Tag Archives: DfE

Sad end to term

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It is now more than nine years since a teacher died after being stabbed in her classroom by a pupil. The news today from Tewksbury reminds us that although rare, and nowhere near as common as such incidents in the USA, teaching is not an entirely risk-free activity, as I know from personal experience.

My thoughts and best wishes are with the stabbed teacher, their family and any pupils that witnessed the attack. I hope the teacher was no badly hurt. Below, is the post I wrote when the teacher was stabbed to death in her classroom in 2014.

Condolences | John Howson (wordpress.com)

Condolences

Posted on April 28, 2014

The news of the stabbing to death of a teacher in Leeds is both truly shocking and saddening at the same time. Fortunately, such deaths in schools are rare in the United Kingdom, and it is no small irony that this fatality happened in a Roman Catholic school in a challenging area just as the death nearly 20 years ago of head teacher Philip Lawrence did in north Westminster. We may live in a post-Christian society, but the Churches still offer education in many of the more disadvantaged areas of our country.

My thoughts and condolences are with the family and friends of the teacher, as well as the pupils and those that work at the school, and the wider local community. Nearly 40 years ago, I was the victim of a classroom stabbing by an intruder that could in different circumstances have ended in a fatality. As a result, I can understand something of the grief such an unexpected event give rise to. Fortunately, unlike in my day, there will no doubt be extensive counselling offered to all concerned. I don’t know the circumstances of this stabbing, except that the news bulletin says that it was a female teacher in her 60s who presumably had been at the school for some time. More will no doubt come out over the next few days and then at the subsequent trial.

The Court of Appeal has recently taken a tough stand on the carrying of knives, and rightly so if we are to reduce the incidence of violence still further in society. But, despite all the draconian laws it is impossible to entirely prevent attacks where there is a will to do violence to another.

Finally, perhaps the Secretary of State might consider a memorial in the new offices for the DfE after they move to Whitehall in 2017* that recognises the sacrifice of the small band of teachers that have given their lives to their profession. There may not be many of them, but they deserve not to be forgotten.

*Such a move never took place, but the idea of a memorial might still be worth considering.

STRB and teacher recruitment

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Before 2015, the STRB (School Teachers’ Pay Review Body) used to report no later than March in most years, School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB) reports – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) However, since the Conservative Party took over the sole management of the country in 2015, the publication of the STRB’s annual report, along with other pay body reports, has moved to July each year.

Such a date, so late in the annual government business cycle, at a point where departments should already be gearing up the next round of economic arguments within government, is unhelpful in many ways.

Obviously, it leaves The Treasury unsure about government expenditure, assuming the suggestions of the STRB are both accepted and fully funded. If one or other of those assumptions isn’t correct, but pay scales are increased from the September, then it places a burden on schools to find the cash to pay any increases, as I discussed in an earlier post. Sunak’s blunt axe | John Howson (wordpress.com)

The lack of clarity around starting salaries also makes recruitment into the profession potentially more challenging. A significant proportion of those entering the profession are still required to make a financial sacrifice to train as a teacher. To do so not knowing what either the possible salary they will receive during training – if paid on the unqualified scale – or their potential starting salary, if on a fee-paying course, is not an incentive to enter teaching. This may be specially the case for the important group of career switchers that are needed during the present dip in the number of new home-based graduates in their early 20s.

Once the new generation of graduates from the last baby boomer generation exits university, in a few years’ time, this may be less of an issue, assuming higher education entry rates hold up, and those most likely to become teachers don’t opt for apprenticeships or direct entry into the labour market and a salary immediately after leaving school.

Governments have always faced economic crises, lucky the Chancellor with benign economic headwinds, and must take difficult decisions. 101 years ago, the Liberal Government faced with the massive increase in government expenditure sanctioned by a government to fight the first world war, and seeking to restrain sky-high rates of taxation, looked for areas where public expenditure could be reduced – or cut – an exercise known after the chairman of the committee, Lord Geddes.

Perhaps, The Labour Party’s Leader’s speech on the ‘class ceiling’ was no accident, because it is those trying to crash through the ceiling that experience the worse outcomes of any pay restraint that leaders to teacher shortages. As I pointed in an earlier post, out, identifying the issue is one thing; solving it needs policies, and they were in short-supply in the speech from Sir Kier Starmer last week.

