Tag Archives: DfE

The war: bad news for schools?

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The longer the current conflict, centred around Iran, continues, the more anxiety there must be within the DfE. After all, the DfE is the second largest spending department, after spending on the NHS and Social Care. The Ministry of Defence (MoD) ranks as the third largest spending department.

Recent trends within the DfE have included increased expenditure on special needs, and post 16 schemes to reduce the number of NEETS. I assume there is also monitoring the implications of falling rolls in the school sector under way.

I guess that there might have been some hope that one trend – more spending on SEND – might be balanced by less spending on the core school grant as a result of falling rolls. By abolishing a separate High Needs Block, the additional SEND spending could disappear into the core grant, leaving schools to sort out the mess on the ground.

This is not the post to discuss the relationship between DfE and NHS spending on SEND, and how the 2014 Act, unless amended, could be used by parents to hobble school’s discretion on how they meet the education requirements of pupils with EHCPs, especially if the Tribunal Service remains as it currently is. Suffice to say, there will become a point where SEND funding starts to impact on the rest of the DfE’s budget that is, if the total spend doesn’t increase.

Digression aside, my main concern is the extent to which increased spending on defence could hit the DfE’s budget? Spending on schools’ accounts for the lion’s share of the DfE’s budget, and I cannot see how it can remain unaffected as spending on the MoD increases, as it now inevitably will do, however short-lived the current war is.

There are also pressures from within the school system as a result of the White Paper’s non-SEND initiatives to be taken into account. I don’t know whether anyone has worked out the full cost of every school becoming an academy. But replacing 150 with 160+ local authorities after local government reorganisation, with perhaps ten times than number of academy trusts won’t come cheap.

Using civil servants to administer the system will be more expensive than using local government officers. One only has to look at the £38mn it cost to run the EFSA, and the £14mn it costs to run the Teacher Regulation Agency to wonder whether anyone in Whitehall has done the maths on full academisation of schools?

However, it is the military situation that must be the real concern for schools. Let’s assume that going forward the MoD needs an extra £15bn per year in expenditure in order to meet is 5% target of government expenditure: possibly even more if conscription is again on the agenda, after being through ruled out during the 2024 election campaign.

Increase defence spending, and unless the government has spare revenue to play with, and it seems likely that other budgets will be hit. Ring fence SEND spending, and what might be the consequences?

As staffing is the biggest item in any school’s budget, in the end any further slowdown in spending may well leave schools facing a choice between cutting low paid non-teaching staff or high paid teachers, burdened with student loan debt.

So, what might we see.

MATs closing schools that cost more to run than they bring in from funding steams and ‘unofficial’ parent support. At present, any transport costs will be incurred by local authorities, so that won’t deter closures.

Schools axing courses that cost more to run than the share of pupil funding they generate. On the wider scale, this might affect small sixth forms. After all, these are often staffed by the most expensive teachers, and can be a financial drain on the resources for Key Stages 3 and 4.

Will MATs be more ruthless than local authorities when it comes to closing small sixth forms, because they have no councillors worried about re-election demanding a school retain its sixth from? This is likely to be a real issue for Reform in the south of England where 11-18 schools are the norm. If Reform want a return to selective schools that also will come at a price.

If SEND spending is ring-fenced, and demand for EHCPs for mental health issues continues to grow, at some point it will eat into the funding for other pupils. At what point will there be a pushback?

Of course, a quick war, and peace in the Middle East, plus a less bellicose Russia, might mean there will be no threat to funding for schools. And government income might rise to cover the extra spending. Who knows, but it is better to hope for the best, and plan for the worst.

