Tag Archives: DfE

New research on teacher supply

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The NfER has today published a detailed report on teacher supply and its implications for learning. Teacher supply and shortages: the implications of teacher supply challenges for schools and pupils – NFER Many of the conclusions in their report will not come as any surprise to regular readers of this blog. After all, there have been many posts discussing the issue – even as recently as the post on whether PE is now a shortage subject – during the lifetime of this blog.

Whilst I find most of the conclusions unsurprising, there are some that are interesting.  Figure 15 suggests that a higher percentage of responses from schools in the North East than in London fell in the ‘most difficult’ category, although to be fair, schools in the North East also topped the percentage in terms of response of ‘least difficult’. It may be that the starting salary in London is still high enough to attract teachers not yet interested in buying into the housing market and content to share rented properties.

I am surprised at the reported level of recruitment challenge faced by schools in the primary sector, where supply ought to be more than adequate across most of England.

The overall conclusion that schools are only able to provide some teaching by the use of non-specialist teaching must be of concern. The alternative is to stop teaching certain subjects either entirely or to limit the number of groups offered a subject. However, for key subjects, such as mathematics and English not teaching the subject is not possible in most schools.

The authors of the report also concluded that ‘challenges with teacher recruitment may also be having a disproportionate impact on schools with low Ofsted ratings, and school leaders’ efforts to improve outcomes. There is likely to be a complex relationship between a school’s Ofsted rating and recruitment challenges, rather than a simple effect of an Ofsted rating downgrade making it more challenging to recruit.’

 However, they further comment that ‘… our survey data suggests there seems to be an association between a low Ofsted rating and increased recruitment challenges. These recruitment challenges may exacerbate the challenges of improving the quality of education in the school, whether through leaders doing more teaching reducing leadership capacity, lower-quality teachers being employed, or other related factors.’ Whether recruitment challenges have resulted in the downgrading of outstanding schools also reported today is an interesting question that merits further study.

In a fortnight’s time the DfE should publish the 2022 ITT Census and that will provide schools with a picture of the recruitment round for September 2023 and January 2024. It seems likely that once again recruitment targets will be missed, thus providing schools with more of a dilemma over staffing.

Perhaps, NfER might next year look in more depth at the actions that the DfE might take to ensure a fair distribution of teachers between schools in what is in some subjects now becoming a scare resource. Should every school have access to at least one specialist in every curriculum area?

The NfER might also investigate the extent to which post-entry subject enhancing CPD makes any difference to the expertise of the teaching force.

Do your best, but stick within the rules

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The recently issued report on a capital project at a single academy trust school may well exemplify why the DfE is no longer seemingly in favour of such single academy arrangements Investigation report: Queen Elizabeth Grammar School Penrith – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) The report ended by stating that the Trust had ‘overclaimed by, and was paid, £1,502,393.40 (£269,193.56 + £1,204,779.04 + £28,420.80)’ for the various works.

It is clear that the work undertaken benefitted the school, but since there was a limited pot of funding for this type of capital work, other schools presumably will have missed out on access the funds that should have been returned to the DfE according to the report.  The school is now transferring from a single school trust to join a multi-academy trust in the same region.

A detailed analysis of the evidence in the report reveals that at least one trustee had concerns about the way the project was being handled, and that cash could be claimed back by the DfE.

In former times, would internal auditors at a local authority have been more diligent in preventing the transfer of funds from the specified project to other needs? What is clear is that because the school had been rated as ‘outstanding’ by ofsted in its previous form it had not had an inspection since becoming an academy. Might an inspection team have noticed if they had visited the school during the period of the project: who knows, but it would not have been the focus of attention.

This type of report is rare, but the school is not unique in being the subject of such a report. Doing the best for your school or schools is a long-established principle providing the scheme is undertaken within the rules.

I well recall a local authority in the 1960s where their building branch was very good at gaming the system. In those days, LA listed capital projects in order of priority and the Ministry specified which projects would be funded. This authority would often come back during the financial year to ask if there was any unspent capital as a project that was unfunded had moved up the order, normally because a developer had started to build a new estate faster than expected and places were now needed sooner than anticipated for the pupils living in the new houses.

Eventually, the government moved from selecting actual projects to providing a cash sum and letting local authorities decide their own priorities. The change placed the onus on the authority to decide the order of priority.

