12648
2002 20700 18423 17181 16146 15318 13392 14490
2003 23000 20700 19090 17710 17020 14697 15870
2004 25200 22428 20412 19404 18648 16330 17388
2005 25700 22102 20817 19789 19018 17892 18247
2006 24000 20880 19440 18480 17760 18761 17040
2007 24400 21472 20008 19032 18788 17760 17324
2008 24400 21472 20008 19520 18788 18056 17324
2009 22300 19401 18509 17617 17394 17568 15164
2010 24100 20967 19762 18557 17593 15610 15906
2011 20600 18128 17098 15862 15038 16629
2012 23000 20240 18630 17250 16330
2013 23600 20532 18880 17464
2014 24200 21054 19118
2015 25500 22185
2016 24400

The source of the percentages is the DfE evidence to the STRB, published in January 2018.
Although the percentage remaining after one year of service has been on a downward path, the actual number been increasing due to more entrants into the profession. Sadly, the data for 2019, when it appears in 2020, will probably show a dip due to the poor recruitment into training in 2017.
What really matters, and isn’t clear from this data, is the breakdown between primary and secondary sectors and for the different subjects within the secondary sector. This is because those that remain must provide the majority of the new leaders every year. By year six, if there are half remaining in the primary sector that is between 7,500-8,000 teachers per cohort. With around 1,200-1,500 school leadership vacancies per cohort that means around 20% of teachers remaining by their sixth year of service might expect to be in a leadership position at some point in their careers.
Finally, it isn’t clear whether the DfE adds in late first time entrants to their original cohort or just ignores their existence. Hopefully, their contribution is recognised within the data, but not made explicit.

What are the aims behind a school funding formula?

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Last week I attended a conference put on at the LGA’s conference centre in London by the f40 Group of authorities concerned about school funding, and how it is distributed. Despite its location close to Houses of Parliament, no representative from any London authority was listed in the delegate list. I suppose that’s not surprising in view of the relative distribution of funding across the different local authorities in England.

The historical differences between the funding of schooling across local areas in England goes way back into the history of State education and how it was funded. In an article I wrote in the Oxford Review of Education way back in 1982, I said that local government then managed eighty per cent of spending on education. Even then, recognition that monitoring of what was happening, as the education system developed from just a limited scheme of elementary schools into a more elaborate and widespread system, especially after the passing of the 1944 Education Act, was contained in an HMI publication of 1981 entitled Report of HMI on the effects of local authority expenditure policies on the Education Service in England.  (DES, March, 1982).

Over the next thirty-five years power flowed inexorably from local authorities towards central government. During this changeover period, school funding became more centralised, but also increasingly distributed directly to schools, without local government being able to do much more than try to influence what was happening.

Also, throughout the changeover period, there were calls for a recognition that the existing system was unfair and based upon factors that prevented some areas from funding education as they would have wanted. This was especially the case in the period between the 1944 Education Act and the late 1980s when local government funding, of which most education funding was a part, was not hypothecated and some authorities chose to divide up their spending in less generous ways in terms of funding schools than did others. However, the unfairness resulting from the local retention of business rates always meant some areas had to receive extra funding from central government once it was agreed that a minimum national level of funding was required to operate the school system.

After the Education Reform Act, the idea of curriculum lead funding gathered pace, and calls were increasingly heard for a National Funding Formula for schools. Despite work conducted during both the period of the Labour government between 1997 and 2010, and the period of coalition government, it was only the post 2015 that the DfE and Ministers grasped the nettle and produced the outline of a policy for such a Formula: possibly some Ministers might have wished that they had left well alone. Nevertheless, by 2018, a National Formula existed and was being implemented.

Despite the explicit basis of a formula for schools designed around four basic building blocks: basic pupil funding via an age-weighted pupil unit and a minimum guarantee per pupil; additional needs criteria; a school element including a lump sum and finally an area cost adjustment, the outcomes don’t seem to satisfy many as the f40 conference discussions revealed. Indeed, under the new formula the rank order of high funded and low funded local authority areas remains not totally dissimilar to what was there before.

