Category Archives: Uncategorized

Entrants into Higher Education from those domiciled in England

Posted on by
Reply

The DfE has published some interesting statistics about entrants to higher education level courses from those domiciled in England. Higher Level Learners in England, Academic year 2023/24 – Explore education statistics – GOV.UK

Overall, numbers during the period from 2015-16 to the end of 2023-24 increased from 728,140 to

time_periodqualification_aimnumber_of_entrants
201516Total728140
201617Total745505
201718Total750370
201819Total765155
201920Total769200
202021Total859745
202122Total844070
202223Total843220
202324Total838200
increase110060

838,200. This was an increase of 110,060. However not all types of qualification showed the same increase.

Apprenticeships across the board showed an increase from 26,870 in 2015-2106

time_periodqualification_aimnumber_of_entrants
201516Apprenticeship26870
201617Apprenticeship36075
201718Apprenticeship47090
201819Apprenticeship73820
201920Apprenticeship81315
202021Apprenticeship97490
202122Apprenticeship104980
202223Apprenticeship111360
202324Apprenticeship120420

To 120,420 entrants by 2023-24.

However, for First degrees, numbers were falling by 2023-24

time_periodqualification_aimnumber_of_entrants
201516First Degree (excluding Integrated Master’s Degree)374805
201617First Degree (excluding Integrated Master’s Degree)375720
201718First Degree (excluding Integrated Master’s Degree)377795
201819First Degree (excluding Integrated Master’s Degree)380295
201920First Degree (excluding Integrated Master’s Degree)391625
202021First Degree (excluding Integrated Master’s Degree)426630
202122First Degree (excluding Integrated Master’s Degree)427295
202223First Degree (excluding Integrated Master’s Degree)427625
202324First Degree (excluding Integrated Master’s Degree)422700

The peak year was 2021-22, and since then there has been a slight fall in numbers. Over the next few years, once the current bulge works its way through the school system, numbers of home domiciled entrants may fall further, adding to a loss of income for some degree awarding institutions.

These institutions already seem to be losing income from Master’s Degrees

Master’s Degree including integrated degrees20151687490
201617113415
201718114625
201819113365
201920115170
202021139260
202122123895
202223117155
202324114275

The 2023-24 enrolment was some 25,00 below the peak recorded during the covid year 2020-21 and more in line with the longer-term trend.  

Enrolments in doctors from those domiciled in England has shown an upward trend.

time_periodqualification_aimnumber_of_entrants
201516Doctorate11900
201617Doctorate12200
201718Doctorate12735
201819Doctorate13770
201920Doctorate12675
202021Doctorate13530
202122Doctorate12925
202223Doctorate12655
202324Doctorate12920

As with Master’s degrees, there was a spike in enrolments in 2020-21, following on from another spike in 2018-19.

The data on enrolments for postgraduate courses in Education whether PGCE or PGDE are slightly concerning

Postgraduate Education courses20151621870
20161720005
20171820725
20181921570
20192020775
20202125360
20212221925
20222315925
20232413705

It is not clear whether the reduction in primary ITT is partly responsible for the decline in entrants or whether there has been a change in registrations for school-based trainees? Again, the spike in recruitment during covid is very marked. However, as the notes indicate the 2022/23 academic year saw a larger number of data quality issues compared to other years. Therefore, we advise caution when comparing higher education figures across the time series. It is now clear whether or not the ITT numbers suffered from data quality issues.

Prison Education matters

Posted on by
Reply

This weekend the Liberal Democrats will be meeting in Bournemouth for their annual conference. One of the issues I will be raising with parliamentarians is the story in The Guardian newspaper about cuts to education in prisons. Prisons in England and Wales to cut spending on education courses by up to 50% | Prisons and probation | The Guardian The story says that although the cash value of spending on education in prisons remains the same, the amount of education the cash will buy has inevitably been reduced both by inflation, and the additional costs placed on employers providing the education and skills courses are a result of actions such as the employer’s national Insurance increase.

