Tag Archives: DfE

Extend education free travel to 16-18 year olds

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One of the irrational features of our education system in England is that although the ‘learning leaving age’ has effectively been raised from 16 to 18 by the government, although no legislation has been passed enforcing the change,, the provision of free transport for those that are able to access such a service during their education up to age 16 hasn’t been extended by the government to include such travel for the time when they are 16 to 18 year olds. There is no free right to transport to education for this age group. This is an anomaly that has consequences, especially in a time when there is a cost-of-living crisis that is hitting the least well off much harder than the more affluent families in our society.

One way this anomaly may manifest itself is in the percentage of 16-18 year olds classified as NEETs (not in Education, Employment or training). The Office for National Statistics (ONS) published an update for this group this week, showing a rise on the quarter. All data related to Young people not in education, employment or training (NEET), UK: August 2023 – Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk)

The publication of the ONS data prompted me to look at the DfE data published earlier this year NEET and participation: local authority figures – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) What especially interested me was whether there was a difference between rural and urban areas in the percentages of NEETS. A simple crude measure is to compare the London boroughs – where TfL has supported travel for this age group – with the remaining non-unitary council ‘shire’ counties that have large tracts of rural areas where young people receive free transport up to school up to the age 16.

A quick check of the NEET data revealed that there were more than three times as many ‘shire’ counties in the worst 50 local upper-tier authority areas compared with the number in the best 50 authorities. By comparison, 31 of the London boroughs appeared in the top 50 local authorities, and the remaining boroughs only just fell outside of the top 50. All London boroughs were in a better position in terms of NEETS than Oxfordshire. On this basis there is at least a discussion to be had about whether providing transport post-16 enhances education opportunities and thus life chances?

The problem is complex in the rural areas partly because, post-16, some students opt to move to a further education centre that offers the course they want, but may be further away from the school that they attended.

The answer to the question of providing free transport is dependent on how much the accident of geography – whether you live in a rural area or a conurbation or town – should affect you chances of an education to age 18?

Perhaps the DfE could survey its own civil servants to see how many experienced this problem as teenager, and how they overcame it?

Appeals reflect changes in pupil numbers

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Yesterday, the DfE published the data about admission appeals for the year 2022/23. There were different trends between the primary and secondary school sectors over the use of the appeals process by parents. Admission appeals in England: academic year 2022 to 2023 – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

This year, there were just 14,900 appeals lodged for admission to primary sector schools by parents. Of the appeals lodged, 9,628 appeals were heard relating to primary school places for 2022/23. This represented 1.2% of new admissions. The other appeals presumably were not continued, perhaps because a place became available before the appeal was heard.

The rate in the primary sector is unchanged from last year. Prior to 2021/22, the number and rate have been gradually dropping since 2015/16, when 22,820 primary appeals were heard (2.6% of new admissions) and this year the total was half of the total of 28,471 appeals lodged in 2017.

Of those appeals heard in 2022/23, 1,580 primary appeals were successful: a rate of 16.4%. This is a 0.8 percentage point increase on 2021/22 (but is the second lowest success rate since 2015/16). This might suggest that only the most difficult cases now make it to appeal as the pressure on primary schools nationally eases with the reduction in the birthrate and Brexit.

The ONS announcement this week that there were just 605,479 live births in England and Wales in 2022, a 3.1% decrease from 624,828 in 2021 and the lowest number since 2002 suggests pressure on primary school places may continue to ease, unless there is a policy of closing schools due to falling rolls that seems likely once surplus places reach a certain level and school budgets come under pressure.

In the secondary school sector, the trend was in the opposite direction to that seen in the primary sector. 30,379 appeals were heard relating to secondary school places for 2022/23. This represented 4.1% of new admissions. This a slight increase on last year, when 28,687 (3.9% of new admissions) appeals were heard.

The number of secondary appeals shows more variation than at primary level, with the number heard rising as high as 35,648 in 2019/20, before dropping for the two subsequent years. This year is therefore the first rise for three years.

Of those heard in 2022/23, 6,358 secondary appeals were successful, representing 20.9% of the number heard. This is just a 0.2 percentage point decrease on 2021/22. Overall success rates are notably lower than in 2015/16, when 26.3% of secondary appeals were successful and probably reflects the pressure secondary schools and especially popular schools are under in terms of competition for places. It will be interesting to see what happens in this sector once the numbers transferring from the primary school sector start to fall.

In London, falling rolls have already caused the closure of one secondary school this summer. London secondary school to close this summer | John Howson (wordpress.com) Appeals and their success rate do vary between different local authority areas.