If I use Pupi Teacher Ratios as a measure of what might happen, then the unwinding of the benefits of the peace dividend since the late 1990s might have a more profound effect on the primary school sector than on secondary schools, although my guess is that neither sector will be unaffected. (PDF) PTRS OVER TIME: A REVIEW OF PUPIL TEACHER RATIOS BETWEEN 1974 AND 2024 AND TWO PERIODS OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT RE-ORGANISATION PTRS OVER TIME: A REVIEW OF PUPIL TEACHER RATIOS

The other interesting question is what will happened to salaries, and how far the outcome of national salary discussions will fetter schools spending choices? Perhaps one for another blog to discuss in more detail.

Attendance and Behaviour Hubs: a DfE initiative

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One of the government initiatives that I have just caught up with is the one around attendance and behaviour hubs. The DfE announcement in December when the programme was announced said that:

The regional improvement for standards and excellence (RISE) attendance and behaviour hubs programme is a national initiative designed to support schools in improving pupil attendance and behaviour.

Led by schools with strong practice, it aims to:

  • support school leaders to reflect on current systems
  • share effective practice
  • implement changes

It is aimed at senior leaders with responsibility for attendance and behaviour who are seeking to strengthen their school’s leadership, culture and systems. RISE attendance and behaviour hubs programme – GOV.UK

Yesterday, the DfE updated the list of lead schools, so I took a look at these schools in the South East Region.  Today’s list has five primary and five secondary schools as lead hubs.

The secondary schools are located in:

West Sussex

Milton Keynes

Medway

Slough

Portsmouth

Two of these schools are non-selective schools in a location with selective schools; four schools are under-subscribed, with the fifth school having 1150 pupils against a roll of 1058, and it is a faith school.

The five primary schools are located in

Kent – 2

East Sussex

West Sussex

Medway

All have at rolls of at least 400 pupils, although three of the schools are nowhere near their capacity.

How these schools will spread good practice across the region from Milton Keynes to the Isle of Wight and from Oxfordshire to Bracknell Forest will be an interesting challenge.

One option not open to them will be the device used in the Durham coalfield in the 19th century and recorded on the noticeboard of the school now housed in the Beamish Living Museum.

The notice reads

The following notice has been received from Mr Chatt, on behalf of the Education Committee: –

“Those schools whose average attendance for the preceding month has reached 92% may grant a half-holiday on the first Friday of the month.”

Looking at the DfE’s data for Oxfordshire, the average attendance from September 2025 to start of February 2026 was 95.1% for primary schools; 91.5% for secondary schools and 88.8% for special schools.

On the basis of that data some primary schools would have qualified for the half-day in at least one month. Possibly some secondary schools might have done so as well.

However, it is worth remembering that the schools receiving the notice were Elementary Schools, taking pupils from 5 to 13 or 14, depending upon the school leaving age at the time of undated message. Attendance by the older pupils was probably as much of a challenge in the 19th century as it is today; albeit for different reasons.

Time to review funding for trainee teachers

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It has been interesting to watch the current debate about higher education, and the level of debt incurred by students studying for a degree. Throughout the recent debate, I don’t think I have seen any reference to the 2019 Auger Committee report Independent panel report to the Review of Post-18 Education and Funding set up by Theresa May when she was Prime Minster. Interestingly, I wrote a blog about the report after it was published, and you can read it here. Lower Fees: a threat to teacher education? | John Howson

My major concern at the time, back in 2019, was the Committee’s recommendation to reduce tuition fees to a maximum of £7,500 per year, and what that reduction might do to the funding of teacher preparation courses.

The recent debate about higher education funding has been around repayment levels and student debt, and Auger had a great deal to say about both that issue and the balance between the needs of the individual and the funding of higher education by the State. Suffice to say, the Committee ducked the issue of RPI versus CPI – leaving the decision to the Treasury. Had they had a crystal ball about the future direction of inflation, one wonders whether they might have been more assertive for a change?

However, their recommendation that interest not be calculated during a period of study, although the principal amount of the loan should still be increased in real terms, in order to reflect inflation, would have helped reduce repayments.

The recommendation of a cap on repayments would also have been useful in making clear how much the State would recover. However, the Committee did recognise that the system favoured well-paid graduates, as the sooner the loan was paid off, the lower the interest charges incurred.

