No High Needs Block data in NFF announcement

Posted on November 20, 2025 by John Howson

Yesterday, the DfE announced the National Funding Formula (NFF) for 2026/27 The national funding formula for schools The formula covers schools and local authority delivered central services

Unlike last year, there is no section on the High Needs Block that deals with SEND funding. The details will be announced later, at some unspecified time. One other small change seems to be in the calculation of the sparsity index, where the footnote from the 2025/26 NFF document seems to be missing from the main document this year.

Last year, there as a footnote that stated in a footnote on page 26 – paragraphs were not numbered last year – that “6 A compatible school means one of the relevant phases which a pupil could attend. Selective grammar schools are not considered when identifying the second nearest compatible school, but faith schools are included.”

This year, paragraph 25 states that “Eligibility for sparsity funding depends on the distance the pupils living closest to the school would have to travel to their next nearest compatible school, and the average number of pupils per year group.” However, there is no comment about what is a compatible school.

So, no change, apart from the lack of a definition of a ‘compatible school’. This footnote has now been relocated to the Technical Manual, and appears as footnote 9 on page 19 of the manual. Schools block national funding formula 2026 to 2027: technical note

Overall, the minimum per pupil funding for primary pupils increases from £4955 to £5115, and for secondary pupils up to year 11, from £6,455 to £6,640. Schools

in IDACI band G will, as before, receive no additional funding through that factor. If they don’t qualify for additional funds through other factors, and some schools won’t, as 62.5% of LSOAs are in IDACI Band G, this could be a challenging year for them.

Many of these schools will no doubt turn to parents for support, or perhaps more will follow the north London school, and look to bring in additional income from operating overseas alongside the many private schools that already have overseas campuses?

With the budget next week, and the local government settlement not being announced any earlier than last year, plus the delay in the High Needs Block announcement, this is going to be a tough budget setting time for schools and local authorities between now and February, when the upper tier local authorities responsible for the NFF must set their council budgets.

Perhaps the High Needs block will feature as a rabbit in the Chancellor’s budget speech to make everyone feel better that the government has found a solution to the massive deficits protected by the override that was extended to March 2027.

Reading the document, I was also struck by the fact that there are more references to local authorities than to the ‘schools forum’. Has the latter run its course as a decision-making body? Is it time to review its future, and certainly its membership?

6500 new teachers: wasn’t that a manifesto pledge?

Posted on November 13, 2025 by John Howson

The DfE has today published the annual Education and Training Statistics for the whole of the United Kingdom. Education and training statistics for the UK, Reporting year 2025 – Explore education statistics – GOV.UKAs ever, there is a wealth of material and the devil is in the details.

The full-time equitant number of teachers in England increased between 2023/24 and 2024/25. The data for schools in England isn’t new, as it was first reported in June 2025 School workforce in England, Reporting year 2024 – Explore education statistics – GOV.UK

However, it is worth discussing the data again, as it will provide the basis against which any claims about increased teacher numbers will be judged.

Phase		201920	202021	202122	202223	202324	202425
Non-maintained mainstream	Total	76975	77310	71695	73255	75240	74100
Nursery	Total	1195	1160	1100	1065	1075	1060
Primary	Total	219960	221365	221230	220265	217460	214575
Secondary	Total	204715	209835	213630	216075	217565	219000
Special	Total	24280	25025	26005	27140	28240	29150
Total	Total	530800	538415	537285	541690	543930	542355
Total maintained	Total	453820	461105	465590	468435	468690	468260

The changes over one year and the whole of the time period are shown in this table

	Total	change on 202324	change on 201920
Non-maintained mainstream	Total	-1140	-2875
Nursery	Total	-15	-135
Primary	Total	-2885	-5385
Secondary	Total	1435	14285
Special	Total	910	4870
Total	Total	-1575	11555
Total maintained	Total	-430	14440

It is worth noting that as the school population increased, so did the number of teachers in state-maintained schools. Thus, between 2019/2020 and 2024/2025 teacher numbers increased by 14,440, although the decline in teachers in the nursery and primary schools had already started.