In-year admissions are not generally dealt with by local authorities for academies in the same way that local authorities handle all September admissions. As this blog has noted – Jacob’s Law Time for Jacob’s Law | John Howson (wordpress.com) – this can cause problems for children taken into care and although two White Papers have recommended changes, the government has not found the time or inclination to put in-year admissions on the same footing as September admissions and the subsequent appeal process. This seems unfortunate as the change does not require primary legislation.

Are we levelling up?

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England has a teacher supply crisis in its secondary schools. Not, please note in most areas in its primary schools. Years of missed targets for trainee numbers must have an effect on the labour market unless other sources of teacher supply can be found.

From today the effect of missed targets on examination results will also start to become clear. Will those young people most likely to stay in the local economy have fared less well than those that will disappear off to a university, and then who knows where (likely London in many cases) after graduation, rather returning to their local area where they were brought up. If so, what are the consequences for those local economies?

As the latest in my series on the what happened in the labour market for teachers, as measured by advertisements tracked by TeachVac between January and the end of July 2023, I have managed a quick calculation of number of advertisements for teachers by the Free School Meal percentage of schools. This measurement might suggest whether schools with higher percentages of FSM pupils have more staff turnover?

This is a crude measure because it doesn’t standardise for school size. A better measure is for turnover measured after taking pupil numbers into account and matching the resultant outcome against the percentage of FSM pupils. I haven’t yet had time to do that calculation.

Adverts by school>1010-2021-3031-4041+Total schools
FSM
0-10201162562813460
11-204153231603655989
21-303102551206360808
31-40162150803437463
41-509789502715278
51-603432144589
60+5410111
total122410154811921863098
40+136125653121378
Adverts by school>1010-2021-3031-4041+
FSM
0-1044%35%12%6%3%100%
11-2042%33%16%4%6%100%
21-3038%32%15%8%7%100%
31-4035%32%17%7%8%100%
41-5035%32%18%10%5%100%
51-6038%36%16%4%6%100%
60+45%36%9%0%9%100%
total40%33%16%6%6%100%
40+36%33%17%8%6%100%
Source: TeachVac

There is some evidence from the tables that schools with lower percentages of pupils on Free School Meals do have a lower turnover of staff, and that schools with a higher percentage of such pupil do experience did experience high numbers of advertisements for teaching staff during the January to July 2023 period.

This type of analysis is important because too often the focus is on the student: attendance rates; previous history of examination taking and other factor such as free school meals, but these are not linked to school factors.

Thus, today, BBC Radio 4 has been worrying about the performance of students in the North East compared to students in London. Nick Gibb, The Minister, on the world at One on Radio 4, (I don’t often agree with him), but I do in this instance, suggested it was more a London and the rest of the country difference. However, The Minister didn’t say that there are more independent schools in the south than the north, and that the ability to recruit staff might be a factor in the widening gap in outcomes between those regarded as ‘disadvantaged’ and other pupils.

To ignore staff turnover, is to miss an important component in a system that has failed to train sufficient teachers in many subjects for nearly a decade now. Such shortfall in a market-based recruitment system must surely have consequences?

Secondary School Leadership Vacancies – January to July 2023

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Secondary Leadership Scale Vacancies

The Leadership Scale contains three main groups of vacancies: assistant heads; deputy heads and headteachers. There are also executive head teachers in academy trusts, but those posts are not included in this analysis.

Assistant Head vacancies

Vacancies in the three leadership grades in the secondary sector are sufficiently numerous to warrant consideration for each individual grade of assistant; deputy and headteacher. Although TeachVac collects data from the private school sector, these tables only contain details of vacancies for leadership posts in state schools across England.

2022 State Secondary Sector -Assistant headteacher vacancies
GORVacancies
East Midlands102
East of England173
London248
North East39
North West164
South East201
South West174
West Midlands138
Yorkshire & the Humber129
Grand Total1368
2023 State Secondary Sector – Assistant headteacher vacancies
GORVacanciesDifference 2023 on 2022
East Midlands12018
East of England1807
London241-7
North East24-15
North West154-10
South East22120
South West128-46
West Midlands1391
Yorkshire & the Humber13910
Grand Total1346-22

In 2023 there were more vacancies at this level in the South East than in 2022, whereas in the South West there were fewer recorded advertisements than in the same period in 2022. London and the South East regions account for 33% of the vacancies at this level in 2022 and 34% in 2023. Vacancies at this level were rare in both years. However, some schools might have advertised internally or in a form not caught by TeachVac’s recording of the data.

