Teacher Vacancies

Posted on March 28, 2020 by John Howson

1,000+ new vacancies for teachers posted since Monday by schools in England, according to TeachVac data.www.teachvac.co.uk

Of these vacancies, the majority were posted by secondary schools; with half of the vacancies located in 3 regions (London; South East and East of England). Vacancies included 87 for teachers of English; 138 for teachers of mathematics and 156 for teachers of science and specific subjects within the sciences.

TeachVac’s dedicated team are working remotely to bring you as many the vacancies posted by schools in England as possible. Schools anywhere in the world can post vacancies on TeachVac Global for a small fee.

TeachVac is looking to expand the service in England to non-teaching vacancies using the spare capacity available if teaching vacancies reduce in number significantly.

John Howson

Chair, TeachVac

The State cannot just abandon children

Posted on March 19, 2020 by John Howson

Less than three weeks ago I wrote a post about ‘closing schools’. I concluded by saying that:

‘We are better equipped to deal with unforeseen events these days, whether fire, floods or pestilence; but only if we plan for them.’

Last night, I was talking live on a local radio station when the news about school closures was being announced. I was immediately struck by the very lack of planning I had suggested was needed. Obviously, no announcement was made about the consequences for the examination system and the knock-on effects about entry to higher education this autumn. True, that doesn’t need to be solved immediately, but it is a major worry for a group of young people and their parents.

Of more concern, not least in rural areas and other locations with small schools, was the statement about children falling into two groups: those of key workers and those regarded as ‘vulnerable’.

With budgets devolved to schools, decisions the education of children in these groups may have to be made at the level of the school site. Firstly, there needs to be agreement of those actually falling into each category. Secondly, for small schools, what happens if all the staff are either off sick or self-isolating: who takes responsibility? Clearly, MATs can handle decisions across their family of schools, if the finding agreement allows. But what of other schools?

My initial reaction, live on local radio, was to call for a strategic group in the local area formed from the Anglican and Roman Catholic diocese and arch-diocese, the largest Multi-Academy Trusts in the area and the local authority.

The local authority can coordinate transport and special needs and work with the other groups on ensuring a skeleton of schools are able to open, even if staff are asked to move schools. There is no point in every small rural primary school staying open for just one or two children, unless it can also in those circumstances take other children as well.

This is where the lack of planning ahead in a society dedicated to individual freedom and choice has created a set of questions we are ill-equipped as a society to answer. Is it right for government just to dump the problem on its citizens, or should it take a more interventionist approach: especially to ‘so called public services’? It is interesting that in transport the approach to services in London by the Mayor seems much more coordinated.

Perhaps this crisis will finally bring home to policy-makers the need for a coherent middle tier in education, able to do more than arrange school transport and adjudicate on school offers.

Faced with the prospect of schools being closed until September, and the possible default of some schools in the private sector as they lose their summer term fee income, there needs to be some coherent planning, both for the closure and an orderly return to a fully functioning sector. You only have to search back through this blog to know how I feel we might move forward.

Teaching Vacancies: and where to find them

Posted on February 9, 2020 by John Howson

Schools Week has published an interesting article about the DfE’s vacancy site.

DfE’s teacher job website carries only half of available positions

https://schoolsweek.co.uk/dfes-teacher-job-website-carries-only-half-of-available-positions/

Of course, Schools Week also carries job adverts for teachers and other education positions.

TeachVac http://www.teachvac.co.uk is the main challenger to the TES, as this blog revealed last November.

Regular readers will know that I am also chair of TeachVac that provides a free services and is funded from the data it can supply to the sector, but is now seeking to widen its scope having built a stable platform.

A Minister for Education Trade?

Posted on December 18, 2019 by John Howson

Following on from the general election last Thursday, the period of Purdah has come to an end and the routine of government has re-started. This includes the publication of a whole swath of education statistics.

One set of statistics published during Purdah was the annual update on the United Kingdom’s annual revenue from education related exports and transnational education activity. Post Breixt, this part of the service sector is going to continue to be an important part of our economy. The data published related to the calendar year 2017, so almost two years ago. The statistics can be found at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/uk-revenue-from-education-related-exports-and-tne-activity-2017

As in the past, the higher education sector dominates the data, accounting for two thirds of the revenue. Changes at the overall percentage level tend to be slow, but it is clear that the further education sector now contributes little by way of expert revenue, recorded in these statistics as accounting for just one per cent of revenue. In, 2010, it accounted for six per cent. After the issue of bogus college that harmed this sector, there does seem to be room to explore whether there might new avenues of export generated revenue around the area of teaching and learning in the skills sector that could be led by the further education sector.

