Headship: does school type matter when recruiting?

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How much does the type of school matter when trying to recruit a new headteacher? More many years than I can count, indeed almost since I started researching the labour market for school leaders in England, way back in the1980s, it has seemed that data has always pointed to certain schools finding recruitment a challenge.

So, with a bit of spare time, I thought I would look at the experiences in one large shire county (not Oxfordshire) in the period between January 2021 and the end of July 2022.

Vacancies for headteachers in state-funded primary schools – one shire county Jan 21-July22

ADVERTSINFANTJUNIORPRIMARY – MPRIMARY – CEPRIMARY – RC
1108891
265790
320010
431000
502020
6+00020
TOTAL211615231
2+1177140
% 2+52%44%47%61%0%
Source TeachVac

Interestingly, although Infant schools appear to fare better than other schools in terms of recruiting after a single advertisement, three of the ten schools in the table placed their first advertisement during either June or July of 2022. Discounting those schools produces a 2+ percentage for infant schools of 61% and not 52%. This is the same as for Church of England Primary Schools.

However, although most infant and junior schools in this locality are Maintained schools, there are some Church of England Infant and junior schools, and they seem more likely than the maintained schools to have to re-advertise.

Indeed, Church of England schools account for all of the primary schools with more than two rounds of advertisements for a headteacher. These include one school with the original vacancy plus six rounds of re-advertisements and another school with the original advertisement plus nine further rounds of advertisements between May 2021 and June 2022.

In any normal year, about half of headteacher vacancies appear between January and March. Vacancies advertised later in the year tend to be harder to fill unless there is local interest in taking on the school. Unless a primary school has access to subscription advertising for its vacancies, this can become an expensive business, especially for a small primary school. MATs may be able to cover these costs, but with local authorities not able to top-slice school budgets in the same way, this can be an expensive problem for governing bodies, especially if headteachers only stay in post for a few years in such schools.

There is much less of an issue in filling vacancies for headteachers of secondary and all-through schools, although some of the same caveats about timing remain. Also, for the secondary sector, the type of school and its Free School Meals ranking outside of recessionary times may affect the degree of interest. These issues are discussed further in TeachVac’s annual review of the leadership labour market in England.

So, a community primary school advertising in January each year should have little difficulty finding a new headteacher. The governing body of a Church of England school whose headteacher needs replacing in June will probably find themselves facing a challenge in their search for a replacement.

Banning teachers

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Between January and the start of August this year, the body charged with regulating the teaching profession announced decisions on the futures of just over 90 teachers. Outcomes have ranged from ‘No Order Made’ to indefinite prohibition from working as a teacher anywhere in England to prohibition with the opportunity to seek reregistration after a set period of time, although a return to the Register of Qualified teachers isn’t guaranteed.  In passing, it should be noted that the term ‘teacher’ isn’t restricted in its use only to those on the Register: anyone can call themselves at teacher.

Men outnumbers women in those barred from teaching in these announcements, by around two to one, even though men are in the minority in the profession as a whole. The overwhelming majority of men barred from teaching were as a result of an issue to do with sex in some form or another; usually involving someone underage. More than 40 men were barred from teaching for this reason in announcements just in this seven-month period of 2022; along with just three women.

Two women were barred for misconduct associated with assessment. This low number may well reflect the nature of schooling and assessment since the start of the pandemic. Similarly, there were only two barring for financial reasons. There were however, a number of barring resulting from inappropriate behaviour towards pupils. This ranged from actual assaults to other behaviour seen to have crossed the line from what is acceptable.

Two teachers were struck-off for running an unregistered school, while there were a couple of cases of false references supplied by teachers in connection with job applications.

Not all incidents took place in or even involving schools. Teachers can be barred for incidents outside schools, including their use of social media and who they live with.

If you live with someone caught supplying drugs then you must tell the school authorities and your line manager straight away, especially if your premises is searched for drugs. Similarly, if you end up in court for almost any reason it is wise to declare the fact as soon as possible and indeed normally well before charges are brough if you are arrested and placed on bail. If you are remanded in custody, the school will likely know, as you won’t be able to turn up for work but you should still inform them.