Regardless of the stupidity of cutting education and skills courses in adult prisons, it is totally unacceptable if the amount of education on offer to the under-18s or indeed the under-21s in custody is to be reduced. I shall be drawing the attention of delegates to this story in the hope that the parliamentary party will take up the issue with the government.  

The Ministry of Justice has been battered with massive cuts for the whole of this century, to a point where parts of our criminal and civil justice systems just aren’t working. Local justice has completely disappeared and, as a result, just to provide one example, shoplifting has increased dramatically. If a police unit that has arrested a shoplifter has to drive 20 miles to take the shoplifter to the nearest custody suite, just for the person to opt for trial at Crown Court when they first appear before a magistrate, there is little incentive to respond to the first call of the day, especially if it means the market town has reduced police cover for several hours while the individual is taken to be processed at the nearest custody suite.

There are times when government’s economy drives have unintended consequences, and cuts to the Ministry of Justice have already been too deep. Cutting access to education and skills for prisoners is not a sensible move.

Fortunately, we have fewer under-18s in prison than last time that Labour was in government, but those that are there probably contain a high percentage of young people for whom schooling had been a painful experience both for them and for those that tried to teach them. If they emerge from custody with both skills and the ability to hold down a job, then there is much less chance of their re-offending.

Will university course cuts mean fewer teachers?

Posted on by
Reply

Estimates are doing the rounds on social media about the number of places on courses in universities already lost through cuts and course closures. Do the cuts matter? Of course, it depends upon what you want from the higher education sector?

Personally, being entirely selfish, I want enough graduates to be able to staff our schools in the future. I am hopeful that HEPI, or even the DfE are monitoring both the cuts to courses that have already taken place and any that are proposed for possible implications around recruitment into teacher training and then on into teaching.

I have seen at least one post suggesting that the cuts to courses already introduced are disproportionally in higher education institutions with more teaching than research. Twenty years ago, I conducted a survey for the then TTA about attitudes towards teaching as a career amongst final year students. A large number of students expressing an interest in teaching came from higher education institutions with a higher profile for teaching than research. If that is still the case, then where cuts take place will matter.

Many of the higher education providers where teaching is really important are located in urban areas, and have strong roots in their local communities. This is also important if, as used to be the case, a large number of new graduates went on to train as teachers at the same university, or in the same area, as they studied for their first degree. I wonder whether anyone is monitoring this trend?

Of course, there are schemes, of which Teach First is one example where they have recruited students into teaching from research intensive institutions without a local link to teacher training, such as LSE, Imperial College and Royal Holloway College in the London area.

However, it would be interesting to hear from university careers services about the views of current students about where they are willing to train as a teacher: is locality important or are other factors affecting decision-making, such as the cost of living for students in some areas.

I always thought it was a shame that the Open University quit teacher training. Not only did the OU bring access to a large number of mature students, but by starting it ITT course in January, it both offered a different staring point for those  that decided they wanted to teach after courses starting in September had closed, but also by ending their courses when they did, the OU also provided new entrants to fill those vacancies that occur in January or even at the start of the summer term.

Taking a longer-term view, when the current reduction in the school population works its way into higher education, where and what courses those students’ study will be even more important for the labour market for teachers.

Fortunately, we now have the apprenticeship routes into teaching. Should we be diverting future teachers from experiencing the university rite of passage and replacing it with the world of work? I am sure that there is an interesting debate to be had on that topic.

‘Stuck’ schools – who teaches in these schools?

Posted on by
Reply

The DfE has today updated the ad hoc data about schools eligible for RISE support. Schools in the RISE programme are those with support from the Regional Improvement for Standards and Excellence advisers and teams. According to the data, some 50 schools have been eligible for the programme for 11 years or more.  Schools eligible for RISE intervention – GOV.UK

To become eligible for RISE a school must be a ‘stuck’ school.