English Language training has been the other sector in decline in terms of export revenue; down from 14% of revenue in 2010 to 7% in 2017. In cash terms this is a decline from £2,230 to £1,570 (both to the nearest £10 million). However, there has been continued limited growth in this sector from transnational revenue earned overseas.

The independent school sector in the United Kingdom has increased its revenue, as has these schools contribution to transnational education. This is presumably due to the number of overseas campuses now in operation by schools. However, this sector only contributes some five per cent to total revenue. Even so, this is five per cent that might have disappeared has the outcome of the general election been different.

Amongst education products and services, growth between 2016 and 2107 was steady, with equipment sales showing the strongest growth year on year, and a 20% growth over two years.

In terms of higher education, the bulk of fee income originates from students arriving from outside the EU, so this should not be at risk after the United Kingdom exists the EU in 2020. Whether EU income changes as a result of our exiting the EU won’t be obvious in this dataset until probably 2022 or even 2025 when existing EU students have completed their courses. However, any changes in research funding will most likely become apparent much sooner. In these figures, research income is not differentiated between EU and non-EU sources, so it is not possible to calculate the likely outcomes from the UK’s departure from the EU.

Education is an important and growing part of the United Kingdom’s expert drive, and I am sure that the new government will recognise this fact and want to ensure that as much as possible of the growth is directed to areas away from London towards parts of the United Kingdom that can benefit from this economic activity in their localities. Perhaps there should now be a Minister for Education Trade in the new government?

Technology and Education

Posted on November 18, 2019 by John Howson

A recent event I attended, ahead of BETT 2020, led me to think about the place of technology in education. A simple typology would be to look at teaching, learning and support as three different areas where technology can be involved in schools. Of course, the first two are an arbitrary distinction, and technology can cover both teaching and learning at the same time.

I was interested to see the use of the term AI by many exhibitors at the HMC deputy heads conference I addressed last Friday about teacher supply matters. After all, TeachVac uses sophisticated and proprietary AI to handle job vacancies much more efficiently that say the DfE vacancy site that requires schools to upload every vacancy they have created.

AI is still at an early stage, and as a phrase can raise false hope of a new era for learning that are generally not yet justified. However, one only has to think of the rise of ‘contactless’ in the payment field to see the speed of change.

Contactless, as with smart phones and especially their cameras, demonstrates the problems of technology and inter-generational use. How many heads use contactless payments; how many teachers above 40, and how many teachers below the age of 40 don’t? The same can be asked about any photos taken during the summer break, and also how they were swapped; displayed or generally archived.

The speed of change has an important relationship to the power structure in schools. Are head teachers aware of what is happening and what represent good investment for the future and are they prepared to delegate downwards to those that understand technology and can make the case?

My first job as a teacher involved responsibility for hard technology in the school – 16mm and slide projectors, plus reel to reel tape recorders – and I recall asking for a video tape recorder to help both the drama and PE departments with their work. The first time the kit was used, the 6^th form group entering the local one act paly festivals swept the board. They were a great group, but I hope seeing their rehearsals played back made them even better.

In the 1990s, I wrote that we were on the cusp of a revolution as profound as the introduction of printing in the 15^th century. Looking back to the changes in the past quarter century, and how it has affected power relationships across the globe, I don’t think I was wrong. You only have to compare what is going on with Extinction Rebellion now with the CND protest of the 1950s and 1960s.

Scrapping BECTA in the Tory bonfire of the Quangos was probably the right thing to do; not replacing it with an advisory body on technology and education was a serious mistake.

I suspect that unless this blog post attracts attention, technology and the role of big tech and start-ups in education won’t feature in the general election: it should do so. Will 5 days a week and 40 weeks a year be the norm for schools for another 10 years, let alone for another 150 years it has been the framework for learning in this country?

Climate change: proposals for schools

Posted on October 23, 2019 by John Howson

I heard about a report from SSE on energy on the BBC this morning: (link no longer active)

There doesn’t seem to be enough of a challenge for education in it, so I have reworked my earlier post into a series of challenges for schools. Do feel free to share it with others and send me additional challenges to raise with schools.

Climate Change is a challenge for the education sector as a whole, not just for state schools. Climate change challenges all education providers, from primary schools to higher education, and from small village schools to our chains of international private schools with campuses across the globe.