As the Committee noted on page 174 of their Report.

“In the words of the Treasury Select Committee Report into student loans: “…the civil servant, the teacher and the accountant pay broadly similar amounts for their loan, but a graduate joining a “magic circle” law firm pays less, owing to rapid pay growth in the early stages of their career.”  House of Commons Treasury Committee (2018) Student Loans: Seventh Report of Session 2017-19, p15.

Regular readers will know that I have always maintained that making many, but not all, trainee teachers incur a fourth year of student debt, not required of other public servants has been a mistake, and a drag on recruitment into teaching and thus a damper on the economy of the country, as too many pupils fail to fulfil their full potential when taught by less than fully qualified teachers in certain subjects.

For several months now, I have been advocating the return of a bursary for trainee music teachers, to help stem the falling recruitment in that subject.

Realistically, I believe all teacher preparation courses should be debt-free. I also endorse Auguer’s recommendation that student debt should not carry interest payments while a person is studying an approved course.

The present debate about student funding will have alerted many would-be teachers to the fact that they will be paying interest on their loans while training to be a teacher, and also paying interest on the student loans for their teacher preparation courses. With starting salaries for teachers above the threshold for repayments, teaching doesn’t look like a worthwhile investment, and many are still not signing up to become teachers.

I would urge the government to look into the current funding model for trainee teachers, and to make it a level playing field for all, with no new debt, and no additional interest on undergraduate loans while studying to be a teacher.

Challenging schools still find keeping a headteacher challenging

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Alongside the White Paper, published today by the DfE, The DfE also released a document entitled Schools, school workforce and pupils statistical analysis 2026 Schools, school workforce and pupils statistical analysis 2026

Within this document, I was interested to see a discussion of headteacher turnover by Pupil Premium Decline. This showed that for both primary and secondary schools, but especially for secondary schools, turnover of headteachers was more likely where Pupil Premium levels were higher. Thus, in Band 1, – most deprived – 8.7% of secondary school headteachers changed between November 2024 and November 2025. This compared with just 2.3% of headteacher vacancies in secondary schools in Band 10. The data was taken from the DfE’s own database of teacher records and the School Workforce census.

Readers of my post of yesterday, won’t be surprised by this piece of research Headteacher: recruitment bonus – good value or not? | John Howson

Interestingly, in September 2002, the then NCSL (National College for School Leadership) published a piece of research on headteacher turnover that I conducted for the College. ‘Staying Power: the relationship between headteachers’ length of service and PANDA grades. (PANDA grades were a measure of a school’s performance and schools were graded from A* to E*).

My research looked at secondary schools with either A* or A grades and compared them with schools with E* or E grades.

The research was based upon an analysis of vacancy advertisements for headteacher posts at these schools.

As with today’s research finding, in 2002, A* schools had the greatest percentage of headteachers with more than six years of service, and E* schools the smallest percentage of headteachers with more than six years f service at that school. There were 785 A*/A schools and 780 E*/E schools in the survey.

There was also an association between the PANDA grade and readvertisement rates. 8% of A* vacancies for a headteacher were re-advertised compared with 14% of E* headteacher vacancies, and 49% of schools rated as E.

As headteachers often move from headship into retirement, the age profile of the teaching profession is a factor affecting turnover. A younger profession means fewer headteachers reaching retirement age.

However, the thesis that the more challenging the school, the shorter the term of office of a headteachers, still seems as credible today as it was half a century ago. Whether the government’s policies as foreshadowed in the White Paper will help to change this pattern of turnover and length of service will be interesting to watch.

Overseas applicants boost teacher training numbers

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As well as the White Paper, today also saw the publication of the February data on applications to postgraduate teacher preparation courses. Initial teacher training application statistics for courses starting in the 2026 to 2027 academic year – Apply for teacher training – GOV.UK

The headline number of note is the percentage of applications from outside of the United Kingdom. Last February these applicants totalled just over 6,000, accounting for 24% of all applications. This February, the applicants from outside the United Kingdon now total almost 10,500, and account for 33% of all applications.

