Tag Archives: DfE

Should middle leaders be qualified for the role?

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‘Teachers at schools with an Ofsted rating ‘requires improvement’ were significantly more likely to be greatly concerned about disengagement from learning (29%, compared with 14% of teachers at schools with an Ofsted rating ‘outstanding’)’ School and College Panel: December 2021 wave (publishing.service.gov.uk) Page 55.

This finding from the DfE’s Wave Study from December 2021 will surely surprise nobody. However, it has serious implications for such schools especially as the study also highlights the fact that teachers in schools ‘with the highest proportions of pupils eligible for FSM, 35% (of teachers were) greatly concerned about an increase in behaviour issues and 26% about disengagement from learning (compared with 20% and 9% respectively among those with the lowest proportions of pupils eligible for FSM).’

Schools reported on their workforce concerns in the same survey. Overall, schools were most concerned about not having sufficient numbers of teaching assistants and cover supervisors (two-thirds, or 67% of schools). They were also concerned about not having sufficient numbers of teaching staff (50%), supply staff (42%), non-teaching staff (37%) and leadership staff (36%). (Page 7)

In terms of issues relating to their workforce the majority of schools were concerned about stress/burnout of current staff (82%) and staff absence due to COVID-19 related illness (72%). Just under two[1]thirds (59%) of schools were concerned about funding, while just under half (46%) were concerned about staff absence due to seasonal/flu illness. Roughly a quarter to a third of schools were also concerned about staff absence due to isolation (35%), recruitment of teachers (26%) and retention of teachers (22%).

December is usually one of the low points for recruitment, so school leaders were clearly already worried about recruitment for 2022 in December 2021, and only to a slightly lessor degree about the retention of staff.

As recent blog posts have shown, concerns about recruitment were valid for many schools, and the lack of trainees joining the teaching workforce this September is a matter of considerable concern nationally in many secondary school subjects.

At present, it is too early in the recruitment cycle for September to tell whether the types of school highlighted at the top of this blog are facing more severe recruitment and retention issues if they have anything other than ‘outstanding’ ratings from Ofsted. The levelling up agenda requires schools to be fully staffed with appropriately trained teachers, especially if the ambition is not only to deal with the consequences of the pandemic but also to reduce the gap in achievement between schools by levelling up is to be met.

No doubt, the issue of staffing and outcomes will be in the minds of those that research the consequences of the levelling up ambition of government.  In my mind, the issue of well prepared and supported middle leaders is a key component in the ambition to improve outcomes.

The survey results on understanding of National Professional Qualifications are concerning in the respect of developing middle leaders.

‘Over half of leaders and teachers (55%) said that they had heard of the new National Professional Qualifications (NPQs). Leaders were much more likely than teachers to have heard of the new NPQs (93% vs. 49%).

Nearly a fifth (18%) of those who had heard of NPQs said that they had applied to undertake one since June 2021, with those working in primary schools (20%) more likely to have applied than those in secondary schools (15%).

Among leaders and teachers that had not applied for an NPQ since June 2021, a quarter (25%) intended to apply in the future, with a third (33%) saying they didn’t know, leaving two-fifths (43%) not intending to apply for an NPQ.’ (Page 9)

It was worrying that 64% of teachers said that they ‘didn’t have enough time to complete a qualification’. (Page 42) If this means that many would-be or even will-be middle leaders enter that role unprepared, then little progress has been made in professional development since the 1970s.

Middle leaders in any organisation are key to the success of the organisation and schools are no exception to this rule.

33,000 in three months

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How are we to interpret the record number of teacher vacancies logged during the first three months of 2022 by TeachVac?

Subject20202022Percentage +/- (The nearest whole %)
Design & Technology1089164351%
Leadership2278335347%
Business701101845%
Computing828119144%
Primary5059714041%
RE61583536%
Music49864830%
Total259393358029%
Geography816104628%
Creative Arts33442327%
History58974827%
PE72790625%
Languages1397173724%
Science3427395615%
Art49355212%
English2427268110%
Mathematics311533287%
Source www.teachvac.co.uk

There is little point comparing 2022 with 2021, as the covid pandemic resulted in very little activity in the teacher job market during the first three months of 2021.