My proposals:

Ensuring that by the end of this school-year every school has at least one charging point for an electric vehicle. This should be simple to achieve as it needs no new technology and a network of suppliers is in place to fit these points, either wall or column mounted. Of course, more than one point would be better, but let’s start the ball rolling with a simple and achievable target.
To supply the electricity of these charging points, schools need a new incentive to use their roof space for the installation of photo-voltaic panels. Such a scheme would also provide a boost to this industry as it suffers from the ending of government schemes for domestic properties,
School playgrounds are the most under-used of our public spaces. How can we make better use of them during the hours of daylight when they are empty of children and achieving nothing? Ingenuity in respect of playgrounds can create panels that are vertical when playgrounds are in use, but spread out horizontally to generate electricity when children are not about.
This technology can be allied to the desire by the current government to create a world-leading battery technology industry. Schools are at the hub of their communities, so local generation of energy, stored when created and released when needed, can help challenge the traditional notion of power creation and distribution we are all familiar with.
Many of our schools are still badly insulated. So we need a scheme to use a portion of the cash for education to reduce heat loss in schools through an insulation scheme for walls and ceilings.
Require schools to replace all gas cooking in their kitchen by electric ovens, hobs and other appliances. I would also ask the design and technology departments to consider the use of gas in their home economics departments.
On a bigger scale is the replacement of gas-fired boilers by other forms of heating. This is a big ask and we need to discuss with industry leaders how this might be achieved for all schools.
Address the journey pupils take every day to and from school. We should aim to promote and reward such actions and discuss how to produce incentives for both schools and pupils to achieve a significant reduction in car journeys to and from school. I especially challenge the independent school sector to work with us on this task, as I know it is a real issue for many of those schools that draw pupils from a wide distance.

Gifts may not be the same as presents

Posted on October 17, 2019 by John Howson

As many readers of this blog will know, the DfE is planning a new digital application service for prospective trainee teachers. Apart from being trendy, I am not sure what the word ‘digital’ adds to the title, as surely nobody would create a new paper-based application service these days.

You can read about the service at https://dfedigital.blog.gov.uk/2019/09/05/testing-apply/ The new service will eventually replace the existing service run by the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS), probably by the start of the application round for 2021 courses, if the trial stages go well.

Now, I have had my differences with UCAS over the present system, introduced when I sat on a Committee representing ITT interests as an independent member. Some of my concerns seems to be being replicated by the DfE in designing their system. However, I have a much more fundamental concern than the design of the system about the DfE’s proposal. UCAS isn’t a government body. Instead, it is owned by its members. The new system will transfer ownership of the postgraduate application process for teaching to the government.

Is that change of ownership a good idea? Certainly, it will directly save both candidates and the providers of courses money as, like the DfE teacher recruitment service, it will be free at the point of delivery. It am sure it will also be well designed.

However, ownership of the process will then be in the hands of politicians and not the providers. Imagine a future government that recognises the need to balance supply and demand for teachers across the country and closes off courses when sufficient applications have been received, but before providers have made their choice of applicants. This could force later applicants to choose from the remaining courses that are short of applicants. Now, in some ways this is similar to the recruitment controls imposed upon the sector a few years ago. Any such regulation might reduce the freedom of providers to select candidates. You could envisage other interventions.

The DfE team running the service will need to know a great deal about the complexities of the teacher preparation market. If it is an in-house set-up at the DfE, what oversight will there be? Is there to be an advisory board or some other form of governance structure or will the system just be run by a changing stream of civil servants, supervised by a senior policy officer and just keeping ‘in contact’ with the providers?

As a government function, the application service will always be subject to Ministerial oversight and direction. Whether that is a ‘good thing’ or not will depend upon your views about services run by government. Certainly, as a public service, there should be more data available than is currently the case with the UCAS service.

It is also worth recalling that the DfE ran the admissions process for School Direct in 2013 and allowed me to comment in May of that year about the state of applications in a post entitled Applications Good: Acceptances better. https://johnohowson.wordpress.com/2013/05/08/applications-good-acceptances-better/

As Ed Dorrell of the Tes remarked at the NABTT Conference, during his talk on teacher supply, Ministers don’t like talking about a crisis, and my analysis of the data that year certainly landed me in hot water, as anyone that reads the August 2013 posts on this blog can discover.

Whatever I think, the DfE is presenting the new system to the sector. I just hope it is a gift worth receiving.

Is the teacher job market changing?

Posted on October 12, 2019 by John Howson

Earlier this week Will Hazell, the relatively new education reporter for the i newspaper and a former TES journalist, produced a piece about agencies charging schools a ‘recruitment fee’ after signing up teachers looking for jobs. Since governments of all complexions have been happy to leave teacher recruitment as a free market activity, why wouldn’t commercial organisations aim to help schools solve a recruitment issues for a price. After all, schools have been paying local authorities, the TES and other newspapers to place job adverts for many years. Indeed, even search agencies are also not a new phenomenon in the marketplace. In addition, there are other new approaches to recruitment as schools seek direct marketing and MATs use central recruitment pages for all their schools.

