Tag Archives: free school meals

Will the 6,500 new teachers be heading for schools in disadvantaged areas?

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Increasing teacher numbers in disadvantaged areas and core subjects. I was very happy when I read this heading in today’s Public Account’s Committee report on ‘Increasing Teacher Numbers’. Increasing teacher numbers: Secondary and further education (HC 825)

However, when I turned to paragraphs 25-29, this section just seemed like an afterthought. How depressing was it to read that

‘Schools and further education colleges are responsible for deciding the staff they need and recruiting their own workforces. Local authorities employ teachers in maintained schools.’ Para 25

There is nothing factually incorrect in the statement, but although local authorities are the de jure employers of teachers in maintained schools, ever since the devolution of budgets in the 1990s, local authorities have had little to do with the hiring policies for teachers in these schools, and nothing to do with the academy sector.

The Committee did acknowledge that

‘Those schools with higher proportions of disadvantaged pupils tend to have higher turnover rates and less experienced teachers. This impacts the government’s mission of breaking down the barriers to opportunity and means disadvantaged children are at risk of being locked out from particular careers.’

Teachers in schools with higher proportions of disadvantaged pupils are also less experienced

‘In 2023–24, 34% of teachers in the most disadvantaged schools had up to five years’ experience (20% in the least disadvantaged schools).’

They cited the examples of computer science and physics

‘In the most disadvantaged areas, 31% of schools do not offer Computer Science A-level, compared to 11% of schools in the least disadvantaged areas, due to a lack of trained teachers. For Physics A-level, this is 9% compared to 1%.’

This will come as no surprise to regular readers of this blog. Here is the link to a post from the 21st July 2023, almost two years ago.

Free School Meals and teacher vacancies | John Howson

Thos who know my background will know that I started teaching in a school in a disadvantaged part of Tottenham in 1971, and this issue has been one that has concerned me throughout my career in education. I was, therefore, disappointed to read that

‘We asked the Department when we could expect there to be less variation between schools in the most and least disadvantaged areas, but it did not commit to a timeframe. Instead, it noted that its retention initiatives providing financial incentives were targeting schools and colleges with the highest proportion of disadvantaged students.’

This seems to me to be as close to a non-answer as one can expect. Indeed, looking in detail at the oral evidence session, this is an area where answers from the senior civil servants in my opinion suggested little hope, and not as much concern for the values implied in the questions that I would have liked to have heard. In reality, past experience tells me that it is falling rolls and fewer job opportunities that will propel teachers towards schools where they would otherwise not take a teaching post. Iti s the economy, not the DfE that will improve the life chances of children in those schools with a high proportion of disadvantaged children. This is at the same time as the lives of their parents may be worsened by unemployment and welfare cuts. It’s a funny old world.

The other crisis facing schools

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In my experience, editors usually have September, and the national annual ‘return to school’ event, as a time to ask journalists to look for a school centred story. This follows on from the useful two-week period in August when there are examination results to cover in the month when there is often little news from the political scene.

This year, editors and their journalists didn’t have to work very hard, if at all, for their ‘return to school’ story. RAAC, and the school buildings saga, was a gift send. Would the story have topped the bill at any other time of year? Who knows, as it is an important issue, but more important say that a reshuffle?

What is clear, is that by focussing just on the school buildings issue, editors are missing the opportunity to take a wider look at the health of our schools. Had there not been RAAC, and the still largely hidden asbestos issue, might the staffing of our schools have been the main story this September?

This is a much more difficult story to sell, as except in rare cases such as a special school reported to the DfE in the summer, schools don’t send children home for a lack of teachers. Instead, they cut subjects from the curriculum – I have been told of a school that is no longer offering languages in the sixth from this September; increase class sizes; reduce non-contact time for teachers and, most commonly, employ what might be considered as under-qualified teachers to teach some groups.

Because anyone with Qualified Teacher Status can teach anything on the curriculum, it isn’t easy to identify the problem, as schools, quite rightly, don’t advertise any shortcomings in the staffing of their timetable. However, extrapolating from the last School Workforce Census that provided a baseline, and adding in the results of new entrants being below the targets set by the DfE through the Teacher Supply Model, it seems clear that some schools are not properly staff this September.

Does this matter? Like the lack of a schools’ database on building issues, we don’t know whether some young people are missing grades in those public examinations we celebrate each August because of staffing issues last year or even earlier in their school lives.

