Boom in Teaching Vacancies this December

Posted on December 18, 2021 by John Howson

Are schools starting the recruitment process for teachers required for September 2022 early this school year? Data from TeachVac www.teachvac.co.uk would certainly seem to suggest that something is happening that is different to usual.

A look at recorded vacancies for December 2021, up to yesterday, the 17^th, compared with the same period in 2019 – the last year before the covid outbreak distorted the labour market for teachers – does suggest some schools might be bringing forward their recruitment process, possibly in case of any lockdown in the New Year? Talk in social media about the leading paid for recruitment platform putting up subscription rates, if correct, might also have had some influence on behaviour.

December recorded vacancies by TeachVac
Subject	2019	2021	Percentage +/- (The nearest whole %)
SEN	24	46	92%
Primary	465	773	66%
Business	43	71	65%
Humanities	20	32	60%
Design & Technology	84	131	56%
RE	38	59	55%
Leadership	202	303	50%
Music	38	56	47%
History	42	60	43%
PE	62	84	35%
Total	2192	2876	31%
Art	36	43	19%
Languages	101	120	19%
Geography	62	67	8%
Science	291	309	6%
IT	79	81	3%
Mathematics	273	271	-1%
English	241	225	-7%
Total	2192	2876	31%

Source: TeachVac

Interestingly, the two big departments in secondary schools of English and Mathematics have not followed the general pattern of increases of, on average, about a third. Both of these subjects have recorded falls when compared with December 2019. Might it be that with a greater proportion of trainees on school-based courses, schools feel that they can recruit for the trainee pool without the need to advertise in the open market? Such an approach may say money, but not on a fixed cost subscription package.

The increase in primary vacancies, against a scenario where the sector is facing falling pupil numbers at the entry age group in many parts of the country merits further investigation. However, it is no surprise to see both business studies and design and technology so close to the top of the table. The recent DfE ITT Census contained grim news for schools wanting to recruit teachers in these subjects for September 2022. Wise schools will start recruiting as soon as possible. No doubt any surplus teachers in these subjects can be hired out to other schools within a MAT for a fee.

The growth in posts on the Leadership Scales is interesting. Does it herald the start of a boom in such vacancies, as the pressures of the last two years finally take their toll on headteachers who have told their governing bodies that they will be leaving in the summer?

I will be starting compiling the TeachVac Annual Reviews for the whole labour market and for Leadership posts during 2021 next week, with a view to publication early in 2022.

TeachVac continues to break records in recruiting new applicants; in matches made and in hits on the web site. TeachVac should record some 64,000 vacancies for teachers in 2021; far more than the DfE site. www.teachvac.co.uk

Schools are now signing up to the TeachVac 2022 package that costs £100 to register and £1 per match against a school’s vacancies with a ceiling of £1,000 plus VAT including the registration package, after which all further matches in 2022 are free. Full details of how to registration interest can be found at TeachVac Reports – The National Vacancy Service for Teachers and Schools and registration comes with a free report.

Prudent measure or wasted opportunity?

Posted on September 23, 2021 by John Howson

The DfE has recently published details of the revenue balances held by academies and Trusts. Academy trust revenue reserves 2019 to 2020 – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) Unlike maintained schools that follow the local government financial year, the academies financial year follows a September to August pattern, broadly in line with the annual cycle of school life. The different financial years would make comparisons between the two sectors difficult, but doesn’t prevent comment and analysis about the state of finances in either sector.

The DfE document contains this useful summary

Summary

At the end of the academic year 2019/20

• 95.9% of trusts had a cumulative surplus or a zero balance.

• 4.1% of trusts had a cumulative deficit.

• The average revenue reserve across all academy trusts was £1.15 million.

• The average surplus balance, of trusts with a surplus, was £1.22 million.

• The average deficit balance, of trusts with a deficit, was £376,000.

• The total cumulative surplus across all academy trusts was £3.17 billion.

• The total cumulative deficit across all academy trusts was £42.1 million.

• The total net financial position of all academy trusts was a cumulative surplus of £3.13 billion.

Trusts average reserves – In 2019/20 average revenue reserves across academy trusts were £1.15 million, compared to £0.96 million in 2018/19, an increase of 20%.

