Wish list for the new Secretary of State

Posted on September 16, 2021 by John Howson

The replacement of Mr Williamson as Secretary of State probably wasn’t much of a surprise. There isn’t a manual on how to handle a pandemic, but some issue were pretty obvious from really early on. Strategic thinking isn’t easy, and UK corporate management has not always managed it, so we shouldn’t be surprised that some Ministers don’t find it a real challenge.

Anyway, we have a new Secretary of State, and here are some of my top issues for him to consider.

Consider raising the free transport age for students from 16 to 18. The leaving learning age has now encouraged staying-on, and it is time to help the levelling up agenda by ensuring 16-18 year olds receive the same treatment in terms of transport as when they were at school. There would be a cost, not least because some 16-18 year olds attend further education colleges some distance from their homes, but the present arrangement affects the choice some 16 year olds make about what to study.

Finally remove the ability of schools to handle their own in-year admissions and create a common local scheme, as for September admissions. This would help both parents and local authorities ensure a place for children forced to move during a school year. Schools might also review their induction arrangements for such children to ensure they aren’t overlooked and set up to fail.

Take a long hard look at the teaching profession in the light of the market review. Make objectives clear. Can we construct a system than ensures enough teachers in the right places for all schools using a preparation route appropriate to the individual, whether they be a school leaver; a new graduate or a career changer. Encourage more under-represented groups into teaching and ensure the preparation course is financially fair to all and not a burden to some while others receive a salary.

Make the term teacher a reserved occupation term so that those banned from teaching cannot still use the term. teacher

Make a teaching qualification less generic. For a start, make it the right to teach either primary up to eleven or secondary not below eleven, and abolish the ‘middle’ level route. In the longer term make it more specific in relation to subjects and specialisms within the primary sector. And do something about qualifications and staffing for the growing SEND sector where there are often more unqualified teachers than in other sectors. At the same time review training numbers for educational psychologists and other allied professions that support our children and their schools.

Look at what funding might do to small primary schools now the birthrate is falling. Decide whether keeping schools in rural communities is a sensible idea or whether government is prepared to see many closures as school become financially non-viable due to restrains on per pupil funding.

There are no doubt many other issues, not least the future of expensive public examinations at age 16 and the content of a curriculum for the 21^st century in a multicultural society, along with issues about school meals, uniforms and the developing gender agenda.

New entrants into QTS

Posted on September 13, 2021 by John Howson

Buried on the government website is the Annual Report and Accounts of the Teacher Regulation Agency for 2020/21. This is the agency that handles all teacher regulation matters in England, including registering Qualified Teacher Status, maintaining the register of Qualitied Teachers and handling the disciplinary process against teachers where misconduct is an issue. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/teaching-regulation-agency-annual-report-and-accounts-2020-to-2021

However, since the term ‘Teacher’ isn’t a reserved occupation term, the Agency can only restrict where individuals may work as a teacher, and not the complete use of the term by anyone. For many years, I have felt that teachers deserve parity with other professionals in the protection of their well-earned rights to be called a teacher. So far, governments haven’t agreed and teacher associations haven’t be seen to put the issue on behalf of their members. I think that is a pity.

The Agency’s Annual Report notes that:

During 2020-21, the TRA received 628 teacher misconduct referrals. The TRA took no further action on 138 referrals received due to them not falling within the TRA’s jurisdiction and/or not meeting the threshold of serious misconduct. The TRA referred 286 cases of alleged serious misconduct to an independent hearing in 2020- 21.

During 2020-21, the Agency held 58 virtual hearings resulting in:

39 teachers being prohibited from teaching:

13 hearings where unprofessional conduct was found but did not result in a prohibition

6 hearings where facts were found but there was no finding of serious misconduct.

All hearings were postponed between March and August 2020 due to COVID-19, this alongside the many complexities of cases, meant that the median time to conclude teacher misconduct cases referred to an independent panel was 66.29 weeks, against the target of 52 weeks.