Deputy Head Vacancies

As with the assistant head grade, there were very similar numbers of advertisements for deputy heads during the first seven months of 2023 advertised by state secondary schools in England when compared with the same schools during the same period in 2022.

Deputy Head 2022
GORVacancies
East Midlands67
East of England74
London132
North East28
North West93
South East119
South West74
West Midlands77
Yorkshire & the Humber98
Grand Total762
Deputy Head 2023
GORVacanciesDifference 2023 on 2022
East Midlands725
East of England8612
London1342
North East24-4
North West88-5
South East14728
South West59-15
West Midlands63-14
Yorkshire & the Humber94-4
Grand Total7675

Source: TeachVac

Although the overall total of advertisements was similar in 2023 to the number in 2022, there were some regional differences, with more vacancies being advertised by schools in the south East and the East of England and fewer advertisements in the south West and West Midlands.

 Headteacher vacancies

As with both the assistant and deputy head teacher grades, in the first seven months of 2023 the number of advertisements logged for headteacher vacancies was very similar to the number recorded during the same period of 2022.

Headteacher 2022
GORVacancies
East Midlands26
East of England31
London55
North East18
North West43
South East48
South West54
West Midlands46
Yorkshire & the Humber44
Grand Total365
Headteacher 2023
GORVacanciesDifference 2023 on 2022
East Midlands19-7
East of England4716
London38-17
North East12-6
North West441
South East5911
South West48-6
West Midlands471
Yorkshire & the Humber440
Grand Total358-7

Source: TeachVac

As with deputy head advertisements, there were more advertisements for headteachers in the South East and East of England in 2023, and fewer in London, where at least one secondary school closed in the summer of 2023. It seems likely that some of the increases may be the result of new schools opening following the building of new housing estates in the Home Counties.

Most secondary schools are able to appoint a new headteacher after their first advertisement. However, around 10% of schools require more than one advertisement before they can fill their headteacher vacancy.

As an exercise, all schools with a re-advertisement for their headteacher posts were matched with their percentage of pupils listed as eligible for Free School Meals. The 33 schools identified as having re-advertised their headteacher vacancy were divided into three groups: schools with less than 20% FSM; 20-25% FSM and schools with more than 25% FSM

The analysis showed that in 2023 there were:

12 schools in the less than 20% FSM group

4 schools with between 20-25% FSM group

17 schools with 25%+ FSM, including two schools with more than 40% that had both readvertised twice so far in 2023.

The below 20% FSM group contained two Roman Catholic schools and a Church of England Middle school. These are schools of a type that often finds recruiting a new headteacher challenging.

Repeating the exercise at the end of September might well add some more schools to the list of those re-advertising for a headteacher as schools often wait until the autumn before re-advertising.

Half Our Future: A tribute to Sir John Newsom’s Report

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This post originally appeared on this blog a decade ago on the I am delighted to be able to republish it to celebrate the 60th Anniversary of the submission of the Report. Much of what the Report commented upon is as important today as it was then.

Half our future

I couldn’t let August pass without recognising the 50th anniversary of one of the least remembered, but arguably key reports of the post-war period of education consensus. On August 7th 1963, John Newsom, Chairman of the then Central Advisory Committee on Education, submitted his Report entitled ‘Half Our Future’ to the Minister, Edward Boyle. Half a century later this group of young people are still too often overlooked in the debate about our school system.

However, they did benefit from the raising of the school leaving age to 16 in 1972, and should be beneficiaries of the current raising of the age of participation to 18; although I doubt whether all of them will immediately recognise the benefit.

As an aside, I participated in a local radio phone-in recently about the raising of the participation age. A caller phoned in to explain that because he had left school at sixteen he knew how to do practical things, such as change a fuse, whereas his more educated friends hadn’t a clue. Reflecting on this point later, I wondered whether the circuit breaker that has made our lives so much easier when there are electrical short-circuits or power overloads was invented by someone who left school at sixteen or with slightly more education than that. I know the original concept is credited to Thomas Edison, but I suspect the increasingly varied and sophisticated versions of recent times have emanated from research facilities.

Anyway, back to Newsom, and his important Report. Part of it featured the need for teachers. At that time it wasn’t necessary to have a qualification in order to teach if you were a graduate or were going to become a trained teacher. The latter route allowed untrained staff to work as teachers in secondary modern schools when these schools couldn’t find anyone else. In Tottenham where I grew up, in the 1960s some of the scholarship ‘Sixth’ used to become teachers in January after the Oxbridge entry process was over. Newsom said in his Report that his Committee echoed the statement of the Eighth Report of the National Advisory Council on the Supply & Training of Teachers that:

“In the primary and secondary modern schools teaching methods and techniques, with all the specialized knowledge that lies behind them, are as essential as mastery of subject matter. The prospect of these schools staffed to an increasing extent by untrained graduates is, in our view, intolerable.”