Perhaps, as suggested in the 1920s, rather than just telling schools to save money, the government might be more draconian in enforcing savings to pay for increased pay. But then, this, sadly, isn’t an area where the present government has had a good track record in recent times.  

Interesting government dashboard

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Government statisticians at the DfE and across the civil service have been undertaking some interesting analysis of where graduates work – by sector and academic qualification level– and how the numbers change over time. The basic source is tax returns, so the data is obviously subject to a time lag and backward looking. Nevertheless, there is some interesting data to discuss in relation to the education classification. LEO Graduate and Postgraduate Outcomes, Tax year 2020-21 – Explore education statistics – GOV.UK (explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk)

Now, I assume that ‘Education’ as a grouping will include both state and private schools plus further education.  The dashboards contain a wealth of data about those working in many sectors, including education; one, three, five and ten years after graduation. Data is provided for different academic levels, of which Frist Degree and Level 7 qualifications (taught and research) are probably the most useful.

Education is also one of the sectors where the number of graduates decreased between one and three years after graduation, but increased again between three and five years; presumably because of the influx of career changers outweighing the numbers leaving. By ten years, the overall number has fallen, as would be expected. How Education compares with other sectors might be worth considering, to see the extent to which retention is not just an issue for the Education sector.

As the time period for the ten years covered in the analysis includes the years when there was either a public sector pay-freeze or wage levels in some parts of the country lagged parts of the private sector it is possible to see that the Education sector in London is at the lower end of reported median earnings for the different sectors, whereas in the North East median earnings after ten years for the education sector appear more competitive. This may well be because the opportunities for graduates in the North East are less than in London and the South East, and the lack of demand has an effect on salary levels.

The Sankey charts of regional flows show how relatively little movement between regions there is for those with Level 7 qualifications on entry into the Education sector. However, ‘abroad’ does feature in the table, showing that teaching as this blog has said, is now a global profession and those with Level 7 qualifications in education are moving overseas by the ten year point from graduation.

When the STRB Report is finally released by the government, it will be interesting to see the extent to which this type of data has been used in the discussions about the pay of teachers compared with that of other graduate professions.

Pay may not be the only factor persuading graduates to work in education, but it must have some effect on numbers choosing the profession when the economy is able to offer other opportunities for graduates.

Indeed, as the wider economy hires more graduates, the need to keep teaching competitive in pay and conditions terms will become even more important. As this blog has pointed out before, the porter of the nineteen-century became the forklift truck driver of the twentieth century and is now the warehouse software engineer of the twenty first century. Neither of the first two were likely to be drawn from the ranks of those that could be teachers: the modern group of software engineers most certainly are graduates that could have become a teacher.

One law for parents …

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‘School sends children home because of a lack of staff’. The BBC have been running a story about a special school, part of a multi-academy trust that has been sending children home on certain days because of a lack of staff. Oxford pupils miss school amid special needs staff shortage – BBC News

The shortage of staff in the special school sector is nothing new. Indeed, I commented upon the use of unqualified teachers in that sector in a previous post. However, should any school be allowed to send pupils home because of staff shortages?

In 2017, (how time flies) the Supreme Court discussed the responsibilities of parents that contract with the State to provide schooling for their children for free. The case was Isle of Wight Council v Platt and the judgement can be read at Isle of Wight Council (Appellant) v Platt (Respondent) (supremecourt.uk)

The highest court in the land imposed a heavy burden on parents with regard to school attendance – paragraphs 31 onwards set out their reasons for doing so. In reaching their judgement, the court went further than the previous decision made in the 1930s, and placed even more restrictive reasons for parents being allowed not to send a child to school.

The court did not consider the opposite scenario of the responsibility of the State to parents that trust their child to the State to educate.  Lord Denning did discuss this in Meade v Haringey in 1979 at the end of the Winter of Discontent, but that case never came to trial as the strike ended and schools re-opened.  

Lord Denning’s comments in the case can be read at Meade v Haringey London Borough Council – Case Law – VLEX 793965949 The paragraph relevant to the present situation is in paragraph 3.