A ‘stuck’ school is defined as a state-funded school that was graded Requires Improvement – or equivalent – at its most recent Ofsted inspection and was also graded below Good at its previous Ofsted inspection.

Where inspections have been completed subsequent to the removal of single headline grades in September 2024 (and in the interim before report cards are introduced), for the definition of stuck schools and for the purpose of its intervention policy, DfE treats a sub-judgement of Requires Improvement for leadership and management and/or quality of education for a school inspected in 2024/25 academic year as equivalent to a previous single headline grade of Requires Improvement.

Following the introduction of Ofsted school report cards, the definition of stuck schools will be updated to “schools which receive a ‘needs attention’ grade for leadership and governance, which were graded below good, or equivalent, at their previous Ofsted inspection”. 

At 30 June 2025 there were 639 stuck schools, and 292,000 pupils in those schools.

Of those:

  • 372 are primary schools, 235 are secondary schools, 21 are special schools and 11 are pupil referral units
  • 90 are local authority maintained schools and 549 are academies or free schools (although some of these were not academies at the time of their most recent inspection)
  • Across the spring, summer and autumn RISE cohorts, 396 academies and local authority maintained schools have been identified for targeted RISE intervention. As of 31 July 2025, 377 schools remain in the programme, 349 of which are stuck and 28 of which are academies in a category of concern.
  • Of the remaining stuck schools, some have changed responsible body since their most recent inspection and are therefore not eligible.  Others will be considered for inclusion in later cohorts.

On average, as at 30 June 2025, the 639 stuck schools were graded by Ofsted as below Good or equivalent for 5.6 years.

  • The 372 primary schools that are stuck have been rated below Good or equivalent for an average of 4.7 years.
  • The 235 secondary schools that are stuck have been rated below Good or equivalent for an average of 6.9 years.
  • On average, as 31 July 2025, the 377 schools in receipt of targeted RISE intervention from the RISE advisers and teams, were graded by Ofsted as below Good or equivalent for 5.8 years. Of these, 50 were below Good for more than 11 years.

As might be expected, ‘stuck’ schools as a group exhibit lower outcomes and higher absence and suspension/exclusions than other school of a similar type.

This data concentrates on pupil outcomes. What I think would be more interesting is information about staffing. How often has the headteacher changed during the past decade in a ‘stuck’ school. What is the turnover of teaching staff, and how many are ‘unqualified’ or on programmes to become qualified compared with other local schools?

Until it is possible to match data about staffing to outcomes, we are not likely to learn anything new. I started my career in the 1970s in a school that undoubtedly would now be one of the 50 with eleven years of issues with performance. Staffing was always an issue throughout the seven years I spent at the school. Not surprisingly, when falling rolls became an issue, it was one of the schools to be amalgamated out of existence. I wonder whether that will be the fate of some of these schools over the next few years?

 I am also remined of the book edited by Paul Marshall in 2013, and call ‘The Tail’ that discussed the issue of under-performance in schools across England. In the introduction he wrote that:

‘.. for good teachers to be deployed in the most challenging schools… reforms to the delivery and accountability of child and adolescent mental health services; and perhaps new types of dedicated provision for the tail.’ The Tail page 17.

No doubt RISE was one outcome, and it would also be interesting to know if any of the 50 schools with the longest eligibility have had access to support from the Teach First programme? We know almost everything there is to know about the pupils, but nowhere near enough about the teachers. Time for a rethink on the workings of the labour market for teachers?

What counts as terrorism?

Posted on by
Reply

Last month I wrote a blog post about the reasons why teachers have been barred so far this year from ‘teaching’ and ‘working with young people’ by their regulatory body.

The fact that a large number of protesters were arrested last weekend for supporting a proscribed terrorist organisation, made me think about how might the regulatory body approach any teacher with a criminal record for supporting a proscribed organisation?

Paul Harris, a human rights lawyer, has written an interesting article about the prescription of Palestine Action Why proscription of Palestine Action is a mistake | COUNSEL | The Magazine of the Bar of England and Wales In his view the prescription was too draconian a response.

