Fig leaf look a bit threadbare

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It didn’t take long for the national press to take up the issue of teacher supply in 2016. The Observer, a paper that has carried several stories about teacher supply over the past few months, including covering my evidence to the Select Committee in last Sunday’s edition, has highlighted the concerns of Sir Michael Wilshaw about recruitment in coastal and deprived areas expressed in his annual report. The reporters also highlight Labour’s issues with the DfE statistics, including both the inclusion of Teach First numbers being included in the annual census of trainees and the presentation of vacancy numbers based on data collected in November. http://www.theguardian.com/education/2016/jan/02/ofsted-row-ministers-extent-teacher-shortages-michael-wilshaw

As Sir Michael Wilshaw demonstrated in his last annual report, even the DfE figures, collected at the most favourable time of the year, have been going in the wrong direction over the past few years. It is not the fault of civil servants that the only data they collect comes from a census taken in November, but the fig leaf that this provides Ministers with now looks ever more threadbare.

How can you operate a National Teaching Service if you do not know the annual demand from schools for teachers? I am interested to know if anyone has yet seen the parameters for the working of this service. As schools are already recruiting for September 2016, if the government doesn’t enable the service soon it will have an even more challenging first year of operation than might be necessary.

Who does the government have that is capable of running such a service anyway? How much will they pay the teachers; will they only recruit existing teachers, perhaps from Teach First; will it just be secondary schools offered such teachers or will primary and special schools be included; will such teachers be offered only to academies or will all schools be able to bid for such teachers? Who knows, if you do please let me know where I can find out the details.

If the Observer didn’t actually talk to Sir Michael before writing their story, but just based it on comments in his annual report, they might want to ask him about progress at GCSE in areas where recruitment is challenging. TeachVac’s preliminary investigation of 2015 GCSE 5A*-Cs results including English and mathematics, compared with 2014, suggest that in London more schools performed less well in 2015 than 2014 than did better. Now, nationally, there was an overall decline of half a per cent in this figures, so some schools doing worse than last year was to be expected. The fact that overall more schools did in London worse raises questions about whether teacher supply problems might have contributed to the outcomes, even if schools have tried to protect examination classes.

Of course, since the DfE don’t believe there is a crisis in teacher supply anywhere in the country they will have to come up with a different explanation if it is true school performance in London has faltered compared with some other parts of England.

Teacher recruitment in 2016

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How will schools looking for teachers in 2016 fare? Teacher supply was a common theme of discussions in the autumn term of 2016, so I thought I would share some preliminary analysis regarding the start of the 2016 recruitment round. Schools signed up to TeachVac, our free recruitment site that costs schools nothing to post vacancies, receive more detailed information thorough our monthly newsletter. To find out more visit http://www.teachvac.co.uk

In addition, secondary schools receive the unique update on the size of the remaining ‘free pool’ of trainees every time they upload details of a main scale vacancy. At present, this is the national picture since the NCTL seem reluctant to reveal regional data in any meaningful form, despite in 2014 telling me that they had hoped to do so in 2015. The data on regional provision in the priority subjects that they have produced is challenging to map against the actual census numbers in some subjects. As the key census table also has gaps that appear to be filled in another table, I have a word of caution about the data in the public domain. No doubt some enterprising MP will ask questions or the Select Committee will elicit the actual data from the DfE as part of their inquiry. If so, we will update the information in TeachVac.

Anyway, using the data that is available we can assume that Teach First trainees will be in classrooms and unavailable to fill vacancies, other than as qualified teachers at the end of their programme, and that School Direct Salaried trainees are also likely to be hired either by the school where they are training or another local school without an advert appearing.  As a result, these trainees can be discarded from the pool of trainees available to schools unable to access these programmes. In addition, it is worth reducing the remaining number by five per cent to allow for those that don’t complete their training programme on the higher education, SCITT and School direct fee routes.