Sadly, such a suggestion is no more intolerable to some politicians today than it was half a century ago.

Newsom also recognised that as one unspecified contributor to the Report had stated, “Fatigue is already a serious and continuing difficulty to many of the best teachers.” Half a century later, there would be many in education that would still echo such a view, despite smaller classes and more non-contact time.

The misfortune of Newsom was to appear at just the point where the drive for non-selective secondary education was sweeping the country. This created the comprehensive school all too often dominated by the selective school curriculum. Half a century later we are still trying to remedy that mistake. Even more important than providing the teachers is creating the most appropriate curriculum for all, and not just for the 50% destined for higher education. Those politicians that forget that they have a duty to do the best for all, and not just the Russell Group of universities, ought surely to add the Newsom Report to their list of requisite reading.

Bring back King’s Scholarships?

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In 1846, the government solved the problem of providing enough teachers for the growing school population by allowing the creation of pupil-teachers, partly based upon the model in use by the army for their schoolteacher sergeants. After an apprenticeship in a school, starting at age 13, successful pupil teachers were encouraged to compete for Queen’s Scholarships to allow them to progress to a training centre or college for further instruction and learning.

Fast forward 177 years, and there are rumours in the press of the re-establishment of this route for school-leavers that would be willing to receive instruction in schools to become teachers of shortage subjects while learning ‘on the job’. The scheme would avoid the students having to take out loans to pay the fees of higher education institutions for degree courses, and presumably would provide a modest income as well.

This is a further example of the pendulum swinging away from teacher preparation that is external to a school, a swing back that started in the 1990s, and always seems to attract government interest in periods of teacher shortage, and tracking back to school-based preparation. To date, schemes such as the Graduate and Registered Teacher Training programmes of the Labour government, and the School Direct Salaried and Fee schemes of the present government have been aimed at either career changing graduates or at least those with a degree. This has been in line with the decline in undergraduate courses that for the past fifty years have only flourished in a few secondary curriculum subjects, such as physical education and design and technology: even these have dwindled over the past few years since fees were introduced by the Labour government.

So, would a modern apprenticeship scheme for school-leavers to learn to become mathematics, computing or even physics teachers work? I hope the government has done some market research before announcing any such scheme. If not, it could follow the path of the Fast Track Scheme and various attempts to place middle and senior leaders into challenging schools, all of which were projects that either didn’t proceed beyond the stage of a trial or lasted only a few years.

The first question for anyone considering introducing an apprenticeship scheme is what sort of schools are finding recruitment challenging? I wrote a blog about this in July Free School Meals and teacher vacancies | John Howson (wordpress.com) Successful schools in areas where teachers want to work probably see a high percentage of their sixth form depart for university courses at eighteen. Will some studying these subjects want to stay at the school to become a teacher? Are these the schools experiencing teacher shortages?

Will schools with high staff turnover and sometimes with challenging ofsted grades be allowed to train apprentice teachers, even if these are the schools facing the most difficulty recruiting staff in these subjects? That is a key question. If eighteen-year-olds have to move to another school to become an apprentice will the be willing to do so?

Schools will need to be funded properly to take up the scheme. The decline in the use of the School Direct Salaried Scheme, as the central funding was reduced, illustrates the problem. Schools are funded to teach pupils and not to train teachers, even if there is a shortage. Supplying teachers is seen as the job of government.

I have no doubt that some academy chains and even possibly some dioceses might be persuaded to take up an apprenticeship scheme for teachers. Using the apprenticeship levy raised from primary schools to pay for training secondary school teachers won’t, I suspect, go down well in some quarters.  

Then there is the question of subject knowledge development if an apprentice is to be able to teach anything beyond Key Stage 3; who would want to become a teacher with a qualification devoid of subject knowledge up to graduate level. Of course, the schools could enrol the apprentices in distance learning degree courses, but that costs money. They could even expect the apprentice to pay for their own subject knowledge development to degree level. We won’t know until the Secretary of State reveals the plans for any scheme which approach might be favoured.

As this is August, this might be regarded as a ‘silly season’ story were it not for the fact that current schemes for attracting graduates to become teachers have failed, and the government obviously needs to try something different.