As I read the statute, it was and is the duty of the Borough Council – not only to provide the school buildings – but also to provide the teachers and other staff to run the schools – and furthermore to keep the schools open at all proper times for the education of the children. If the Borough Council were to order the schools to close for a term – or for a half-term – or even for one week, without just cause or excuse, it would be a breach of their statutory duty. If any of the teachers should refuse to do their work, the Borough Council ought to get others to replace them – and not pay the defaulters. Likewise if the caretakers refuse to open the schools – and keep the keys – the Borough Council ought to demand the return of the keys and open up the schools themselves if need be. For this simple reason: It is the statutory duty of the Borough Council to keep the schools open. If they should fail to do so, without just cause or excuse, it is a breach of their statutory duty.

These days, one must assume that either mutli-academy trust trustees have assumed the responsibilities formerly with local authorities in 1979 or that Regional School Commissioners acting on behalf of the DfE have responsibility for academies under their remit. Whoever is responsible, unless either a court rules otherwise or the law has been changed since 1979, it would seem that there is a statutory duty to open schools, and by implication to staff them during a school term. Of course, fire, plague or pestilence might cause temporary closure, but, as during the covid pandemic, schools were required to stay open for certain children.  

I guess that a parent will need to bring either a judicial review or a case against a school that sent children home. Judicial Review is an expensive process, so perhaps a Council, acting as a corporate parent, could bring the case on behalf of all parents.

It would be interesting to see how the Supreme Court balanced the rights and responsibilities of parents with the duties of the State in providing education. I am reminded that in the late 1940s the then Minister of Education summoned a Council because a school lacking a hall after bomb damage was not offering a daily act of corporate worship. What might that Labour Minister have made of schools sending children home due to staff shortages?

Reduced ITT numbers; who wins?

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A review of the detail behind last December’s DfE ITT Census can shine some interesting light on how the current recruitment crisis can affect different schools.

Broadly speaking, trainees can be classified into three groups: those in school and the classroom and receiving a salary; those on school centred courses, but not salaried and finally, those in higher education or other associated courses. The first group are most likely to be employed in the schools where they are training, and so are not considered part of the pool of job seekers for September vacancies.

The second group may be employed by the schools where they are based, and such schools are wise to consider this option.

The third group are likely to be on the free market as job seekers for September vacancies. How have the numbers differed between 2019 and 2022? I looked at the data from the DfE’s ITT Census for three regions: London; the South East and the North East regions.

London20192022
High Achievers6411393
Apprenticeships65368
School Direct Salaried Route1044285
sub total17502046
SCITT253457
School Direct Fee Route810496
sub total1063953
Higher Education837656
total36503655
Adjust for HA2900
South East20192022
High Achievers2200
Apprenticeships3397
School Direct Salaried Route577175
sub total830272
SCITT488687
School Direct Fee Route1137828
sub total16251515
Higher Education15661252
total37682942
Adjust for HA3150
North East20192022
High Achievers870
Apprenticeships1019
School Direct Salaried Route157
sub total11226
SCITT340207
School Direct Fee Route413327
sub total753534
Higher Education618375
total1483935
Adjust for HA1,000
Source DfE ITT Census as accessed by TeachVac

The first issue is that the High Achiever numbers were all allocated to the London region in the 2022 census, whereas, in 2019, they were allocated according to the region where they were located. This has the effect of inflating trainee numbers in London in 2022, and reducing them in some other regions. I have used the 2019 numbers to compensate, but it is obviously an estimate. I am not sure why the DfE has made this change, but it is unhelpful.

The second issue is that the postgraduate numbers used in the table do not distinguish between primary and secondary courses. Part of the reduction in numbers may be down to a fall in primary course targets and allocations.

However, In the London region, the change, after adjusting for the High Achiever over-counting, resulted in a small switch in percentage terms from trainees in the first group of school-based trainees to those in the second group, with the third group of higher education classified trainees remaining at 23% of the graduate total (Not all this group are universities and some may be counted in the region where a national provider has its headquarters). However, this meant a loss of nearly 200 trainees from the free market total between 2019 and 2022. This goes some way to explain the challenges schools in London dependent upon the free market for new teachers have faced this year.

In the South East region, using the adjusted figures, the free pool percentage of trainees fell from 42% to 40% in 2022. With the reduction in recruitment, this meant a loss to the free pool of some 300 trainees, about eight per cent less than the 2019 total.

In the North East, the decline in the free pool was only around 4%, from 42% to 38%, but the decline in the actual number was nearly 500 trainees. This explains why some schools in the North East are experiencing recruitment difficulties in 2023.