This blog has charted re-advertisements of teaching post against free school meal rates in schools. I wrote a blog on this issue last month, just before the exam results season started Are we levelling up? | John Howson (wordpress.com) I won’t bother to repeat what I said then, but it would be interesting to look at examination results in specific subjects at different centres with different levels of staff turnover for a period of three to five years, to see if there is any measurable effect of staff turnover on outcomes, including entry policies.

My hunch is that it is difficult to create a ‘normal’ distribution curve for results subjects such as ‘A’ level physics if many schools cannot offer the subject, and those that do only enter those likely to be successful candidates.

Editors might like to pencil in a story for January 2024, when secondary schools facing unexpected vacancies will find recruitment even more of a challenge than for this September. What might be the effects on their results in Summer 2024 of an unexpected vacancy, especially if they started the school year this September with both a RAAC and a staffing crisis?

Are we levelling up?

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England has a teacher supply crisis in its secondary schools. Not, please note in most areas in its primary schools. Years of missed targets for trainee numbers must have an effect on the labour market unless other sources of teacher supply can be found.

From today the effect of missed targets on examination results will also start to become clear. Will those young people most likely to stay in the local economy have fared less well than those that will disappear off to a university, and then who knows where (likely London in many cases) after graduation, rather returning to their local area where they were brought up. If so, what are the consequences for those local economies?

As the latest in my series on the what happened in the labour market for teachers, as measured by advertisements tracked by TeachVac between January and the end of July 2023, I have managed a quick calculation of number of advertisements for teachers by the Free School Meal percentage of schools. This measurement might suggest whether schools with higher percentages of FSM pupils have more staff turnover?

This is a crude measure because it doesn’t standardise for school size. A better measure is for turnover measured after taking pupil numbers into account and matching the resultant outcome against the percentage of FSM pupils. I haven’t yet had time to do that calculation.

Adverts by school>1010-2021-3031-4041+Total schools
FSM
0-10201162562813460
11-204153231603655989
21-303102551206360808
31-40162150803437463
41-509789502715278
51-603432144589
60+5410111
total122410154811921863098
40+136125653121378
Adverts by school>1010-2021-3031-4041+
FSM
0-1044%35%12%6%3%100%
11-2042%33%16%4%6%100%
21-3038%32%15%8%7%100%
31-4035%32%17%7%8%100%
41-5035%32%18%10%5%100%
51-6038%36%16%4%6%100%
60+45%36%9%0%9%100%
total40%33%16%6%6%100%
40+36%33%17%8%6%100%
Source: TeachVac

There is some evidence from the tables that schools with lower percentages of pupils on Free School Meals do have a lower turnover of staff, and that schools with a higher percentage of such pupil do experience did experience high numbers of advertisements for teaching staff during the January to July 2023 period.

This type of analysis is important because too often the focus is on the student: attendance rates; previous history of examination taking and other factor such as free school meals, but these are not linked to school factors.

Thus, today, BBC Radio 4 has been worrying about the performance of students in the North East compared to students in London. Nick Gibb, The Minister, on the world at One on Radio 4, (I don’t often agree with him), but I do in this instance, suggested it was more a London and the rest of the country difference. However, The Minister didn’t say that there are more independent schools in the south than the north, and that the ability to recruit staff might be a factor in the widening gap in outcomes between those regarded as ‘disadvantaged’ and other pupils.

To ignore staff turnover, is to miss an important component in a system that has failed to train sufficient teachers in many subjects for nearly a decade now. Such shortfall in a market-based recruitment system must surely have consequences?

Free School Meals and teacher vacancies

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Now that the summer term has ended it’s time to take our annual look at classroom teacher turnover by level of free school meals (FSM) in schools. Last year, in 2022, this blog looked at turnover in one shire county Teacher vacancies and Free School Meals | John Howson (wordpress.com) so, I thought I would return to look at the same county for the period 1st January 2023 to 21st July 2023. TeachVac allows that real time look at what is happening.