Will it work? If the teacher associations refuse to take part, then it won’t, but it would allow the government to say that teachers sabotage a solution to the teacher shortage crisis.

Will school-leavers want to sign up? A level students in the shortage subjects suggested can often earn more than teachers, even with modest degrees from non-Russel Group universities or by leaving school and starting work, so any apprenticeship scheme would need to be sufficiently enticing to attract applicants other than those that couldn’t find either a university place or a job opportunity.

So, please Secretary of State do some market research before announcing any scheme in order to convince everyone that there is a viable and continuing cohort of potential trainees for any apprenticeship scheme.

Demand for middle leaders in schools during 2023

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Continuing the look at the labour market for teachers during the first seven months of 2023, this post looks at the trend in advertised vacancies for promoted post – largely vacancies with a TLR attached to the advertised vacancy.

Promoted posts

Promoted posts in the secondary sector include the whole range of middle leadership posts from supporting roles with a TLR in mathematics and English departments to heads of subject roles in sciences and languages departments and faculties and also all the heads of department roles across all curriculum subjects; SEND and student support roles taken by teachers.

Promoted post 2022
Subject GroupIndependentStateGrand Total
ART55244299
SCIENCE17316991872
ENGLISH10813121420
MATHEMATICS11015131623
LANGUAGES141853994
HUMANITIES6165171
COMPUTING133582715
DESIGN & TECHNOLOGY67750817
BUSINESS STUDIES97502599
VOCATIONAL2109111
RELIGIOUS EDUCATION53484537
PHYSICAL EDUCATION147389536
TEACHING & LEARNING66744810
PSHE3272104
DANCE70242312
SEND115688803
MUSIC118345463
SOCIAL SCIENCES68281349
PEFORMING ARTS7121128
GEOGRAPHY41535576
HISTORY46291337
Grand Total16551192113576
Promoted post 2023
Subject GroupIndependentStateGrand Total
ART39290329
SCIENCE15121312282
ENGLISH9615411637
MATHEMATICS10217061808
LANGUAGES1059731078
HUMANITIES7227234
COMPUTING63691754
DESIGN & TECHNOLOGY52846898
BUSINESS STUDIES71457528
VOCATIONAL8686
RELIGIOUS EDUCATION21447468
PHYSICAL EDUCATION113472585
TEACHING & LEARNING57873930
PSHE7136143
DANCE53278331
SEND103638741
MUSIC110433543
SOCIAL SCIENCES47308355
PEFORMING ARTS4131135
GEOGRAPHY30636666
HISTORY35334369
Grand Total12661363414900
Source: TeachVac

The advertisements for posts at this grade largely mirror the position for advertisements for classroom teaching vacancies for posts with no responsibility payments. Thus, fewer recorded advertisements in business studies and vocational courses, and also this year in religious education, and for leadership roles in special needs departments. One the other hand, there were above average increases in advertisements for physical education, the sciences and English, as well as some of the smaller subject areas such as computing and the humanities.

State schools still looking for secondary subject teachers

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Classroom Teachers and promoted posts

(This is part 3 of the review of the labour market for teachers during the first seven months of 2023 – previous parts have already appeared on this blog. The next part will discuss promoted posts)

Secondary Sector

For many years secondary schools have controlled the location of their vacancy advertising. With the rise of the multi-academy trusts there have been some recent changes in the marketplace. Some trusts have consolidated all their vacancies into a single job board similar to that in use local authorities in the primary sector. Some Trusts have gone further and arranged with one of the emerging players in the recruitment market for them to handle the vacancies across the Trust’s schools.

To date the changes in the marketplace have not significantly dented the position of the ‘tes’ as a key website for vacancies, but there is no doubt that the market is undergoing its largest shake-up since the move from print advertising to on-line advertising.

Then there is the DfE site. Despite several years of operation and cajoling by Ministers and civil servants, schools do not always routinely post their vacancies on this free site. TeachVac and others have demonstrated how an efficient free service and covering all schools can operate at a lower cost to the taxpayer than the DfE site, and provide the government with a better real-time understanding of the working of the labour market.

As the Education Select Committee is currently conducting an enquiry into the supply of teachers, it will be interesting to see whether or not they address this issue when they come to write their report, presumably sometime in the autumn.

Classroom teacher vacancies

The outcome for the first seven months of 2023 was an overall increase of seven per cent in recorded vacancies for classroom teachers.