So, how to explain this year’s surge in vacancies, and what might be the consequences?

Is the surge down to schools catching up vacancies not advertised last year; is it – at least in the secondary sector – down to increased pupil numbers; might private schools be recruiting more pupils from overseas and, hence need more teachers; could TeachVac be better are recording or even over-recording vacancies than in the past? I asked the team to check on the last point, and since most of them have been entering vacancies for several years, and we haven’t changed their way of working, it seems unlikely as a reason for the large increase in vacancies.  

On the other side of the equation, could the increase in recorded vacancies be down to more teachers quitting schools in England, either to take up tutoring; to teach overseas or to either reduce their hours or even retire completely? Since we don’t have exit interviews, we will have to wait for the DfE to match teacher identify numbers for those moving within the state system and retiring with a pension and then conjecture what has happened to the remainder of leavers?

As to the consequences, regular readers of this blog will know what will come next because various posts since the ITT Census appeared in December have already been discussing the nature of the recruitment round for September 2022 and January 2023.

The table earlier in this post shows English and mathematics with relatively low increases. Perhaps schools feel that with the change in Ministerial team last autumn the focus on the EBacc subjects might have reduced. If so, might the White Paper provisions see an increase in vacancies in these subjects after Easter?

The increase in leadership vacancies needs further investigation in order to see which sector, and which of the leadership posts; head, deputy or assistant head are most affected by the increase or whether it is a general increase.

Design and technology, business, and to some extent computing are subjects that the government has under-played in its various attempts to increase interest in teaching as a career. Schools still want teachers in these subjects, and the government must help them fill the vacancies.

With many subjects not even meeting the DfE’s indicative target for the need for teachers on teacher preparation routes in 2022, the remainder of the recruitment round may well be a real challenge for many schools.

There is one other possibility, and that is the notion of schools bringing forward recruitment this year, so the peak will have been in March rather than in late April, as has been the normal practice in past years. If so, April will be a lean month for those that put off job hunting until then, unless schools have been unable to fill some of the 33,000 vacancies, and there is a string of re-advertisements this month and next.

TeachVac has a number of different reports to allow schools, local authorities, recruitment agencies and anyone else interested in trends in the labour market in real-time to track the behaviour of the market in anything for real-time to monthly. Email the staff using enquiries@oxteachserv.com for details.

Bad News?

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At the recent NfER webinar on the labour market for teachers some scarry numbers were banded around for this year’s applications for ITT postgraduate courses. On 30th March the DfE released the latest data on applications up to 21st March 2022. Initial teacher training application statistics for courses starting in the 2022 to 2023 academic year – Apply for teacher training – GOV.UK (apply-for-teacher-training.service.gov.uk) For comparison purposes, in 2021, the similar UCAS data was up to the 15th March, so this year’s data contains numbers from an extra week.

Despite the extra week compared with last year, overall candidate numbers at 23,264 are below the 27,170 cited as being domiciled in England in the March 2021 UCAS data. In reality, the DfE’s 23,264 includes around 3,000 domiciled outsides of England, including 514 from Northern Ireland and 2,000 from the EEA plus ‘rest of the world’. So, the domiciled in England number is perhaps no more than 23,500 at best. This would be more than 3,000 below the March 2021 number. Not good news.

Equally disturbing is that the decline in candidates from across the age ranges, with a notable decline in the 25 to 29 age group from 5,900 in 2021 to 4,684 this March. These are often career switchers dissatisfied with their initial career choice after graduation, and choosing teaching as a second career. One of the smaller reductions is in the youngest age group of those age 21 and under, where this year’s number is 4,227 compared with 4,490 in March 2021.