I asked him about the position of teachers arrested protesting the proscription, and this was our exchange on LinkedIn:

John Howson Paul, Thank you for writing this. I wonder whether the Teaching Regulatory body would disbar someone from teaching for the act of terrorism of holding up a placard?

Paul HarrisAuthor Barrister and senior counsel at Doughty Street Chambers, Cornwall Street Chambers, Erik Shum Chambers, Hong Kong

John
Maybe not for just holding up a placard if they were not charged. But if convicted of an offence of supporting a proscribed terrorist organisation because of holding up the banner then it seems to me the Teaching Regulatory Body would have little choice but to disbar.

I am not sure why a Labour government took the decision it did over Palestine Action. It is interesting to compare it with how the Conservative government behaved when Extinction Rebellion were protesting by both sitting down on motorways and through other types of disruptive protest.

Following on from Paul Harris’s comment, I think that any direct action protest, and the actions of Extinction Rebellion supporters was seen as just that, and punishable under existing laws raises interesting questions. Did the behaviour of the courts in Extinction Rebellion cases set a precedent for state action over protests. There is, I suppose, a question mark over any such precedent when the direct action involves defence assets, such as airplane engines.

However, even if direct action could be seen as terrorism, I don’t think reacting to the government’s decision to prescribe and organisation by supporting the existence of the banned group through holding up a placard makes those that take that action guilty of terrorism.

However, in the light of Paul’s comment, my guess is that any teacher holding up a banner with any reference to Palestine Action might well be risking their career in the present circumstances, even if they are doing so in their own time, and nowhere near their place of work.

Clearly, it is time for the professional associations to engage with the Secretary of State for Education, both in her cabinet role, and in her role as a possible candidate for the post of deputy leader of The Labour Party, to ensure peaceful protest is not classed as terrorism, even in support of a banned organisation.

The idea of a Labour Secretary of State for Education supporting a regulatory body’s decision to bar a teacher for holding up a placard is not one I ever expect to have to consider on this blog.

Virtual Schools have a key role

Posted on by
Reply

Do you know what a Virtual School is? I will assume that regular readers of this blog will know, but for the newcomer or casual readers, it is the local authority service that provides support for the education of both Looked After Children, and those children previously looked after. Recently the role of the service has been extended to include all children with a social worker and, even more recently, children in kinship care.

In many respects the virtual school embodies the very essence of local authority Children’s Services, bringing together support for children in need and their education.  In that respect, it is disappointing that too often the Head of the Virtual School is often only a third-tier officer not reporting directly to the Director of Children’s Services.

The extension of the work of virtual schools to include children with a social worker has been the subject of a recent research report looking at the outcomes of extending the role of the virtual school to encompass all children with a social worker.

Evaluation of the Extension of Virtual School Heads’ Duties to Children with a Social Worker Final Report

The report indicated that attendance, and the consequences of challenging behaviour – suspensions and exclusions – have featured significantly in the work of virtual schools with this new group of young people. Improved attainment, has been less of an outcome. The effects of covid-19 on both attendance and exclusions may well have meant less resources for improving attainment of this group; or that improving attainment may just take longer, and be a consequence of improvements in attendance. Either way, I would have liked to see more discussion about the age at which a child is linked to a social worker, and whether it is easier in the primary sector than the secondary schools to improve attainment?

In many ways, the report makes disappointing reading more than 15 years after the government department at Westminster responsible for education added children’ services to its remit under the last Labour government.

Too often there has been a lack of awareness of the educational needs of these vulnerable young people on the part of schools and social workers, and a real lack of data to allow effective tracking of such young people’s education attainments, partly because of data protection issues.

 I understand that concern, and there is an interesting vignette in the report of child that had a social work for a brief period because of domestic abuse being offered extra maths teaching by their new school because of having been a ‘child in need’ for a brief period. The mother had hoped for a new beginning at a new school. This illustrates the complexity of the challenges in working with these young people and their families.