As there is never enough capital funding for schools – Ted Short and Mrs Thatcher when Labour and Conservative Education Ministers in the 1960s and 1970s both wanted to rebuild pre-1906 primary schools, but were frustrated by economic circumstances – and the present economic state of the nation is likely to once again to put capital funding under pressure, and highlight the need for a fair and just allocation system that all responsible for schools will adhere to operating properly.

Teaching staff ratios worsens in secondary sector

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The DfE has published the latest Education and Training Statistics for the four nations of the United Kingdom. As education is a devolved activity, each nation choses how to use its funds in its own way. The remainder of this blog refers to outcomes in England. Education and training statistics for the UK, Reporting Year 2022 – Explore education statistics – GOV.UK (explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk)

The largest expenditure item in schools is staffing, with teaching staff taking the largest share of that budget. One measure over time of the trend in that spending is the Pupil Teacher Ratio (PTR). The ratio allows for changes in pupil numbers are well as in funding. When pupil numbers are falling but funding increasing, PTRs sometimes fall – i.e. show an improvement as there are then fewer pupils per teacher. In the primary sector, this is sometimes talked about in terms of class sizes, but such a measure is less useful in the secondary sector, so allow for comparisons in trends, PTRS are a more useful measure.

At present, pupil numbers in the primary sector are in decline, whereas they are still rising across the secondary sector as a whole. This is reflected in the trends in PTRs.

PTRs for school sectors in England
2017/182018/192019/202020/212021/22
NurseryEngland21.922.823.521.823.4
PrimaryEngland20.920.920.920.620.6
SecondaryEngland15.916.316.616.616.7
SpecialEngland6.26.26.36.26.3
Total MaintainedEngland17.918.018.218.018.0
(1) In England, special schools include pupil referral units.
(2) In England, the primary pupil-teacher ratio includes local authority (LA) maintained nurseries.
Source DfE November 2022

Primary school PTRs remained constant in 2021/22 compared with the previous year, whereas in the secondary sector they continued to worsen, reaching their worst aggregate level since before 2016/17. The small number of state-maintained nursey schools came under the greatest pressure, with their PTR almost returning to the record pre-pandemic level recorded in 2019/20.

Most of the remainder of the data are for the United Kingdom as a whole, and not dis-aggregated into the national levels. Across the United Kingdom as a whole, Expenditure on education in real terms increased by 5.4% from Financial Year 2020-21 to Financial Year 2021-22. Expenditure on education as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) decreased by 0.2 percentage points.

Later today, the Chancellor, in his autumn statement, may well announce cuts to the education budget in England. Any significant cuts to revenue funding will have repercussions for the 2023/24 data when it is published later in the decade. PTRs may well worsen significantly, especially if teachers are offered a pay increase anywhere near the current rate of inflation.

However, past experience in previous ‘hard times’ has shown that schools do everything to protect teachers’ jobs and will first cut everything else in the budget to the bone. Today, a MAT in Oxfordshire has made that clear Oxford and Abingdon schools face choice of heating or teaching – BBC News My guess is, as she picture shows it will be the heating that is cut and not the teaching.

Are schools offering permanent posts?

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What type of tenure is on offer in teaching vacancies posted during the autumn term? Research by TeachVac www.teachvac.co.uk reveals big differences between the primary and secondary sectors in the type of tenure on offer this autumn.

TeachVac classifies vacancies into one of three groups: Permanent positions; temporary positions or posts arising from maternity leave.

The data is collected from vacancy adverts posted by schools on their web sites.

From the start of September 2022 up to 14th November: an arbitrary date with no other reason for selection than that I am writing this blog on the 15th November, the data collected was as follows.

Classroom Teacher posts
PrimaryMaternityPermanentTemporaryTotal
Sep-224916113261428
Oct-224328384271697
Nov-221694603761005
1092190911294130
SecondaryTotal
Sep-2255426781843416
Oct-2255330352673855
Nov-2227616481782102
138373616299373
Grand Total24759270175813503
Source TeachVac

Two facts stand out. The secondary sector advertised more vacancies than the primary sector, and there was a difference in tenure of advertised vacancies between the two sectors. This is obvious if the actual numbers are converted into percentages

Classroom Teacher posts
PrimaryMaternityPermanentTemporary
Sep-2234%43%23%100%
Oct-2225%49%25%100%
Nov-2217%46%37%100%
26%46%27%100%
Secondary    
Sep-2216%78%5%100%
Oct-2214%79%7%100%
Nov-2213%78%8%100%
15%79%7%100%
Grand Total18%69%13%100%
Source TeachVac

Less than half of the posts advertised in the primary sector have been permanent positions, compared with 79% of vacancies in the secondary sector. Maternity leave vacancies are also much higher in the primary sector than in the secondary sector, accounting for a quarter of all vacancies in the primary sector and a third of the September vacancies.