Perhaps my greatest anxiety arising from the new formula, and expressed by others at the conference, as well as having been expressed before in this blog, is that small rural primary schools have generally not been given sufficient funds to survive the next few years in their present form.

Now, if that is what the government want in order to rationalise spending and cut out waste, so be it. Whether the votes in rural areas will see it in the same way, is entirely another matter. But, it does highlight how values and funding are inextricably linked. At one time Mr Gove, when Secretary of State, wanted to do away with the sump sum completely for all schools: marking certain closure for small schools. The present formula retains a lump sum, but as Peter Downes in Cambridgeshire has worked out, not one especially supportive of small rural schools. The triple weighting of additional needs through a deprivation factor, English as an additional language and prior low attainment of pupils can more than balance out the sparsity and lump sum factors when overlain by the use of a geographical area cost adjustment.

As was once said by commentators of a former system for allocating education funding in the 1970s. ‘..has a deceptive appearance of simplicity. If it is a cost projection of existing policies then there is often disagreement about each element – cost, projection and existing policy all means.’

Perhaps not much changes in government.

The Pay of Academy Staff

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In the same week that I asked a question of Oxfordshire’s Cabinet Member for Education about the number of employees with salaries over £150,000 in Multi-Academy Trusts operating in Oxfordshire, the Public Accounts Committee has commented on the same issue in a report published today. https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201719/cmselect/cmpubacc/760/76002.htm

The Cabinet member was unable to answer my question as, not surprisingly, the county doesn’t collate the information. However, in my supplementary question, I identified five MATs, all with HQs outside the county, where there was on officer listed in their 2017 accounts as being paid in excess of £150,000. In due course, my list will appear on the county council website and I will publish the link here.

In the Public Accounts Committee Report, issued today, it is clear that the government wrote to all stand-alone academies where in their accounts up to August 2016 there was an officer paid more than £150,000 to ask for an explanation by the 15th December 2017. I haven’t seen an FOI request for the responses. The original letter from the ESFA of 4th December only went to 29 single academy trusts (i.e. academy trusts with only one school in the trust) where the ESFA could identify from the accounts that the trust was paying at least one person over £150,000 and was to ask why such large sums of money had been paid.

In February this year, the Minister wrote to all Chairs of academy trusts in England saying:

 ‘I believe that not all boards are being rigorous enough on this issue. CEO and senior pay should reflect the improvements they make to schools’ performance and how efficiently they run their trusts. I would not expect the pay of a CEO or other non-teaching staff to increase faster than the pay award for teachers. I intend to continue to challenge this area of governance. My view is that we should see a reduction in CEO pay where the educational performance of the schools in the trust declines over several years.’ DfE letter 21st February 2018 reference 35 in the PAC Report.

There has been a history of neglect over senior staff salaries dating back to the Labour government and the emergence of the Executive Head or Principal position soon after the start of the century. Such a grade was never formally recognised in the pay and conditions agreements, and once Mr Gove freed up pay for academies, with no government restraints in place, it was open season for those that wanted to see pay rise to closer to what could be earned in the commercial sector. Buying former DfE officials was also always going to be expensive, but was no doubt one of the justifications used. Using public money to pay related parties is often even less acceptable, as the PAC note in their Report.

We heard of related party transactions where the rules were not properly followed, or where there were doubts about the propriety of the transactions. For example, Wakefield City Academies Trust purchased IT services worth £316,000 from a company owned by the Chief Executive of the Trust, and paid a further £123,000 for clerking services provided by a company owned by the Chief Executive’s daughter. We similarly heard that the founder of Bradford Academy, who was a former teacher, was ordered to repay £35,000 after being sentenced to prison for defrauding the school. The founder and other former members of staff at Kings Science Academy paid £69,000 of Government grants into their own bank accounts. There have also been problems with related party transactions at the Bright Tribe Academy Trust, which resulted in schools being removed from the Trust.