Many ofsted reviews of Children’s Services highlight challenges with inter-service working, and this report also has concerns. My worry is that in education, the growth of MATs and the downgrading of local authority roles, has made it more challenging for the development of policy around the education for all children with a social worker. The almost total absence of any contribution for elected cabinet members to the review worries my immensely. As with the NHS, local political input is seen as of little effect and not worth considering.

Personally, I think that view is wrong, and a strong local political sense of place in both education and social work with children is vital, as those that have read my demand over the years for Jacob’s Law, and the success of the Clause in the new Bill on in-year admissions will understand.

Serendipity Part 2

Posted on by
Reply

I mentioned in my previous post that yesterday I had been reading a random volume of the TES in a library and had found comments about special needs and the transfer of funding to schools after the 1988 Education Reform Act. I am grateful to the Chief Finance Officer at a leading MAT who straightaway sent me an article about funding of schools in Edmonton, Alberta in 1990. Thanks for the article, and for reading my blog.

In the same volume of the TES, I also discovered, again quite by accident, an article I had written and sent to the TES. I think it was my earliest contribution to the TES, and one I had completely forgotten about.

I have reproduced it here so I once again have it my collection, and also because of the up-coming budget in November that might be one for growth rather than business, and if so,  might the Chancellor risk overlooking any consequences for teachers and other public sector workers in any dash for growth?

Bad business for teaching

Chancellor Lamont’s budget for business is bad news for teachers. Like many public sector workers they will be reflecting that the new share option schemes and the 6p off the basic rate of tax which can now be earned through profit-related pay schemes will benefit their friends in the private sector without offering any incentives to them. However, if these changes help to bring down the level of basic pay settlements in the private sector then they will directly affect the level at which next year’s pay settlement for teachers is fixed; teachers could find themselves losers all round.

As consumers of large amounts of in-service training, teachers might have expected to benefit from the new tax relief on vocational training. But the present proposals only refer to national vocational qualification awards and will be of no use to the many teachers who currently pay for their own studies. This will particularly affect married women seeking to return to teaching who often need to finance further studies before they can regain a teaching post. This clause needs urgent consideration during the passage of the Finance Bill to ensure teachers are not seriously disadvantaged as an occupational group.

Finally, the increase in petrol duty and the associated rise in VAT may well have serious consequences for the already fragile labour market for teachers. Many schools are some distance from public transport, in housing estates or rural villages with only one bus a week. The increase in petrol prices may make it more difficult to attract teachers to work in these schools.

If Kenneth Clarke [then SoS for Education] saw the drift of the budget proposals before last week’s Cabinet meeting then he must accept responsibility for their effect on the teaching profession. Undoubtedly, however, our archaic system of placing the Chancellor on ice for a period before he delivers his budget has probably meant that in their enthusiasm for delivering a ‘budget for business’ the Treasury team has ignored the effect of their changes on those who work in the public sector, and particularly in education.

These days there is much more transparency about possible budget proposals, so fewer rabbits are pulled out of the hat on budget day. However, the bus that ran once a week, probably disappeared many years ago, but petrol duty hasn’t risen in line with inflation, and electric cars now offer an alternative. By the way, how many schools have EV charging points in their car parks, and do MATs offer a salary sacrifice scheme to help with the purchase of an electric vehicle? Is there an electric mini-bus schools can purchase? And I didn’t write the headline.

Special Needs – is nothing new?

Posted on by
Reply

Serendipity is defined as a fortunate finding of something unexpected. The origin of the term is credited to Horace Walpole. Earlier this afternoon, while waiting for some data on ITT statistics from the early 1990s that were being brought up from the reserve stacks of a library, I browsed through a bound volume of the TES for March 1991 that happened to be available.