Two issues arise from considering these judgements. Firstly, what about others working in schools that commit similar acts. Presumably, they are sacked for gross misconduct, but should there be a way of barring them from working with young people even if they are not professionals?

Secondly, there seem to be some areas where perhaps ‘sentencing guidelines’ might now help both panels and teachers to judgements. One such area is driving under the influence of alcohol. The small number of cases this year did seem to produce a range of outcomes. Aggravating factors might be ‘on school premises’ or ‘in the presence of children’ while mitigating factors could be ‘declared treatment started before the incident’ and ‘extreme stress in work and home life’. Clearly, letters of support do seem to swing the judgement about outcomes, and the weight of ‘being an excellent teacher’ should be signalled clearly in guidance.

The Secretary of State must sign-off panel judgements, with an appeal to the high court being the only further outcome. Should the Secretary of State, or in reality a civil servant, have this right of judgement of the panel’s decision or should panel outcomes only be subject to an appeal to a court?

Teamwork: the skill for the future?

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In my first lectureship in higher education, during the early 1980s, at what is now the University of Worcester, I introduced an assessment task that involved students collaborating together to produce a presentation using recorded sound and images. Fortunately, the External Examiner was farsighted and endorsed the idea. Later, in the 1990s, while part of the leadership team at Oxford Brookes University, their School of Education developed several modules that required students to work together on assessed coursework.

Why am I mentioning these events today? The DfE has just published an interesting piece of research about skills needed for the future workforce across a number of different sectors. Skills needs in selected occupations over the next 5 to 10 years – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

In the research it says that:

‘Improvement is needed in how teamwork skills are taught across educational and professional settings Workshop participants identified weaknesses in the previous and current development of teamwork skills in schools, universities and workplaces. It was suggested that engaging university students with teamwork learning can be very challenging. Some speculated on individualised versus collaborative pathways to academic achievement, comparing BTEC and A-Level students’ different attitudes to teamwork. It may be that assessment structures with less focus on individual attainment allow for increased development of collaborative and creative skills in young people.’ Page 33 footnotes omitted

This led me to wonder whether at both GCSE and A level there ought to be opportunities for collaborative learning as well as the traditional individual competition for grades? Could it replace the extended individual project?

Elsewhere in the report there is a focus on the need for greater digital literacy.

‘Digital literacy is becoming a basic skill requirement for the majority of occupations across all sectors in the UK labour market, including productivity software tools such as spreadsheets and word processing programmes. OECD PISA analysis has also shown that educational access to technology and subsequent building of digital literacy is increasingly important across the globe, leading to better academic performance and competence. Basic digital literacy skills are considered to be those needed to carry out tasks such as communication via digital applications and internet searches or navigation.’ Page 11 footnotes omitted

The report also acknowledges that the collection, handling and analysis of data will also be important across the future workforce: something that is music to my ears after years of collecting data about the teacher labour market for teachers Labour Market Report – January to July 2022 (teachvac.co.uk)

Now the purpose of schooling is not just to prepare children for adult life, but how far it should balance the need to progress to higher education against life beyond education is an interesting debate. Team games obviously help with developing skills and after this week I hope there will be no more talk of selling of school playing fields for housing or other uses. But not all pupils enjoy sport and different teams need different skills sets.

The school children entering primary school this September probably won’t retire until 2084. What will their working life look like and should those of us concerned with education care?

Success in ITT, but at what price?

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In my previous post about the July postgraduate ITT numbers, I concentrated just on the headlines, and the potentially dire implications for the 2023 teacher recruitment round if the collapse of the economy doesn’t both stem departures from teaching and encourage more returners back into the profession.

In this post, I want to look in more detail at the data in the July numbers, now published by the DfE. Monthly statistics on initial teacher training (ITT) recruitment – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) The total number of candidates applying has reached 35,633, but this compares badly with the 44,970 of July 2021. More alarming is the fact that the ‘recruited’ total is down from 8,620 in July 2021 to 3,911 this July. That’s the number in the bag, so to say, and most likely to turn up when courses commence. Even more worrying that the number with ‘conditions pending’ is down from 23,030 to 18,699. The number of withdrawn candidates has increased from 1,281 last July to 2,010 this July.  These are not good numbers for the health of the profession.

