Category Archives: technology

1,500 posts and counting

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When I wrote my first post on this blog, on the 25th of January 2013, I little though that I would reach 1,500 posts. However, despite stopping posting for 18 months, between the autumn of 2023 and May this year, while I was otherwise occupied as a cabinet member on Oxfordshire County Council the blog has now reached the milestone of 1,500 posts, including 40 so far this year since I started the blog up again this May.

Since one of the features of the blog has been commenting on numbers, here is a bit of self-indulgence. The blog has had 175,983 views since its inception, from 93,875 visitors, and has attracted 1,459 comments. The average length of a post has been between 550-670 words, although there have been a few longer posts in response to consultations and Select Committee inquiries.

How much holiday do teacher have? is the post with the most views – more than 6,500 and rising. Some posts have had no views, but are still an important record of my thoughts. The United Kingdom has been responsible for the most visitors: not a surprise, as most posts are about education in England. However, the USA comes second, with more than 15,000 views. Apart from some former French speaking countries in West Africa, Greenland and Paraguay, almost all other countries have had someone that has viewed the blog at least once.

Later this year, I will be publishing a book of the 2013 posts from the blog, and at that point they will disappear from public view. If you want to register for the book, check on Amazon after August 2025 or email dataforeducation@gmail.com for publication information. Alternatively, ask your favourite bookshop or library to order a copy.

I am sometimes asked about my favourite post. With 1,500 to choose from, that’s difficult, as many haven’t seen the light of day for a decade or so. However, Am I a blob? From 2013, was fun to write, and the posts about Jacob’s Law finally brought about a change in the legislation over admissions in the current bill going through parliament.

Most posts have been written, as this one is, in one session from start to finish, with editing just to tidy up my thoughts. Some are more passionate than others, and many are about teacher supply issues, where I am also researching a book on the subject covering the past 60 years of ‘feast and famine’. Much of the recent history has been well chronicled in this blog.

Thanks for reading, and for the comments. Who would have thought that someone that failed ‘O’ level English six times would end up writing a blog!  Funny old world.

Will the 6,500 new teachers be heading for schools in disadvantaged areas?

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Increasing teacher numbers in disadvantaged areas and core subjects. I was very happy when I read this heading in today’s Public Account’s Committee report on ‘Increasing Teacher Numbers’. Increasing teacher numbers: Secondary and further education (HC 825)

However, when I turned to paragraphs 25-29, this section just seemed like an afterthought. How depressing was it to read that

‘Schools and further education colleges are responsible for deciding the staff they need and recruiting their own workforces. Local authorities employ teachers in maintained schools.’ Para 25

There is nothing factually incorrect in the statement, but although local authorities are the de jure employers of teachers in maintained schools, ever since the devolution of budgets in the 1990s, local authorities have had little to do with the hiring policies for teachers in these schools, and nothing to do with the academy sector.

The Committee did acknowledge that

‘Those schools with higher proportions of disadvantaged pupils tend to have higher turnover rates and less experienced teachers. This impacts the government’s mission of breaking down the barriers to opportunity and means disadvantaged children are at risk of being locked out from particular careers.’

Teachers in schools with higher proportions of disadvantaged pupils are also less experienced

‘In 2023–24, 34% of teachers in the most disadvantaged schools had up to five years’ experience (20% in the least disadvantaged schools).’

They cited the examples of computer science and physics

‘In the most disadvantaged areas, 31% of schools do not offer Computer Science A-level, compared to 11% of schools in the least disadvantaged areas, due to a lack of trained teachers. For Physics A-level, this is 9% compared to 1%.’

This will come as no surprise to regular readers of this blog. Here is the link to a post from the 21st July 2023, almost two years ago.

Free School Meals and teacher vacancies | John Howson

Thos who know my background will know that I started teaching in a school in a disadvantaged part of Tottenham in 1971, and this issue has been one that has concerned me throughout my career in education. I was, therefore, disappointed to read that

‘We asked the Department when we could expect there to be less variation between schools in the most and least disadvantaged areas, but it did not commit to a timeframe. Instead, it noted that its retention initiatives providing financial incentives were targeting schools and colleges with the highest proportion of disadvantaged students.’

