How have my blog posts fared since I restarted this blog in May of 2025? Some new posts were well received, some old favourites from previous years continued to attract readers, and some of this year’s posts languished unread, according to WordPress’s dashboard.
So, as of today, 29th December 2025, what have been the most read posts for 2025 and when were they written?
| How much holiday do teachers have? | 645 | ||||
| 150-year-old Committee system to be abolished | 75 | ||||
| Too many teachers? | 73 | ||||
| Headteacher vacancies: even in August | 68 | ||||
| Windfall profits and SEND | 58 | ||||
| ‘Stuck’ schools – who teaches in these schools? | 55 | ||||
| Less than 400 teachers of physics entered service in 2023/24 | 54 | ||||
| DfE wasting money on ITT | 51 | ||||
| Labour’s determination to recruit new teachers doesn’t include music | 53 | ||||
| The governance of our schools – does pay matter? | 51 | ||||
By far and away the most read post was the one originally posted on the 20th May 2022 about how much holiday teachers in England have and how their relative position compared to other graduate occupations has been eroded since I started teaching in 1971. I expect changes over the next few years, not least because AI has the potential to seriously disrupt the way schooling is organised.
At present termtime recorded working hours are no longer compensated for by the employer-driven flexitime of ‘school holidays’: an oxymoron of a term for most teachers if ever there was one.
All the other posts in the 2025 top 10 viewed posts were written this year. They can be read either by using the search facility or by clicking on the different months since May 2025.
As might be expected, workforce issues dominate the most frequently viewed posts of 2025., although second place was achieved by a comment about the abolition of what was once a cornerstone of local democracy – the committee system – before Tony Blair’s Labour government encouraged local authorities to move to cabinet government and oversight of schooling through a scrutiny function, thus leaving most councillors out in the cold over local education, even before the advent of academies.
On the down side, many posts have been viewed by fewer than ten people since they were written. This is partly a function of the decline in viewing of blogs, as communication has switched to more modern methods, such as podcasts. Perhaps, I might start a podcast or even a YouTube video recording in 2026; comment welcome on either possibility.
Readership from around the world has once again started to pick up, but has a long way to go to the halcyon days of 2015, and the 22,000 views that year. In 2025, allowing for the fact that the blog only restarted in May, perhaps 6,500 views will be a credible outcome.
So, how many posts have there been in 2025? Including this one, there have been 122 posts, and some 69,000 words.
For those that want to read my 2013 posts, these have now been published on Amazon as an e-book or a paperback.
Finally, it just remains for me to wish all my readers the very best for 2026 and my thanks for reading the blog.
John Howson 