This year, there 6,525 men have applied to become a teacher, compared with 7,620 in March 2021. Female applicants are down from 18,930 to 16,525 for the same comparative period. Last year, by March 2021, 680 men had been ‘placed’ or what is now termed ‘recruited’. This year, 234 have been recruited by March. Fortunately, only 1,515 men has been unsuccessful so far with their applications, along with 2,619 of the 16,525 women.

Applications, as opposed to candidates, are down from 79,790 in March 2021 to 61,755 this year. Higher Education has had 29,566 applications this year compared with 37,050 in March 2021. Not surprisingly, apprenticeship applications are up from 1,680 last year to 2,397 this year. However, the School Direct salaried route only has 3,618 applications compared with 6,460 in 2021. Only 14 have been recruited to this route compared with 40 placed by March 2021. SCITT numbers at 8,458 compared with 9,490 seem more buoyant than the other school-based routes.

Providers across England are reporting lower regional numbers for applications, with London applications down from 16,740 to 14,277 and in the South East from 10,540 to 7,605. Only in the Yorkshire and The Humber Region does the fall seem smaller, at 7,052 compared with 7,980 in March 2021.

These number make for grim reading in a month where TeachVac recorded record numbers of vacancies for teachers posted by schools across England. The aims of the White Paper published earlier this week cannot be met if there are not enough teachers. I still think the NfER prediction for physics that less than 20% of the target number would be reached is alarming, but it is almost certain that the target will be missed for another year, and not only in physics, but also in a range of other subjects.

After 12 years in power at Westminster, a solution to the teacher supply problem must be found by the present government.

Opportunity for All?

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The government published it Education White Paper today. They didn’t make it easy to find the whole document, but it can be accessed at Opportunity for all – Strong schools with great teachers for your child (publishing.service.gov.uk) For younger readers, it is called a White Paper because when such documents first appeared they had white covers. Later when documents with suggestions and not proposals appeared they were called Green Papers as they had a green cover.

Enough of the history, although it is worth looking back to the last education White Paper. It promised to look at returning in-year admissions to local authorities, but nothing happened. This time on page 53 there is a graphic that just says LAs will ‘manage’ in-year admissions. It is not clear where the management role will have sanctions to back it up. I hope so.  If local authorities are provided with ‘backstop’ powers to direct in-year admissions that will be a step forward and should be put into place as soon as possible. The intention is summarised in paragraph 163. As a final safety net to cover rare circumstances where collaborative working breaks down, we will consult on a new backstop power for local authorities to direct trusts to admit children. Trusts would have the right to appeal this to the Schools Adjudicator. Please start the consultation as soon as possible – Time for Jacob’s Law | John Howson (wordpress.com)

The news in the White Paper that local authorities can run academy trusts is to be welcomed as correcting one of the wrongs of Mr Gove’s original 2010 Academies Act. However, in the spirit of strong schools, will schools in existing academy chains be able to make a transfer either to another chain or to a local authority trust, and will local authorities be able to include schools outside their boundaries in a Trust, such as Swindon schools in a Wiltshire trust or Blackpool schools in a Lancashire Trust? Will there need to be Chinese walls between an LA Trust officers and other officers with powers to direct Trust, as over admissions?

The White Paper downgrades Regional School Commissioners to Regional Directors, a less threatening title to local democracy. However, the amount of power local authorities can wield will depend upon funding. At least local trusts should have the same financial powers as the present trusts to manage central costs.

Perhaps the biggest change in policy terms in the White Paper is the ending of the freedom of parents to control the education of their children as paragraph 77 make clear, the government will also introduce legislation to establish a register for children not in school, exploring how this data should be used by local authorities and multi-agency teams to undertake their duties and support children’s education. The 1870 Act required parents to educate their children. The 2022 White Paper now also requires them to tell the authorities how they are doing that education. Will the next step be to ensure that all children receive high quality education of id the white Paper’s real time ‘Opportunity for all in state funded schools?

Overall, the White Paper is not as dramatic as it was thought it might be.