In 2019/20 the average surplus balance was £1.22 million, compared to £1.05 million in 2018/19, an increase of 16%.

The average deficit balance in 2019/20 was at £376,000, compared to £381,000 in 2018/19, a decrease of 1.3%.

Trusts average reserves as a percentage of income – average academy trust reserves as a percentage of a trust’s income stood at 11.4% in 2019/20, compared to 10.8% in 2018/19.

This last fact will no doubt raise some eyebrows, as putting more than one pound in every ten received into reserves doesn’t suggest a system in the financial crisis that is the regular message from the frontline in education. Of course, putting cash aside to pay auditors bills and other future expenditure is a prudent idea. However, saving across a Trust for a specific project benefiting only one school is somewhat against the spirit of budgets being devolved to schools, and one of the criticism that used to be levelled at local authorities when they were responsible for schools.

Removing local democratic accountability for schooling should not have allowed unelected bodies to either build up large reserves or to favour certain schools over others. I have always maintained that the concept of revenue funding is to provide the funds to educate the pupils of today and not to save for the future education of others. Perhaps it is time that the National Audit Office had another look at the nature and purpose of these reserves held by academies and the Trusts to which they belong?

School Admissions for 2022: the process start this month

Posted on September 7, 2021 by John Howson

At this time of year not only are pupils returning to school but some parents are starting the process of applying for school places for their children for entry in September 2022. This is either for the first-time or because of a switch from primary to secondary (or first to middle and middle to upper in a tiny minority of cases where three-tier systems still linger on). Posy 16 admissions is a different kettle of fish, but can be just as fraught.

In August, the DfE published the outcomes of Admission Appeals for the academic year 20202/21 across the primary and secondary school sectors in England. Knowing how difficult it is to win an appeal locally may be a key part of decision-making about school choice, and in some cases where to live. https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/admission-appeals-in-england-academic-year-2020-to-2021

These appeals relate to entry at the start of the school year. Headline figures as noted by the DfE include:

11,239 appeals were heard relating to primary school places for 2020/21. This represented 1.4% of new admissions. The number and rate have both been dropping since 2015/16, when 22,820 primary appeals were heard (2.6% of new admissions).

Of those heard in 2020/21, 1,823 primary appeals were successful, a rate of 16.2%. This rate is the lowest since this collection started in 2015/16

29,871 appeals were heard relating secondary school places for 2020/21. This represented 4.1% of new admissions.

This a decline from last year, when 35,648 (4.9% of new admissions) appeals were heard. This reverses the increases seen since the start of this collection in 2015/16. In that year 22,964 secondary appeals were heard (3.6% of new admissions).

Of those heard in 2020/21, 6,000 secondary appeals were successful, representing 20.1% of the number heard. This rate has been gradually dropping since 2015/16, when 26.3% of secondary appeals were successful.

The birth rate and provision of new school places when the birth rate is on the increase are probably the key drivers for the appeals process in the primary sector. Where a new housing estate includes provision for a new school, those moving into the estate before such a school opens might do well to check the situation in existing local schools.

How effective a local authority is in generating school places to meet needs may well also determine the level of challenge by parents not offered a place for their offspring and making an appeal.

Although ‘catchment areas’ or similar terms are used by local authorities as part of the admissions process, parental preference can still take precedence depending upon the admission arrangements. In-year admissions can still be an issue as schools are often able to go their own way on these admissions and do not have to use a coordinated local system. A review was promised some years ago in a White Paper, but the possibility for confusion still remains.

Popular schools, for whatever reason, will always be over-subscribed and often schools admissions will feature as a part of a Councillor’s postbag each spring. However, the reduction in pupils entering the school system will create some relief and in reduce the need for admission appeals by parents.

School Funding: looking for savings

Posted on September 2, 2021 by John Howson

Either schools are under-funded or they are not. They certainly say that they are. The IFS Briefing Note https://ifs.org.uk/publications/15588 lends credence to that view.

But what do they do about it? As a business owner, I need to use my resources in the most effective manner. Schools it seems to me can afford to complain about their funding while still spending in a manner that doesn’t bring a sensible return on the outlay.

