Tag Archives: education

Should trainee teachers be job hunting?

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Laura MCInerney the teacher turned editor turned commentator, and also a successful businesswoman has been discussing the question of whether trainee teachers will want to apply for jobs since their training having been so disturbed?

As a former teacher trainer, and someone that has spent many years studying trends in teacher supply I have two observations on this question. Firstly, by the end of Term 2 of their preparation most graduates fall into one of three categories; those that can be told that providing that they keep up their momentum they will pass the course and can apply for jobs if they haven’t been snapped up by the schools where they have already been working; secondly, the small group where either the selection process failed or some other factor has intervened to ensure the trainee is highly unlikely to successfully complete the course. Clearly, even in normal circumstances this group won’t be expect to be applying for teaching posts, or if they do, then their reference might not be fully supportive and draw attention to the challenges they have faced. Finally there is a small group not yet ready to be told that they ‘not yet ready to be on track to complete the course successfully’. This group might be helped to identify their needs by a supportive final term , whether to develop those classroom skills or hone their planning or assessment abilities. This group might want to defer applying for a job, but then they would in any other year be likely to be advised to do so.

The anxiety is no doubt over whether the third term learning will take place, but I don’t see why the manner in which trainees adapt to the changed , and the work currently being undertaken, should not be regarded as just as valuable as the normal curriculum of teacher preparation.

No doubt of more concern in the minds of trainees is whether the job market for teachers, that is still operating, albeit at a much reduced pace than normal for late April, will be swamped with returners to teaching that have lost their current source of income? Such is the normal pattern of events in a recession, and schools have to weigh up the value of trainees over the experience either former teachers or teachers returning from abroad can offer.

Because of the risk of an avalanche of returning teachers seeking a teaching post, I would suggest trainees don’t delay making applications and that they cast their net as wide as possible, especially if they are training for the primary sector or are history or PE teachers. Such vacancies may be in short supply and competition will be fierce.

As ever, I suggest using TeachVac www.teachvac.co.uk where I am Chairman to search for vacancies. It’s free and as far as England is concerned more comprehensive that the DfE site, as TeachVac contains both state and private school vacancies.

Good luck with job hunting whether you are a trainee looking for your first job; a current teacher seeking to change jobs or a returner for whatever reason.

 

Fewer teacher vacancies since lock down

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Laura of TeachTapp and and Freddie Whittaker have written an article in SchoolsWeek about teacher vacancies that confirms what TeachVac has been saying on Linkedin. http://www.teachvac.co.uk

Having crunched some numbers, the team at TeachVac have noted a bigger fall in primary teacher jobs than in the secondary sector. However, both sectors, and especially the secondary sector, had a very strong first couple of months of 2020.

Recorded Vacancies for Teachers by TeachVac
All
2018 2019 2020
January 5492 6386 8216
February 5056 5791 8421
March 7159 9029 9302
subtotal 17707 21206 25939
April 1799 4233 1793
Total 19506 25439 27732
Primary
2018 2019 2020
January 1910 1568 1719
February 2046 1617 2103
March 2944 2844 2491
subtotal 6900 6029 6313
April 819 1423 419
Total 7719 7452 6732
Secondary
2018 2019 2020
January 3582 4818 6497
February 3010 4174 6318
March 4215 6185 6811
subtotal 10807 15177 19626
April 980 2810 1374
Total 11787 17987 21000

Contact me if you want details of secondary subjects.

Working smarter not harder

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In a previous post I alluded to the need for the government to be put on a war footing in order to fight the present COVID-19 outbreak. Every day, all I hear is ‘we are working flat out’ to deal with the situation.

Well, perhaps, as the headline suggests, we don’t need so much to work flat out, but rather to use our heads a bit more. I am reminded by re-reading Churchill’s wartime memories that he took aircraft production and design away from the Air Ministry in 1940, and passed it to the Ministry of Aircraft Production. He asked Lord Beaverbrook to be the Minister in charge. He added that the air Ministry didn’t like this arrangement but that ‘our life depended upon the flow of new aircraft’. The point was well made.