As I wrote, way back in 1995, in Managing Partnerships in Teacher Training and Development by Bines and Welton (Routledge, page 213) schools that become involved the teacher preparation process can be winners in times of teacher shortages. The same is as true today as it was when I first wrote those words. 

ITT: Mixed news

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The data provided by the DfE today on ITT applications and offers for postgraduate courses contained some very mixed messages. I am not sure whether the current pay dispute within the universities sector is affecting the data or whether there are genuine differences between subjects, with larger movements between May and June in offers this year than might normally be expected.

Regardless of any data collection issues, the message is the same as ever: offer levels will not be sufficient to meet targets in the majority of subjects, and the reduction in offers in physical education and history will remove the safety valve over-recruitment to high targets in these subjects have offered schools in previous years. Barring any last-minute change in July or August, it is now safe to say that the recruitment round for schools seeking to fill September vacancies next year in 2024 will be challenging unless there is an influx of returners or a reduction in leavers and better levels of retention. Of course, the whole country won’t be affected in the same way, but schools across the South East and parts of London might expect to face similar challenges to this year. You have been warned.

Religious Education and music are two subjects struggling with offers this year, even more than other subjects. Most other subjects are doing better than last year’s dreadful position, but often the offers are little different to the year before the pandemic. However, physics appears to have recovered from last year’s historic low. Whether that is reflected by the numbers arriving at the start of the course, only time will tell.

 The 38,795 applicants by mid-June 2023 compared well with the 32,609 in June 2022 and looks like a healthy increase, but numbers recruited or recruited with conditions pending, a group that will include degree classifications from many universities this year, are down on last June’s number, albeit only slightly. Nearly 2,000 more applicants are awaiting a provider’s decision, and it would be helpful to know whether the majority of those are applicants that have applied to higher education providers?

The total number of young applicants, aged under 25, is similar this year to last, so the increase is in older career switchers rather than new graduates. The number of 30–34 year-olds applying has increased from 3,545 last year to 5,088 this year. As reported previously, the big increase is in candidates for ‘the rest of the world’ – up from 2,657 last June to 7,105 applicants this June. The overall total increase masks little change in the number of applicants from most of the regions of England. However, it is worth noting that 54% of London applicants have received an offer, compared with only 15% of those in the ‘rest of the world’ group. For this reason alone, it is important not to read too much into the headline increase in the number of applicants.   

The number of offers made in the primary sector is down by 1,585 on the June 2022 figure, to just 9,182. Whether that will be enough to satisfy demand for teachers depends partly upon whether the secondary sector decides to recruit and retrain primary qualified teachers to fill their vacancies left by the reduction in history and PE teachers exiting training in 2024.

Over the summer, the DfE might like to reflect with the sector how these monthly statistics can be improved to make them more useful. We know nothing about ethnicity and little about regional breakdown of offer by subjects in the secondary sector. Both would be useful additions to the debate about whether the recruitment crisis is continuing or abating.

All agreed then: there is a teacher recruitment and retention crisis

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The House of Commons Education Select Committee held its first oral evidence session this morning as part of its inquiry into recruitment and retention. The Committee discussed with representatives of the teacher and further education professional associations their views on the present state of affairs with regard to recruitment and retention.  

It was not a surprise to hear all the witnesses explain that the present situation in both schools and colleges represented a crisis, and that there was no solution in sight. Interestingly, nobody mentioned the effects of any downturn in the economy on teacher recruitment – not even evidencing what happened at the start of the covid pandemic when interest in ITE increased sharply. There was also no mention of teaching as a global career and the growth of UK private schools overseas as a source of jobs for teachers.

Pay, working conditions and morale all came up, and were cited as areas where the DfE needed to take action. The fact that all four professional associations are in dispute with the DfE was mentioned, but the lack of the STRB Report received relatively little consideration.

Two issues discussed in detail were the question of school leadership and how attractive it is. There was the usual discussion about how to keep good teachers in the classroom and some statements about teachers not wanting to become head teachers. There was also a discussion about how teaching behaves in relation to ‘protected’ groups in society.

Talking the first issue on leadership, it is interesting to look at the recent data from the School Workforce Survey on deputy and assistant heads working in the primary school sector in the under 49 age groups and specifically, for assistant heads, the under 39 age groups.