Let’s take recruitment spending. And let’s narrow that to spending on teacher recruitment by secondary schools – the most lucrative part of the market for the private sector. This is also an area where I know quite a bit about how the market works having established TeachVac www.teachvac.co.uk some seven years ago as a job board for teaching vacancies and where I am still the current Chair.

Now, using TeachVac’s extensive database, we can calculate that the average secondary school recruits around eleven teachers a year. Some recruit fewer, and new schools may recruit more in their first few years.

Some teachers are easy to recruit, such as history teachers or teachers of physical education. Other teachers, such as teachers of business studies or physics, are difficult to recruit at any time, and virtually impossible to recruit for a January vacancy unless a school is exceptionally fortunate.

So, let’s assume over a five year period, a third of vacancies a school may advertise are easy to fill; a third a bit of a challenge and a third very difficult. How do you spend your cash wisely as a school to meet your staffing needs?

Many schools and MATs take out a subscription to an on-line platform that can run into a six figure sum each year. That’s a lot of cash to spend on an easy to fill job and even more cash for a job you cannot fill. So, maybe the cash pays for the third of vacancies in the middle group, possibly an average of 4 vacancies a year. Is that value for money?

TeachVac can fill those vacancies at much less cost to schools, and so can the DfE vacancy site. With TeachVac a school doesn’t have to do anything other than put a job on its website. TeachVac matches candidates looking for the type of vacancy and can report on the size of the market.

With the DfE site, a school must enter the job and hope it can be seen among the plethora of non-teaching posts cluttering up the DfE site.

The DfE site also has the disadvantage of only offering state school posts, so teachers that want a teaching post regardless of whether it is in the state or private sectors probably won’t bother to use the DfE site. TeachVac doesn’t suffer from this constraint.

TeachVac is reviewing its services to ensure better value for money for schools. After all, out technology costs a fraction of historical costs of advertising and at TeachVac we have always thought these saving should be passed on to schools. Do tell us what you think.

Bring back the Star Chamber?

Posted on June 4, 2020 by John Howson

Bring back the Star Chamber? Head teachers retuned to schools on Monday to find that the simple form the DfE had be asking schools to complete about pupil attendance during lockdown had suddenly, and without warning, ballooned to one of over 19 pages in length.

Now, as someone that has made a career out of management information, I expect the required information is very useful to help Ministers answer the inevitable barrage of questions about their handling of the extension of the opening of schools. I nearly wrote re-opening, but of course, most schools never closed, and in some cases remained open during the Easter holiday period. As a result, it is wrong to talk of re-opening.

Anyway, in the past, it sometimes took up to two years to achieve a very small change in any data being collected from schools. I well recall the lead up to the introduction of the School Workforce Census, and the debates about what could and could not be collected.

Of course, the net result of imposing additional data collection on schools is that probably more schools will have thrown up their hands in horror and not returned anything, not even what they were returning by way of management information up to Friday of last week.

In one sense, I don’t suppose that Ministers will mind, assuming the demands originated from the political end of the DfE, since so long as they have some returns they can say ‘evidence suggests that …’ and nobody can gainsay the quality of the evidence, then they are satisfied. What ONS might make of this could be another matter.

I took part in a conference call on Tuesday with a hardworking set of local government officers, many of whom had been sending me emails over the weekend as they helped schools prepare for their new world order. So, this is the time and place to pay tribute to both the officers and the staff and governors of schools that have all worked so hard to keep the teaching and learning show on the road since lockdown was introduced.

Local authorities have had a hard time of it over the past thirty years, but those that have preserved a functioning education section have shown the value of a tier at this level to help the DfE manage the system. I don’t see all academies or MATs working with their Regional School Commissioners, but I do hear of them joining in with the local authority. And, as a politician, I know that parents turn to local politicians if they have any questions about what is happening. I wonder how many contact either RSCs or the DfE.

Issues of the span of control dominate structures in all organisations, and in the review of how the pandemic has been handled, the role of local authorities and education should be properly assessed and compared with the NHS and social care sectors, one of which has little or no local accountability these days and the other is a hybrid. Which works well and for what tasks?

Who cares about school leadership and governance?

Posted on October 9, 2019 by John Howson

What’s happening to both the Teaching Schools programme and the idea of National Leaders of Education and of Governance? The DfE faithfully reports the numbers in each of these categories https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/teaching-schools-and-system-leadership-monthly-report with reports from September 2019 back to June 2018 on the DfE Website. Earlier reports seems to be archived and are not easy to find.