However, by 2024/25 the total teacher workforce was some 14,440 FTEs larger than it had been in 2019/2020 as a result of the increase in the number of secondary and special school teachers.

Between 2023/24 and 2024/25, teacher numbers in England continued to increase across both the secondary and special school sectors, but the decline in the primary sector teacher numbers continued. The nursey sector showed little change, but employs few teachers in state nursery schools as opposed to nursery classes in primary schools.

There is a message here for anyone considering a career as a primary school teacher. Before accepting a place on a teacher peroration course; do some homework on job possibilities in the area of the country where you would like to teach, especially if it is not where you are training.

I doubt that we have yet seen the end of the decline in teacher numbers in the primary sector, and it will be a buyer’s market, even in 2027 when those applying for courses starting next September will enter the labour market in large numbers.

In the past, under such conditions, schools have preferred to employ experienced teachers leaving new entrants to look for posts in schools for which they may not have been trained. Often the jobs will either be in schools with a higher deprivation index score or small schools with mixed age classes. Neither of these teaching situations may have been encountered during a one-year teacher preparation course, and can be challenging for new teachers if not adequately supported.

Don’t be afraid to ask about job prospects at interview, especially if you are paying your own tuition fees.

Has Labour gone mad?

Posted on November 8, 2025 by John Howson

Queen Elizabeth’s School, a selective grammar school in North London, is to open an affiliate fee-paying branch school in Dubai – becoming the first state school to open overseas. Queen Elizabeth’s School to open fee-paying school in Dubai | Tes

I am going to state my opposition to this proposal outright. If we had a sufficiency of high-quality teachers for all our schools, then I might, just might, look on this as part of the export drive using resources not currently needed for the home market.

But the blunt truth is that we don’t have enough qualified teachers for our secondary schools. It is bad enough private schools offering UK teachers jobs overseas, but most of them probably weren’t in the state system anyway.

Here we seem to have a state funded school spending leadership time becoming part of a global brand, and at the very least risking taking a couple of hundred teachers out of the UK system to teach middle class children in the UAE and India.

Even if the investment is funded by Global Education, a company with a strong base working with universities and higher level vocational providers, I am not sure why a Labour government has allowed the DfE to approve this move?

I do think there should be a policy designed to maximise UK revenue from our strong background in education across the board, but a government’s first duty is to its own citizens, and this move by a state school, along with the growth of our private school’s overseas campuses, risks the education of our own citizens by sucking teachers overseas, and away from schools that badly need them, not only in some of our most deprived communities.

The DfE must make clear both why it approved this venture, and what happens if lots more state schools want to go down this road as a means of earning income to support the homebase.

As regular readers know, I am a strong support of democratic accountability for our schooling, and the academy system doesn’t provide that support to our system. Rather it provides fragmentation and encourages this sort of move all the while costing the system millions of pounds in unnecessary CEO’s salaries and other overheads.

This move reminds me of the Attlee government struggling with the aftermath of the Second World War and restricting sales of cars and other items in the home market to boost exports. Here we have a Labour government opening the doors to sending UK teachers to educate children of parent s that can afford their fees, and to directly set up in competition with private schools.

I might have understood a Conservative government sanctioning this move, but not a Labour government.

Please tell me I have missed some important value here.

Fine words butter no parsnips

Posted on November 5, 2025 by John Howson

What is one to make of a government that announces an expansion of the place of the creative arts in the National Curriculum review literally weeks after cutting the bursary for trainee teachers of music? Labour’s determination to recruit new teachers doesn’t include music | John Howson 8^th October 2026

If I am being kind, it would be that one part of the DfE doesn’t know what the other is doing. Recruiting trainee music teachers has been a challenge over the past few years, and with universities eyeing the future of music degree courses, recruitment probably won’t get any easier.

Did a Minister, when sanctioning the bursary withdrawal, ask what the forthcoming Curriculum Review might have to say about the subject? If so, why was the bursary withdrawn if the creative arts re to play a larger part in the new curriculum?

Hopefully, someone at Westminster will ask this question over the next few days. Perhaps media arts programmes might also like to interrogate a Minister about this curious state of affairs.