Comparing the ‘other’ column against ‘all applications’ in the July 2021 data and the ‘unsuccessful’ against ‘all applications’ in the July 2022 data shows that across all subjects more applications have been successful.

Subject2021 Successful2022 SuccessfulDifference
Languagesna29%na
Computer Studies21%28%7%
D&T27%34%7%
Physics23%30%7%
Music28%34%6%
Art26%32%6%
Business Studies20%26%6%
Biology23%29%6%
Mathematics23%28%5%
PE22%27%5%
RE27%32%5%
English25%30%5%
Drama29%33%4%
Chemistry27%31%4%
Geography27%31%4%
History26%30%4%
Classics23%25%2%
Source UCAS and DfE data

Whether the increase in the level of success is due to similar numbers of acceptable candidates against a smaller overall pool or providers accepting candidates that they might not have accepted before cannot be determined from the data. Perhaps it is a bit of both strategies that is taking place.

Applications are lower across all age groups this round, with the key new graduate ‘21 and under’ group down from 5,650 to 4,591 candidates this July. Those who gender is recorded as male candidate has fallen from 13,350 to 10,591. This is despite the number not recorded as either men or women falling from 1,240 to 351 this July.

Applications have fallen for both primary and secondary phase courses. Down from 51,310 to 43,242 for the former and from 65,990 to 53,532 for the latter.

While numbers applying for postgraduate teaching apprenticeships increased from 3,610 to 4,427 applications; a modest increase, but, nevertheless an increase: all other routes had witnessed a decline in applications.

Hopefully, at least in the context of teacher preparation courses, this will be as bad as it will be, and next year the changes in the broader economy will once again swing the pendulum back towards the desirability of teaching as a career, perhaps aided by a recognition of the necessary rewards required to attract and retain teachers. If not, then the government will have set a record in terms of the length of the period of under-recruitment into teacher preparation courses.

Muck up or conspiracy?

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In August 2013, when this blog was in its infancy, I incurred the wrath of the DfE by suggesting that there was going to be a teacher supply crisis.

As reported by this blog on 14th August 2013 “A DfE spokesperson, helpfully anonymous, is quoted by the Daily Mail today as saying of my delving into the current teacher training position that there was no teacher shortage, adding: ‘This is scaremongering and based on incomplete evidence.’”

Regular readers know whose view of the situation was correct.

Why am I reprising this quote for nine years ago? Well, normally around the middle of the month the DfE, following the time-honoured tradition set by first the GTTR and then UCAS, publishes the monthly update on applications and offer to postgraduate ITT.

The DfE duly created the data on the 25th of July this year, but at least as far as my browser is concerned, the data didn’t appear on their web site. June’s data remained the latest in the public domain as I write this blog.  Monthly statistics on initial teacher training (ITT) recruitment – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) hopefully, by the time you read this the July data will be fully in the public domain. (The DfE updated their website with the July data sometime the same day that this post was published – thank you DfE.)

Now comes the key question: is this lack of transparency due to a processing fault within the DfE or is it due to not wanting the data widely known? Truly, the data on ‘offers’ so far this year is shocking.

Looking back at the period between the 2012/13 round of application for postgraduate ITT courses, and the 2021/22 round, it is clear that the total of ‘Recruited’ plus ‘Conditions Pending’ plus ‘Deferrals’ plus ‘Received and Offer’ are disastrously low in many secondary subjects this year. Leaving aside, Modern Foreign Languages, where the methodology is different this year, we see

Art, history, geography, chemistry and business studies no longer recording new records or offers and, in most cases, recording insufficient numbers to meet the expected Teacher Supply Model number. Only in history and art will there be sufficient numbers, and even in history the over-recruitment is likely to be less than in the past couple of years.

However, it is in

Religious Education

Physics

Music

English

Computing

Biology

Where the numbers of ‘offers’ look most worrying.

Jack Worth of NfER predicted earlier this year that fewer than 20% of the physics places might be filled this year in a presentation to the APPG on the Teaching Profession. His prediction now looks like it might well come about. All of the subjects in this list are hitting new lows for ‘offers’ since that 2012/13 recruitment round. The implications for recruitment of teachers, assuming the schools have the funds to recruit in 2023, look bleak.