 AHDH
FEMALE25-2938899
30-3943522571
40-4939544123
86946793
MALE25-2911143
30-391108962
40-49674888
18931893
NON-G25-2910
30-3902
40-4900
ALL25-29500142
30-3954603535
40-4946285011
105888688

There were around 6,000 assistant heads in the primary sector under the age of 40 in November 2022. That ought to be sufficient to provide candidates for deputy headships, at least at the national level.

There are somewhere around 1,500 primary headships advertised each year. With less than 4,000 deputy heads under the age of 40 that means schools will need to draw heavily on the 5,000 primary headteachers in their 40s for many vacancies. This does leave the ratio of candidates to vacancies worryingly low, especially as the recruitment round progresses, and good candidates are appointed to vacancies. I think that there is a matter for concern here that the NAHT were wise to draw the Committee’s attention to in oral evidence.

As to minority groups, there is work to be done here to encourage men, ethnic minorities and those with disabilities to take up teaching as a career. Here are a couple of links to my blogs on the topic written in past years

Are new graduate entrants to teaching still predominantly young, white and female? | John Howson (wordpress.com)

‘We need more black headteachers in our schools’ | John Howson (wordpress.com)

This is an area where clearly the DfE seems to be paying less attention than in the past. Perhaps, it shows a consequence of the lack of a dedicated unit on teacher supply, training and professional development.

Such a unit might have helped the DfE create a coherent policy to solve the current staffing crisis in our schools and colleges that should have caught nobody unawares.

Are teacher vacancy rates slowing?

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Were there really more teacher vacancies this May than during May 2022? There have been some suggestions that the answer is yes. I have seen an increase of seven per cent suggested. However, I am more cautious in suggesting any overall increase in vacancies.

Yes, there have been increases in some subjects, in some regions of England, but measuring a basket of 11 secondary subjects, no region recorded across the board increases in all subjects. In the primary sector, only the North West recorded any increase in vacancies, with a decline compared with the May 2022 number of vacancies in all other regions.

The North West and West Midlands recorded the largest number of secondary subjects with an increase in vacancies. The South East and Yorkshire & The Humber regions, the largest number of subjects where there was a decline on the May 2022 number of recorded advertisements for a classroom teacher or promoted post, according to TeachVac www.teachvac.co.uk where the data was compiled from their database of recorded vacancies.

So, why might there be a discrepancy in views about vacancies? One reason may be the treatment of repeat advertisements. I have long advocated a unique job number for each vacancy that accompanies it until it is either replaced by a different vacancy or the post is filled. Schools can be tardy at removing vacancies after the closing date, even when the post has been filled. TeachVac considers each vacancy it records and uses its own AI to decide whether to ask a human to review the vacancy, record it as a new vacancy, or discard it. This may account for some of the difference with other commentators.

TeachVac as a job board looks at teaching vacancies across both state and private schools. There is more work to be undertaken to see whether the slowdown has affected private schools more than state schools? The South East, a region with a high proportion of private schools, does seem to have seen more of a decline in vacancies than other regions. The Yorkshire and The Humber region had a strong year in 2022, so the decline in vacancies across that region may be a reaction to the number of vacancies recorded last year.

There is another possible explanation for any slowing of vacancies or even a downturn. In some subjects, notably design and technology, schools may finally have accepted that there is no point in advertising vacancies in the traditional manner, and either stopped advertising or moved to using an agency – hopefully on a no find no fee basis – or resorting to social media and other methods of recruitment advertising.

Of course, the uncertainty about pay levels for September may also now be causing schools, especially in areas where pupil rolls are not rising as fast as they have been, to become more cautious in their attitude to recruitment for September. Better to have unfilled vacancies and offer existing staff a new role than look forward to possible redundancies because of a lack of cash.

Looking at the TeachVac data for the first half of June, our recorded vacancies are still below those of 2022, except in England and Music, two subjects that largely resisted the downward trend in May.

There is more research to be undertaken, but perhaps the rise in mortgage rates is affecting the number of teachers either leaving the profession or in a position to take a maternity leave break that would require their job to be covered. Time will tell.

12-week Conversion course

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Finding teachers to fill January 2024 vacancies where they arise in many secondary schools will be a real challenge. Assuming that internal adjustments cannot be made to timetables, then schools will need to recruit replacement staff: what alternatives face them when seeking a teacher?

Recruit a remaining 2023 ITT graduate – few of these will be available, except perhaps in PE or history, and even in these subjects, numbers will be less than in past years, so this might not be an option for schools in some parts of England. In most subjects, schools are already experiencing challenges filling their remaining September vacancies.