The key question that the published data does not reveal, but is of great consequence, is whether these extra 4,000 candidates are applying across the board for all subjects, or are concentrated in just a few subjects?

This question is of real importance, as there is now a split between subjects where ‘offers’ are above last year, and those other subjects where, despite rising unemployment in the wider economy, ‘offers’ in February 2026 are below those from February 2025. Many of these latter subjects will likely miss their target once again this year unless there is a dramatic shift in applications during the second half of the recruitment round, such as last seen in 2020, as a result of the covid pandemic.

Doing better than last year with regard to ‘offers’ are: physics; mathematics; history; design & technology; computing; chemistry, drama, and primary sector courses. English is just about holding its own when compared with February 2025.

Doing less well than in February 2025 are: modern languages; art & design; religious education; physical education; music; geography; classics and biology. Of these subjects, the decline in offers for physical education should be of no concern as the number of ‘offers’ is already more than 900 or more than the combined total of ‘offers’ for art & design; drama; music; religious education and ‘other subjects.

Does this government not care about the arts? I have long campaigned for the return of the music bursary. With music ‘offers’ down at just 110 this February, compared with 139 last February, that is a loss of 29 potential teachers of music, and the gap with last year has widened since the January data were published.

So, are there any other worries? Applications from candidates over the age of 25 appear to be rising faster than from newly graduating students. There are only 128 more applications from the youngest age grouping, compared with 208 from the 45 to 49 age group, and more than 2,000 additional applicants this year from the 25 to 29 age group. It would be helpful to know in which age grouping the additional 4,500 applicants from outside the United Kingdom fall, and which subjects they have applied for this year?

With the increase in applications from men, up from 9,561 to 13,654 being proportionally more than the increase in applications from women, up from 15,735 to 18,224, it would also be informative to know which subjects these additional 4,000 male applicants have applied for, and how many fall into applicants from the ‘rest of the world’ group?

While apprenticeships have shown good growth in applications, higher education courses have had to deal with the bulk of the additional applicants, with more than 5,000 additional applicants. My guess would be that the bulk of the new overseas applicants are targeting higher education courses.

We now enter that period of the recruitment round where fewer undergraduates will be applying until after the examination season, so further growth between now and the July data are most likely from career changers rather than undergraduates. This fact might push the proportion of ’rest of the world’ applicants to an even higher percentage than the 33% recorded this month. Perhaps it is now time for the DfE to review how the data are published in order to make it more useful to those interested in the labour market for teachers?

Headteacher: recruitment bonus – good value or not?

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Following suggestions that the DfE might pay a £15,000 recruitment bonus/golden hello to encourage people to take the role of headteacher in a challenging school, I though I would look at the most recent data regarding schools failing to appoint a new headteacher at their first attempt.

The data covers 789 schools that have advertised for a headteacher between 1st August 2025 and the 20th February 2026 on their the DfE vacancy platform or since 1st January 2026, the tes jobsite as well.

Of course, some schools still have active vacancies that have yet to reach their closing date, so the data are probably an underestimate.  The 789 is lower than might be expected number of vacancies from looking at historical data. Is it possible that some MATs no longer advertise headteacher vacancies nationally?

Anyway, there have been 80 schools that have so far readvertised their headteacher vacancy. Of these schools,

50 were primary schools

14 were secondary schools

16 were special schools

13 were Roman Catholic Schools

17 Church of England

  2 other faiths

48 Not faith school

Regionally, the picture is as shown in the table.

REGIONREADVERTADVERT% READ
SE5896%
SW6917%
WM81018%
YH101089%
NW1210711%
EM108112%
L129213%
EE139713%
NE42218%
ENGLAND8078910%

The North East data shows how percentages can be misleading as two of the four schools are special schools. Without those two schools, the percentage drops to a below average 9%.