Taking all these variables into account, the picture is broadly similar to this point in 2015. There are unlikely to be enough trainees in the ‘free pool’ to satisfy demand in business studies; design and technology – despite slightly better recruitment than last year; English – where we have concerns that the distortion produced by both Teach First and the School Direct Salaried numbers may make it difficult for schools in some parts of the country to recruit a teacher –this is a subject where the regional breakdown of recruitment into training would be especially helpful. Although the mix of science teachers may not be what schools need, the total of trainees may be sufficient across the country, even if not regionally. The same is true in mathematics.

In PE, art and probably languages, there should be sufficient trainees to meet demand. In other subjects, we need to see how schools will schools respond to curriculum changes and funding pressures before making a judgement. However, geography, music, IT and RE schools seeking teachers may struggle towards the end of the year, if 2016 follows the pattern of 2016.

Regionally, despite the presence of Teach First together with the School Direct Salaried places, we expect schools outside these programmes to struggle in London and the Home Counties when it comes to recruitment of main scale teachers. As these are the parts of the country with the greatest concentration of independent schools, the demand for teachers from these schools is an additional pressure in the marketplace.

Teachvac has a new service this year that allows us to provide advice on salary levels offered in the marketplace. This is not yet a free service, but the team are happy to discuss details with anyone interested. 2016 looks like being another interesting and challenging year for teacher recruitment.

 

Charity Walk for children

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On Sunday I shall be walking for a charity of which I am a trustee. the charity is called Children Heard and Seen.

The charity was formed in Oxford last year and works specifically with children that have a parent in prison.

In this past this group of young people has under-performed at school and had an above average likelihood of themselves ending up in a life of crime.

Whatever the offence that has led to a custodial sentence, or even a period in prison on remand, these children often suffer bullying at school for something that isn’t their fault. I was happy to support the charity from its inception and tomorrow I will join with volunteers that are walking around Oxford over 24 hours in order to raise funds to continue the work of the charity.

There is an interview on Radio Oxford with the walk organiser at:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p038w5t6#play

It starts 9mins in.

If anyone feels like helping by sending a donation in thanks for the information provided on this blog please text

‘CHAS24 £5’ to 70070 to donate for the 24hr walk”. Or see the Facebook page for other routes to donate.

The organiser feel sure that everyone has £5 they could donate, and it’s very quick and easy to do by text.

For more information the CHaS website is:

http://childrenheardandseen.co.uk/

and the Facebook page is at;

https://www.facebook.com/childrenheardandseen/

I will update this post after the walk has taken place.

The walk has now taken place and there are photos of it on the CHaS Facebook page. you can see me with some of the with some of the other walkers going up Headington Hill in the overhead shot. This was just after a very heavy rail shower. Fortunately, it didn’t dampen anyone’s spirits. Top marks to the 2 nine year olds that walked for five hours. Thanks to Georgia and sarah for organising the event.

There is still time to donate.

Thank you for your generosity.

John Howson

 

Wrong direction

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I pointed out recently that in the recent autumn statement there was a determination to drive down procurement costs in education. This is presumably so that more of the dwindling funding in real terms can be better used to support teaching and learning. It was, therefore, disappointing to read the research issued yesterday by Lucy Powell, the Labour shadow Secretary of State and her excellent team of researchers, that spending on supply teachers had risen to more than £1.3 billion pounds a year in 2013/14.

Now spending on supply often falls into one of two categories; either daily supply expenditure to cover absences and or support over a longer-term for unfilled vacancies. According to the data Labour have used, academies have seen a larger rise in spending on supply teachers than the remaining maintained schools. Without looking more closely at the type of schools that became academies during the period between 2011/12 and 2013/14 and the effect of the changing financial year from April to March to September to August, when a school moves from being maintained to being an academy, it is difficult to do more than note the figures and that the overall increase for all schools is around half of that for academies. Nevertheless, an increase of a fifth across the sector won’t help schools meet the government’s stated intention to drive down procurement costs.