Of course, it is possible that the talk of expanding provision is just that, and the government has no real intention of putting funds behind any expansion in order to make it happen. Blame can then be laid at the door of schools for not switching resources into the creative subjects.

After all the government just said that

‘A new core enrichment entitlement for every pupil – covering civic engagement; arts and culture; nature, outdoor and adventure; sport and physical activities; and developing wider life skills.’ New curriculum to give young people the skills for life and work – GOV.UK

Not much meat on the bone there. Delving into the detailed response from the government we find that

“We recognise the Review’s concerns around access to music and that some schools require support to deliver music well, including from specialist teachers, particularly to help pupils to develop their knowledge and skills in learning to read music and play instruments. We continue to invest in instrument stocks through the music hubs. Our £25 million investment will provide over 130,000 additional instruments, equipment and other music technology by the end of 2026, with around 40,000 already in the hands of teachers and pupils. We will consider how we maximise the impact of this investment to ensure the opportunity of and access to a reformed music curriculum is fully realised.” Government response to the Curriculum and Assessment Review page 34.

Not much joined up thinking there. Encouraging singing has a much lower capital cost than instruments, and can capture more pupils – see the great scheme at Debry Cathedral that has over 900 possible singers.

The first sentence of the paragraph bears no relation to the rest of the paragraph, so don’t hold out hopes that music will achieve more than lots of instruments sitting on shelves or being played by children whose parents can afford the lessons.

I am very disappointed in the music section of the government’s response, especially that now I chair the Oxfordshire Music Board and so music is a particular interest of mine.

Overseas teachers in England. More or less?

Posted on November 2, 2025 by John Howson

How far have teachers from outside the United Kingdom helped keep schools in England staffed during the period when there were teacher shortages? Although it takes a great deal of research to know what and where these teachers are working in England, the DfE in its evidence to the STRB (Teachers Pay Body) did provide some interesting data about changes in numbers of these teachers by their country of origin, between the 2015/16 and 2023/24 November teacher census returns. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/evidence-to-the-strb-2026-pay-award-for-teachers-and-leaders data annex

For the purpose of this blog, countries have been divided into three groups: EEA – effectively all of Europe; countries with 20^th century links to the United Kingdon, either as current Commonwealth countries or for other historical reasons, and countries that do not fit into either of the two other groups.

Taking the EEA countries first. It might be expected that post-BREXIT the numbers their had reduced. This is true for some countries, including France and Germany, and, more interestingly, for the Irish Republic, where there was a loss of more than 900 teachers between 2015/16 census and the 2023/34 census.

EEA	2015/16	2023/24	difference
France	2210	2085	-125
Germany	645	605	-40
Ireland	3520	2595	-925
Netherlands	225	225	0
Sweden	95	90	-5
			-1095

Elsewhere in the EEA list of countries, there were more teachers in 2023/24 than in 2015/16

EEA	2015/16	2023/24	difference
Austria	60	60	0
Belgium	95	100	5
Bulgaria	100	205	105
Czech Republic	75	100	25
Denmark	65	65	0
Finland	60	60	0
Greece	260	590	330
Hungary	175	270	95
Italy	485	850	365
Malta	30	30	0
Norway	25	35	10
Other EEA	15	30	15
Poland	1155	1540	385
Portugal	255	430	175
Republic of Croatia	40	60	20
Republic of Latvia	45	80	35
Republic of Lithuania	110	160	50
Romania	350	740	390
Slovak Republic	150	180	30
Slovenia, Republic	40	60	20
Spain	1255	2100	845
Switzerland	50	55	5
			2905

There were nearly 2,000 more EEA teachers in England in 2023/24 according to these numbers. Greece, Italy and Poland between them accounting for nearly half the increase in EEA teacher numbers, and Spain alone, a further 40% of the total.

For countries with historic links to the United Kingdom there has been a marked decline in teachers from Australia, New Zealand and Canada recorded in the DfE census, and increase in teachers from Jamaica, some countries in Africa, and from the Indian sub-continent.