Despite the downturn in the birth-rate nationally, primary school teachers are still it seems taking time out to raise a family. However, the downturn in pupil numbers across the primary sector must be affecting school budgets, because pupil numbers are an important element of school-funding these days. With any teacher leaving at Christmas for maternity leave not likely to return until January 2024, many schools may not be certain of their school rolls, and hence funding, beyond the summer of 2023.

With the Autumn Statement on Thursday, and the data from the recent NAHT Survey of schools, it seems likely that more schools will resort to temporary appointments in the future as they consider their budgets going forward.

Past experience from the time of the Geddes Axe of a hundred years ago and the recession of the late 1970s and early 1980s suggests that class sizes will increase and teacher numbers decline, if funding is again put under pressure, although that outcome needs to be balanced by the number of teachers quitting the state-school sector.

In the past, when there were fewer graduate posts across the economy, a recession meant unemployed teachers. This time the outcome may be different between the primary and secondary sectors, with more unemployed primary school teachers than amongst their secondary sector colleagues unless there is a change in funding arrangements.

Is PE now a shortage subject?

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What a silly question. Everyone knows that there is an over-supply of trained PE teachers entering the labour market for teachers each year. This blog has said so often enough in the past. In previous years, the combination of over-recruitment onto training courses and a consistent level of demand has always meant that by the end of a calendar year there were always more PE teachers looking for jobs than posts available.

In 2022, the situation is slightly different. Yes, recruitment in Autumn 2021 onto ITT courses remained healthy, but the surge in vacancies for teachers recorded across the board during 2022 has swept PE along with the tide.

Using the index TeachVac developed in 2015, and has used since, to measure demand against the known level of supply, 2022 has seen the index for PE teachers turn negative for the first time ever this autumn.  (The dataset is at the foot of this post). The current index produced a figure of -135 on Friday 11th November 2022. This compares with a figure of -2273 for design and technology teachers, so it is still of a different order of magnitude but is in negative territory for the first time since I started recording the index.

At this level, the index points to regional shortages rather than a universal issue recruiting PE teacher across the whole of England. There are parts of the country where any late vacancy for a PE teacher for January 2023 can be filled easily. But there are other areas, notably those some distance from providers of training where schools would likely need to rely upon returners or switching their timetable around to cover unexpected vacancies.

Schools with contracts with recruitment agencies might like to check, as I assume they do on a regular basis anyway, how many PE teachers the agency has on its books. Schools should never wait to ask when they need a vacancy filled but should be aware of which agency can supply the best range of teachers to fill unanticipated vacancies. This is, perhaps, an area of recruitment where there is room for some more sophistication on the part of schools and MATs.

So, why the mini recruitment crisis in PE? Perhaps the rising school population plays a part, as does possible departures form the profession as the range of other possible jobs, from personal trainer, to working in leisure centres or teaching overseas has increased. Schools might also have seen PE teachers are useful support for their science and other departments where recruitment has been a challenge for some time now. The use of PE teachers across other curriculum subjects provides a reservoir of talent but can pose an issue for a school with a in-year vacancy if external recruitment does prove challenging.

If this week’s NAHT survey is anything to go by, this will be a short-lived problem as schools see funding decline and staffing number reduced. We shall see what Wednesday’s Autumn Statement brings for schools: good news may be in short supply.