This is a commendable achievement in the face of the unprecedented challenge presented by the covid pandemic.

On the registration side of the Agency’s work the notable change during the year resulted from the exit of the European Union of the United Kingdom.

Registrations from different routes are shown in the table

	2020/21	2019/20	Change
QTS awards	32074	31752	322
Assessment route	1191	1432	-241
Wales	1069	1043	26
Scotland/NI	460	383	77
OTT route	2940	3868	-928
	37734	38478	-744

No doubt the covid pandemic played some part in the reduction of Overseas Trained teacher registrations that was not fully offset by the small increase in QTS awards.

The reductions for certain countries are shown in this table

	2020/21	2019/20	2018/19
Spain	776	1150	1365	-589
Greece	292	368	478	-186
Australia	152	443	467	-315
USA	560	473	495	65
Change over the period				-1025

The effect of covid on the labour market for teachers, often noted by this blog, can we seen in the reduction from 467,084 to 325,209 in the number of pre-employment checks by employers using the Agency’s on-line service. This is a reduction of 141,875 checks or around a third on the 2019/2020 figure.

This is a small Agency with an important function in the smooth running of our school system. If I have one very small nit-pick it is that in a profession dominated by the number of female teachers the front cover of the Annual Report features two men and only one women, albeit with a positive BAME balance.

New entrants into QTS

Posted on September 7, 2021 by John Howson

The Agency’s Annual Report notes that:

During 2020-21, the Agency held 58 virtual hearings resulting in:

39 teachers being prohibited from teaching:

13 hearings where unprofessional conduct was found but did not result in a prohibition

6 hearings where facts were found but there was no finding of serious misconduct.

This is a commendable achievement in the face of the unprecedented challenge presented by the covid pandemic.

On the registration side of the Agency’s work the notable change during the year resulted from the exit of the European Union of the United Kingdom.

Registrations from different routes are shown in the table

	2020/21	2019/20	Change
QTS awards	32074	31752	322
Assessment route	1191	1432	-241
Wales	1069	1043	26
Scotland/NI	460	383	77
OTT route	2940	3868	-928
	37734	38478	-744

No doubt the covid pandemic played some part in the reduction of Overseas Trained teacher registrations that was not fully offset by the small increase in QTS awards.

The reductions for certain countries are shown in this table

	2020/21	2019/20	2018/19
Spain	776	1150	1365	-589
Greece	292	368	478	-186
Australia	152	443	467	-315
USA	560	473	495	65
Change over the period				-1025

School Admissions for 2022: the process start this month

Posted on September 7, 2021 by John Howson

At this time of year not only are pupils returning to school but some parents are starting the process of applying for school places for their children for entry in September 2022. This is either for the first-time or because of a switch from primary to secondary (or first to middle and middle to upper in a tiny minority of cases where three-tier systems still linger on). Posy 16 admissions is a different kettle of fish, but can be just as fraught.

In August, the DfE published the outcomes of Admission Appeals for the academic year 20202/21 across the primary and secondary school sectors in England. Knowing how difficult it is to win an appeal locally may be a key part of decision-making about school choice, and in some cases where to live. https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/admission-appeals-in-england-academic-year-2020-to-2021

These appeals relate to entry at the start of the school year. Headline figures as noted by the DfE include:

11,239 appeals were heard relating to primary school places for 2020/21. This represented 1.4% of new admissions. The number and rate have both been dropping since 2015/16, when 22,820 primary appeals were heard (2.6% of new admissions).

Of those heard in 2020/21, 1,823 primary appeals were successful, a rate of 16.2%. This rate is the lowest since this collection started in 2015/16

29,871 appeals were heard relating secondary school places for 2020/21. This represented 4.1% of new admissions.

This a decline from last year, when 35,648 (4.9% of new admissions) appeals were heard. This reverses the increases seen since the start of this collection in 2015/16. In that year 22,964 secondary appeals were heard (3.6% of new admissions).