LINKS TO UK	2015/16	2023/24	difference
Australia	1685	1290	-395
Canada	1580	1330	-250
Guyana	60	45	-15
New Zealand	745	480	-265
Sierra Leone	85	75	-10
Trinidad & Tobago	105	95	-10
			-945

Jamaica, India and Pakistan and South Africa together account for the bulk of the increase in teachers from this group of countries.

LINKS TO UK	2015/16	2023/24	difference
Bangladesh	100	115	15
Cyprus	55	95	40
Ghana	515	665	150
India	865	1615	750
Jamaica	745	1550	805
Kenya	145	160	15
Malaysia	75	100	25
Mauritius	115	135	20
Nigeria	580	860	280
Pakistan	280	560	280
South Africa	1575	1815	240
Sri Lanka	110	165	55
Uganda	70	90	20
Zimbabwe	375	450	75
			2770

Teacher numbers from other countries not in the above two groups tend to be small in number.

Israel was the only country with fewer teachers, down from 60 to 55; a loss of just five teachers.

ROW	2015/16	2023/24	difference
Algeria	55	90	35
Brazil	60	125	65
Cameroon	70	90	20
China	145	315	170
Colombia	55	95	40
Iran	130	160	30
Morocco	55	85	30
Other ROW	955	1540	585
Russia	80	120	40
Turkey	100	170	70
Ukraine	35	95	60
USA	845	985	140
			1285

China and the USA were the only two countries providing more than 100 teachers during the period between 2015/16 and 2023/24.

As Michael Gove provided QTS to teachers trained in the USA over a decade ago, the number of teachers from the USA seems surprisingly small. However, it may not include those teaching in international schools in England that are part of the private sector.

While it is clear that a substantially more ‘overseas’ teachers were recorded in the 2023/24 census than in the 2015/26 census, their numbers alone would not have been enough to have solved the teacher supply crisis. Might they have made a difference to the percentage of teachers from some ethnic groups?

DfE confirms secondary ITT shortfall in evidence to STRB

Posted on October 31, 2025 by John Howson

The DfE’s evidence to the STRB (pay review body for teachers) contains some useful information about the state of the teaching profess, and changes over the past decade and a half since the DfE moved the teacher census from January to November each year. Much has remained the same, across the whole time period. But, before delving into the past, it is worth looking at the table for offers on secondary subjects for 2025 that I created for an earlier post, but now with the data from Table FD4-FD6 of the STRB evidence Evidence to the STRB: 2026 pay award for teachers and leaders – GOV.UK

Interestingly, the DfE doesn’t seem to have included the offers against targets that might have help the STRB to see where shortfalls are likely once the ITT census is published in December.

Subject	Target2025/26	% increase Sept on June	accepted Sept 25 FD6 DfE to STRB	over/under target
Total Secondary	19,270	26%	16843	-2,427
Primary	7,650	34%	9880	2,230
Chemistry	730	49%	909	179
Biology	985	36%	1397	412
Mathematics	2,300	35%	2617	317
Design & Technology	965	33%	678	-287
Art & Design	680	33%	902	222
Geography	935	33%	981	46
Classics	60	32%	42	-18
English	1,950	31%	1760	-190
Drama	620	30%	273	-347
Business Studies	900	29%	235	-665
Music	565	28%	343	-222
Religious Education	780	28%	418	-362
Others	2,520	25%	360	-2,160
History	790	23%	936	146
Modern Languages	1,460	21%	1428	-32
Physics	1,410	19%	1313	-97
Physical Education	725	17%	1491	766
Computing	895	5%	761	-134

As I suggested in my previous post, despite the renewed attraction of teaching for new graduates, there are still some subjects that won’t meet their target. Interestingly, the target for recruiting primary teachers is likely to be massively exceeded this year. Whether all those trainees will find jobs next summer is an interesting question.

With the continued shortfall against targets, where do schools find their staff from, and are they appropriately qualified? The answer to the second part of the question seems to be it depends on whether the school is in Pupil Premium decile 1 or decile 10. (Table D7) The data in this table suggests that schools in decline 1 have higher teacher wastage rates; higher percentages of unqualified teachers; higher percentages of teachers with less experience of teaching and a higher percentage of lesson taught by teachers not seen as qualified in the subject they are teaching. None of this is very surprising, but if the government wants to do something to level up outcomes, then they should pay attention to these percentages.