Date20152016201720182019202020212022
07/01/2022114911209559811164121914981455
14/01/2022114411089439701148119914881427
21/01/2022114411009309581130117414741395
28/01/2022114110939169451107114814581360
04/02/2022112410829049311082112114401339
11/02/2022111810718919141062109014201298
18/02/2022111710668819021040104914071267
25/02/2022111710538678921026102913901241
04/03/2022110510348508811009100413671194
11/03/20221098101783085198496713411152
18/03/2022108899981084296491713221102
25/03/2022107997879782592789112971056
01/04/2022107196878180289787412651002
08/04/202210719597687858598501251952
15/04/202210579397577728388341237926
22/04/202210399147447388228251208899
29/04/202210218917136907978001161829
06/05/202210048766866517407671119737
13/05/20229938576526086837381073633
20/05/20229868346275616357051030553
27/05/2022979817605528590684998480
03/06/2022962808590521569677978447
10/06/2022945790568484532659952374
17/06/2022938772546469501646930315
24/06/2022930765537455481637914271
01/07/2022922761530447466628901232
08/07/2022917756524435454621893208
15/07/2022915748519425443616886195
22/07/2022915745517420440612884183
29/07/2022915745513418438610882177
05/08/2022915743510416437609879175
12/08/2022915741506416436609877171
19/08/2022915741506415435606875166
26/08/2022915741503412433605871161
02/09/2022915738501411432604868152
09/09/2022913736497406425601857132
16/09/2022903731489400409592842107
23/09/202289772748238539558482479
30/09/202289071647037437257080542
07/10/20228827104613553475577856
14/10/2022873704452350325545763-30
21/10/2022864699441337304530744-62
28/10/2022862692435334291517736-76
04/11/2022858683430326284512715-105
11/11/2022852674421314267501690-135
18/11/2022847662409295252486668
25/11/2022842652402292239477648
02/12/2022840647395280222462633
09/12/2022833642388273207452618
16/12/2022828632384262196447599
23/12/2022825626378253183436
30/12/2022

Middle Leaders: Hard to Find. Part 3 – What matters?

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This is the final blog post in the series of three posts about re-advertised TLR level vacancies in geography recorded by TeachVac at http://www.teachvac.co.uk. In this post some of the evidence about school outcomes and the need to re-advertise are considered.

The number of schools in the sample is 80 for this exercise. The number is lower than in the previous posts for two reasons. There are a small number of independent schools in the sample and also a number of new schools. Both groups do not have data on Attainment.

Although there are discussions about the utility of the DfE’s Attainment 8 measure, this measure in its provisional outcome state for 2022 was used to classify the schools.

Of the 80 school, 24 had an Attainment 8 score better than that of the score for their local authority as a whole. This meant that 56 schools with re-advertised posts were below the average for their local authority as a whole.

Of the 24 schools that scored better than their LA average for all schools, eight were located in London; three in the South East and two in the East of England. Thus, 13 of the 24 might be seen as schools in London and the Home Counties where house prices might restrict the ability of teachers to move into a particular area.

Not only did the schools re-advertising perform worse in Attainment 8 than local schools, but in the case of 41 of the 80 schools they were also below the average for all schools in England.

Another characteristic of the schools re-advertising was that in 53 out of the 80 cases, the school re-advertising had a percentage of pupils on Free School Meals at some point in the last six years that was above the national average for England, in some cases markedly so.

Of course, other factors, such as the time of year of the initial advertisements may make a difference in terms of the need to re-advertise, but many of the schools in the sample experienced more than one round of re-advertisements for their TLR vacancy.

Another interesting feature is the presence of six schools from one large Multi-Academy Trust in the sample of 80 schools and three from another large MAT. Is their presence just a matter of the size of the MAT? Perhaps, in some cases, they have taken on schools in challenging circumstances that might seem less attractive places in which to work. Some of the schools are in parts of London with high housing costs, and that may be another issue.

Some years ago, during the coalition government there was a trial scheme designed to place middle leaders in schools finding recruitment a challenge. For some reason, Yorkshire and Lancashire authorities were selected for the trial. At the time the choice of area seemed odd to me. As it was, for several reasons, the scheme never progressed beyond the trial stage, although various potential bidders did contact me about participating in possible bids.

The data for this study came from TeachVac. Schools can have access to TeachVac’s data and analysis by signing up to the vacancy matching service. The basis cost is just £1 per vacancy match made with a teacher with a maximum cost of £500 per year. Schools should go to www.teachvac.co.uk to sign up and see whether there are any special offers either for groups or for different types of school.

Catch Up a good idea, but where to find the staff?

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The DfE has released a research report into Year 2 of the National Tutoring Programme. National Tutoring Programme year 2: implementation and process evaluation – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) What struck me about the report by NfER was the issue of where tutors came from and the impact of the programme on the overall workforce available to teach our children.

The Report comments that:

“The availability and quality of external tutors and mentors is fundamental – not all schools have the capacity to use internal staff as tutors Evidently, some schools want and need to rely on external tutors. It is encouraging that two-thirds of senior leaders were confident that their school could access high-quality tutoring when needed. However, a fifth were uncertain and a notable minority were unconfident. Only two-fifths were more confident than before the pandemic, which is disappointing given the Government’s focus on tutoring as a response to Covid-19 recovery.”

The Report also concludes that:

“The clear message from the research summarised earlier in the report is that tutors should be knowledgeable in their subject area and trained in pedagogy for tutoring to be effective. The findings emphasise the importance of the roles of the NTP contractors in 2022-23, who will be responsible for recruitment of tutors and mentors, providing them with training, and quality assurance.”