Do we need to do something similar for testing? There are more than 4,000 school chemistry labs sitting idle at present. Every community in the country has one, with a technician and graduate teachers that could be retrained to undertake the anti-body tests when they are ready. Perhaps some might even be used to test for the virus if suitable cleaned and sterile?

Schools have 3D printers. Can we use them to create packs of face protectors and raid DIY and builders’ merchants for the face covering to fix to them? Task then to produce equipment for front-line pharmacy staff in the first instance, since there are suggestions that they are well down the line in the PPE stakes.

This weekend a letter from the PM will be delivered, taking up Post Office resources that might be better used elsewhere. It will be accompanied by a booklet with all the current advice from government. However, I haven’t seen where this is available in large print; braille or even other languages for those not fully conversant in English. Is this a good use of resources at this time, especially if the government changes the rules on things such as business loans? Also, it doesn’t seem to remind those with bus passes of the change in use times during the crisis.

For those without cars, and not in the key vulnerable groups, and living alone, this can be a tough time. Should more local stores offer ‘click and collect’ to reduce the numbers needing to browse shelves? Surely, one sanitised volunteer picker may spread less infection than a group of customers to a store, however well-spaced out they are.

I gather than some private schools are asking for either full or part fees for the summer term. It will be interesting to see how parents respond to these requests. I suspect that without fee income, and their summer income, many schools will struggle to cope with a six month break. We should be planning for the worst and hoping for the best.

Keep safe and well and my best wishes to all readers.

 

Teacher Vacancies

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1,000+ new vacancies for teachers posted since Monday by schools in England, according to TeachVac data.www.teachvac.co.uk

Of these vacancies, the majority were posted by secondary schools; with half of the vacancies located in 3 regions (London; South East and East of England).  Vacancies included 87 for teachers of English; 138 for teachers of mathematics and 156 for teachers of science and specific subjects within the sciences.

TeachVac’s dedicated team are working remotely to bring you as many the vacancies posted by schools in England as possible. Schools anywhere in the world can post vacancies on TeachVac Global for a small fee.

TeachVac is looking to expand the service in England to non-teaching vacancies using the spare capacity available if teaching vacancies reduce in number significantly.

John Howson

Chair, TeachVac

The State cannot just abandon children

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Less than three weeks ago I wrote a post about ‘closing schools’.  I concluded by saying that:

‘We are better equipped to deal with unforeseen events these days, whether fire, floods or pestilence; but only if we plan for them.’

Last night, I was talking live on a local radio station when the news about school closures was being announced. I was immediately struck by the very lack of planning I had suggested was needed. Obviously, no announcement was made about the consequences for the examination system and the knock-on effects about entry to higher education this autumn. True, that doesn’t need to be solved immediately, but it is a major worry for a group of young people and their parents.

Of more concern, not least in rural areas and other locations with small schools, was the statement about children falling into two groups: those of key workers and those regarded as ‘vulnerable’.

With budgets devolved to schools, decisions the education of children in these groups may have to be made at the level of the school site. Firstly, there needs to be agreement of those actually falling into each category. Secondly, for small schools, what happens if all the staff are either off sick or self-isolating: who takes responsibility? Clearly, MATs can handle decisions across their family of schools, if the finding agreement allows. But what of other schools?

My initial reaction, live on local radio, was to call for a strategic group in the local area formed from the Anglican and Roman Catholic diocese and arch-diocese, the largest Multi-Academy Trusts in the area and the local authority.

The local authority can coordinate transport and special needs and work with the other groups on ensuring a skeleton of schools are able to open, even if staff are asked to move schools. There is no point in every small rural primary school staying open for just one or two children, unless it can also in those circumstances take other children as well.

This is where the lack of planning ahead in a society dedicated to individual freedom and choice has created a set of questions we are ill-equipped as a society to answer. Is it right for government just to dump the problem on its citizens, or should it take a more interventionist approach: especially to ‘so called public services’? It is interesting that in transport the approach to services in London by the Mayor seems much more coordinated.