This seems to me to be as close to a non-answer as one can expect. Indeed, looking in detail at the oral evidence session, this is an area where answers from the senior civil servants in my opinion suggested little hope, and not as much concern for the values implied in the questions that I would have liked to have heard. In reality, past experience tells me that it is falling rolls and fewer job opportunities that will propel teachers towards schools where they would otherwise not take a teaching post. Iti s the economy, not the DfE that will improve the life chances of children in those schools with a high proportion of disadvantaged children. This is at the same time as the lives of their parents may be worsened by unemployment and welfare cuts. It’s a funny old world.

AI in education: tackling the third revolution

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Earlier this week, I sat in on a webinar hosted by the Education Policy Institute about Workforce Sustainability in the modern school system. The recording of the webinar can be accessed at Workforce sustainability in the modern school system Inevitably, much of the discussion was around how AI might make a difference to schools. AI is the third wave of the IT revolution, after the initial microprocessor revolution of the late 1970s and early 1980s, and the arrival of the web and the development of means to access it from desktops to mobile phones, and even watches, from the mid-1990s onward. AI has the possibility to significantly impact on the school system as we know it even more than the previous two ‘revolutions.

The impact might be in four areas

Recruitment – this will be cheaper, faster and more complex as both candidates and recruiters strive to make use of AI to help them secure either the perfect job or the best candidate, whether it be a teacher or any other post in a school.

Administration – compared to the days of pen and paper, typewriters and adding machines, technology in the past 50 years have vastly changed how processes are handled, and especially how data can be analysed. EPI even have a Model, described in the webinar, for assessing how MATs are operating. AI offers much more power to create systems with less need to burden teachers. Tracking individual learning will be far enhanced, well beyond what is possible even today.

Learning – AI could transform how students learn. No longer will teachers need to worry about coping with a range of abilities in the same learning setting: AI will tailor the learning package to the individual and make the learning experience stimulating enough to motivate every child. In doing so it could fundamentally change the role of a teacher, removing some of the drudgery and enhancing the personal interactions with learners. But, will the lightbulb moments teacher value so much disappear?

The contract between The State and families – will the current 190-day requirement to attend a ‘school’ or face sanctions that has existed since 1870 in England be replaced by a different sort of model where learning is at the pace of learner, and qualifications are obtained when ready. Could AI be used to identify those children not making progress, and offer support that families would be required to accept? I don’t expect such a radical change anytime soon, but it would be worth looking at how different groups in society see schooling today and what they want from it as the twenty first century enters the second quarter of the century.

What is certain is that the State needs to participate, and not leave everything to the market. There is a lot of profit to be made from AI, and schools represent a large potential market. The first step will probably be to agree on standards and certification for learning materials so individual schools and teachers can be sure what they are using are high quality learning materials. This is much more important that the debate over banning mobile phones in schools, but receives much less attention from politicians.

How are secondary schools staffed?

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In a previous blog I looked at some aspects of the school workforce in England for the present school year. After looking at the data from the DfE’s January School Census of schools and pupil numbers, it is now possible to consider questions arising from the staffing of the present curriculum.

On average, each secondary school would have 68 teachers if you divided the number of teachers by the number of schools. Of course, that’s a mythical school, and the mean isn’t a very good measure of central tendency, but it is all we have that is easily accessible in the dataset.

So, how might our mythical school be staffed?

Number of hours taught for all yearsNumber of teachers of all yearsaverages based on 3,456 schools
Total3,807,978234,40668
English Baccalaureate subjects2,412,756164,48748
All Sciences667,23748,38614
Other147,69645,08113
English541,13441,29312
Mathematics548,09137,83511
General/Combined Science440,39136,75311
PSHE78,59535,98810
PE/Sports281,29124,2887
History210,71318,6305
Geography197,70918,0905
All Modern Languages247,87117,9865
Religious Education128,31416,8425
Other/Combined Technology120,66313,6304
Art & Design137,00812,7144
French109,39211,6163
Other Social Studies80,94410,0963
Spanish97,2349,5383
Business Studies89,6859,3313
Drama83,0269,1993
Computer science70,4128,1852
Biology53,1338,1672
Music87,4617,6102
Chemistry48,7747,2452
Design and technology – All52,7377,2032
Physics43,4056,2422
ICT36,8755,5302
Media Studies23,8713,9451
Citizenship8,9553,9411
Careers and Key Skills7,4303,5541
German25,5802,9551
Other Humanities15,4342,6711
Other science11,1212,5341
Other Modern Foreign Language15,6662,0071
General Studies3,0721,8561