As to where schools find their teachers to ensure they are fully staffed if there are shortfalls in the numbers emerging from training, there has been a shift in the number of teachers coming from the old dominions, and an increase in those from other members of the Commonwealth. I will discuss these changes in more detail in another blog, as well as trends in recruitment for Europe.

Finally, it is worth noting that the secondary school teacher population expressed as Full Time equivalents (FTEs) barely changed between November 2010 and November 2020, increasing by just 265 FTEs, from 218,736 to 219,001. By contrast, the primary teacher FTEs in the same period increased from 196,258 to 215,632 by November 2024, although this was below the 225,537 FTEs recorded in November 2020, before pupil numbers began to fall.

Why ’V’ Levels are important for Labour

Posted on October 20, 2025 by John Howson

Alongside her campaign to become deputy leader of the Labour Party, the Secretary of State for Education has found time today to announce a new post-16 set of qualifications, called ‘V’ Levels, presumably to bring order to the landscape of such qualifications that she sees as confusing.

As I write this blog, the exact details of the new qualification to sit alongside ‘A’ & ‘T’ Levels has not yet been announced to the House of Commons, so we don’t yet know about the nature and format of ‘V’ Levels in detail.

However, as the following table shows, they may be important to many Labour Party members fighting non-metropolitan seats in the north of England, The Midlands and the South West region.

Region	Number of pupils completing key stage 4	Sustained education, employment & apprenticeships	Sustained education destination	Sustained apprenticeships	Sustained employment destination
North East	26,931	91.5	81.7	4.6	5.2
South West	53,111	93.9	84.1	4.7	5.0
Yorkshire and The Humber	58,918	92.0	82.8	4.3	4.9
North West	79,550	92.1	83.3	4.1	4.7
East Midlands	50,002	92.6	84.2	4.2	4.2
East of England	64,445	94.2	87.4	2.7	4.1
West Midlands	64,565	92.4	85.2	3.2	4.0
South East	90,649	94.3	87.7	2.6	4.0
London	84,427	94.6	92.0	0.9	1.7
Outer London	55,921	94.8	92.0	1.0	1.7
Inner London	28,506	94.1	91.9	0.6	1.5

The data is for 2023 and was published last week by the DfE as Destinations of key stage 4 and 5 students: 2024 – GOV.UK although it doesn’t seem to contain the 2024 data yet.

London students, and especially those in inner London Key Stage providers seem overwhelmingly to remain in a sustained education institution, albeit not necessarily the institution where they undertook their Key Stage 4 courses. Less than 1% of inner London students proceeded to a sustained apprenticeship. Obviously, there is more room for such apprenticeships to be offered to these pupils. By contrast, the further away from London the region, the more likely that over 4% of students will proceed to apprenticeships.

The pattern for employment, not regarded by previous government as a key option after the raising unofficially of the learning leaving age to eighteen, mirrors that of apprenticeships, with higher rates the further away from London students are located. Indeed, London is something of an outlier in respect of employment rates for this group, following the pattern expected after the raising f the school leaving age.

Missing for the table are the NEETS – those not in any category in the table. Will ‘V’ Level qualifications help reduce this number, and might it help if such qualifications started at 14, the age when many NEETS fall out of interest in schooling? I was going to write, ‘fall out of love’, but many, I suspect, were never actually in love with schooling.

Anyway, I will be interesting to see whether the announcement helps the Secretary of State’s own election campaign and, if so, whether she will be in place to take the initiative forward?

Funding SEND – is the current system fair?

Posted on October 17, 2025 by John Howson

The DfE has just published data that sets the context for the expected White Paper, due this autumn. Looking at the data on the High Needs Block that has been the basic building block for the funding of SEND (special needs and disabilities), I can see why there must have been some very intense discussions between the DfE and the Treasury. Section 251: 2025 to 2026 – GOV.UK

The data on individual special school funding only refers to maintained schools where local authorities are responsible for oversight of the budgets. It would be really helpful to see similar ‘cost per place’ data for academy special schools and alternative provision, including Pupil Referral Units, even though they have a different financial year to maintained schools.