The TES for the 22nd March 1991 contained a report of the annual conference of educational psychologist, the spring being education conference season even then. The report contained the following report

‘The government confirmed that there has been a widespread increase in the number of children referred for special help to support the claims of educational psychologists who believe that their numbers have increased by 50%. … Anthea Millett HMI for special needs said many local authorities reported an increase in referrals for assessment by educational psychologists.’ (TES 22/3/91 page 3)

One reason suggested was that as schools were becoming liable for their own budgets under local management of schools that had been set out in the 1988 Education Reform Act, schools were more anxious to obtain the statutory help that a statement of special needs brought with it.

Interestingly, in 1990, over 100 MPs had signed an Early Day motion in the House of Commons to the effect that ‘many children in urgent need of help and advice from an educational psychologist are waiting unacceptable lengths of time’.  (TES 22/3/91 P3)

In an editorial in the same edition as the news item referred to above, it was claimed that devolution of funds to schools had exposed the crudeness of existing formula for special needs that had made proper funding for children with special needs a lottery for schools, and that the 1988 Education Reform Act had not paid attention to the needs of children with special needs. The prediction that children with special needs would be a casualty of the Act was now coming true.

All of this seems very reminiscent of the current situation of a growth in demand and concerns over the funding for that growth, as does the analysis in the editorial that devolving funds to schools had allowed schools to identify many children with needs not being met that required extra funding.

As the editorial concluded, ‘The pre-LMS discretionary targeting of resources by LEAs according to putative need was often little more than a system of rationing inadequate funds. Those with the most efficient advocates or most obvious handicaps (sic) got first pickings. The rest got little or nothing – often not even a proper assessment.’ (TES 22/3/91 P21)

Reading this bit of history, reminded me of the present explosion in demand for EHCPs as schools struggled with demand they felt was not funded. This time around, local authorities faced with the 2014 Act opted for running up deficits rather than rationing, except that is by using the NHS favoured outcome of rationing by waiting time for assessments.

One wonders what the government has learnt about special needs funding over the past 35 years, and what the White Paper will do? Will it just tell schools to devote more of their resources to dealing with the issue? Or, will there by more cash – this seems unlikely, but one can but hope.

Back to the GTP? (Graduate Teacher Programme)?

Posted on by
Reply

The latest DfE notice updating those interested in tendering to run the Future High Potential Initial Teacher Training (HPITT) Programme ahead of the formal tender notice, to be issued on the 15th September raises some interesting questions.

The current brand name for the programme is Teach First. Since 2016, the programme has been subject to funding by the DfE following a tender process. Teach First started as a programme aimed at attracting teachers for schools in London that were facing recruitment issues. The need to improve outcomes in disadvantaged areas was also a part of the mission, as was attracting those that might not have thought of teaching as a career, but might be prepared to spend two years in the profession.

In the early years of Teach First there was the government alternative national employment-based route into teaching through the Graduate or Registered Teaching Programmes (GTP or RTP).

The information in the latest DfE document Future High Potential Initial Teacher Training (HPITT) Programme – Find a Tender feels as if the aim is to produce two coherent national programmes for employment-based routes into teaching. However, the document doesn’t seem to make clear the geographical intentions of the programme, preferring to reflect on schools and pupils instead.

i Support schools serving low-income communities with high numbers of disadvantaged and / or low attaining pupils (i.e. Eligible Schools) in England to recruit the teachers they need to help improve outcomes for pupils

ii. Target high-quality candidates with a 2:1 degree or above, who would be otherwise unlikely to join the profession or work in an Eligible School and who have the capability to be highly skilled teachers and emerging leaders, and who are passionate about making a meaningful impact, in these schools.

iii. Contribute to recruitment in specified subjects but with flexibility to meet the specific recruitment needs of schools.

The fact that only 1,000 places will be funded will make the geographical aspects of the contract a key feature. Do you offer the HPITT where the candidates will be or where the schools are located, given the programme is aimed at those that who would be otherwise unlikely to join the profession or work in an Eligible School. The latter point offers a high degree of flexibility, and it is interesting there is no mention of performance criteria or even what specifically constitutes an Eligible School.