Design and technology remain one of the few relatively better performing subjects, with more offers than last year. But, sadly, not enough to meet the required target.

With less than two months to go before courses start, and some providers closed down for the summer, there is unlikely to be a significant upturn in these numbers.

The DfE might well want to ask about conversion levels between application and offers and whether more risk might be taken with some marginal applications. The DfE will also need to ensure that they don’t de-accredit successful providers, as there is no guarantee potential applicants would choose another provider.

I do wonder whether the two contenders for Prime Minister will have anything to say about this issue, and whether anyone will even ask them?

London schools still teacher hunting

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49% of the vacancies for secondary school teachers advertised during July 2022 were placed by schools in London and the South East. The percentage increases to 60% if the East of England region is added-in.

The percentage across these three regions increases to 60% of languages vacancies; 66% of geography teacher vacancies and 71%, or not far short of three quarters, of music teacher vacances.

This means that while most schools in the north of England are probably enjoying a relatively less stressful summer period in terms of ensuring their school is full staffed for September, some schools in London and the Home Counties are still working hard at making sure that there will be a teacher for every class of pupils, come the start of term.

TeachVac has today published a detailed report on the extraordinary recruitment round between January and July 2022. For a free copy go to  Labour Market Report – January to July 2022 (teachvac.co.uk) Specific tailored reports are available on request for a small fee. These can be useful to Teaching School Hubs; ITT providers and any other group interested in the operation of the teacher labour market.

TeachVac is also currently offering schools a special deal on its teacher to job matching service of £250 for an annual subscription that unlocks priority matching for schools with its ever-growing database of teachers that are job hunting. The regular service with no upfront payment is also still available, and will cost a school no more than £1,000 for an annual subscription.

The £250 offer during August can save schools as much as £750 per year.

All the evidence is that classroom teacher vacancies for January 2023 are going to be very challenging to fill in many secondary school subjects, according to TeachVac’s analysis of labour market trends.

Middle leadership posts in some subject where there has been several years of reduced training numbers will also pose problems for some schools.

Regular readers ill know that I am chair of TeachVac and founded it as a low cost matching service in 2014.

Fewer than 400 physics teachers join state schools in 2021

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If you train too many teachers in some subjects, then then a higher percentage won’t find jobs. That’s the message for government from the latest ITT completer profiles.  Initial teacher training performance profiles, Academic Year 2020/21 – Explore education statistics – GOV.UK (explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk)

Final year postgraduate trainee outcomes by subject for the 2020/21 academic year

SubjectTotal traineesPercentage awarded QTSPercentage yet to completePercentage not awarded QTSPercentage of those awarded QTS teaching in a state-funded school
Design & Technology66691%6%3%82%
Biology2,12286%8%6%78%
Music47892%3%5%78%
English3,22990%6%4%77%
Mathematics2,81287%7%5%77%
Geography1,20392%4%3%76%
Business Studies38187%7%6%75%
Religious Education65188%7%6%75%
Chemistry89986%8%6%74%
Secondary20,36589%6%5%74%
Physics54383%9%9%73%
Total35,37187%8%5%73%
Modern Foreign Languages1,65091%5%4%72%
Other39891%5%4%71%
Primary15,00685%11%4%71%
History1,67690%6%4%70%
Art & Design91990%7%3%69%
Computing62482%11%7%68%
Drama45592%4%4%67%
Physical Education1,59095%3%2%64%
Classics6990%9%1%52%
Source DfE

Of those awarded QTS, and not shown teaching in a state-funded school, this does not always mean that they have abandoned teaching as a profession, as they may still be in teaching either in a Sixth Form or FE college or in the private sector, either in England or elsewhere in the world.

However, it seems highly unlikely that 576 PE teachers are doing so, while just 108 design and technology teachers took the same route. However, it does seem possible and indeed likely that almost half the 69 Classics teachers trained at the public expense are teaching outside the state-funded sector. Apart from computing and classics, all the subjects in from Primary to the foot of the table are subjects where recruitment into training might have been close to or exceeded the DfE training number presumption from the Teacher Supply Model.  