Of those heard in 2020/21, 6,000 secondary appeals were successful, representing 20.1% of the number heard. This rate has been gradually dropping since 2015/16, when 26.3% of secondary appeals were successful.

The birth rate and provision of new school places when the birth rate is on the increase are probably the key drivers for the appeals process in the primary sector. Where a new housing estate includes provision for a new school, those moving into the estate before such a school opens might do well to check the situation in existing local schools.

How effective a local authority is in generating school places to meet needs may well also determine the level of challenge by parents not offered a place for their offspring and making an appeal.

Although ‘catchment areas’ or similar terms are used by local authorities as part of the admissions process, parental preference can still take precedence depending upon the admission arrangements. In-year admissions can still be an issue as schools are often able to go their own way on these admissions and do not have to use a coordinated local system. A review was promised some years ago in a White Paper, but the possibility for confusion still remains.

Popular schools, for whatever reason, will always be over-subscribed and often schools admissions will feature as a part of a Councillor’s postbag each spring. However, the reduction in pupils entering the school system will create some relief and in reduce the need for admission appeals by parents.

School Funding: looking for savings

Posted on September 2, 2021 by John Howson

Either schools are under-funded or they are not. They certainly say that they are. The IFS Briefing Note https://ifs.org.uk/publications/15588 lends credence to that view.

But what do they do about it? As a business owner, I need to use my resources in the most effective manner. Schools it seems to me can afford to complain about their funding while still spending in a manner that doesn’t bring a sensible return on the outlay.

Let’s take recruitment spending. And let’s narrow that to spending on teacher recruitment by secondary schools – the most lucrative part of the market for the private sector. This is also an area where I know quite a bit about how the market works having established TeachVac www.teachvac.co.uk some seven years ago as a job board for teaching vacancies and where I am still the current Chair.

Now, using TeachVac’s extensive database, we can calculate that the average secondary school recruits around eleven teachers a year. Some recruit fewer, and new schools may recruit more in their first few years.

Some teachers are easy to recruit, such as history teachers or teachers of physical education. Other teachers, such as teachers of business studies or physics, are difficult to recruit at any time, and virtually impossible to recruit for a January vacancy unless a school is exceptionally fortunate.

So, let’s assume over a five year period, a third of vacancies a school may advertise are easy to fill; a third a bit of a challenge and a third very difficult. How do you spend your cash wisely as a school to meet your staffing needs?

Many schools and MATs take out a subscription to an on-line platform that can run into a six figure sum each year. That’s a lot of cash to spend on an easy to fill job and even more cash for a job you cannot fill. So, maybe the cash pays for the third of vacancies in the middle group, possibly an average of 4 vacancies a year. Is that value for money?

TeachVac can fill those vacancies at much less cost to schools, and so can the DfE vacancy site. With TeachVac a school doesn’t have to do anything other than put a job on its website. TeachVac matches candidates looking for the type of vacancy and can report on the size of the market.

With the DfE site, a school must enter the job and hope it can be seen among the plethora of non-teaching posts cluttering up the DfE site.

The DfE site also has the disadvantage of only offering state school posts, so teachers that want a teaching post regardless of whether it is in the state or private sectors probably won’t bother to use the DfE site. TeachVac doesn’t suffer from this constraint.

TeachVac is reviewing its services to ensure better value for money for schools. After all, out technology costs a fraction of historical costs of advertising and at TeachVac we have always thought these saving should be passed on to schools. Do tell us what you think.

Shortage of lorry drivers: what about the shortage of physics teachers?

Posted on August 26, 2021 by John Howson

As schools across England prepare to return for the start of a new school year, are complaints about shortages of teachers with specific subject knowledge hitting the headlines? Sadly, no. A shortage of lorry drivers may make the national headlines, as this is an area where there haven’t been shortages in the past and the public can see the results in terms of empty supermarket shelves. But nothing has been said about a teacher supply crisis in certain subjects.