If it can be shown that the majority of the rise is due to staffing difficulties, then this is another piece of evidence of a staffing crisis, a crisis that Mr Gibb, the Minister, was reluctant to acknowledge when he appeared before the Select Committee last week. Even the Chief Inspector recognised the concerns in his recent Annual Report even using the data from the Annual Workforce Census undertaken in November; not a noted time for high levels of vacancies.

Of course, the Treasury will benefit, since presumably 20% of the £1.3 billion spent on supply teachers is VAT and no doubt a large proportion of it finds its way into HMRC coffers. Perhaps this could then be re-cycled back into education spending.

As regular readers know, one way for schools to cut spending on recruitment is to use our free TeachVac site www.teachvac.co.uk that is now approaching the end of its first full-year. I think it fair to say, even before the final numbers are collated, that Teachvac has posted more main scale secondary vacancies in its first year in operation than any other site achieved when a start-up.

Now, TeachVac offers a full service for all schools, still for free, we are looking to double that number in 2016. Local authorities, dioceses and academy chains with vacancy circulars can post vacancy details also for free and receive tracking data about the state of the job market in 2016. Give the TeachVac team a ring on 01983 550408 to learn more about how to sign up for free or visit the web site and watch the videos.

In a year when teacher supply became headline news, the TeachVac team are helping an increasing number of schools cut the cost of recruitment. If you know a school or teacher not signed up, give them a Christmas present by telling them about TeachVac.

Another market failure

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Two studio schools for 14-18 year olds in the midlands are to close because of a failure to recruit enough students. This is how the message was announced by the trust responsible for the schools.

The Midland Academies Trust is to change the learning provision for students at its studio schools in Hinckley and Nuneaton.  Students will now be given the opportunity to continue their studies at other schools within the Trust supported by North Warwickshire and Hinckley College.  They will continue with the specialist CREATE Framework, supported by personal coaches and enjoy work experience arrangements aligned with the key features of the studio school model.

The decision comes as increasing financial pressures due to low pupil recruitment make the economic viability of small schools hugely challenging. The studio schools cater for 300 students each (600 in total) but there are currently a total of 157 pupils on roll across both schools. Year 10 and Year 12 students will be given the opportunity to continue their studies at either The George Eliot School or The William Bradford Academy from January 2016.  Current staff will continue to work with them and they will continue with their work placements and relationships with employers.

The Year 11 and Year 13 students will remain at the studio schools until the end of the academic year. – See more at: http://www.msc.leics.sch.uk/news?story=47#sthash.Ho3nB2FV.dpuf

At least the examination year pupils are to be catered for without the need to move school just over a term and a half before their examinations. Hopefully, they won’t experience any serious staff changes.

The Trust responsible for the two schools posted this announcement on the 1st December. As I pointed out when the UTC in the west midlands announced its closure in the spring, local authorities weren’t allowed to just shut down a school at short-notice.

Indeed, it is probably time that the EFA has talks with the government about a protocol on closure procedures, especially where it is due to financial viability. With the first stage of the admissions process now largely finished for 2016, a stress test, like that applied to the banks, should be administered by the EFA to all schools it funds and a list of those at risk published so that parents can decide whether moving their child at 14 is really a sensible idea.

In many ways I think the notion of a 14-18 sector is a good one and some of the schools are already flourishing with good recruitment, but many aren’t. After all, why would a school want to wave goodbye to four years of possible funding by encouraging students to change school at 14 unless by doing so their results improved.

Market failure, especially in new products, isn’t unusual. These schools do represent a new type of schooling that may need more marketing to parents. Whether we should be experimenting in an age of austerity where the government wants to take a billion pounds out of education procurement – presumably including spending on marketing – is an interesting question.

Could the same result have been achieved just by general further education colleges widening their offering to the 14-16 age-group? What are the real costs of each of these new UTCs and studio schools? As I have said elsewhere, each school needs a head teacher and other leadership staff. This puts pressure on the pool of leaders that isn’t an inexhaustible supply, making it more difficult for every school looking for a new leader.

However, the biggest question for debate is that of how far our education system should be organised on market principles?