Perhaps this crisis will finally bring home to policy-makers the need for a coherent middle tier in education, able to do more than arrange school transport and adjudicate on school offers.

Faced with the prospect of schools being closed until September, and the possible default of some schools in the private sector as they lose their summer term fee income, there needs to be some coherent planning, both for the closure and an orderly return to a fully functioning sector. You only have to search back through this blog to know how I feel we might move forward.

Closing schools, but not stopping education

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The news that government might be thinking of legislation to cope with a pandemic of the ‘coronavirus’ set me thinking about previous occasions when a large number of schools have been closed in a local area. One such occasion was in 1979, during the so-called ‘winter of discontent’. School caretakers across the Borough of Haringey in North London took industrial action and, as key holders, closed the schools. The Labour controlled local authority didn’t want to cross official picket lines, so head teachers were told that the schools were to remain closed while industrial action continued. In some cases this lasted for several weeks.

Even in a less litigious society than existed 40 years ago, a parent eventually took the local authority to a judicial review (Meade v Haringey, a London Borough). The strike was settled before the case could come to a full hearing, but the initial application did contain some memorable words by Lord Denning.

All this is ‘obiter’ by way of approaching the main question as to what schools should do now, and is there anything we can learn from 1979? Two things standout; some schools, usually those subject to most parental pressure, were better organised than others, especially in respect of examination groups, and we live in a vastly changed world in relation to technology.

Schools that don’t already do so can explore the use of uploaded video lesson segments for revision classes, where limited new material remains to be introduced. Skype or video conferencing software might even allow virtual lessons in some subjects where teachers are available. Indeed, a pandemic, as it would likely affect teachers as well as other school staff, should be the final nail in the coffin of schools competing with each other, rather than collaborating for the good of all learners.

Specific thought will also need to be given to pupils, especially those in special schools that are transported to schools. Will there be sufficient taxis and other vehicles to bring them to school?

In the private sector, boarding schools may face an additional set of challenges, but isolation should be easier, providing they have sufficient staff to cope with the situation.

Geography remains a key determinant in the provision of education, despite Mr Gove and his advisers creating a governance system that doesn’t take this fact into account. Local authorities rather than Regional School Commissioners, especially where the authorities also have Public Heath responsivities, are best placed to be the local strategic coordinator of plans across the education sector, and I hope that officials are working with local government leaders to ensure a rapid and coordinated response to any need.

Finally, although I started with a recollection of school closures in Haringey during the winter of 1979, I was also witness to the effects of a closure of a university a decade earlier in 1969, when student strike action resulted in the close down the London School of Economics for several weeks by the authorities. That closure produced the memorable slogan ‘Down with the pedagogic gerontocracy’.

We are better equipped to deal with unforeseen events these days, whether fire, floods or pestilence; but only if we plan for them.

Flat Lining: not good enough

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Yesterday, UCAS announced its latest numbers for applications to postgraduate teacher preparation courses. Next month will witness the half-way point in the current recruitment cycle. At this stage of the year there tends to be a levelling off in the rate of applications from current students, as they head towards final examinations and dissertation submissions, and the momentum in applications tends to be driven by career changers.

Both the current world health outlook and this week’s falls in stock market prices are too recent to have affected decisions about teaching as a career option but, if either, and certainly if both, continue then the period after final examinations this summer might see an upturn in applications for teacher preparation courses. This would obviously be helped if companies reduce or stop hiring graduates this year.

But, all that is for the future. These figures suggest very similar overall outcomes to this point last year, with some subjects doing slightly better than last year, while others are faring less well.  Applications for primary sector courses continue their downward trend.

Still, there are some crumbs of comfort for the government. Applications to providers in the key London and South East regions are up on last year, whereas in the other regions applications are lower. As ever, it would be helpful to see these changes by primary and secondary sector applications. Overall applications for primary courses are down by nearly a thousand applications, whereas those for secondary courses are up by around 500. However, this might translate into less than 200 additional applicants. In fact, there are some 50 fewer applicants overall than this point last year: a reduction of around one per cent.