The failure of governments over many years to train enough teachers in some curriculum subjects no longer hits the headlines, but remain a genuine problem for schools. Today’s figures, from UCAS that relate to applications for course that start in September this year, and will provide the new teachers for September 2022 vacancies, make disturbing reading.

Those that follow the regular monthly reporting of this data on this blog will not be surprised at the numbers revealed in these figures, almost the last to be provided by UCAS before the DfE takes over the application process for the 2022 recruitment round.

The short-lived Covid boom in seeking to train as a teacher is well and truly over. Applications between July and August this year for secondary subjects were the lowest since 2016.

	July Aug increase
2015	3110
2016	2990
2017	4080
2018	5320
2019	5450
2020	6270
2021	3180

This decline is not due to places being filled. Across the board, in the subjects this blog has covered over the years, only Chemistry is reporting a larger number of those applications with offers and that’s probably due to a change in the bursary arrangements. However, the increase in chemistry trainees in no way offsets the reduction in applications with offers in biology. Across the three key sciences, applications with offers are down by nearly 1,000 on this point last year. This blog can confidently predict that there will be a shortage of physics teachers again in 2022.

Another bellwether indicator is the change in the number of male applicants. At 12,470, this is approaching 2,000 fewer than in August last year. Fortunately, the fall in the number of women applicants is smaller in percentage terms.

If there is a spark of good news in these figures it is that more applicants in London have been offered places than last year. The percentage of applicants in London either ‘placed’, ‘conditional placed’ or ‘holding an offer’ increased from 61% last August to 66% this August. That means two thirds of applicants across both primary and secondary courses have effectively been accepted onto a course. It would be interesting to see the data by subject for courses in the capital. Even this good news comes with a possible caveat. Will Teach First find it harder to place students in London schools if it is competing with other providers for classroom space?

The government may solve the crisis lorry drivers by arranging more driving tests and even releasing army HGV drivers to work for selected companies, but the staffing crisis in our schools is going to continue into 2022 and beyond. Without a change in policy, there won’t be much levelling up in physics teaching and design and technology is in danger of disappearing from the curriculum in any meaningful way unless more teachers can be trained.

Next month we will report on the last monthly figures from UCAS and reflect upon nearly 30 years of following the trends in applications for teacher preparation courses by graduates. Thank you for reading.

August lull in teaching jobs

Posted on August 20, 2021 by John Howson

The announcement that vacancies across the economy have picked up will be good news for those teachers unable to find a teaching post. As is normal, August is a quiet month for teaching vacancies, although there are some new vacancies still being posted every working day, as those registered with TeachVac www.teachvac.co.uk can testify.

Of course, with many of their administrative staff working term time only contracts, schools in some cases will be saving jobs for the return of those staff who can then post them on the school website and elsewhere.

The return of jobs in the wider economy is likely to affect recruitment into teaching as a career, especially if the bounce in wage growth were to continue while wages in public sector positions were affected by a government imposed wage freeze. The first real evidence on how the wider economy is impacting upon teaching as a career will come with the new recruitment into ITT season, although that will be further complicated by the new arrangements controlled by the DfE. Data should be available by late autumn.

Evidence from TeachVac shows that it is growing in use as a platform for teachers looking for teaching jobs and still has many more teaching jobs on offer than the government site run by the DfE. Registrations at https://www.teachvac.co.uk/ continue to grow

Mutterings about the changes to the ITT curriculum and the degree of DfE control over the sector may have an impact, especially if some universities decide to offer ITT outside the government envelope and continue with research and professional development activities as their main focus.

Although the country will need to train fewer teachers in the years to come as the fall in the birth rate impacts on schools, the system cannot withstand too high a degree of uncertainty and reorganisation with there being some effects on the labour market for teachers. No doubt the private sector will be watching carefully what happens as it still draws on the government funded university sector for many of its new teachers.