Training teachers for the private sector may be a cheap price to pay if it relieves the State of the need to fund the education of pupils whose parents are prepared to pay for their education. Although there are other arguments against private education.

However, if the trainees that moved into the private school sector are either used to teach pupils from overseas or even more, now teaching is a global profession, they move to a school overseas to teach that is a net loss to the Exchequer. This is a point Mr Sunak might like to ponder following his reference to selective schools in the debate with Conservative Party members last evening.

Private schools may also account for the reason why physics had only 73% of the 500 or so potential completers working in state-funded schools. That’s less than 400 new teachers of physics for the state-school sector in 2020/21.

Disturbing profile data on new teachers

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Yesterday, the DfE published its annual survey of ITT providers, through an analysis of their outcomes

Initial teacher training performance profiles: 2020 to 2021 – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

One of the most revealing tables in the report is reproduced below.

Summary of final year postgraduate trainee outcomes for the 2020/21 academic year

Percentage awarded QTSPercentage of those awarded QTS teaching in a state school
AgeUnder 259072
25 and Over8673
DisabilityDeclared8168
None declared8873
Ethnic groupAsian8164
Black7865
Mixed ethnicity8672
Other8266
White8974
GenderMale8471
Female8973
Source DfE

For every one of the groupings in the table, the minority group or groups seem to have fared less well than the majority group in terms of their percentage awarded QTS. Whether it is older trainees, trainees with a declared disability, males or those from a declared non-white background, the percentages gaining QTS are lower than for the comparator group. Interestingly, in most case the percentage of each group teaching in a state school is also lower, although older qualifiers marginally outperformed younger new teachers in terms of the percentage teaching in a state school at 73% compared with 72%

The disturbingly low percentage of ‘Black’ teachers gaining QTS continues. Only 78% of ‘Black’ trainees were awarded QTS, the lowest percentage in the table, and 11% points below the White trainee outcome for that much larger group of trainees. The government really should investigate why this discrepancy in outcome continues each year, especially as only 65% of ‘Black’ trainees awarded QTS were teaching in a state school at the time of the data collection.

Elsewhere, the demise of the undergraduate route is such that only 4,737 final year trainees were recorded, compared with 35,371 postgraduate trainees of whom nearly 19,00 were on school-led courses, with just over 16,500 on higher education led courses. What this balance will look like after the end of the current re-accreditation process is completed is an interesting question. With falling pupil numbers in the primary sector, it seems likely that the 40,000 trainees with QTS in these profiles will mark something of a high point.

The covid pandemic affected these data in two ways. Firstly, the pandemic created a one-year increase in registrations to train as a teacher, boosting the 2020-21 cohort of postgraduate trainees, and secondly, more trainees than usual may have extended their course and will have qualified later than normal due to the effects of the pandemic. Those late qualifications will have redcued some of the outcome percentages.

Although Teach First still uses that name for its band of training, the DfE has re-named its trainees as the ‘High Potential ITT trainees’. It would be interesting to understand the thinking behind this insult to other trainees and their providers. whether universities or schools?

Finally, there is some evidence to support the thesis that the distribution of training places may not be ideal. Only 62% of those awarded QTS in both the North East and North West were employed in state schools, compared with 76% that trained in London; 78% in the South East and 82% of those trained in the East of England. Since these three regions also contain a high percentage of the national total of private schools, this is an interesting outcome, and raises a key question about the use of resources across England.

Teacher vacancies and Free School Meals

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Do schools with high percentages of pupils eligible for Free School Meals have higher staff turnover than schools with lower percentages of pupils on Free School Meals?

One of the advantages of TeachVac and the data it collects is that it allows questions such as that to be answered in ‘real time’. As the recruitment round for September is now in effects over, with the start of the summer holidays, it is an appropriate time to ask that question for the 2022 Labour Market.

This blog last considered this question in 2021 Free School Meals and staff turnover | John Howson (wordpress.com) at the end of May 2021.

This year, I have just looked at the data for vacancies from one ‘shire’ county for vacancies recorded by TeachVac between 1st January 2022 and 22nd July 2022, effectively the end of the summer term.