The English Baccalaureate subjects account for the majority of the staff. Although design and technology only accounts for 2 teachers, if IT and other/combined technology and computing are added in the total increases to 10 teachers, not far short of the numbers for English and Mathematics.  Of course, not all the teachers will be teaching the subject all the time, and this tells us nothing about how qualified they are to teach the subjects they are actually delivering? It would be interesting to know how many qualified teachers of physics (with a physics degree) are teaching in schools with the highest percentages of free school meals?

As previous blog posts have argued, the staffing crisis may be abating, but is not over. It is good to see the TES taking in interest in these numbers Teacher supply: why 5 subjects face gloomier forecasts | Te as well as making the DfE admit what this blog has thought for some time now that the pledge for 6,500 teachers was totally unrealistic. Falling rolls and budget constraints meant that it was always going to be a non-starter. Labour ‘abandons’ manifesto pledge to hire more teachers

Defence Review sets growth target for Cadet Forces

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The Defence Review published yesterday, and it was interesting to see that it has implications for education. Specifically, the Review includes some recommendations directly aimed at education and young people. The first of these is:

Work with the Department for Education to develop understanding of the Armed Forces among young people in schools.

I assume that will mean allowing recruiting teams into schools to offer career advice, and also, where an understanding of the role of the armed forces and home defence might fit into PSHE lessons.

More specifically, and with a cost attached to it, is the recommendation that:

Expand in-school and community-based Cadet Forces across the country by 30% by 2030, with an ambition to reach 250,000 in the longer term. There should be greater focus within the Cadets on developing STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) skills and exploring modern technology. Defence, wider Government, and partnerships with the private sector must provide appropriate leadership, support, and funding to deliver this expansion.

To reach this goal around 7% of the secondary school population need to be enrolled in cadet forces, or perhaps 10%, if you discount the youngest pupils in Years 7 and 8. If this happens then there is going to be a need for a whole lot of new staff in areas where the schools have been failing to meet recruitment targets for teaching staff for years.

What is the purpose behind this move. What will these young people be expected to do with the skills acquired after leaving school? Last year, at the start of the general election campaign there was a brief discussion about reintroducing conscription. As there is no mention of conscription in the review, might this be the alternative solution.  Although the voluntary scheme is much cheaper and less intrusive than conscription, it begs the question of who will sign up for the new places?

The last sentence in the recommendation suggests a new body might need to be set up to deliver the aims, especially if all the groups mentioned are to be brought together. Would such a new body be led by the MoD, and how will the new community groups recruit the staff for evening and weekend sessions when these days volunteer organisations are regularly struggling to find youth workers? Will local authorities be asked to help play a role in developing this expansion of uniform bodies.

As might be expected, there is a big emphasis in the Review on both the uses of and the protection from drones – the new weapon of war. The war in Ukraine has probably played a role similar to that of the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s in demonstrating how the technology of war can change in one theatre, delivery of the destruction of civilian population centres and other targets, while remaining the same on the ground: opposing armies slogging it out on front lines that resemble the trench system of World War 1.

I was part of the first generation to avoid conscription, and benefitting from that reduction in defence spending being used for improvements in the education sector from the 1960s onwards. It is sobering to remember that in the late 1940s there were something like 1,000,000 British forces personnel in Germany waiting for a war that thankfully never came. But, most of them were conscripts.

I fear now that defence of the realm will consume a much larger part of national resources, and that education as a sector may suffer as a consequence.  

The Spending Review and savings

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Next week will set the direction for government spending over the rest of this parliament. Although education is a ‘protected’ department that may not mean as much now as it did last year at the time of the general election.