The Select Committee and teacher supply

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Yesterday morning was an interesting experience. I spend forty minutes alongside three other leading authorities on teacher preparation and supply appearing in front of the House of Commons Education Select Committee. This august body was taking evidence about the current state of recruitment into the profession and employment opportunities for teachers.

As might be expected, the general tone from everyone, except the Minister in the final session, was gloomy with the emphasis on targets not met and the challenges schools face when looking for new teaching staff. The Minister was right to emphasise the increased number of teachers in the profession, but along with the data on entrants to training he must ensure civil servants provide clarity on the basis for the figures. Did his comparison with last year exclude or include Teach First numbers in both sets of numbers he quoted. It would be unhelpful if 2014 data didn’t include Teach First but 2015 did, since the comparison wouldn’t have been based on a similar measure. This can be checked when the transcript appears.

What is also interesting is the data revealed in an answer Lord Nash gave on the 7th December to a written question in the House of Lords. From that information it is possible to identify success against target for the four key routes into teaching; higher education; SCITTs; School Direct fee and School Direct salaried. The rates are important because some of the routes into teaching provide more trainees for the free pool of job hunters that aren’t necessarily going to be snapped up by those responsible for preparing them for the profession than do other routes.

There is an interesting debate to be had around any route that is especially selective in its entry standards and then offers employment to all those on that route into teaching. This would leave others schools not so fortunate with a much more limited access to the trainee market. One solution would be for all schools to become involved in training. However, it only matters if some routes are better at filling the places allocated.

The table shows the percentage of allocated places filled in 2015 as reported in the answer to the PQ

  HEI SCITT SD – Fee SD – Salaried
Total 88 65 54 70
Primary 104 77 71 89
Secondary 77 57 45 56
English 142 57 60 82
Mathematics 72 51 34 47
D&T 42 47 31 77
History 108 82 85 79
Geography 93 40 38 45

On the basis of the figures in the table, there is a risk that recruitment controls in history and English might create a shortfall in 2016 with knock-on effects on the teacher labour market in 2017 if the same pattern were to develop as last year.

The effects of the controls will need to be watched very carefully in case school recruitment doesn’t take over from higher education courses once they have been capped. Recruitment controls rely upon applicants wanting to enter teaching by any route and not being wedded to a university course. Should that not prove the case, and there was a discussion about how far trainees were now prepared to travel to study to enter the profession during the Select Committee session, further action might need to be taken quickly.

Of course, allocations aren’t the TSM number and are set high in some subjects, but why did schools only manage to fill a third of their allocations in design & technology. In mathematics, might the bursary provide a better return to some candidates than the salaried route in terms of effort and cash on offer?

Hopefully, as the recruitment round for 2016 unfolds there will be room for dialogue between the DfE and other partners, even if it might have to be managed through the Select Committee.

My evidence to the Select Committee can be read on their page devoted to the inquiry at: http://data.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/committeeevidence.svc/evidencedocument/education-committee/supply-of-teache rs/written/24299.html

Recruitment Controls 4

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They say that there is nothing like a bit of publicity to help the marketing along. Recruitment to teaching preparation courses hasn’t been short of that this autumn. First, there was the furore, anxiety, concern – insert your own choice of word – over the salary quoted in the television advert. Although the salary isn’t the main concern for many would-be teachers there are no doubt some that do need to be reminded that it isn’t a reason to ignore a career in teaching, even if the squeeze on public sector pay does make it a less attractive reason that a few years ago. This is despite what the DfE says about the still attractive pension arrangements for teachers.

The second area where there has been some publicity has been over the issue of recruitment controls. On October the 27th, when the allocations were announced, this blog pointed out that far too many places had been allocated to PE providers and that “PE and history course providers on the other hand seem almost certain to be subject to recruitment controls, at least in some parts of the country.” And so, despite the government denial of early November, it has come to pass. And to that list must be added English and primary phase courses for postgraduates.