A look back at history

Posted on August 12, 2021 by John Howson

Eight years ago this month I wrote a post on this blog pointing out my concerns that not all places on ITT courses were likely to be filled that year. My views made it into some national newspapers and resulted in me writing the blog post that I reproduce below. We still have issues with teacher supply in key subjects, but we do possibly have a review of how we train teachers. Whether the outcome will be more trainees filling gaps in schools where they are needed is still an open question.

Scaremongering!

Posted on August 14, 2013 1

So now I know I am officially a scaremonger. 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.’

Well the first thing to note is that I haven’t said that there is a teacher shortage, just that training places are not being filled: not the same thing. Indeed, I have said a teacher shortage is less likely than in the past in the near future because Mr Gove has mandated that qualified teachers from Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the whole of the USA can teach here as qualified teachers with no need to retrain. With an oversupply of teachers in parts of both Canada and Australia that should prevent any short-term problem developing even though another part of the government isn’t very keen on importing workers from abroad, presumably including from within the Commonwealth and a one time colony.

More serious is the charge of using ‘incomplete evidence’ in reaching my conclusions. If the DfE has figures to show that more places will be filled this September on teacher training courses than I am predicting, then please will they share them with the wider community, if not, will they please justify what they mean.

It could be that they take issue with my colleague Chris Waterman’s assessment of the number of those likely to be taught Mathematics by unqualified teachers. However, it is worth noting that earlier this year the DfE produced its own evidence to show that 17.9% of the Mathematics hours taught to years 7-13 were led by those with ‘no relevant post A Level qualification’. That was some 85,000 hours of instruction. Assuming each class of pupils has six hours of contact per week that makes more than 14,000 classes already being taught by unqualified staff, and with no programme in place to improve their qualifications if they are intending to teach the subject for a period of time. If each class has only 20 pupils, the total number of pupils already being taught by teachers with no measurable post A Level qualification in Mathematics can easily be worked out. It is also worth pointing out that the DfE showed that in November 2012 less than half of those teaching Mathematics had a degree that could be classified as a Mathematics degree, with 23% having a PGCE as their highest Mathematics qualification and a degree in another subject, hopefully with lots of applied mathematics as a apart of the degree.

As Chris Waterman has rightly pointed out the raising of the participation age to 17 this September and 18 a year later should increase the demand for Mathematics teachers as the Wolf Report endorsed the now widely held view that more youngsters should continue to study Mathematics until the age of18.

The government has taken a bold gamble with teacher education: moving training to schools; introducing pre-entry tests in literacy and numeracy; raising the cost of training in many subjects to £9,000 for fees plus living costs. It is important that there is a credible debate about how these changes are working.

After all, in 2010, Mr Gove promised 200 teachers of Mandarin would be trained each year, and although some providers such as the London Institute offer it as an option I doubt that target was ever reached. It is time for a radical overhaul of teacher preparation to really meet the needs of a 21^st century education system.

Eight years on and who really cares about the qualifications and subject knoweldge of those that teach all our children across England?

What goes around, comes around?

Posted on August 9, 2021 by John Howson

One of the advantages of the long lazy days of summer, especially when the British weather turns more autumnal is that it promotes alternative activities, such as clearing our bookshelves that have become overloaded.

Looking through some hidden gems from the 1990s, I came across my copy of Bines and Welton’s ‘Managing Partnership in Teacher Training and Development’. Published by Routledge in 1995, the book examined the early consequences of the changes in teacher preparation and development following the then Conservative government’s creation of the Teacher Training Agency.

My modest contribution to the book was to help write part of the conclusion. Even then, academic writing wasn’t for me.

It is interesting to read the whole book in the light of the recent DfE market review of ITT, but especially to consider the section on planning for teacher supply and development (pages 210-214).