A bonus of £15,000 might look attractive to someone thinking of a headteacher post in a primary school, but with many secondary headteacher vacancies being advertised with a starting salary in six figures, would £15,000 be enough to attract candidates to apply for the vacancy? How does it compare with subject bonuses for working in such schools?

A review of the 14 secondary schools for percentage pass at Grade 5 in English and mathematics from the DfE website, shows a range of outcomes

22.8
27.0
32.9
33.5
38.5
39.5
40.2
43.7
49.8
51.3
51.5
62.3
64.6
83.5

However, it would suggest that re-advertising secondary schools do appear to have below average outcomes.  However, four of the schools posted their vacancy just before Christmas, and that might be more of reason for the re-advertisement than their GCSE score, that is unless the school has to re-advertise for a second time after an early 2026 re-advert.

Special schools do seem to have difficulty attracting a head teacher, so a bonus there could potentially be useful as an inducement, especially as taking such a headship often involves a house move.

Overall, if the scheme just covered secondary and special schools, it might cost the DfE around £1 million a year. Add in primary schools, and the cost could be much higher.

However, it does seem clear that a school’s results may not be the only barrier to a school recruiting a headteacher easily.

There needs to be certainty that there are sufficient candidates will, able and experienced enough to move into headship. There the DfE certainly has a role to play.

White Paper: bad news for rural primary schools

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Tomorrow, Monday, we will see Labour’s White Paper in full. For now, we have copious leaks and SEND and other matters, such as how to tackle the outcome gaps between the most deprived pupils and their more fortunate fellows either sitting alongside them or in other schools to whet our appetite.

The replacement of Free School Meals as a measure of deprivation has been long overdue, but it will be interesting see, as schooling moves from a local service to a national service, administered in a similar fashion to the NHS, whether the civil service will be any better than local politicians at managing the performance of the school system.

Making all schools academies will be the final nail in local government’s interest in schooling. Once SEND is handled nationally, it will just leave admissions, mainly on-line these days, to be removed from local management.

However, the changes already foreshadowed in the leaks mean that there will be winners and losers. Assuming that H M Treasury might fund some of the SEND changes, there is unlikely to be any new money to support schools to improve.

The present Funding Formula is heavily biased towards pupil numbers. Great when rolls are rising, but bad news for small schools when rolls fall. If the formula is altered to move more money towards schools with significant numbers of pupils not achieving expected standards, where will the cash come from?

Might small rural primary schools with good attendance and excellent results see their funding cut in real terms? If so, what are the consequences likely to be?  Trusts will be reluctant to keep schools that cost more to run than they bring in through funding open, and will have no incentive to do so. Afterall, any travel costs will be paid for from the local authority under present arrangements.

I can see the local government organisations saying that if local authorities don’t run schools, then they shouldn’t have to pay any transport costs. Taking £46 million off Oxfordshire County Council’s budget would pay for an awful lot of pothole repairs, not to mention bolstering other services.

For those local authorities currently receiving little funding from central government, removing schooling entirely from local government would be an unexpected bonus. On the other hand, there would, as with the NHS, be no local democratic accountability. Education rarely features during general elections.  

One bonus of a national school system is that the government might feel able to create a universal system for secondary schools, some 61 years after Circular 10/65 and on the 50th Anniversary of the 1976 Education Act.

Without democratic oversigh,t ignoring the 2006 rules about closing small rural primary schools will be much easier. Small one form entry faith schools in urban areas with good results have even less protection. It is worth studying the results for primary schools in Haringey to see the parts of the borough that might be winners and those that might be losers if funding doesn’t increase overall.

As someone that started teaching in Tottenham in 1971, when we had ‘areas of exceptional difficulty’ payments introduced into ‘Education Priority Areas’ it is interesting to see how stark the divide between schools on opposite sides of the railway line north from Kings Cross still remains.