The secondary schools in the selected authority, mostly academies, were split into three groups: those with a Free School Meal (FSM) percentage of pupils up to 10% of roll; those with FSM between 10-20% of their roll and those with FSM over 20% of their pupils as reported by the DfE.

FSM percentageNumber of SchoolsRecorded vacanciesVacancies per school
0-9.9%1835920.0
10-20%1438727.6
20%+  628146.0
 Source TeachVac

The table doesn’t take into account school sizes, nor the additional demands of new schools increasing their staffing as pupil numbers increase. Even allowing for these factors, the trend seems clear. Schools with more pupils on Free School Meals as a percentage of all pupils in this local authority during 2022 tended to create more vacancies per school than schools with lower Free School Meal pupils. The DfE doesn’t have a consistent reporting point for FSM percentages, and schools may update their percentage during the school-year.

Also, some secondary schools may be better than others at persuading families to register pupils eligible for Free School Meals, and some schools, such as faith schools, may be more popular with particular types of parents. There might also be a gender effect, as there are both single sex schools and co-educational school with in the authority.

The difference between 16 and 11-18 schools is not an issue in this authority, as most schools are 11-18 schools. However, there are some very large schools, although they do not fall within the highest FSM band. At least one school was constrained to some extent by pupil numbers and budgetary considerations from making appointments, and their vacancy number might be considered low. However, as that school was in the highest FSM band, it might have increased the number for the schools in that band even more if it had needed and been able to recruit more teachers.

This data is based on classroom teacher vacancies. Later, I will look at the much smaller number of leadership vacancies to see whether the same trend is visible at more senior levels.

STRB misses the point?

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There is a lot of good data in the STRB Report published yesterday. School Teachers’ Review Body 32nd report: 2022 – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

Sadly, most of it, as far as the teacher labour market is concerned, is based upon data collected by the DfE in November 2020 in the School Workforce Census, and thus relates to the labour market cycle of two years ago. Even if, when compiling the Report, the data from the November 2021 Census was used that was still from a previous labour market. As regular readers of this blog will know, the 2021-22 labour market for teachers has been anything other than normal in terms of demand for teachers.

The STRB has at least been able to use the ITT Census of 2021 that provided the data about the supply of new teachers for September 2022. Readers will find little in the STRB Report that hasn’t already been covered in this blog in relation to that data.

However, the Table on pages 49 and 50 of the STRB Report tells the story of this labour market in two simple charts regarding ITT recruitment; with history, PE and Art being the only secondary subjects where the supply of new entrants has been anything like at the level required to meet demand.

Interestingly, TeachVac today added art as a subject with a ‘red’ warning of shortages possible anywhere in England for January 2023 appointments. That just leaves PE and history as the two subjects where supply is still not yet at a level for a ‘red’ warning. PE might reach that level in the autumn: history, even with a contribution to humanities posts, almost certainly won’t. In view of the fact that almost double the number of trainees was recruited compared with the TSM figure that isn’t really a surprise. There is little problem with the primary sector labour market across most of the country.

The STRB Report is an interesting analysis of how the labour market responded to the sudden appearance of the pandemic just at the time when vacancies for September appointments were reaching their peak. Essentially, the market seems to have paused in 2021, and, as we know in 2022, there has been this surge of vacancies. As the end of term approaches, TeachVac has recorded not far short of 80,000 teaching vacancies across England so far in 2022, and more than 95,000 across the school-year as a whole.

The STRB has some interesting observations about leadership vacances, and the problems of recording trends when some posts in MATs are ‘out of scope’ to use the STRB terminology. However, as TeachVac has reported, there does not seem to have been any mass exodus of school leaders. This is despite the massive burdens placed on headteachers and other school leaders as a result of the pandemic, and the need to keep schools open at all times.

On pay, make of the Report what you will. I personally doubt that their recommendations for 2023/24 will last the test of time, especially if inflation continues to remain close to current levels and interest rates increase. With little new cash around for schools, it might be worth looking at the history books for how schools coped with the economic crisis of the late 1970s and early 1980s to see what might happen over the next few years. Although, back then, there was no spending on computers and other IT equipment.