Now, the oxygen of publicity may have brought new applicants or it may just have inspired potential applicants to hurry up with their application and, no doubt, to bombard their referee with a request to fill in the reference forthwith. Indeed, I wonder if a dilatory tutor and their institution might find at least a grievance, if not something more serious, filed against them if a student missed the opportunity of being considered for a place on a course because the reference was delayed without due reason.

I think some universities may have been slow to take on board the implications of recruitment controls as laid out by the NCTL in their original explanation and may now be facing the consequences. My anxiety, despite what some DfE and NCTL officials may think, was never with the universities, but for applicants.

As the government is the purchaser of teacher preparation courses, they have the right to determine what method they use to purchase places. After all, it is QTS they are purchasing and to that universities offer their own establishment based qualification.  For applicants, it is more of a challenge, especially if they don’t know from one day to the next whether a course will be even able to interview them.

This state of affairs could have been prevented by creating a closing date by which all applicants that had applied would have been considered and any recruitment controls applied at that stage.  That would have prevented a first come first served approach that neither encourages quality in selection nor accepts that some applicants may have legitimate reasons for applying later in the recruitment round.

Still, we must not forget that beyond the subjects with recruitment controls there are a whole host of other subjects where recruitment remains a challenge. How much of a challenge would be easier to assess if the daily UCAS figures had a number for the total of applicants disaggregated from their number of applications. It is important to know whether recruitment controls are affecting the number of choices applicants make at the start of the process.

Autumn Statement

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Two things struck me about the small print of yesterday’s announcement, apart that is from the procurement savings that should favour TeachVac if anyone takes any notice of the requirement to reduce costs.

The first was the final point in the education section:

2.67 The department will deliver 20% core administrative savings through greater efficiency.

I assume this means fewer Ofsted visits. Whatever happened to the aim of visiting every trainee in their last term of a preparation course and the first term of their employment? That seemed like an interesting idea, but very expensive. The second area that might be threatened is the expansion of the Regional School Commissioner idea. The present small band have huge areas to cover and need more staff to really understand their bailiwick.

Even with the cuts in the Education Support Grant, it seems to me that local authorities might still have a part to play in ensuring education performance across all types of schools, including the free schools/academies sector. After all, local authorities and local councillors have a genuine interest in their local schools and are often close to what is happening in them. I doubt most Commissioners would be as aware as fast about what is happening in every primary school in their region as the host of local councillors of all political parties. Why not stop complaining about them and harvest their enthusiasm and support.

The second piece of information buried in the small print at the end of the Treasury document (page 136 for anyone that cares) is the assumed change in wages and salaries each year between 2015 and 2020. Now no doubt some of the change will be accounted for by growth in the labour market overall, but presumably a large part will be increases in wages for existing employees. Some will be the result of salary drift to offset the Living Wage increase as those higher up the wage ladder seek to retain their differentials with those below them. No doubt this is why the Treasury sees wage growth above 4% every year to 2020, peaking at 4.5% in 2016 and 2017.

Those levels of increases mean that thanks to the power of compound interest someone on £25,000 in 2015 might be earning over £30,500 by 2020. That’s fine if public sector wage rates keep pace, but if they are held down, a teacher on £25,000 in 2015 would only be earning around £26,300 by 2020. This would be more than £4,000 adrift over the wage settlements decided during this parliament.

What such an outcome might do to recruitment into teaching of those concerned about pay, I leave for others to decide. All this comes after the recent OECD review of the pay of teachers in different countries that revealed where teachers in England were placed on the global scale of teacher remuneration.

If teachers’ pay falls too far behind that of other graduates of a similar quality there will eventually need to be a catching up exercise, but probably not until after the next general election, unless the economy does remarkably well during the next few years.

 

A Second Thank You

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Recently I thanked readers of this blog for helping me reach the 25,000 visitors mark in the two years and nine months I had been writing the blog. Today, the blog had its 50,000 view and passed the 26,000 visitor mark this morning while I was talking to an audience at the Academies Show.