However, what might be acceptable as a fringe activity affecting only a small number of schools can become a matter of public concern if a greater number of schools are involved and the sums being made reach significant amounts.

As I have written before on this blog, why wouldn’t busy teachers and trainees take the bait offered by agencies if it makes their life easier? Selling yourself on every application form you complete takes far more time compared with filling out just one registration form per agency you register with and is a no brainer, especially with the amount of work teachers and trainees face during term-times.

Even where jobs are easy to find, because the supply exceeds demand, teachers can benefit from a system that reduces their need to complete a series of application forms on the off chance they might come second in an interview. But all this costs schools money. Even so, advertising hasn’t traditionally be free, and can take up more time an effort if there either isn’t much interest and either a re-advertisement is necessary or there are lots of applications and time has to be spent by a group of staff short-listing candidates for interview. These costs need to be set against any finders fee.

In the past, I have pointed out that knowing the state of the job market helps schools to choose the most cost-effective path to recruitment. Want a business studies teacher in London or the Home Counties, then paying an agency on a ‘no find, no fee’ basis might be cost effective from the end of February onwards. Want a PE teacher or a historian at the same time of year, and agencies might still be cost effective in saving staff time sorting through lots of applications, especially with the risk of ensuring there is no discrimination in your short-listing process.

So, should there be a public sector registration point where candidates must register if they want a teaching post, and that can manage supply and demand more effectively than the market?

TeachVac already knows where the bulk of the jobs are and can offer schools a service telling them how many potential applicants have been match with a vacancy. TeachVac can also tell candidates how many jobs in a selected area meet their parameters in a given time period, and also advise when a candidate’s search area is not wide enough for them to expect to have a good chance of securing a teaching post. This data changes as the school-year progresses.

At present, TeachVac offers its service free to both schools and those seeking teaching jobs. Providing the data about jobs to both schools and teachers has a cost, but it wouldn’t be very high; perhaps £5 per search. Let me know what you think?

£26,000 for some trainee teachers in 2020

Posted on October 5, 2019 by John Howson

Why should a new teacher of mathematics starting work at one of the best selective schools in England receive a £1,000 a year bonus for staying in the school for up to five years, while a similar teacher starting in a non-selective school anywhere in South East Essex won’t receive this salary boost?

Are house prices higher in Reading than in Southend on Sea? Is the level of deprivation far greater in Reading than on Canvey Island or in Thurrock? Teachers in Bracknell Forest will also be favoured with this extra cash, while their compatriots working in Slough won’t be so lucky.

The government’s recent announcement on support for trainees and new teachers reveals an ever yet more complex scheme as Ministers and officials try to stem the teacher recruitment crisis now entering its sixth year https://www.gov.uk/government/news/up-to-35k-bursary-and-early-career-payments-for-new-teachers

Long gone are the days when DfE officials and Ministers tried to deny there was a crisis building in teacher recruitment and retention. Now, the answer seems to be ‘throw money at the perceived problem’, but still favour EBacc subjects over the more vocationally orientated areas of the curriculum.

Thus, the announcement for trainees being recruited to start training in September 2020 of the following postgraduate bursaries and scholarship.

Postgraduate bursaries and scholarships

	Scholarship	Bursary (Trainee with 1st, 2:1, 2:2, PhD or Master’s)
Chemistry, computing, languages, mathematics and physics	£28,000	£26,000
Biology and classics	No scholarship available	£26,000
Geography	£17,000	£15,000
Design and technology	No scholarship available	£15,000
English	No scholarship available	£12,000
Art and design, business studies, history, music and religious education	No scholarship available	£9,000
Primary with mathematics	No scholarship available	£6,000

Almost the only subjects missing from the list are physical education and drama. Why classics should merit a bursary of £26,000 when art and design and business studies only merit £9,000 is for Ministers to explain. The level of payment to geography trainees also seems out of line with demand unless the DfE is expecting these trainees to help fill gaps elsewhere, such as a shortage of mathematics teachers.

The School Teachers’ Review Body needs to consider evidence as to how these schemes have been working over the past few years? Is the School Direct Salaried route now ‘dead in the water’ for secondary trainees in the face of bursaries and scholarships that cost schools nothing like the School Direct Scheme?