Changes in the geopolitical situation, and an economy where the green shoots are barely peeking through the surface, and could be killed off by the equivalent of one night of freezing temperatures doesn’t bode well for the education sector. This is especially the case when set against falling school rolls and the crisis in the higher education sector. The skills sector might be the one bright spot, and it wouldn’t surprise me if that is where most of the investment will be directed.

The present government is lucky in that the weakening job market means recruiting new teachers will be easier, and the pressure for pay rises might also abate if the choice is more pay for some and redundancies for others. Unions would, in my view, be wise to tackle conditions of service rather than majoring on pay rises and the risk of confrontation with a government that has been generous so far, but might not want to see the limits of that generosity tested.

So, might there be saving to be made?

If there are school closures, will this allow the most expensive and inefficient buildings to be removed from the estate. Why spend time taking out asbestos, if you can just close the school? How would such a policy be managed? Frankly, I have no idea, but to let market forces prevail might have an unnecessary cost attached. So parental choice or rational use of buildings?

And then there is the muddle of academies and the maintained sector.

I looked at the accounts for the period up to August last summer for the 30 single academies and Multi Academy Trusts with schools in one local authority area. The total pay bill for their single highest paid employee came to around £4 million pounds. Now, take out of that total the Trusts where the headteacher is the single highest paid employee, and the total might be around £2 million. Cut this to just five trusts: one each for the two main Christian Churches (CofE and RC) and one each for other primary, secondary and special schools and what might be the savings?

Then there is the audit, legal and professional fees. I doubt whether the private sector charges the same rate as local authorities do to maintained schools. Perhaps academies should be required to employ local authority services, if the quote is lower than that from the private sector?

SEND is the other area where spending needs reviewing. For many, the cost of an EHCP started early in the primary sector should be the first point of focus. Are there differences between schools in different locations, and if so, then why? Can an early diagnosis save costs.

What of Education Other than at School packages? How much are they costing the system, and why are they necessary in such a growing number of cases?

With 150 plus local authorities, how much might be saved from present budgets in order to support investment in teaching and learning in the new world created by the latest technological revolution?

Turtles to drones

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In the mid-1980s, I recall watching primary school children creating the basic computer software required to drive turtles around the floor of their classroom. In doing so, at the start of the IT revolution, they were learning about the basic rules of coding, and having fun at the same time.

Fast-forward a millennium in terms of technology development, but only forty years in human experience, and I have watched the same basic activity with drones. Whereas a turtles functioned in just one dimension, across the classroom floor, drones are multi-dimensional; offering a much wider range of skill development in both coding and driving, as well as performing tasks such as fetching and carrying.

I believe it is important that this type of practical learning activity is integrated into the school curriculum, even at the primary school level. This was brought home to me by the announcement this week from the Minister of Education in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) that studying AI would be a required part of their new school curriculum from September. The Minister of Education posted on X as follows:

As part of the UAE’s long-term plans to prepare future generations for a different future, a new world, and advanced skills, the UAE government today approved the final curriculum to introduce “Artificial Intelligence” as a subject across all stages of government education in the UAE, from kindergarten to grade 12, starting from the next academic year. …… Our goal is to teach our children a deep understanding of AI from a technical perspective, while also fostering their awareness of the ethics of this new technology, enhancing their understanding of its data, algorithms, applications, risks, and its connection to society and life. Our responsibility is to equip our children for a time unlike ours, with conditions different from ours, and with new skills and capabilities that ensure the continued momentum of development and progress in our nation for decades to come. Sheikh Mohammed announces AI as mandatory subject in UAE schools

Now, having designed a Teacher Supply Model for the UAE last year, I know that the new curriculum will also require officials to update the modelling process to handle the demands for teachers of the new curriculum.

Inserting AI into the curriculum will also offers opportunities for suppliers already working in this field with schools. One such is Drone City Innovative Education – Drone City the Oxford based start up that already has curriculum materials and practical activities for both primary and secondary age pupils and can also offer training to teachers.

They have also created a series of drone-based books – a series that replaces the tank engines of yesteryear with their successors in the modern world – the first three books are based around the use of drones by emergency services, to illustrate how drones can help in emergency situations.