So, another big thank you to readers and those that recommend the blog to others. I know that 25,000 and 50,000 are small beer in the blogosphere, but they are important milestones to me as when I wrote my various columns in the TES I rarely know how many people were reading them. New technology makes for so much more data.

In celebrating these milestones, I also celebrate the growth of TeachVac, the free recruitment site for teachers established at the start of the year. I will reveal its success in more detail at the end of the year when it has been in operation for a full twelve months, but it is fair to say that it has exceeded our expectations in its first year.

In the autumn statement today the Chancellor said of education:

2.65 The government will help schools to make savings on procurement, including by exploiting economies of scale. In 2016 the government will publish a set of specific actions to support school leaders target over £1 billion a year in procurement savings by the end of the parliament through benchmarking, guidance and improved framework contracts.

If anyone knows how to convince the government that TeachVac is already starting to do just that and has so far cost the government, schools and teachers nothing, not a single pound, then could they please let me know?

For those of you that don’t know the site it is at www.teachvac.co.uk and there are simple demonstration videos of how to use the site if you are a school or a teacher or trainee. We also have facilities for local authorities – possibly coming back into favour again despite the cut in the Education Support Grant today – and academy chains and others responsible for groups of schools to upload vacancies in batches.

A unique feature of TeachVac is that schools posting main scale vacancies in most secondary subjects are told what we thing the market is like at the point when they post the vacancy. We think that is a unique feature. TeachVac staff can also provide other data and analysis of the labour market in schools for interested bodies and we gather this together in our monthly newsletters and regular Reviews.

This blog is now well on the way to its third milestone of 360 posts in 36 months. There are 24 to go by the end of January 2016. I hope that will be achievable.

It is always good to receive comment and encouragement because writing anything can be something of a lonely process. So, many thanks to those that comment and especially the small band of regular commentators.

 

Recruitment Controls 3

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The news that recruitment controls have been applied to higher education recruiters of PE shouldn’t come as a surprise to any reader of this blog. On the 5th November, I wrote:

‘Earlier in the week I estimated it might be some time next week when recruitment controls would be introduced in PE’

So, it was a little surprising that rather than issue a warning civil servants apparently said on the 13th November

It has been two weeks since recruitment for 2016/17 began through UTT and we are pleased to report applicants are showing an interest in ITT. However, whilst recruitment is looking healthy – especially in some of the popular subjects such as Physical Education (PE) and Primary – there is no need to panic as we are not close to stopping recruitment just yet.

We have heard fears of recruitment controls being implemented in the coming weeks and recruitment being stopped altogether and wanted to reassure you that NCTL will announce whenever recruitment has reached around 50%, 75%, 90% and 95% of national recruitment controls. There will be no unexpected or immediate instruction from NCTL to stop recruitment.

Well, I don’t know what you interpret those two paragraphs to mean, and I am sure my blog comment didn’t lead to the line about rumours, but it seems disingenuous to put out such a statement and introduce controls a week later with no advance warning. I am sure it was just a lack of familiarity of the speed with which applications can arrive in our new electronic age compared with old days of postal sacks winging their way to UCAS at Cheltenham that forced the hand of civil servants.

Still, it does raise the issue of ‘Wednesbury reasonableness’ it anyone wanted to mount a judicial review. Is it reasonable to offer candidates three choices but to be able to cut off some of these after a person has booked an expensive train ticket or should an applicant be able to expect the same rules for all of their choices?

It is not for me to answer that question, but it would surely have been better to introduce controls alongside a fixed application date. This would have allowed all applications by that date to have been considered and if the overall total exceeded the point at which controls would need to have been introduced the course providers could each have been told how many offers they could make and would, presumably, have selected the best rather than the fastest to apply as has now happened. The current system also discriminates against late applicants and if it can be shown that it has favoured certain groups over others that won’t help defend a charge of it being a reasonable system.

Whether it is reasonable to use public money to favour certain types of provider is also a question for the lawyers. But, I hope that a better and fairer scheme will be devised for next year.