Applications for Teaching Apprenticeships continue to increase on this point last year, although the level of applications remains at little more than ‘noise’ in the system. Primary School Direct (non-salaried) courses remain the only bright spot in the primary sector, with a small increase in applications, against falls elsewhere.

In the secondary sector, there are increases for all types of courses, but the School Direct Salaried route is still attracting only a small number of applications, and acceptances are down on this point last year to just around 140 applications.

The bad news on the subject front is the slump in ‘offers’ to languages courses continues, and the various subjects within this group are now registering their lowest levels of ‘placed, conditionally placed and holding offers’ applications since the 2013/14 recruitment round. Both mathematics and physics are also down on last year’s offers. Where there are increases, as in art; business studies and design & technology they come from such a low base that they are not yet anywhere near sufficient to ensure that the Teacher Supply Model number will be reached; still in these subjects every additional trainee is to be welcomed.

With increasing pupil numbers for 2021, when this cohort of trainees enters the labour market, just keeping pace with last year is to be heading backwards in terms of need for new teachers even at constant funding levels. Any increased funding for schools, if not absorbed in other cost pressures, just makes staffing issues worse.

 

Will it be an ‘ill-wind’?

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At the start of half-term, TeachVac has recorded record levels of vacancies for teachers in the first six full weeks of 2020, compared with vacancy levels or the same period in recent years.  A proportion of the increase is no doubt down to the increase in pupil numbers that there will be this coming September. Although National Offer Day for admissions is still a few weeks away, I am sure that schools already have some idea of whether they will be full in Year 7 this autumn.

Indeed, I assume that new schools opening in September have received their Funding Agreement from the ESFA. If not, this is a policy issue the DfE might want to consider, since preventing such schools recruiting at the most opportune of times is not offering them the best start in life.

On the face of it, this is, therefore, going to be a tricky recruitment round if once again for schools seeking teachers. In part this reflects the lack of recruitment into training in some subjects, as well as the increase in pupil numbers. But, is there now a new factor in the equation?

What effect will the ‘coronavirus’ outbreak have on the labour market for teachers in England? Apart from the knock on consequences on the wider economy, and a possible economic slowdown that is always helpful for teacher recruitment, will the outbreak both deter some teachers from seeking overseas jobs, and encourage some of those overseas to return to the United Kingdom, and schools in England in particular? (As an aside, what, if anything, will the outbreak do for the flow of pupils and students from Asia into schools, colleges and universities in England this year?)

Now, it is too early to tell what the outcome might be of a change in attitude to teaching in Asia in general and China – including Hong Kong – in particular, and there are plenty of other parts of the globe where schools are keen to appoint teachers from England. However, even a small downturn in those seeking to work overseas and an upturn in ’returners’ will be a welcome outcome for the local labour market for teachers in England. It is indeed, ‘an ill-wind’.

TeachVac monitors activity on its site by geographical location on a regular basis. This is a somewhat imprecise methodology, since not all users reveal their geographic la location. However, the site has seen an upturn in activity from certain countries, when compared to this point last year.   So, perhaps we might see more ‘returners’ this summer?

1000 and out?

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Seven years ago, in January 2013, I started writing this blog. Over the years the number of posts have fluctuated, as the table below reveals.

Year Total Posts Total Words Average Words per Post
2013 108 72,284 669
2014 121 76,579 633
2015 113 66,337 587
2016 146 83,869 574
2017 164 92,350 563
2018 183 107,223 586
2019 161 88,792 552
2020 4 2,073 537
total 1,000 589,507 590

Source WordPress data

Seemingly, I have become less wordy over the years, with 2019 posts containing around 120 fewer words on average than the 2013 posts. There have been more than 1,000 likes for these posts, and slightly more comments from readers. I am especially indebted to Janet Downs for her many and helpful comments over the years.

Since early 2018, visitors numbers to the blog have started to reduce, and although Christmas Day 2019 saw someone view the whole archive of posts, making it highest day for views ever recorded, the trend has been for fewer and fewer views.