2022 Classroom teachers only
SUBJECT GROUPINGIndependentStateGrand Total
ART1509921142
SCIENCE93658486784
ENGLISH58541854770
MATHEMATICS67447245398
LANGUAGES49926683167
HUMANITIES50464514
COMPUTING23918052044
DESIGN & TECHNOLOGY22529873212
BUSINESS STUDIES36214741836
VOCATIONAL23494517
RELIGIOUS EDUCATION12212451367
PHYSICAL EDUCATION28717742061
TEACHING & LEARNING30121151
PSHE22104126
DANCE109576685
SEND96279375
MUSIC12010051125
SOCIAL SCIENCES1809761156
PEFORMING ARTS4127131
GEOGRAPHY18418742058
HISTORY15911791338
Grand Total50563490139957
2023 Classroom teachers only
SUBJECT GROUPINGIndependentStateGrand Total
ART12311251248
SCIENCE83764767313
ENGLISH54150765617
MATHEMATICS56852345802
LANGUAGES41430143428
HUMANITIES43645688
COMPUTING22319642187
DESIGN & TECHNOLOGY21830263244
BUSINESS STUDIES32413161640
VOCATIONAL13419432
RELIGIOUS EDUCATION9213381430
PHYSICAL EDUCATION25318752128
TEACHING & LEARNING21129150
PSHE10128138
DANCE106649755
SEND82283365
MUSIC8511711256
SOCIAL SCIENCES1529631115
PEFORMING ARTS3144147
GEOGRAPHY16021912351
HISTORY14212661408
Grand Total44103843242842
Difference 2023 on 2022
SUBJECT GROUPINGIndependentStateGrand Total% change
ART-271331069%
SCIENCE-996285298%
ENGLISH-4489184718%
MATHEMATICS-1065104047%
LANGUAGES-853462618%
HUMANITIES-718117434%
COMPUTING-161591437%
DESIGN & TECHNOLOGY-739321%
BUSINESS STUDIES-38-158-196-11%
VOCATIONAL-10-75-85-16%
RELIGIOUS EDUCATION-3093635%
PHYSICAL EDUCATION-34101673%
TEACHING & LEARNING-98-1-1%
PSHE-12241210%
DANCE-3737010%
SEND-144-10-3%
MUSIC-3516613112%
SOCIAL SCIENCES-28-13-41-4%
PEFORMING ARTS-1171612%
GEOGRAPHY-2431729314%
HISTORY-1787705%
Grand Total-646353128857%

However, the increase was neither consistent across all subjects nor uniform in those subject groupings where there was an increase. Five subject groupings recorded decreases in vacancies during the first seven months of 2023, when compared with the same period in 2022: Business studies; vocational subject not classified elsewhere; teaching and learning; Special Needs without a TLR and the social science subjects not classified elsewhere.

Business Studies and design and technology (a 1% increase) are both subjects that schools have struggled to recruit teachers for many years. Perhaps the reduction in recorded vacancies means that schools have now accepted the difficulty in recruitment and stopped advertising. No doubt that will have affected the curriculum being offered as well.

The 34% increase in vacancies classified as for humanities that may have partly been the result of concerns from pervious years about the shortage of teachers of geography; not actually an issue in 2023. However, there was also an above average increase in recorded vacancies for teachers of geography and the vacancy rate is very different for the rate for history teachers, where demand is much lower. However, for 2024, the reduction in ‘offers’ may make finding even teachers of history more of a challenge next year.

The other key subject with a significant increase in demand, as measured by vacancies advertised was English. The recorded increase in vacancies was some 18%, and was entirely as a result of more recorded vacancies from schools in the state sector.

For most of the other EBacc subject groupings, the increase was in the range of 5-10% in 2023 when compared with the same time period in 2022.

However, independent sector schools as a group recorded a lower demand, as measure by vacancies advertised, during 2023. Down from 5,056 to 4,410, a reduction of 646 vacancies advertised. As will the state sector, there was not a uniform decline and some subject that were in the list of subjects in the state sector that experienced year-on-year declines in vacancy advertising did not do so in the private sector: business studies is one such subject.

The is undoubtedly an unmet demand for secondary school teachers in a range of subjects that will not be met until either recruitment into training increases or more teachers are persuaded to return to teaching in state schools. School and trust leaders would be well advised to focus their attention on retaining staff wherever possible and by whatever means as this is often a cheap option that trying to recruit a replacement member of staff.

Becoming a primary school teacher: worth the risk?

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Classroom Teachers and promoted posts

Primary Sector

The primary sector during 2023 has been noticeable for a decline in advertised vacancies across England in both the private and state school sectors.