The DfE notes that Designation rounds for National Leaders of Education and teaching schools closed in May 2018 and designation rounds for National Leaders of Governance closed in May 2017.

The DfE is currently reviewing the current structure of system leadership to ensure the quality of system leadership remains as high as possible. The teaching school hubs test and learn phase, launched in May 2019, builds on the success of the teaching schools programme and is the first part of the department’s plans to review system leadership.

The number of system leaders who are currently designated is actively managed and the department keeps these matters under review.

As a result, it is perhaps not surprising to find that numbers in the different categories have reduced across the board between June 2018 and September 2019 as presumably few new additions have been made to replace those lost for various reasons.

June 2018 September 2019 Change Percentage Change

Teaching

Schools 668 618 -50 -7%

Alliance

Teaching

Schools 835 734 81 -10%

National

Leaders of 1319 1087 -232 -17%

Education

National

Leaders of 442 363 -79 -18%

Governance

Source DfE publications for relevant months

Probably most worrying is the reduction in National Leaders of Governance. With an education system where governance is a muddle and different schools operate under vastly different rules depending upon whether they are Maintained, Voluntary and Maintained, Stand Alone academies or Free Schools or members of Multi-Academy Trusts, there is a need for leadership that NLG can help provide.

Without the backing of the National College, now fading into little more than a memory, there is a need to provide support and development for leadership and career development the system. It is not clear where the impetus is now coming from. Perhaps the Secretary of State might care to make a keynote speech about this? However, I suspect nothing will happen this side of a general election and it will be anyone’s guess who might be occupying the Minister’s Office in Sanctuary Buildings then.

When I started in teaching in the early 1970s, there was little support for leadership, but it became an issue as the decade progressed, so much so that in 1978 I ran my first leadership course for middle leaders in schools. Sometimes it now feels as if the whole of the work undertaken since then has been discarded, and we are back to a free for all with no clear direction of travel for leadership training, development and support.

No doubt the review of the present structure will make suggestions: they cannot come soon enough in my opinion.

The eye of the recruitment storm?

Posted on September 25, 2017 by John Howson

The National Governance Association (NGA) published its latest survey last Friday https://www.nga.org.uk/News/NGA-News/Key-findings-of-NGA-TES-annual-school-governance-s.aspx Carried out in association with the TES, it not surprisingly reveals governors worried about funding pressures and thus supports the view taken by this blog over the past twelve months.

The DfE has now published the individual school by school potential outcomes of the Mark 2 National Funding Formula. I have had a quick look at the Oxfordshire schools and the change in the method of calculation has produced some improvements, in that no school is now forecast to be facing a reduction in funding.

However, the bulk of the primary schools seemingly only face a per pupil increase of around 1%. This is not enough to fend off rising costs and will be a real problem when the pay rise eventually kicks in if it isn’t fully funded. With all the promises Labour is making at their conference, it is difficult to see how they can fund a public sector pay rise with additional cash. A Conservative government might not find it much easier either unless they can identify some new sources of funding.

Funding pressures two to three years out means that the future for small schools is still in doubt under NFF Mark 2 and the two main churches with schools across the country may face a real challenge if the present distribution of primary schools is no longer sustainable.

I was interested to see that the governors questioned thought this year had been easier in terms of recruitment, but not by much. In view of the better recruitment in 2016 to teacher preparation courses and the record numbers on School Direct and Teach First courses such a finding probably wasn’t a great surprise. 2018 may not be as easy a recruitment if the predictions already aired by this blog are accurate in terms of trainee numbers, unless the squeeze on funding really does mean schools reducing their staffing levels as some governors questioned suggested will be the outcome.

Towards the end of next month the DfE expects to reveal the Teacher Supply Model data that will underpin the allocations to 2018 preparation courses and hence numbers likely to be available to fill teaching positions in September 2019 and January 2020. By that year, the increase in secondary school rolls should really be underway, so the funding debate will really be starting to make a difference.