Both of these factors will no doubt contribute to the finding that the programme added to the workload of senior staff in schools, as would any new programme, and that those extra burdens need to be financed to prevent staff having to cope with extra pressures. The Report comments that “It will be important to monitor and review whether this increase in workload continues as the NTP becomes more embedded and as schools are given more autonomy over the delivery of tutoring.”

From my perspective, it is also important to know more about where the staff involved in the programme came from, and if tutoring is going to become a long-term feature of the school scene what will be the effects on the ability of schools to staff their core offering of teaching and learning. How will the programme interface with any actions on the levelling up agenda the new Ministerial Team at the DfE might pursue.

Does the return of Mr Gibb to a ministerial role in the DfE mean more phonics and the EBacc and less concern with vocational subjects? Faced with the prospect of cuts to departmental spending, will the programme be judged sufficiently successful to survive or just allowed to be something schools might wish to pay for from their own budgets?

The National Tutoring Programme should fill an important gap in the provision by providing schools with the ability to help pupils that miss elements of schools catch-up with their peers and help put their own learning back on track. However, the relationship between the programme, and particularly the secondary school sector, where staffing issues are more critical, may need further investigation and may perceived regional issues in supply. In the primary sector, the impact on senior staff workload may be an important consideration for the future.

Why do children in London want to go to school?

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Last week, the DfE published some interesting data on attendance during the autumn and spring terms s of the past few years. The figures, as the DfE acknowledges, are affected by the progress of the covid pandemic. Nevertheless, it is interesting to look at the 2021/22 autumn and spring term data for overall absence as measured by local authority. The data are for upper-tier authorities, so in the remaining ‘shire counties’ it isn’t possible to drill down to district council level. Such data would be especially interesting as it would allow better comparisons between district and unitary councils and the urban borough of London and the Metropolitan areas. Pupil absence in schools in England: autumn and spring terms, Autumn and Spring Term 2021/22 – Explore education statistics – GOV.UK (explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk)

Even with out this data, the dominance of the London boroughs in the table as ranked by lowest levels of absence is very plain to see.  Only Trafford and Bracknell Forest break in to the list of the top 25 local authorities with the lowest overall absence rates for autumn 2021 and spring 2022 terms, a fact demonstrated by the regional data in the table below. Camden seems to be something of an outlier in the London data with rates for overall absence well about the average for its companion boroughs.

Absence rates by region, autumn and spring terms 2021/22
 Overall absence rateRate of sessions recorded as not attending due to COVID circumstancesPercentage of persistent absentees – 10% or more sessions missed
North East7.90%1.10%24.30%
North West7.30%1.20%22.30%
Yorkshire and The Humber7.60%1.20%23.00%
East Midlands7.40%1.30%22.10%
West Midlands7.60%1.40%23.30%
East of England7.50%1.50%23.00%
South East7.40%1.60%22.20%
South West8.00%1.40%24.70%
Inner London6.30%1.30%18.70%
Outer London6.40%1.20%18.80%
Source: DfE

Inner London, has the lowest overall absence rate for the period, followed by the Outer London boroughs. The South West, a region with no real urban outside of the Bristol Region, had the worst overall absence rate, ahead of even the North East that featured in my recent post about unauthorised absences this September. Absent without leave | John Howson (wordpress.com)

The DfE’s data on overall absence covers primary, secondary and special schools and it would be interesting to see the data by sector for each local authority. Are the areas where the DfE has pupped in extra funds performing better than those with just the National Funding Formula and high Needs block to rely upon? Although above the regional average, the percentage figure for Blackpool is by no means the worst in the North West, so hopefully, the funding is making a difference.

As might be expected, the overall absence rate for the secondary sector at 9.2% in Spring Term 2021/22 was higher than in the primary sector, where it was 6.7%. Both included a 1% figure for covid related absences. In 2018/19, before the pandemic, the secondary sector recorded an overall absence rate of 5.6% and the primary sector a rate of 4.1%. Not surprisingly, it seemed easier to encourage primary school pupils back into school after the pandemic.

Ensuring pupils are back in school must be the first step on the recovery in learning, and there must be thoughts about the missing adolescents and how they can be encouraged to start learning again. Might that affect judgements about future funding, or will the government write off these young people and their learning?

Can state services save money for schools?