January to July each year
Primary Classroom & promoted posts
2022
Count of URNColumn Labels 
Row LabelsIndependentStateGrand Total
East Midlands5321832236
East of England21430523266
London52930193548
North East7257264
North West6321982261
South East39246635055
South West10627242830
West Midlands5320782131
Yorkshire & the Humber6220752137
Grand Total14792224923728
Primary Classroom & promoted posts
2023
Row LabelsIndependentStateGrand Total
East Midlands2516421667
East of England11622542370
London31623362652
North East7608615
North West3916071646
South East24032403480
South West9220892181
West Midlands5016741724
Yorkshire & the Humber3413161350
Grand Total9191676617685
Difference between 2022 and 2023
Row Labels
East Midlands-28-541-569
East of England-98-798-896
London-213-683-896
North East0351351
North West-24-591-615
South East-152-1423-1575
South West-14-635-649
West Midlands-3-404-407
Yorkshire & the Humber-28-759-787
Grand Total-560-5483-6043
Percentage difference
East Midlands-53%-25%-25%
East of England-46%-26%-27%
London-40%-23%-25%
North East0%137%133%
North West-38%-27%-27%
South East-39%-31%-31%
South West-13%-23%-23%
West Midlands-6%-19%-19%
Yorkshire & the Humber-45%-37%-37%
Grand Total-38%-25%-25%
Source: TeachVac

The one region where the data shows a different pattern is the North East and reasons for that difference will be explored in more detail later.

Leaving the outcome for the North East aside, the other regions all recorded declines of between 19% (West Midlands) and 37% (Yorkshire and The Humber), with the average for the England (including the North East) being a decline of 25% for all classroom teachers and promoted posts in the primary sector across England for the January to July months in 2023 when compared with the same period in 2022.

The data for the North East looks less out of line when compared over a longer period of time

North East
 201820192020202120222023
January462946131734
February38315081145
March78591013426102
April88243712544118
May80295218347206
June3610536822102
July75130228
Total373187352431189615
Source: TeachVac

It may be that a change in data collection affected the 2022 data. Many of the local authorities in the North East post the vacancies in their primary schools on a regional job board. However, at this point in time the actual reason for the change must be speculation.

Leadership Vacancies

The leadership Scale comprises three grades: assistant head; deputy head and headteacher (some times written as head teacher). The first two grades are less common in the primary sector than in the secondary sector. However, with the larger number of schools in the primary sector, the number of headship vacancies each year is larger than in the secondary sector.

Primary Leadership
2022
GradeIndependentStateGrand Total
Assistant Head27776803
Deputy Head48891939
Head teacher1514691484
Grand Total9031363226
2023
GradeIndependentStateGrand Total
Assistant Head13586599
Deputy Head37723760
Head teacher1912591278
Grand Total6925682637
Difference
GradeIndependentStateGrand Total
Assistant Head-14-190-204
Deputy Head-11-168-179
Head teacher4-210-206
Grand Total-21-568-589
GradeIndependentStateGrand Total
Assistant Head-52%-24%-25%
Deputy Head-23%-19%-19%
Head teacher27%-14%-14%
Grand Total-23%-18%-18%
Source: TeachVac

As will classroom teacher vacancies, a reduction in leadership vacancies was recorded for the first seven months of 2023 when compared with the same period in 2022.

TeachVac’s data coverage of the primary sector in the private school market is not complete, so the changes here must be regarded with caution. The numbers are also small in some cells, further reducing the usefulness of the data.

Coverage of the state-funded primary school sector by TeachVac has been more comprehensive. The largest fall is in the assistant headship grade. This is not unexpected in a sector that is facing falling rolls. Although the use of the assistant head grade has increased in recent years in the primary sector, it is still less common to see such vacancies than for deputy head or headteacher posts.

London and the South East remain the two regions where assistant headteacher vacancies are most commonly to be found. This year, these two regions accounted for 220 or the 586 state-sector assistant headteacher vacancies recorded between January and July 2023 compared with 257 of the 776 vacancies at this grade recorded in the first seven months of 2022.

The decline in headteacher vacancies recorded in 2023 may be partly down to a reduction in re-advertisements of headteacher vacancies in 2023. As many re-advertisements for these posts only appear in September, the exact position is not certain at this point in the year. However, the decline in headteacher advertisements in the first seven months of 2023, when compared with the same period in 2022, was less than that recorded in the other two leadership grades for posts in the primary sector.       

 On the basis of this data, is primary school teaching a good choice of career at the present moment in time? For those required to pay full tuition fees to train as a teacher, there must be a question mark about the accumulation of an increased debt at the end of the training course and the risk of not finding a teaching post. There are vacancies, but probably not enough to provide a guarantee of a teaching post for every trainee and returner.