Last year the outcome of the research was:

January to July 2022

FSM percentageNumber of SchoolsRecorded vacanciesVacancies per school
0-9.9%1835920.0
10-20%1438727.6
20%+  628146.0
Source: TeachVac

For January to July 2023

FSM percentageNumber of SchoolsRecorded vacanciesVacancies per school
0-9.9%1221317.75
10-20%1947425.00
20%+  922124.50
Source: TeachVac

This is recognized to be a very crude measure, partly because schools are of different sizes and also because of the fact that new schools may be appointing staff for the first time. What, however, is interesting is the fact that the cost of living crisis, even in a shire county in the south of England, may have resulted in a decrease in schools in the group of schools with the lowest FSM percentages. The remaining schools in this group has seen the recorded vacancies per school fall compared with the same period in 2022.

There has also been a significant fall in vacancies per school among the highest group, where vacancies per school have nearly halved. Is this down to better vacancy management and cost control as schools now recognize that for some subjects it is pointless just repeatedly advertising for a teacher? Has the profile of this group of schools also changed, as three more schools have joined the group?

If the 14-18 school is removed from the table, the vacancy per school for the 20%+ FSM group increases to 26.9 this year. Still a big improvement on 2022, but maintaining the profile of higher percentage of FSM pupil school experiencing more vacancies and either higher turnover or more difficulties in filling posts than schools with lower FSM percentages.

Many of the schools within the shire county boundary are in one large local MAT that now takes recruitment seriously, so it may well be that the decrease in vacancies recorded, from 1,027 to 908, is as a result of better vacancy management, especially since pupil numbers have been on the increase over the two years.

Across all the schools the most advertised subjects were:

Science 146 recorded advertisements

Mathematics 115 recorded advertisements

Design & Technology 113 recorded advertisements – including one school with 22 recorded advertisements in this subject

English 104 recorded advertisements

In the humanities, there were 56 recorded advertisements for teachers of geography, but only 21 for teachers of history. 15 schools had no recorded advertisement for a teacher of history.

So, in 2023 the link between FSM and teacher turnover is weaker in this geographical area than it was in 2022. This seems to be down to a combination of increased percentages of FSM, as the cost of living crisis increases, and perhaps a better handle on recruitment in one of the large MATs. How to disseminate the message across all schools that vacancy management matters is an interesting question? Is there a role for the Schools’ Forum or the regional Director?

Youth Theatre in action

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Last evening I attended the Chipping Norton Theatre’s Youth Theatre production of ‘Tales for the traveller’s inn’ an adaptation of some of Chaucer’s tales for the 21st century by young people of different age groups.

Chipping Norton is fortunate to have its own theatre. The main auditorium was originally built as a salvation Army citadel, in 1888. After some years as a furniture warehouse, it was rediscovered in 1968; fundraising began in 1973, the theatre was registered as a charity in 1974, and it opened as a theatre in 1975. It subsequently acquired adjoining properties to provide space for a bar, gallery, green rooms, offices and rehearsal space.

The Youth Theatre is part of their outreach work and last night’s production included children from a wide range of different ages from Year 4 upwards.

The hard work and original scripts were visible for the audience packing the theatre to see. There were some real stars in the making on display last evening and the mixture of mime, music and the spoken work went well with the themes behind Chaucer’s timeless tales. Fr many of these young people it will have been their first time on a full-size stage and they performed admirably.

The Theatre at Chipping Norton has an extensive outreach programme including putting on 41 mental health workshops in schools; providing 970 art packs for children from low income families; sourcing 9,000 lunches for local families and providing 45 free holiday workshop places for children on Free School Meals.

Sadly, tonight is the final production, but I am sure it will be playing to a full house of family, friends and locals. It was a privilege to have been invited to attend and to witness the work of both the young people and their tutors. The arts can provide so much enrichment to the lives of those that both participate and also those that just come to watch.

Thank you to the hardworking team at Chipping Norton Theatre and I look forward to returning next year.

Music in schools

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The DfE carries out regular ‘wave’ surveys of teachers and school leaders in order to discover answers to specific questions about what is happening in schools. The most recent (June 2022) survey can be found at School and college panel: omnibus surveys for 2021 to 2022 – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

There are lots of interesting questions in the latest survey, but the one that caught my eye was about music provision in schools. The data from the responses are separated into primary and secondary schools, as well as an overall figure for all schools.

Despite the frequent attacks on funding for music in schools, it is still an activity that takes place in most schools. This may be because Music is a statutory subject in the national curriculum for all children in primary school and for the first years of secondary (from key stage 1 to 3). Although academies don’t have to follow the National curriculum.

Most schools responding to the survey offered musical instrument lessons (89%), singing lessons (85%), and the opportunity to watch a live performance at school (71%). However, it is not clear whether this is to all children or just some.