Paying more for school transport

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The County Councils Network has recently released a new report which analyses the challenges county authorities face in delivering home to school transport services, including the impact of the record fuel price increases. Councils face difficult decisions as spiralling fuel prices impact on school transport services, report warns – County Councils Network

With fuel prices hitting record highs this month, the CCN is warning that this is having a significant impact on school transport services, with councils facing having to pay providers significantly more for operating school services and providing taxis.

According to the County Councils Network the local authorities that supplied data to this study transported 248,000 pupils for free last year, of which 51,000 were young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).

The report calls for short-term support for local authorities to help weather the storm of rising fuel prices, which has, according to the research, led to transport companies re-tendering for contracts up to 20% higher than last year.

Even before the fuel price increase, county authorities were facing yearly increases in costs in home to school transport services, particularly for SEND pupils.

Released ahead of the government’s long-awaited SEND Review, the report by the County Councils Network urges the Government’s review of SEND to address the root causes of a rise in costs and demand in SEND services, including home to school transport. The report finds an increasing number of pupils becoming eligible for Education, Health and Care Plans and an increase in young people attending special schools.

Based on data from 28 CCN member councils, the report finds:

  • County authorities spent a total of £555.6m on free school transport last year, up from £472.6m in 2016/17. This increase is largely down to a 33% rise in expenditure for pupils with SEND – up from £250m five years ago to £336m in 2021. This is the equivalent of 11% of on average council’s entire children’s services budget.
     
  • The number of pupils using SEND free school transport has increased from 41,185 in 2016/17 to 51,558 in 2020/21 – a rise of 10,373 pupils. Over the last three years, the average cost of individual pupils has increased by £206 to £6,099 a year – due to rising costs, such as fuel price increases.
     
  • Almost two-thirds of councils (60%) who responded to a separate survey for the report said that their expenditure on SEND school transport was ‘unsustainable’ and 34% said it was ‘difficult.’ Just one said it was ‘manageable’. Costs for taxis, private hire, and minibuses for these pupils had increased from £175m in 2016 to £244m in 2021.
     
  • Despite yearly growth in population numbers, and rising costs, councils’ expenditure on mainstream home to school transport has remained the same throughout the period – £212m in 2016 to £208m in 2021.

Council taxpayers have to pay the cost of any transport not covered by government grants and that is a burden not carried by those living in urban areas where most home to school transport costs fall on families.

As a result of cost pressures, many councils have had little choice but to reduce eligibility for free school transport for mainstream home to transport due to facing significant financial pressures over the period, including in SEND school transport. There were almost 20,000 fewer mainstream pupils using free transport to their school in 2021 compared to 2016/17.

Especially mean cuts are where only transport tot the ‘nearest’ school is provided and there is a system of selective education. The selective school will rarely be the nearest school and so families may not be able to take up a place at a selective school if they cannot afford the transport costs. As a twin, I understand how this can impact on some families.

The situation is even worse where the selective school is an academy in another authority as face children, for example, on Canvey Island, part of Castel Point local authority and where the nearest selective schools are in the city of Southend-on-Sea.

Councils need to publish data on how much of their home to school transport to academies is funded by government grant and how much by council Tax payers and through business rates.  

The government might also need to consider help for small rural schools that are using oil for heating, as those costs have risen sharply as well. It would be unfair if the present world situation hastened the end of rural primary schools and thus forced costs for transport even higher, threatening other local services as cash had to be diverted into supporting yet more school transport.

Some reflections on the NfER webinar on teacher supply

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Regular readers of this blog that listened to this webinar will have learned about some interesting data from Jack Worth’s presentation, not least the effect of bursaries on recruitment into training.

Here are some of my reflections

Keep in Touch Scheme

Absolutely needed. I drafted an idea for such a scheme earlier this year.

Part-time and flexible working

Good idea, but only if it increases recruitment. Needs research into balance between those working full-time and those only working part-time and effects on pupils and school ethos. Still, it is a better option than a procession of supply teachers.