The data for the municipal financial year of 2025-26 for Oxfordshire was set while I was still the cabinet member for Children’s Services, including maintained schools. The data on funding per place for the three maintained special schools in Oxfordshire is illuminating. There is a total of 522 such schools in England listed in the data. The most expensive costs £8.2 million per place, and judging by its website does a great job educating some very challenged young people from the start of their education journey to adulthood.

Now special schools come in many different forms with clearly different funding needs. A school for pupils with hearing loss and no other disability might need less funding per place than a school for non-verbal young people with physical disabilities in addition

The three Oxfordshire maintained schools were placed 74^th, 155^th and 170^th in the list of 522 schools, with funding per place ranging from £840,000 to £1,2 million. Schools with £2,000,000 per place of more were ranked 373 of higher in the list. Does this mean that Oxfordshire is efficient or under-funded compared with some other local areas? I do wonder.

Even allowing for issues such as higher salary costs in London and surrounding areas, the range of cost per place for similar types of school seems worth looking into more closely, and that is where the academy special schools’ data would be useful in order to allow full consideration of cost per place by local government areas.

The current High Needs block distribution formula clearly isn’t working, and I wonder whether equity of funding is an issue for the team putting together the White Paper? How does anyone judge what is fair in funding levels? Wiser heads than mine will know the answer to that question.

Of course, the other key funding issue for SEND, especially outside of the urban areas, is the cost of transport. The Section 251 budget statement for planned expenditure during 2025-26 by Oxfordshire at Line 175092 of the DfE’s spreadsheet suggests expected spending on SEND transport, including for post-16 students of around f£26.4 million. This compares with expected home to school transport costs of just under £21 million for all other pupils entitled to fee transport.

How will the White Paper deal with this cost? Hopefully, it will recognise that such costs should be met by government up to age 18 or even 19 for all such pupils, and not be discretionary beyond age 16. Could a government funded driver scheme for unemployed adults with a driving licence remove the profit element from such expenditure or would the administration costs be more than the saving made by not using private sector firms?

These are not easy issues to grapple with, but starting with some values about the needs of children with SEND would be a good basis for the outcomes in the White Paper. However, as my earlier analysis of Pupil Teacher Ratios demonstrated, funding and values are not common cause in government spending, regardless of the political persuasion of the government in power. Oxford Teacher Services -publications

Labour’s determination to recruit new teachers doesn’t include music

Posted on October 8, 2025 by John Howson

‘Now, when I think back to my school days, when I think of the happy memories. It was all about the teachers I had along the way.

The ones who helped me succeed are the ones who made me feel like I belonged.

That’s why I am determined to help you recruit and retain more great teachers in your schools.

And to encourage more people to get into the profession, what’s why we have set out today the new initial teacher training incentive.

I want more great teachers in our schools, working their magic.

And it really is magic – what they do, what you do.

Don’t ever let anyone tell you otherwise.

And I certainly won’t let anyone tell me otherwise.

You have the wonderful power to transform lives.

To give to children the knowledge and skills they need to succeed, not just in work, but in life too.

Extract from Secretary of State for Education’s speech at RISE Attainment Conference.’ Education Secretary speech at RISE attainment conference – GOV.UK

With respect, Secretary of State, what about Music teachers? The bursary for the subject has been removed for those applying to train in 2026. This is despite the likelihood of the number of entrants to ITT courses this autumn not meeting the ITT target set by the DfE. With the cuts in music courses at universities, competition of the remaining graduates is likely to intensify as the arts sector continues to contribute to increasing the national wealth.

It is not as if missing the ITT target in music is something new.

ITT census	% of target recruited
2019/20	80
2020/21	122
2021/22	71
2022/23	62
2023/24	27
2024/25	40
2025/25	65

Source: DfE ITT censuses

Presumably, the DfE is hoping that the AI revolution that will remove many existing graduate entry level jobs, will create a similar situation to the covid pandemic that drove graduates back to choosing teaching as a career. Will this be true? Only if the universities are producing the same number of new graduates, since potential career changers may already be in jobs less threatened by AI?