Additionally, the implications of the two-year Early Career Framework may make it more likely that schools will either recruit returners over new entrants to the profession or use schemes such as the Graduate Apprenticeship Scheme to train their own teachers.

Further posts will explore the secondary sector data in more detail.

For the first part of this series see: A tale of two markets | John Howson (wordpress.com)

A tale of two markets

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The Labour Market for Teachers in England – January to July 2023 (part one) overview

The months between January and July each year witness the majority of the advertisements for teachers each year. This is because the labour market is skewed towards appointments for the start of the school-year in September.

In a normal year, not affected by factors such as a pandemic, around three quarters to 80% of vacancies are advertised during the first seven months of the year, with the largest number of advertisements being placed during the three months between March and May; with the peak usually occurring some weeks after the Easter holidays.

TeachVac has been recording vacancies advertised by schools through their websites since 2014. The decade can be separated out into three phases; from 2014 to 2019; 2020 and 2021, the covid years, and 2022 and 2023. The last two years have seen a significant change in the volume of vacancies advertised. This trend will be discussed in more detail later.

The demand for teachers depends upon a number of different factors, and that demand can be satisfied in a number of different ways. The most important factor is the school population. Increasing pupil numbers require more teachers, unless teaching groups are to increase in size. Obviously, falling rolls mean less demand, and in extreme cases can even lead to teacher redundancies.

The level of funding of schools also plays a part. Increased resources for schools can result in an increased demand for teaching staff; restrictions on funding can reduce demand for replacements when staff leave. Within the funding envelope, the cost of the salary bill can have a significant bearing on staffing levels. For instance, an under-funded pay settlement can reduce demand for staff as more funds are spent on paying the existing staffing complement. For the private school sector, the demand for places and the payment of fees has the same effect. More demand for places means there is likely to be a demand for more teachers

The third key factor affecting the level of advertisements is the state of the market. A good supply of teachers means most vacancies will be filled at first advertisement or event these days without an advertisement at all. However, if there is a challenging labour market, perhaps because of a shortage of either new entrants or returners, or an increase in departures from teaching in schools in England, then these factors can result in an increase in advertisements, as vacancies not filled are re-advertised. This may be one the factors behind the increase in vacancies recorded in 2022, because in many secondary subjects the numbers entering the profession from training were less than required by the DfE’s Teacher Supply Model.

So, what of the first seven months of 2023? The tables below show the record of vacancies as measured by advertisements for schools in England

2022       
 PrimarySecondaryOverall
IndepStateTotalIndepStateTotalTotal
Classroom119117449186405056349013995758597
Promoted post198166418621655119211357615438
Assistant Head2777680382136814502253
Deputy head488919391237628851824
Head teacher1514691484323653971881
Grand Total147922249237286948493175626579993
2023PrimarySecondaryOverall
IndepStateTotalIndepStateTotalTotal
Classroom79615409162054410384324284259047
Promoted post123135714801266136341490016380
Assistant Head1358659967134614132012
Deputy head37723760957678621622
Head teacher1912591278293583871665
Grand Total98819334203225867545376040480726
PrimarySecondaryOverall
IndepStateTotalIndepStateTotalTotal
Change 2023 on 2022-491-2915-3406-108152204139733
% change-33%-13%-14%-16%11%7%1%
Source: TeachVac

Source: TeachVac

The key feature to note is that there was little change between 2022 and 2023. Overall, the number of vacancies, as measured by advertisements, increased by one per cent in 2023 when compared with 2022. This was an overall increase of 733 advertisements from 79,993 to 80726.

However, the overall total hides two very different picture for the different sectors. Advertisements for teachers and school leaders in the primary sector fell from 23,728 in the first seven months of 2022 to20,322 in the same period of 2023: a fall of 14%.

The fall in the primary sector affected vacancies at all levels except for headteachers in the independent sector, where a small increase in advertisements was recorded in 2023 when compared with 2022.

Advertised vacancies for classroom teachers declined from 18,640 in 2022 to 16,205 in 2023, with both the state and independent school sectors recording a fall in advertisements.

In the secondary sector, the position was very different. Overall, the recorded number of advertisements increased from 56,265 in 2022 to 60,404 in the first seven months of 2023. Within the secondary sector, the increase was not universal. The independent school sector recorded a fall in advertisements for most posts, whereas state sector secondary schools recorded an increase for classroom teachers and promoted posts, but little change in the number of vacancies for leadership posts.

Further posts will explore the different categories in more detail.