Diversity and protected characteristics

It is 25 years this year since a Minister at the Department first addressed a conference on attracting a wider range of individuals into teaching. I have produced two significant reports for government and one for a teacher association during that time, both highlighted the issues that were discussed today. London is doing better than the rest of the country, but ‘young, White and female and able-bodied’ still seems to characterise the majority of those accepted into teaching. Some groups still find it disproportionally hard to become a teacher. There is a need to review where ITT places are located in relation to under-represented groups, and what happens if a particular group applies in large numbers for a particular course?

Here are some issues not mentioned this afternoon

Middle leadership and teacher shortages – discussed in the previous post on this blog

Teaching as a global profession – good or bad for recruitment into schools. No mention of iQTS this afternoon.

Tutoring as a career alternative to teaching or combined with flexible working in schools?

Many years ago, I wondered whether groups of teachers could band together to increase their pay by offering their services not as employees but as consultants. A group could take on teaching contracts alongside tutoring, delivery of professional development and creation of teaching resources as well as adult training and research to provide a varied career. The contract could specify the delivery but not the person delivering it. However, most people that enter teaching aren’t entrepreneurial, so such an idea probably wouldn’t work.

Underlying all the points being made during the webinar was the issue of the free market in teaching. Teachers can decide where they want to teach and if lucky can be paid a bursary to train to teach in a private school. As one speaker said, and has been apparent whenever there is a teacher shortage, teachers are more likely to end up in ‘good’ schools rather than challenging schools when demand exceeds the supply of teachers. Unless there is a change of attitude, levelling up is an impossible dream or a political con trick.

Should we link training places to schools on an expanded Teach First model whereby entrants to training are linked to schools and paid a salary from day one with pension contribution on top. Preparation, like the famous Project X of UCLA, should be linked to the demands of teaching in challenging schools and not how to teach in successful schools.

Finally, the new model of mentoring reminds me of what were once called Advisory Teachers. Mentoring might work better if the issue of the Middle Tier had been worked out rather than in the same disjoined way that school placements are created.   This is another area where a discussion of free market versus planned provision might be useful.

It will be interesting to see what the White Paper has to say on any or all of these issues. However, White Papers can often identify problems, but may not lead to solutions.

Labour Market for Teacher: don’t overlook the middle leadership needs of schools

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The labour market for teachers can be divided into three main segments: classroom teachers; middle leaders and senior leadership. The first and last receive the most attention from researchers, but middle leadership needs are often overlooked and can be under-researched. This seems to be the case in the latest NfER research into the labour market for teachers published today. Teacher Labour Market in England – Annual Report 2022 – NFER

The market for middle leaders is closely tied to the classroom teacher market because middle leaders start off as classroom teachers. How quickly they will be promoted depends upon the subject or specialisms. In some subjects, where there are lots of part-timers, promotion can come swiftly. Music teachers working in small secondary schools have been known to be in charge even as NQTs, but hopefully such a state of affairs is rare these days.

Of more concern are the subjects where there has been chronic under-supply of new entrants into the profession. Last week, I talked to a group of headteachers under the auspices of the Corporation of London about this issue.

Here were my findings in relation to the possible supply of middle leaders in just one subject: design and technology.

The ITT Census for 2013, conducted by the DfE, recorded some 410 people preparing to teach design and technology via a range of different routes.

After one year of teaching, the number left in the profession was no more than 340 or, allowing for some dropout before completion of their courses, perhaps 5%, then only 320 would still have been in teaching.

Fast forward five years, and using the DfE wastage rates as reported to the STRB, then the remaining numbers of this cohort left in teaching might be in the range of 250-320 teachers.

Using TeachVac data on vacancies, something not available to NfER, recorded vacancies for design and technology teachers with a TLR were 390 in 2020; 470 in 2021 and 230 to date in 2022. Now some of these might be ‘recruitment’ TLRs with little leadership demands, but if even half are genuine middle leadership positions, then they will make a significant demand upon the remaining teachers from the 2013 cohort.