Other activities that were less commonly offered included providing a space for rehearsals and individual practice (65%), the opportunity to watch a live performance off-site (58%), and a termly school performance (54%). For all activities, schools that were not offering them this academic year were unlikely to have plans to offer them in the future. These were more likely to be provided by secondary schools than primary schools.

Schools with the lowest proportion of Free School Meals (FSM)-eligible pupils were more likely than those with the highest proportion to offer a termly school performance (67% vs. 49%), to provide a space for rehearsals and individual practice (75% vs. 59%), to provide musical instrument lessons (97% vs. 84%), or to provide singing lessons.

This difference is also true for other activities as schools with the lowest proportion of FSM-eligible pupils were more likely than those with the highest proportion to offer singing lessons on a one-to-one basis (28% vs 9%) and small group basis (68% vs. 48%). Meanwhile schools with the highest proportion of FSM-eligible pupils were more likely than those with the lowest proportion to provide them on a whole class basis (81% vs. 68%).

Furthermore, Schools with the lowest proportion of FSM-eligible pupils were more likely than those with the highest proportion to provide musical instrument lessons on a one-to-one basis (77% vs. 39%). While those with the highest proportion of FSM-eligible pupils were more likely than those with the lowest proportion to provide them on a whole class basis (69% vs. 53%).

Schools with higher proportion of FSM-eligible pupils also seemed less likely to offer pupils a chance to play in an orchestra. The survey doesn’t ask whether this is due to such schools having fewer music specialists on the staff than schools with a smaller proportion of FSM-eligible pupils.

Interestingly, there didn’t seem to be any questions about the type of music schools teach and how it might relate to different cultures from around the world? Perhaps that is a series of questions for another survey.

The differences between schools with different levels of FSM eligibility is a disappointing finding and might be worth looking at in relation to the levelling up agenda.

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.

Leadership turnover and Free School Meals

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Earlier this summer I published a post about vacancies and the Free School Meal percentages of schools. I promised that I would look at headteacher turnover by the percentage of Fee School Meals at those schools advertising for a new headteacher this year.

The data by regions for the period of adverts from 1st January 2022 until last Friday is in the table below

1st JAN TO 19th AUGUST 20220-9.9% on FSM10-19.9% on FSM20%+ on FSM
East Midlands29%32%39%100%
East of England28%40%32%100%
London21%30%50%100%
North East21%25%54%100%
North West30%27%43%100%
South East40%32%28%100%
South West24%43%34%100%
West Midlands24%30%46%100%
Yorkshire & Humber24%27%49%100%
AVERAGE27%32%42%100%
Source: TeachVac

Now this is a crude piece of analysis, as it just takes the school and places it in one of three bands for Free School Meals percentage at the school, as recorded by the DfE. The table also incudes both primary and secondary schools, and also does not distinguish between schools that have only advertised one and those that have advertised more than once. There has been a discussion about trends in re-advertising amongst primary schools using data from one authority in another recent post on this blog.

Anyway, urban areas, not surprisingly, have the highest percentages of schools in the 20% plus grouping, with London having 50% of advertised headships from such schools, compared with 28% of headships in the South East and 32% in the East of England falling in this grouping; both areas with high employment and significant areas of affluence. The South East had the largest percentage of schools in the lowest groups of less than 10% of pupils in the school eligible for Free School Meals. This compared with just 21% in London and the North East regions schools that have advertised for a new headteacher.

If I have time, I will look at both re-advertisements and create a standard number based upon the size of the school roll to consider whether this has any effect. Separating out primary and secondary schools, and perhaps schools of a religious character and other schools might also be interesting.

We can expect the current average of 22.5% of pupils eligible for Free School Meals to increase as any recession bites. How much may depend upon how government help with energy bills is counted in a family income total.

Teacher vacancies and Free School Meals

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Do schools with high percentages of pupils eligible for Free School Meals have higher staff turnover than schools with lower percentages of pupils on Free School Meals?

One of the advantages of TeachVac and the data it collects is that it allows questions such as that to be answered in ‘real time’. As the recruitment round for September is now in effects over, with the start of the summer holidays, it is an appropriate time to ask that question for the 2022 Labour Market.

This blog last considered this question in 2021 Free School Meals and staff turnover | John Howson (wordpress.com) at the end of May 2021.