Consider this statement

“Another aspect of implementing current strategic plans for teacher supply involves ensuring the provision of teachers with the right mix of subject expertise, age phase and geographical distribution. However, the present geographical and institutional pattern of teacher education is largely the product of incremental change rather than a coherent strategy.” (Bines & Welton, page 211)

How much more rationale is the provision of teacher education today than it was a quarter of a century ago? Judging by the lack of places in some subjects in some parts of the country, one might think that little has changed other than new routes have entered the market, and in some cases disappeared, as with the Fast Track Scheme.

So, will the latest discussions about teacher preparation and career development create a more rational approach based on a clear policy or just another political decision in favour of one type of solution than another?

Will the market approach still dominate or will there be an attempt to ensure sufficient teacher numbers for all types of school and all parts of England in a more regulated fashion than just predicting demand for teachers through the Teacher Supply Model?

Judging by the recent reaction to the issues surrounding the number of doctors to be trained, where providers were told the cap was tight only to see a volte face as results day approached, it is possible to be sceptical about the likely outcome of the review of teacher education. After all, nobody ever seems to be held to account when yet another year of missed targets for subjects means some schools will likely go without teachers properly qualified in certain subjects and able to teach to Key Stage 5. Indeed, it is possible, due to the working of the market, for those teachers best equipped to teach ‘A’ level to end up in 11-16 schools without a sixth form.

What are the principles underlying the creation, development and deployment of the teacher workforce in England? Basically, the same as a quarter century or even a half century ago? New courses and providers may appear, and schools be more involved with longer classroom based practice, but the real policy questions still seem to be ignored. For more on this theme it is worth looking at this post from 2014. https://johnohowson.wordpress.com/2014/06/23/a-submission-to-the-carter-review/

Sorry to read this

Posted on August 7, 2021 by John Howson

https://www.tes.com/news/statement-future-fe-coverage-tes So the tes – once The Times Educational Supplement – is now focusing on schools and ending its coverage of the Further Education sector. I imagine that there will be staff in the sector that will still follow the tes because their work is similar to that of their colleagues in schools. But, they will no longer have a dedicated focus on their varied and interesting sector.

I wonder where this leaves the main publication. Looking at the accounts submitted for the year to last August by the American owners – available for all to see on the companies’ house website – recruitment advertising still plays a very large part in the tes’s revenue stream.

At this time of year, schools are reviewing their subscriptions to the tes. Most of the tes income on recruitment comes from subscriptions these days, rather than placed advertisements for specific posts. As TeachVac steadily increases its teacher base, and thus both ‘hits’ and matches. More than 6.7 million of the former in the past twelve months and more than a million matches made so far in 2021, schools might want to evaluate TeachVac more closely. After all, cash is tight for many, if not most, schools and funding won’t become any more generous with a funding formula linked so closely to pupil numbers.

In the past falling pupil numbers had less effect of school incomes. Now there is a direct relationship between funding and pupil numbers it can make sense to take our unnecessary costs. Comparing TeachVac with the hopeless DfE vacancy site is a no-brainer, especially when TeachVac has more than four times the number of teaching posts this week than are listed on the DfE site. To allow users to compare the site, TeachVac www.teachvac.co.uk now has a live jobs counter on its front page.

As tes owners finalise their accounts for the 2020-21 financial year that ends at the end of August their first priority must be to ensure sufficient income to pay their bondholders. That’s why recruitment subscriptions for schools in England are so important. We won’t see these accounts until perhaps May of 2022, but those running the company already know what is happening to their income stream.

The ending of a FE offering by tes must tell watchers something. A concentration of effort on the core school sector or a need to further prune peripheral activities that don’t pay their way.

With fewer pupils in schools in England, demand for teachers is likely to fall unless more teachers can either be enticed to work abroad in the international schools or quit teaching for other professions. Either way, jobs in key subjects are down so far in 2021 in the lucrative secondary school market, but up in the primary sector where tes traditionally had more competition, not least from local authority job boards.

The next twelve months are going to be an interesting time in the teacher recruitment market. As its Chair, I look forward to the par that TeachVac will play in shaping future trends.