Academy trusts are required to demonstrate to the satisfaction of their own auditors that related parties have not made a profit from the relationship (i.e. that transactions are at cost or below). We were concerned that determining whether a service has been delivered at cost is dependent on information from the supplier, who may have a vested interest in manipulating or inflating this information and is in a position to do so. We questioned whether there were incentives for trustees to take advantage of the system, due to the weaknesses in the system of oversight. The Department, noting our dissatisfaction with the current processes, committed to reflect on the adequacy of the current arrangements. Following our evidence session, the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for the School System wrote to all Chairs of academy trusts to remind them of the need to scrutinise any related party transactions, and to ensure that a full and proper procurement process is following and the trust is able to demonstrate that the services have been provided at cost.

Paragraphs 10 and 11 of the PAC Report: https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201719/cmselect/cmpubacc/760/76002.htm

Should local authorities be required either to provide audit services for all academies or at least to review the accounts of those academies with responsibility for schools within their locality? The LGA could apportion responsibility for MATs that cross boundaries in order to ensure that all are looked at by at least one authority that could then report to the appropriate local scrutiny committee.

Public money, especially in a time of austerity, should be spent in the most effective way. TeachVac has cost the government nothing, but demonstrate how a low cost recruitment site works for the benefit of all. The notion of ‘public service’ and not ‘profit from public funds’ must once again be to the fore.

 

 

 

 

It’s all relative

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The UCAS data on applications to postgraduate ITT courses measured a the 20th March 2018 was published earlier today. I thought for a change we would start with the good news: applicants holding offers are higher than at this point last year. In March 2017, there were 1,080 applicants holding offer out of 27,770 applicants in total. This March, there were 1,380 applicants holding offers, out of 22,430 applicants. Sadly, that about as good as the new gets.

The 22,430 figure for total applicant numbers is scary. The TSM figure issued by the DfE for post graduate trainees required, even allowing for the removal of Teach First numbers, was an expectation of a need to recruit 30,476 trainees across both primary and secondary courses; so the system is still some 7,500 applicants short of requirements, even if every applicants was offered a place. The TSM identified a need for 12,200 primary postgraduates and we currently have 41,530 applications or less than four applications per place. In secondary, the need is for 18,300 trainees and we currently have 40,440 applications: not many more than two applications per place, without allowing for disparities between subjects.

Equally scary is the fact that between March 2017 and the final figure in September of 41,690 applicants in September 2107, only around 14,000 applicants were recruited during the remainder of the 2017 cycle after the March data had been processed. Project than number forward, and hope for a bit better in 2018, and even 15,000 more applicants only takes the total for 2018 to 37,500 or so, against a need of just over 30,000 trainees: not much room for worrying about quality levels in these numbers.

There is still a real problem in primary and a range of secondary subjects including art, religious education, physics, music, chemistry, design & technology and mathematics that are all recording new lows since before the 2013/14 recruitment round and the introduction of the present system of counting numbers of applicants. Business studies and IT are at the same level as the lowest number reached in March since 2013/14. There is better news in English, MFL, PE, history and geography were the number of offers made is above the total for the worst year since 2013/14. In most cases that doesn’t mean it is anywhere near the previous highest number reached in March during this period.

Applications remain down across all age groups and for most types of courses. There were less than 340 offers for the identified 4,554 places on secondary School Direct Salaried allocations by March. That’s less than 10% even if all the offers are held by a different individual. There is better news in the primary sector, where there are 1,210 offers for the 2,166 School Direct Salaried allocations, but even that number is 250 down on last March.

Looking just at London, a region that needs many new teachers each year, applications are down from 15,630 across both sectors in March 2017 to 11,420 this March. Only 110 applicants have been placed (160 last March); 2,040 have been conditionally placed (2,550) and 360 are holding offers compared with 320 last March – the one bit of good news. Overall, there have been 11,420 applications to London providers, compared with 15,630 in March 2017.

With the TV advertising campaign in full swing, the government may need to decide on something more dramatic if schools are not going to face a really challenging recruitment round for September 2019 that is unless applications take a real turn for the better during the remainder of the recruitment round.