When a single cohort is not large enough to provide sufficient middle leaders there can be a temptation to require leadership of teachers before they are secure in their grip on teaching and learning. It should be possible to use the DfE’s databases to check how soon TLR2s are awarded to teachers in shortage subjects and in what type of schools?

The need for challenging schools to appoint inexperienced teachers to middle leadership positions in the teacher shortages of the early 1970s was the topic that led me to start my research into the labour market for teachers, and also to establish in 1978 an early leadership development course for middle leaders in Haringey’s secondary schools.

Professional development for middle leadership is as important as ever as is ensuring a sufficient supply of teachers with the knowledge and experience to take up middle leadership roles.

Labour Market for Teachers

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Tomorrow the NfER will publish their report on the Labour Market for Teachers. I assume it will say very similar things to the TeachVac Report published in January. A copy of which is available on request

Of more concern at present is not the 2022 labour market – lots of vacancies; not enough applicants in many subjects – but the outlook for 2023.  For more on 2022 see Recruitment 2022: a rough ride to come | John Howson (wordpress.com)

A quick analysis of the DfE’s ‘Get into Teaching’ site reveals that there are still high percentages of courses with the ‘vacancies here’ flag waving. Top of the list is the small number of ‘science’ courses, with 96% of those courses showing vacancies earlier today. Not far behind is Physics, with 93% of the 783 courses showing vacancies.

Interestingly, on 6th March, there were only 777 courses listed. Even though the DfE provides a range of filters, how do you select the best course from 783 varieties? One interesting factor is that a search on Physics ‘QTS only’ courses willing to consider those with a Third-Class degree, such a search brings up 47 courses. Most of the providers of these courses are located in or around the London area or are located in the wider South East region.

When is the government going to provide a strategy that allows all training places in Physics to have a realistic chance of being filled? It isn’t possible to level up, especially in areas with selective schools and many private schools, if there are insufficient teachers in a particular subject or phase. That’s been obvious for many years, but, apart from bursaries, little has been achieved, especially with the failure of the salary scheme option within School Direct.

The good news, well comparatively good news, is that only 42% of the 104 psychology, as opposed to physics, courses currently have vacancies. In PE, two thirds of courses still have vacancies, higher than might be expected for mid-March.

Even 1,412 out of the staggering 1,677 course options for those wanting to train to teach in the primary sector still have vacancies.

Of course, applicants don’t know whether a course has one vacancy or many from the DfE website. These days adding such a feature should be relatively easy to do, even if only in the form of a set of traffic lights: green for lots of space; amber ably quickly; red few spaces left and course might be full by the time your application is received.

I hope the DfE is conducting some evaluation of how the users find the DfE’s site listing courses. Perhaps a map of locations for the course’s teaching base and schools used for practical elements might be another useful addition?

Of course, if the DfE makes any changes to places available all the current evidence might be of little more than historical value. Postgraduate initial teacher training targets: 2022 to 2023 – Official statistics announcement – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) There will apparently be an announcement in April.

TeachVac launches new service for schools

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The DfE Vacancy site for teachers is still a muddled mess. Eight years ago, well before the DfE woke up to the idea that the internet could be used for low cost but effective job matching, I helped create TeachVac http://www.teachvac.co.uk and made it a free service for schools and teachers.

The basic rationale was simple – modern technology can cut the cost of finding a job and schools could save money as a result. After the Public Accounts Committee complained that the DfE didn’t have a grip on the labour market for teachers, the DfE set about creating a job board of their own.

At the start of the pandemic, I offered to share vacancies that the DfE didn’t upload with them to help to create a single free platform for teachers. Go away, I was told.

So, TeachVac still offers a free service, but is now launching its premium service whereby a school can ensure its vacancies are at the top of the list of matches a teacher receives each day. The service also provides a reminder after a few days so that teachers see the job more than once. Schools also receive labour market updates each month. All this for £500 per year for secondary schools and even less for primary schools across both state and private sectors schools.