Recruit a returner – possible, but unpredictable.

Entice a teacher from another school – not feasible for vacancies after the end of October and it just shifts the problem to another school.

Redeploy a teacher – an option for some larger academy trusts with the right type of contractual arrangements with their teachers, but not for stand-alone academies and other schools.

Hire a teacher from overseas – probably best done through an agency. There is the issue of visas to consider as well as their need to understand the system of education in England.

Look to hire a primary trained teacher – there have been fewer vacancies in the primary sector this year than in recent years, so some trainees are still likely to be job hunting and returners may find jobs difficult to secure.

However, to make better use of those trained as primary school class teachers in the job market to work as a teacher, the DfE should consider reintroducing a short-term conversion course.

The course could balance enhancing subject knowledge and application with the differences between class and subject teaching, and issues such as approaches to likely challenges. Primary trained teachers have ‘A’ levels, and a focus on subjects where there are shortages would release secondary trained teachers to focus on KS4 & 5 while these teachers worked primarily in Key Stage 3.

Assuming that the most able ITT graduates have already secured teaching posts for September, this type of course would also provide an extra 12 weeks of support for these new teachers, rather than leaving them to their own devices before they secured a teaching post.

Such courses could be organised by national bodies, such as Teach First or the National Institute of Teaching, but might be better arranged locally for a discrete geographical area facing recruitment challenges by a consortium of schools and trusts working with an ITT provider and a local authority.  

Funding from the DfE for such a course could be at a third of an ITT course, plus a weekly salary for participants based upon the bottom point of the qualified Teacher Salary scale as they would be qualified teachers. The DfE could fund a trial course using unspent ITT funds resulting from the unfilled places on courses during 2022-23.

With a will, there is surely still time to set up a course for this September to evaluate the usefulness of the idea.

Retaining teachers is more of a challenge; no surprise there

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What is the pattern of teacher retention, now the profession is now overwhelmingly staffed by women? Do women teachers have different career patterns to men? One obvious difference is the length of time taken out for maternity leave. But do other caring roles later in life also mean different career paths for women teachers than for men in the profession?

The DfE provides data on the percentage of the teacher workforce still in post after different lengths of service from one year of service up to twenty-five years. Thus, someone stating at 22 would by 47 after 25 years of service. Some teachers leave and re-enter, so it possible for percentages to increase year on year for the same length of service as well as reduce. The latter is the more normal case, but in the latest data, the percentage of teachers still in service after 14 years increased by o.1%, presumably because of returners. This would likely be teachers in their late 30s returning after a career break to bring up a family. The main DfE tables do not provide data on teacher retention by the gender of the teacher.

Years of servicechange on previous year %change on 5 years previously %
1-0.42.3
2-2.6-1.7
3-0.9-2.5
4-1.2-0.8
5-0.1-0.4
6-1.2-1.2
7-0.4-1.1
8-1-3.7
9-1.1-3.9
10-1.1-3.4
11-0.1-1.9
12-3.2-2.8
13-0.8-0.8
140.1-0.7
15-0.3-2.8
16-0.5-3.6
17-0.8-3.9
18-0.6-3.9
19-2-3.2
20-1.7-0.4
21-0.6-1
22-0.4na
23-0.3na
24-0.3na
25-1na
Source: DfE School Workforce Census 2022

The above table shows the change this year from last year, and from five years ago for each year of service as published this year by the DfE. The percentage of teachers remaining after one year of services was 0.4% lower than for the one-year service percentage recorded for pervious cohort. For those with 16 years of service, the five-year percentage was 3.6% below the figure for the previous cohort.

The rate of loss, both after one year, and over five years for teachers with between eight to ten years of service, and with 17 and 18 years of service, must be a matter for concern, and perhaps investigation as to the characteristics of leavers and what are the causes of their departure?

Are these teachers quitting teaching or just moving out of the state sector? The DfE has indicated that it wants increase the recruitment of teachers from overseas. The Home Office might be concerned about such a practice and its implications for migration statistics, and could rightly argue that improving retention might be a more cost-effective way of staffing our schools? After all the National Audit Office said the same thing some years ago.

The House of Commons Education Select Committee will shortly start publishing the evidence it has received for its inquiry into teacher recruitment and retention that was announced way back in March. Hopefully, the issue of retention will receive as much attention as recruitment does.