So, will the government close that divide? But will it be at a cost to rural primary schools in Oxfordshire, my current home?

Music teacher shortage: the situation worsens

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Regular readers will know that I have been pursuing a return of the ITT bursary for postgraduates enrolling to train as a music teacher on courses starting in the autumn of 2026. This is a very small -U- turn for the government, but a necessary one for the subject, and its future in our schools and universities.

Previous posts on this blog have demonstrated that the removal of the bursary has already affected ‘offers’ to music courses, with a reduction of around 20 ‘offers’ in January 2026 compared with January 2025. Traditionally, any reduction in early-bird offers is not recovered later in the annual application cycle. Music ITT will miss its target: my reasoning | John Howson

This post looks at competition for teachers of music. There are three main areas for teachers to seek work as a teacher of music in a school: the state sector- including sixth form colleges; independent schools in England; private schools across the globe that seek to employ teachers trained in England.

Our starting point this year is the 367 trainees in music identified by the DfE’s annual census taken in December 2025. Add in Teach First and any late arrivals, and the overall total might be 380 – being generous.

Take of 10% for non-completes and those not choosing teaching as a career, and the labour market might have a supply of 342 trainees seeking work.

By mid-February, there had been 100 advertised vacancies by state schools for teachers of music without a TLR – i.e. classroom teacher posts. A well-used job board recorded 15 classroom teacher vacancies from independent schools in England on a single day in mid-February.

On the same date, the same job board, recorded 99 vacancies for teachers of music from schools across the world.  This was made up of 40 vacancies in The Gulf, primarily in Dubai and the other Emirates, but there were 13 vacancies from schools in China, and 46 from schools elsewhere in the world.

Now I don’t expect nearly qualified teachers to apply for these vacancies, but to the extent that these posts are not filled by teachers already working overseas, then these vacancies will take teachers away from schools in England, and create new vacancies.

Assuming only a third of these vacancies are filled by teachers leaving schools in England, and the rest filled in other ways that would be an extra 33 vacancies at present.

Adding together the 100 state school vacancies so far in 2026 to the 15 already recorded private schools in England plus the 33 overseas schools currently seeking a new teacher that might recruit from schools in England that produces a total of 148 vacancies by mid-February, or 43% of the available total of trainees. Increase the take by overseas schools to half of their current vacancies, and not far off half the available pool for September and January could have been offered a job.

Now, some of the vacancies in Egland will be filled by existing teachers changing jobs or returners to the profession, but most experienced teachers will probably be looking for a post with a TLR if seeking a move to another school.

With three months to go to the summer resignation date, and six months until terms start, the pool of available teachers already looks stretched, and this is with trainees that have enjoyed the bursary.

If the lack of a bursary shrinks the 2027 pool, because there are fewer trainees, is removing the bursary a sensible move? In my opinion, it is not, and the government should reintroduce the bursary for trainees starting preparation courses in autumn 2026 to be a teacher of music.

 We will continue to monitor the situation and report back through future blogs as the recruitment round unfolds.

Who controls your teaching career?

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For a few years in the 2000s, I wrote a weekly column in the TES answering questions from teachers about their careers. For all the time I have been associated with teachers, teaching and our education system, it has been clear to me that for the most part teachers are on their own when it comes to plotting a career path. Not only do they few places to turn for individual advice and encouragement, but they mostly have to finance any career development out of their earnings.

There is an obvious tension between the needs of a school, and the needs of those working within the organisation. Good employers recognise the need to develop their staff, even if it means losing them to another school. So how would you answer these multiple-choice questions?

Your school recruited a good new teacher of physics in 2024, straight from a PGCE course. In 2026, do you

A] Keep your fingers cross that by the 31st May they haven’t submitted a letter of resignation

B] Tell them they can have a TLR to encourage them to stay at the school

C] Discuss their career ambitions with them, and how long they might stay at the school

D] Ask them to teach some mathematics next year, as the school is short of maths teachers?