The text of this 2024 article suggests that new graduates in music may be harder to find than in the past Full scale of university arts cuts emerges – Arts Professional

My message is simple, the bursary should not have been removed for music, and possibly other arts subjects as well. However, the DfE should monitor applications for September 2026 training and, if by February, they are showing a failure to meet the target again in 2026, then the bursary should be reintroduced.

By the way, I have a simple formula for monitoring applications against target that I used for over a decade when UCAS managed the ITT application process. I might start using it again when the 2026 applications are revealed each month.

My reason for picking on music for this post is that I have just been invited to take over the role of Chair of Oxfordshire’s Music Hub Board.

Is Labour making mistakes on ITT bursaries?

Posted on October 7, 2025 by John Howson

Yesterday, the government announced the bursaries for trainee graduate teachers and support for school training through the Post Graduate Apprenticeship route (PGTA). As might be expected, the subjects covered by these inducements to train as a teacher are mostly STEM subjects, plus some other subjects, but not the arts and humanities subjects, except for geography for some reason.

Subject	Bursary	Scholarship
Biology	£5,000
Chemistry	£29,000	£31,000
Computing	£29,000	£31,000
Design and technology	£20,000
Geography	£5,000
Languages	£20,000	£22,000
(French, German and Spanish only)
Languages	£20,000
(all other languages, including ancient languages)
Maths	£29,000
Physics	£29,000	£31,000

Teacher training bursaries | Get Into Teaching GOV.UK

The bursaries are paid for by the government, and the scholarships mostly by the subject associations. While I can understand the government’s desire to increase training numbers up to target in these subjects, the list does raise two important questions about what seems like a continuation of the policy of the previous Conservative government.

Firstly, are these now the subjects where targets will not be met in 2025 when the ITT census is published in December. If there are other subjects not likely to meet their ITT target, why are they not included in the list?

I produced this table for an earlier blog, but it is worth repeating here.

Subject	Target2025/26	% increase Sept on June	accepted Sept 25	over/under target
Total Secondary	19,270	26%	16843	-2,427
Primary	7,650	34%	9880	2,230
Chemistry	730	49%	909	179
Biology	985	36%	1397	412
Mathematics	2,300	35%	2617	317
Design & Technology	965	33%	678	-287
Art & Design	680	33%	902	222
Geography	935	33%	981	46
Classics	60	32%	42	-18
English	1,950	31%	1760	-190
Drama	620	30%	273	-347
Business Studies	900	29%	235	-665
Music	565	28%	343	-222
Religious Education	780	28%	418	-362
Others	2,520	25%	360	-2,160
History	790	23%	936	146
Modern Languages	1,460	21%	1428	-32
Physics	1,410	19%	1313	-97
Physical Education	725	17%	1491	766
Computing	895	5%	761	-134

Why are subjects such business studies – a perennial ITT target failure – and music and religious education not included in the bursary list? Does a Labour government not believe these subjects are worth supporting?

The second issue is around whether there will be the jobs available for trainees recruited into training in September 2026, and entering the labour market in September 2027, if on a traditional course. The more the PGTA route is funded, the fewer advertised vacancies there may be if the schools convert PGTA trainees into qualified teachers doing the same job.

The government announcement contains no discussion about the labour market for teachers, and whether ITT trainees, faced with a secondary sector where pupil numbers will be at best flat, and at worst in decline, if the decline in the birthrate together with government policies on immigration or even the threat of them help to reduce the secondary school population.

From my perspective, this announcement like a sloppy piece of work by the DfE, in what could be a rapidly changing labour market, if the intention is to ensure all subjects receive sufficient new entrants into the labour market in 2026.

However, if there is a rapid decline in graduate level entry posts as a result of AI, then the government’s stance may be vindicated, even if says nothing about equality of opportunity.

John Howson

Education and the numbers that affect what happens

Tag Archives: DfE