If you think that isa far-fetched idea, then there is already an exhibit in Sydney’s maritime museum explaining how drones are supporting lifeguards in patrolling beaches, either when the surf is dangerous for swimmers or sharks have been sighted.

I guess it won’t be long before drones are replacing in tasks such as painting the outside of buildings and bridges where expensive scaffolding is currently needed. Most low-level gutter inspections are now it seems carried out by drones not men with ladders.

The curriculum review must ensure that technology is no longer an optional subject but front and centre of the learning experience. When did you last write anything?

FE sector and Physics: sparse provision?

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The DfE has recently published some data on the workforce in the further Education sector following a survey of institutions. Further education workforce in England – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) the data was based on the 2020/21 college year.

The majority of those institutions surveyed were either general FE colleges or sixth from colleges. The latter were transferred many years ago from the school sector, but are mainly still offering a school sixth form curriculum that is more biased towards ‘academic’ subjects than the curriculum found in general FE colleges.

Regular monitoring of teacher preparation numbers over the course of the past decade – see frequent posts on this blog – has identified physics as a subject where trainee numbers for the school sector have regularly failed to meet the target set by government through the DfE’s Teacher Supply Model and subsequent allocations to ITT providers. This has produced a teacher shortage in the subject.

In the FE sector, physics accounted for 0.3% of the teaching [sic] workforce, compared with 0.3% lecturing in chemistry and 0.6% in biology. Because of the presence of vocational subjects, staffing percentages for academic subjects would be lower in the FE sector than in the school sector. As this level, physics is ranked alongside philosophy and just above politics and classical studies in the table of staffing percentages. Even just looking at staffing of academic subjects, physics only accounts for 1.5% of staff teaching academic subjects in the FE sector.

Overall, staff with physics lecturing as their main subject, based on the data from this survey, would seem to mean that there were only around 250 lecturers across the whole of England in the FE sector in 2020/21. A significant minority are likely to be found in the 44 Sixth Form Colleges, with the remainder spread between the 187 general FE colleges. If spread out evenly, this would mean every college would have one lead specialist in physics. I assume the remainder of any teaching of physics is carried out either by part-timers or by those with qualifications that contain elements of the subject.   

There does seem to be a question about the teaching of physics in the FE sector.

Cumulative percentage outcomes by centre type – grade A and above

Level 5 qualifications

Centre type  – Physics% achieving grade in 2019% achieving grade in 2023Difference 2019 and 2023
Other19.4%25.2%5.80%
Further education establishment18.4%17.2%-1.20%
Independent school including city training colleges (CTCs)42.4%47.2%4.80%
Secondary comprehensive or middle school21.7%25.6%3.90%
Secondary selective school25.8%29.2%3.40%
Free schools27.8%31.2%3.40%
Sixth form college24.3%27.0%2.70%
Academies21.1%22.6%1.50%
Secondary modern school/high school37.4%37.0%-0.40%
Ofqual data by Centre

FE establishments, along with secondary modern schools, both saw smaller percentages of grade A and above in 2023 than in 2019. Could this be down to staffing issues or is it a change in the mix of students enrolled or were their students learning more affected by covid?

The workforce data for the FE sector has provided a source of information that leads to many more possible questions about learning and outcomes in the FE sector.

Yes, Minister, you did know there was a problem

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School building is an important, but not usually politically interesting, subject. As a result, it is an area of policy often overlooked when policy changes such as academisation are introduced. However, schools do need buildings, and a prudent government would ensure that those building were fit for purpose. For those that follow education, the present crisis has been brewing for some time, and RAAC is only one part of a much bigger issue.