This year, I have just looked at the data for vacancies from one ‘shire’ county for vacancies recorded by TeachVac between 1st January 2022 and 22nd July 2022, effectively the end of the summer term.

The secondary schools in the selected authority, mostly academies, were split into three groups: those with a Free School Meal (FSM) percentage of pupils up to 10% of roll; those with FSM between 10-20% of their roll and those with FSM over 20% of their pupils as reported by the DfE.

FSM percentageNumber of SchoolsRecorded vacanciesVacancies per school
0-9.9%1835920.0
10-20%1438727.6
20%+  628146.0
 Source TeachVac

The table doesn’t take into account school sizes, nor the additional demands of new schools increasing their staffing as pupil numbers increase. Even allowing for these factors, the trend seems clear. Schools with more pupils on Free School Meals as a percentage of all pupils in this local authority during 2022 tended to create more vacancies per school than schools with lower Free School Meal pupils. The DfE doesn’t have a consistent reporting point for FSM percentages, and schools may update their percentage during the school-year.

Also, some secondary schools may be better than others at persuading families to register pupils eligible for Free School Meals, and some schools, such as faith schools, may be more popular with particular types of parents. There might also be a gender effect, as there are both single sex schools and co-educational school with in the authority.

The difference between 16 and 11-18 schools is not an issue in this authority, as most schools are 11-18 schools. However, there are some very large schools, although they do not fall within the highest FSM band. At least one school was constrained to some extent by pupil numbers and budgetary considerations from making appointments, and their vacancy number might be considered low. However, as that school was in the highest FSM band, it might have increased the number for the schools in that band even more if it had needed and been able to recruit more teachers.

This data is based on classroom teacher vacancies. Later, I will look at the much smaller number of leadership vacancies to see whether the same trend is visible at more senior levels.

Schools and their teachers

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Today, the DfE published it annual update of statistics about key features of the school system in England. https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/school-workforce-in-england for the school workforce based upon 2020 census taken last November and https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/schools-pupils-and-their-characteristics-january-2021 for school, pupils and their characteristics based upon January returns.

There are a mass of data in the two publications that will take time to work through. One highlight is that the percentage of teachers retained after one year of service continued its downward decline, but retention rates for those with longer service reversed the downward trend of recent years to register improvements. This may, of course, be due to the lack of opportunities for new jobs, both within and outwith schools that was the result of the covid pandemic. The 2021 census will confirm whether this is a reversal of a trend or just a blip.

It would be necessary to see the actual numbers and not percentages and the balance between the primary sector and secondary schools before commenting in detail on the one-year retention rate decline. The start of the reduction in primary rolls might have meant some temporary posts weren’t replaced, but the data in its present form cannot answer that question.

England is increasingly being divided into two nations in terms of the ethnicity of its teaching force. The North East still has 99% of its primary, and 98% of its secondary teachers classified as White, whereas Inner London has 27% of its primary and 35% of its secondary school teachers classified as from minority groupings. These percentages in Inner London have been increasing steadily over the past five years. There are policy implications behind the percentages, especially when the percentages are disaggregated to local authority levels. What are the consequences for Society as a whole if this uneven distribution continues?

One outcome arising from the pandemic has been the increase in pupils claiming Free School Meals – up from 17.3% in 2020 to20.8% in 2021. This represents some 1.74 million pupils. Over 420,000 pupils have become eligible for free school meals since the first lockdown on 23 March 2020. This compares to 292,000 for the same period (March 2019 to Jan 2020) before the pandemic. However, due to the change in Pupil Premium rules schools will not fully benefit from the funding through the Pupil Premium and Catch-up funds that are linked to Free School Meal numbers. As the Jon Andrews of the Education Policy Institute notes:

“Today’s figures are a further indication that the government’s change to how the pupil premium is allocated means that pupils and schools are now missing out on vital funding. These losses are found not only in the pupil premium itself but in other areas such as catch-up funding for disadvantaged pupils, which is closely linked to it.

“The Department for Education should now publish its analysis of the impact of this decision on pupil premium allocations and clarify whether any savings from this have been redistributed.”

The number of unqualified teachers has remained broadly stable across primary, secondary and special schools for both male and female teachers with a slight downward trend in the primary sector for the number of unqualified female teachers.

There is much more to explore in the detail of the time series, and I hope to write a few more blogs over the coming days.