If this trend continues, is it worth my making the effort to write this blog? I started it in 2013 because I was concerned that there would be a teacher supply crisis, and I wanted a platform after writing regularly for the TES for over 10 years, and for Education Journal for a couple of years after that. It is interesting to look back at the discussions over teacher supply during the summer of 2013 that so upset some within the DfE. I would like to be able to predict when teacher supply will no longer be an issue, but on present trends that may not be until the second half of this decade for the secondary sector. There should be less of a problem in the primary sector.

Since 2013, I have established TeachVac, the largest free vacancy service for teachers, and also been elected as a county councillor in Oxfordshire – and, incidentally, stood in three general elections as a candidate– and found time for a range of other activities as well.

So I am conflicted as to whether or not either to continue this blog in its current form or just to sign off at this the 1,000 post? TeachVac continues to expand, listing more than 60,000 vacancies last year, and is already on track for more in 2020, and is consuming more and more of my time. Happily, it remains the largest free job site open to both schools and teachers in England, so is well worth the effort.

With the DfE’s move to take over the application process for graduate teacher preparation being trialed with some providers this year, even that monthly update provided by this blog may become impossible, unless the DfE allow access to the data on at least the same basis as UCAS have done over the past few years.

So, perhaps it’s time for a rest and a search for new horizons. Thank you all for your comments and questions.

 

 

Stuck Schools

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This Report from Ofsted is an important addition to the discussions aound school improvement and deserves to sit alongside other HMI documents on this topic. For those of my generation these include the famous ’10 Good Schools’ report of some 40 years ago.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/fight-or-flight-how-stuck-schools-are-overcoming-isolation/fight-or-flight-how-stuck-schools-are-overcoming-isolation-evaluation-report

Using the terms ‘stuck’ and ‘unstuck’ schools, tells it as it is. I was especially struck by the paragraph in the Executive Summary that said:

‘Most stuck and unstuck schools stated that they had received too much school improvement advice from too many different quarters of the school system. Often, the advice was intended to help schools with their improvement strategy. However, this rarely had the intended impact. Leaders perceived that the quality of the advice itself was often lacking. School leaders also commented on a poor match between the problems of the school and the advice on offer. While many were concerned about the lack of support available following inspection, schools often welcomed the fresh thinking and impetus that independent inspection had given them. Schools did not appear to be inhibited from discussing some of the challenges of inspection during this project.’

Ofsted’s suggests that there is enough capacity in the system to move ‘stuck’ schools forward, but that the content of the support, including whether it enables focused may be lacking.  There also needs to be effective action that responds directly to the issues identified. Additionally, is the support for a ‘stuck’ school best provided internally or externally to the school or MAT and there is also a question about the quality of those coordinating or delivering the support?

This last point is important as the fractured governance model for schools sometimes makes it difficult to identify the organisation responsible for taking the lead role in actually improving these schools.

What is the penalty for failure? Obviously, for local authorities and maintained schools, it is a transfer to become an academy. But what of academies? And, especially what of academies that are part of faith-led MATs where the Church doesn’t want to give up running the school, but cannot stop it being a ‘stuck’ school within a reasonable period of time?

Should there be a review of each Office of Regional School Commissioner to establish a baseline of the number of ‘stuck’ schools and a target for improvement that has consequences if not met? Alternatively, should the Office of Regional School Commissioner be abolished and a closer link to local democracy be once again added to our school system?

Finally, there needs to be a discussion about both funding for ‘stuck’ schools and how any extra funding is allocated under a National Funding Formula that clearly doesn’t take fully into account the fact that some pupils need more resources to achieve a desired level of outcome than do others.

Staff Development, and especially leadership development, also needs to be looked at afresh by the DfE. Should we re-introduce a qualification for leadership with modules about leading a ‘stuck school’? At least then the system would have a better idea of capacity to support and ‘unstick’ these schools.

We cannot allow the next decade to be wasted as the last one has been in so many cases as far as the education of these young people is concerned.