On the evidence of recruitment into training in 2019, discussed in a previous post, the fact that both mathematics and physics are recording some of their lowest levels of new entrants into training for many years suggests that it isn’t just cash incentives that are needed to attract talent into teaching.

Teacher workload and morale are as important as pay in a labour market where many other employers can offer better conditions of service and more flexible working conditions. Yes, teachers still have a better pension scheme than many, although not as good as when I entered the profession. But, how much of an attraction is this to the average 20-30 year old seeking a career?

By Christmas, it will start to become clear whether these levels of support for trainee teachers are working or whether yet another recruitment strategy might need to be developed in 2020?

Education and Climate Change

Posted on September 17, 2019 by John Howson

We now have a generation of young people that are fully aware of the need for urgent action on climate change. We saw this through the determination of many young people to go on strike during the summer term. These strikes by students and school pupils across the country, inspired as so many campaigns are, by the action of just a single student in Sweden, have changed the landscape for ever. There is no going back.

But, equally, striking is not enough. Strikes draw attention to an issue, but after time they lose their impact and can damage the very cause they seek to champion, by creating a familiarity of protest.

Following the motion passed by the Lib Dems at their Conference, I have devised a set of priorities for the education sector. These actions will help to start the fight by the education sector against the harmful effects of climate change. These are just a start, but they offer the chance to inspire and encourage each and every schools to play its part in the better use of our planet and its finite resources.

This is a challenge for the education sector as a whole, not just for state schools. Climate change challenges all education providers, from primary schools to higher education, and from small village schools to our chains of international private schools with campuses across the globe.

But let’s start by ensuring that by the end of this school-year every school has at least one charging point for an electric vehicle. This should be simple to achieve as it needs no new technology and a network of suppliers is in place to fit these points, either wall or column mounted. Of course, more than one point would be better, but let’s start the ball rolling with a simple and achievable target.

To supply the electricity of these charging points, schools need a new incentive to use their roof space for the installation of photo-voltaic panels. Such a scheme would also provide a boost to this industry as it suffers from the ending government schemes for domestic properties.

But, the obvious use of roofs is not enough. School playgrounds are the most under-used of our public spaces. How can we make better use of them during the hours of daylight when they are empty of children and achieving nothing?

More research is needed for cost effective solutions, but I am inspired by the work being undertaken in car parks to design column-based PV panels. Earlier this year we celebrated the 75^th anniversary of D-Day. Hobart’s ‘funnies’ played an important part in the success of that day; creating tanks that flailed minefields; bridged gullies and even swam through the sea. Such ingenuity in respect of playgrounds can create panels that are vertical when playgrounds are in use, but spread out horizontally to generate electricity when children are not about.

This technology can be allied to the desire by the current government to create a world-leading battery technology industry. Schools are at the hub of their communities, so local generation of energy stored when created and released when needed help challenge the notion of power creation and distribution we are all familiar with.

Many of our schools are still badly insulated. So we need a scheme to use a portion of the cash for education to reduce heat loss in schools through an insulation scheme for walls and ceilings.

I started with a simple initiative that would be obvious to pupils concerned to see action locally. Another such initiative is to require schools to replace all gas cooking in their kitchen by electric ovens, hobs and other appliances. I would also ask the design and technology departments to consider the use of gas in their home economics departments.

On a bigger scale is the replacement of gas-fired boilers by other forms of heating. This is a big ask and we need to discuss with industry leaders how this might be achieved.

Up until now, education has not lead the charge in fighting the battle to save our planet. The younger generation has rightly challenged us to change that approach, from one of passive reluctance to an active demonstration of what can be achieved.

Let me end on a challenge to those very students that have been striking for action on climate change and their other classmates that support them, but have not taken direct action. Now is the time for you to do something; each and every one of you.

Let’s start by addressing the journey you take every day to and from school. I am fortunate to have within my county division The Cherwell School.

As well as being an outstanding secondary school, this school actively promotes the benefits of cycling and walking to school, with impressive results. Their Transport Action Group ensures the issue remains top of the agenda and is not seen as a one-off tick box exercise. We should aim to promote and reward such actions and will discuss how we might incentivise both schools and pupils to achieve a significant reduction in car journeys to and from school. I especially challenge the independent sector to work with us on this task, as I know it is a real issue for many of those schools that draw pupils from a wide distance.

For a sector where the pupils took the issue of climate change seriously, but the establishment too often didn’t do more than pay lip service to the issue, let us move to one inspired by the strikes to create the action necessary to say that in both England and across the whole of the United Kingdom we have an education system we can be proud of in terms of its forward thinking contribution to decisive action on climate change.