Spread across nine regions, and both the primary and secondary sectors, a national scheme looks challenging to administer within the current funding offer specified in the documents. The programme might need either the support of a charity or a private sector firm willing to operate the scheme for the benefits it brings in working in the teacher recruitment market.  

The phrases about recruitment data are, of course, music to my ears. TeachVac pioneered identifying schools with recruitment issues over a decade ago. Those that have read my recent posts about headteacher vacancies in August will know that I still retain a key interest in this area. There are a multitude of posts on this blog about recruitment. Here is a link to just one of them. Some trends for 2019 in teacher recruitment | John Howson

The document asks for the following:

Develop and maintain strong partnerships with schools and other partners in areas with the greatest teacher recruitment challenges to understand and meet the needs of schools in terms of teacher recruitment and provide sufficient high-quality employment-based placement opportunities.

If any bidder wants to ask for my advice on how to understand the data about where the real recruitment challenges are, then I would be happy to advise.

The programme although entitled HPITT also includes some leadership work. This is presumably a carry-over from the current Teach First work, but I wonder whether there really ought to be two different contracts as the programmes are very different in scope.

The scope of the tender for the HPITT programme looks very much like evolution not revolution, but perhaps the DfE would have been better aiming for the latter if it really wants to improve standards in the worst performing schools in England.

10-year plan for teachers of Physics

Posted on by
4

I was delighted to read the Institute of Physics new 10-year plan for the teaching of physics in schools in England The physics teacher shortage and addressing it through the 3Rs: Retention, Recruitment and Retraining (England) As is to be expected from the IoP, this is a thoughtful and well argued report.

Some of the finding in this new report mirror those in the report published in January 2002 by Northumbria University, and funded by the then TTA. The Northumbria study, interestingly called ‘Supply, Recruitment and Retention of Physics Teachers’ was authored by Prof. Hilary Constable, and I was a part of the team that undertook the research underpinning the report.

Many of the conclusions in the IoP report sould apply to the whole teacher supply landscape. It is just that the labour market for teachers of physics, especially in non-selective state schools, is an extreme example of 30 years of failure to provide schools with the staff needed for the National Curriculum.

It is worth recalling that in the 2006 budget speech, the then Chancellor of the Exchequer mentioned 3,000 trainee science teachers needed as a part of the Science and innovation investment framework 2004-2014. So, the problem has been known for decades, the will to solve it has seen less drive behind it. I sincerely hope that the government takes the recommendations of the IoP report on board.

As someone that has studied the leacher labour market for more than 30 years, the idea of exit interviews has always seemed to me to be a missing a part of the picture. The DfE has wave studies with school leaders, teachers, pupils and parents, but not it seems leavers. I would be happy to manage a trial with the MATs and local authority HR department in one authority, to collect data. The Northumbria study did collect some data from early leavers, workload, the desire only to teach physics and a return to studying appear to be some of the common features of the findings.  I guess, not much has changed.

If I have a quibble with the IoP report, it would be on the table of salaries in the report. My guess is that financial services salaries are skewed by a ‘London’ effect and the teaching salary doesn’t fully record any incentives received by qualified physics teachers. I would also like to have seen how many of those with QTS are in Sixth Form Colleges and independent schools?

The idea of retraining is a sensible use of resources, as are subject knowledge enhancement courses for those considering becoming a teacher of physics, but lacking a degree specifically in the subject.

Overall, what the report demonstrates is the lack of a comprehensive strategy for the staffing of our schools and, since the demise of the TTA and its successors, no real centre for policy discussions. One wonders what the Chartered College of Teaching is doing in this field? The demise of the APPG for the Teaching Profession, supported by Chris Waterman for many years, left a vacuum for debate about teacher supply, even if Ministers chose not to listen. Hopefully, after this report, the secretary of State will act.