The National Audit office report on Capital Funding for Schools, published in February 2017, had an interesting comment that is germane to the present debate about RAAC concrete and school building. https://www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Capital-funding-for-schools.pdf

Para 15 In seeking to increase choice, introduce innovation and raise standards free schools often meet a demographic need for new school places, but they are also creating spare capacity, which may have implications for schools’ financial sustainability. By September 2016 the Department had opened 429 new free schools, and plans to open 883 in total by September 2020. The Free Schools Programme aims to give parents more choice and increase competition between schools, and thereby improve the quality of education. Free schools also have a role in meeting local need for new school places. There can be an inherent tension in the extent to which they can meet these aims cost-effectively. The Department estimates that some of the places in 83% of the mainstream free schools approved since September 2013 address a need for more school places. It also estimates that 57,500 of 113,500 new places in mainstream free schools opening between 2015 and 2021 will create spare capacity in some free schools’ immediate area. Spare capacity can affect pupil numbers, and therefore funding, in neighbouring schools. The Department’s data indicate that spare places in 52 free schools opening in 2015 could have a moderate or high impact on the funding of any of 282 neighbouring schools. The financial sustainability of free schools themselves may also be affected if a significant number of their places are not filled. The Department assesses financial viability as part of the process of approving free school applications. It has also sought to assess whether creating free schools is having the intended effect of improving educational standards through competition but the sample size is currently too small to draw meaningful conclusions.

Even more telling is this paragraph a little later in the Report

Para 2.22 The Department expects the condition of the school estate will worsen as it cannot fund all the maintenance and improvement work required. The way the system works adds to the risk that the Department may not achieve its aim of preventing buildings that are in reasonable condition from deteriorating. (bold added by me).

There is no denying that capital project funding in the school sector is complicated, and that the demise of a middle-tier knocked away some of the props underpinning the operation of our schools. The DfE has been warned on many occasions that the academy programme meant that it would be running schools in manner it had never previously experienced. Such operational oversight included the capital programmes of which there are three.

New build – covered well in paragraph 15 of the NAO report. The government appeared to prioritise spare places and parental choice over cash for other purposes

Replacement of existing stock – successive governments have ducked this issue, except during periods of falling rolls when new places are not required. A combination of increased house building and a significant upturn in the secondary school population, plus the extension of the learning leaving age to eighteen all during the last decade of conservative government can explain the pressure on the replacement budget, but cans kicked down the road don’t disappear for ever, as the government is now discovering.

New or replacement build out of revenue reserves – some school buildings have been built by schools underspending their annual revenue income and capitalising the cash into a new building. I have long deprecated this approach. My view has always been that revenue income is for spending on today’s children and not for saving up for future generations and new buildings: not a view all accept.

One implication of this practice is that the DfE may not know which of these building constructed from revenue funding contain RAAC, especially if built by Grant Maintained Schools and academies free from local authority oversight.

The government is currently trying to contain the size of the problem by focusing on RAAC, but asbestos and other issues mean, as the NAO identified in 2017, our school estate is not in good shape. The kicker has caught up with the can, and cannot easily kick it any further away.

Concrete woes

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Would the panic about RAAC and the abrupt closure of schools just before term starts have been handled better in the days when local authorities managed education, and the Ministry in London had a thriving Architects and Building Branch?

Who know? What is certain is that this isn’t the first issue with school buildings. I recall in the 1970s leaving school at 4pm one afternoon with colleagues to go for an early meal before returning to attend a parents’ evening. When we returned, the school was cordoned off because the head had noticed a panel on the CLASP built building that was little more than a decade old had started to become detached from its fastening.

The parents’ evening was cancelled, and the staff spent the next two days in the sixth form block while students stayed at home while the repairs we made, and the rest of the building was checked.

The present crisis seems to have been flagged up well in advance, and one is left wondering why the decision to take action has been delayed for so long? The same could be said of the issue of asbestos in schools. Regular readers of this blog may also recall the debate some years ago about not installing sprinkler systems in schools to deal with fires.

School Buildings are all too often it seems only of interest to Ministers when they can go and open new ones. I suspect that oversight of this type of activity, a routine and mundane task, hasn’t been on the agenda of how to deal with issues under a mixed academy/free-school and local authority economy? Another casualty of the failure to create a working middle tier for all education activities.

I also wonder whether there are any private schools facing issues with RAAC? Perhaps their insurers require regular inspections of property and the issue has already been identified and dealt with?

Governing is about doing the daily tasks well as well as about creating new policy. If a government cannot do the former well, it doesn’t deserve to be in office. Should the Secretary of State take the blame for the handling of the issue if it becomes clear that something should have been done sooner to prevent chaos for the start of term?