Might you answer be different if you were the headteacher of

A] a rural school and the teacher’s partner worked locally

B] An urban school with many other schools in commuting distance of your school

C] A school in an academy trust of several local schools

D] A school with falling rolls

Of course, there are no right answers to these questions.  But, your instinctive attitude to each possible answer may tell you something about your values with regard to pupils, teachers, schools and education in general.

Should teachers have somewhere to turn for advice about their own careers? There are posts on this blog about how far an entrant into teaching at age 30 might progress in their career. How attuned are schools to the needs of their staff. If a young parent wants a bit of flexibility, does the school either find a way to offer that support or just refuse to even consider the issue: think of everyone else on the staff.

Is career advice a role for the Chartered College of Teachers; for the professional associations; for subject and phase membership organisations; or for all of these, plus leadership teams in schools?

In the late 1970s, I worked in a professional development centre, a place where teachers could come and talk about their aims and aspirations. Do we need such space, either real or virtual today.

Am I right to be concerned about the career paths of teachers, or it everything fine out there these days, with social media available for teachers and many other organisations wrapped around schooling? I would be interested in comments from readers.

I became a teacher because of the freedom it offered me, but I knew I had to manage my own career. Thankfully, I did so, even if some of my decisions might have been different with the benefit of hindsight. But, they were my decisions.

Music teachers: bring back the bursary

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Previous posts in this blog have drawn attention to the removal of the bursary for trainee teachers of music starting courses in September 2026.  Music is a subject that is short of qualified teachers. As a result, removing the bursary is not going to increase interest in teaching as a career, especially while the current debate about student loans and repayment issues is raging. As trainee teachers mostly pay fees, this could become an issue for intending teachers.

A previous post has shown that the number of ‘offers’ made in January 2026 to applicants for music teacher preparation courses was down from 91 in January 2025, to just 70 in January 2026 Why Music Teacher Bursaries Matter for Education | John Howson

Now, those teachers recruited for September 2026 courses will enter the teacher labour market in time for appointment as a teacher in September 2027. What is happening in the labour market for teachers now?

An analysis of some 57 vacancies advertised nationally in either the TES or on the DfE job board with a closing date between the 1st January 2026 and the 2nd February 2026, by state secondary schools, revealed a total of 57 posts advertised. Most were for ‘teachers of music’, with a few promoted posts either titled as head/director of music or some similar phraseology. By the 5th February, seven of these posts has already re-appeared with a new closing date: basically, if they were genuine vacancies, then they had not been filled, and were being re-advertised.

Should we be surprised that 14% of vacancies advertised in January were not filled. Perhaps not as it is really too early for most trainees to have commenced their search for a teaching post. However, it also suggests that there is not a pool of ‘returners’ waiting to pounce on a job as soon as it was advertised: at least in some parts of the country.

Perhaps even more disturbing, is that two of the vacancies are for Easter appointment: normally, a rare occurrence. There are also some other vacancies with April 2026 start dates still to reach their closing dates. The presence of these vacancies surprises me, as in the past such advertisements would have been a rare sight.

The data on vacancies, albeit from a small sample so far, suggests a market where some schools are struggling to recruit a teacher of music

This analysis of advertisements doesn’t tell the full picture, as it excludes advertisements by the independent sector schools, special schools and those larger primary schools seeking to appoint a music specialist.  Add those in and the number of vacancies already advertised this year is probably in excess of 100.

Then there are the posts for teachers of music in international schools that will take teachers out of schools in England. I am not sure whether anyone is keeping track of those numbers, but with the Labour government sanctioning a State School to open branches in India and The Gulf, in support of UK plc’s export drive, that factor will need to be taken into consideration when surveying the labour market as a whole.

In my view, there is now more than enough evidence to persuade any rational government to reinstate bursary for trainee teachers of music. But, does this government take rational decisions? Answers please, on a postcard or in the comment section.