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When I first started writing this blog, back in early 2013, now nearly a decade ago, one of my mistakes was not to create an index. With more than 1,300 posts later, to do so now would be a labour of love that at present I don’t have the time for. The lack of an index means I am largely dependent upon visitors throwing up links to former posts to supplement my own memory of issues such as Jacob’s Law – discussed in the previous post.

Today, I have been reminded of a post from January 2018 about costs and savings in the education system that is relevant to the present economic situation. You can read the full post at Not Full Circle? | John Howson (wordpress.com) but one key paragraph was this:

“…. I wonder whether another stage in the cycle of government contracting is starting to emerge. In the immediate post-war period of central planning, public bodies often ran most services. There was no profit element to consider, but cost controls were of variable quality. The Thatcher era saw a mass transfer of services to private companies, with an expectation that costs would fall. Maybe some did, but others didn’t and some benefitted from the proceeds of technological change that drove down costs, but didn’t create competition and didn’t always drive down prices.”

This 2018 post had built upon an even earlier one from July 2014 Private or public | John Howson (wordpress.com) that dealt with the issue, concerning even then, of the cost of outsourcing children’s services to the private sector with no control over rising costs.

At that time, I was establishing TeachVac www.teachvac. To demonstrate how costs of recruitment advertising could be reduced. I concluded the post with the comment that;

“In a time of cutbacks on government expenditure, as we have witnessed during the past six years, it is inevitable that staffing costs will come under pressure, and the debate between cutting wages or cutting services will rage. Sometimes there is a third way, and a new technology or a different approach, can achieve the same service level for lower costs. Is that what we ought to be striving for in education? The only other alternative to preserve service levels is higher taxes.”

This debate about the profit element, and where the most cost-effective system can be found, is once again a live one as the country faces a new round of coping with living beyond its means and the consequences of a foolish attempt to ‘dash for growth’ when other global factors were pointing towards the need for sound government.

How to make savings in a devolved system such as schooling in England is an interesting question. Perhaps we should start with the role of the DfE. Is it there to provide services on a ‘take it or leave it’ basis, such as their vacancy site or is it there to bring together the different players to work out the best value approach for schools. If the latter, how does it enforce such a best value approach? Perhaps the annual audit report should make a comment to governors about where a school spending exceeds a benchmark?

TeachVac is currently in the process of creating an index on recruitment showing the position that a school sits both locally and nationally. Such an index would provide evidence to show the degree high spending on recruitment was necessary and justified.  

Marking time between PMs

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The current political turmoil at Westminster has led commentators and journalists to suggest that the Schools Bill is now effectively dead in the water. The Bill had been struggling ever since it was introduced into the House of Lords and then received a right mauling, such as Upper House can sometimes deliver. Even Tory members of the ‘revising chamber’ seemed unimpressed by their own government’s attempts at reform. The strongest support at that point in time seemed to come from the bench of the Lords Spiritual in the form of the Church of England Bishop with the speaking rights for their schools.  

So, while the DfE also waits to see whether kit Malthouse joins the ranks of those passing through Sanctuary buildings or will be allowed to stay on in post as Secretary of State by the next prime minster, what might civil servants do with their time if the Bill has effectively been dropped?

Personally, I would like to see the regulations for in-year admissions updated to provide more power provided for local authorities, especially with regard to children in care and those with an EHCP that move into a new area. These are some of our most vulnerable children, and the present system of opt-out by academies for in-year admissions sometimes doesn’t help their education.

I have called this a need for a Jacob’s Law to change this situation, but in reality, it doesn’t need a law, just a change in regulations and secondary legislation.

For those that want to read the history behind the need for a Jacob’s Law, see  Time for Jacob’s Law | John Howson (wordpress.com) It is now 5 years since Jacob returned to Oxfordshire and started his period of 22 months without a school accepting him on roll. We must not let this happen again.

The last two White Papers have both contained references to returning control of in-year admissions to local authorities and the government has confirmed that to do so doesn’t need primary legislation.

The loss of the Schools Bill also puts at risk the idea of a register of young people of school age. Such a list would allow movement of young people to be tracked and make it harder for children to disappear off the radar. Not impossible, because parents can take drastic action such as disappearing overseas, but at least it might help policymaker understand the extent of home schooling and encourage debate about the rights of children and their parents to education and what that term actually means in the modern age?

The 25-49 age group that contains most parents of school-age children was one of the groups least supportive of the Conservatives in the latest polling of the public, even putting the Party behind the Lib Dems nationally among this age-group! PeoplePolling / GB News Survey Results