Contact enquiries@oxteachserv.com for more information or to sign up and receive an early bird discount.

But, back the DfE site. Where, of course, teachers can only search for jobs in state schools. So, the site isn’t useful to those that don’t mind whether they work in state or private schools.

The front page of the DfE site is a real muddle. There are lists of ‘towns/cities and ‘counties’ although Chester West and Chester East aren’t counties, but unitary authorities. Towns within shire counties such as Oxford, Exeter, Chelmsford and many others don’t have a listing on the front page.  London has a single listing, not even split into the different pay area: not helpful if there are lots of vacancies in the Capital’s schools.

Milton Keynes receives a mention, but the rest of Buckinghamshire doesn’t. Still, there is a search buttons for key words and locations. A search on ‘secondary’ and ‘Oxford’ brings up 12 results. Four are non-teaching posts; two are in special schools or PRUs and only six are in secondary schools.

There is an alert function, but if it sends non-teaching posts as well as teaching vacancies it doesn’t do the job for which it is intended, unless the civil servants at the DfE think teachers that cannot find a teaching post will consider non-teaching roles and have the appropriate qualifications for such positions.

TeachVac is breaking records each month with 500,000+ matches so far in 2022, and over one million in this school year to date.

The earlier a school signs up for the premium service, the higher up the daily list of matches it will be placed. Don’t delay: sign up today by emailing enquiries@oxteachserv.com to express interest.

Buddy, can you spare a dime?

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Did schools really save money in the five-year period up to 2019-2020? The DfE has published a study showing the aim of ‘saving’ at least one billion pounds during that period was achieved. Progress in schools savings and resource management – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

The methodology of the study was to measure savings as the difference between actual non-staff expenditure in 2019-20 and what was estimated non-staff expenditure would have been in 2019-20 if schools had not changed their spending behaviour. This is expressed as the difference between the expenditure line and the counterfactual line as to where expenditure without saving would have been.

It is worth noting that the period covered was one where primary school rolls were generally on the increase, and for many secondary school rolls were either constant or falling. Academies and maintained schools also operate on different financial years, so that could be an additional complicating factor.

A significant proportion of the saving came in the final year 2019-2020. I am not sure whether that meant that the final third of that financial year for academies covered the first four months of the pandemic when, for instance, there would have been a significant drop in expenditure on school meals, as most children were forced to stay at home.

The target of £1 Billion pounds was set after the National Audit Office (NAO) report “Financial sustainability of schools” published in 2016 identified that schools would incur cost pressures of £3bn between then and 2019- 20. The DfE then produced analysis which compared schools with different levels of spending but similar pupil characteristics and levels of attainment.

According to the report,

 ‘the DfE estimated the impact of bringing the spending of the top 25% highest per-pupil non-staff spending schools down to the level of those at the 75th percentile. This analysis indicated that, schools could plausibly save around £1 bn on their non-staff spending and so this became the ambition of the SRM portfolio’ (Page 3)

It is not clear from the report whether that is what happened, or whether the schools better at managing their costs took more out of the system, thus widening the gap between those schools good at achieving savings and the rest of the sector. Since both primary and secondary schools were included, it would have been interesting to know how much of the saving was due to fixed costs that don’t alter with changing pupil numbers – it presumably cost a similar amount to heat and light a school even if pupil numbers fluctuate. The saving would be more impressive and longer-lasting if it was the variable costs that had been reduced. Primary schools often have higher fixed costs as a proportion of income, although many of these are staff costs.  

And, as the DfE note in the definitions on page 5 of the report.

‘“Saving” in this context does not mean a cash saving. We measure savings by comparing actual non-staff spend to where we expected non-staff spending to be had schools not changed spending behaviour – the counterfactual. We would calculate cash savings by taking away actual non-staff spend in 2019-20 from actual non-staff spending in 2015-16.’

And finally, it looks as if the special school sector was excluded if the study was only on primary and secondary schools. It would be interesting to know about cost pressures in that sector and whether similar saving was possible?