Should school-based training numbers reduce, as may happen this year, then more schools will be recruiting in the open market. That at least would be good news for those providing recruitment services, unless the DfE has stepped in by then with its own service. Taking recruitment away from the private sector clearly fits in with labour’s narrative, but seems less easy to sell to Conservatives stepped in the tradition of the free market.

Either way, the price of recruitment should be on the way down: good news for hard pressed schools and another win for modern technology.

Does democracy matter?

Posted on January 19, 2017 by John Howson

The evidence published today by the DfE on achievements by some schools within some academy groups https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/multi-academy-trust-performance-measures-2015-to-2016 is of course interesting, even with the caveats surrounding it.

However, as academies move from novelty innovation to mainstream feature of our school system there are substantial questions to be asked about their impact on the education scene across England. The most fundamental question, and one that both the two main political parties have always avoided, is whether or not local democratic involvement in education is helpful or a waste of time and money? Regular readers of this blog will know where I stand: firmly in the localism court.

Over the past year, since the publication of the White Paper in March, with its view of a fully academised system, to the recent announcement of a role for local authorities as envisaged in the funding of SEN (discussed in the previous post) there seems to have been some change of thinking. Should we consider Multi-Academy Trusts as playing a similar role to the diocese under the former system and academies as a new form of national school, but not very dissimilar to the existing voluntary aided sector.

The real question is whether there are to be two parallel but separate schools systems, one national one more local, but both funded nationally or should there be a recognition that some facets of schools are best handled locally for all schools. A move to reassure councils that in-year admissions were to return to them for all schools with associated funding might be a useful signal of the direction of travel. A second would be to require MATs to have a local authority representative as a trustee. A third might be to break up the role of director of Children’s Services back into a social work role and plus a separate education role. This would certainly help with creating career routes for professionals from both backgrounds.

Personally, I would also like to ensure there aren’t diseconomies of scale that can result when MATs are responsible for schools in many different geographical areas. The advantage of working with local authorities for the DfE is that Regional School Commissioners could be located within the Education Funding Agency and act as Territorial Principals used to do in the days when schooling was a partnership between central and local government. Local Education Scrutiny Committees could be widened to include more than just governor and faith group representatives to encompass the different interest groups, much as former Education Committees used to do before Cabinet government was invented.

What is clear is that the present muddle in the governance of schooling won’t help ensure the improvement of all schools to reach new high standards Britain will need to compete in a world where we have chosen to ‘go it alone’ and break with our continental neighbours. At least the return of FE & HE to the DfE means there is one department at Westminster with responsibility of the whole of education again. But, responsibility doesn’t mean taking operational control, nor does it mean a fully market-based system with no local democratic involvement.

Leaders to pick the qualities needed of their successors

Posted on April 22, 2014 by John Howson

The Prime Minister may consider England a Christian country, but one wonders whether his Education Secretary, of Scottish heritage, agrees with his leader on this point. His recent announcement of a review of leadership standards for head teachers, a term now generally concatenated in to a single word, is singularly light on expertise in leading faith run primary schools; Christian or otherwise, despite their importance to the school system. But then the review group also lacks any obvious member from higher education, despite the work of staff at the London Institute, Cambridge university, and Roehampton University, to mention but a few of the many universities that have worked in this area for many years. Presumably, the government places higher value on practitioners rather than on thinkers and researchers, especially in the education field. Even Roy Blatchford, a member of the group and possibly a key adviser to David Laws, even though he isn’t known to be a Liberal Democrat, was a former head teacher.

At least the special school sector is represented on the group, but it is questionable why, if this complex sector needs but one representative, the more straightforward tasks of running primary and secondary schools need so many more leaders to discuss the standards required of their successors. Fortunately, the token governor comes from a community school to balance the three representative from academies, whether convertor of as part of chains. The apparent omission of anyone from a free school or the new breed of 14-18 technical schools may mean that the debate is not as wide ranging as it perhaps ought to be, but we shall see.

How radical the group will be at this end of a parliament when, unless their suggestions can be introduced by ministerial fiat, there won’t be time for legislation to alter existing rules will be interesting. Will they stray into territory more appropriately the ground of the School Teachers’ Review Body, currently in search of a new Chair following the current incumbents move to another Quango after just two years in office.

One area that really does need review is the nature and purpose of Executive Heads, and where headship ceases and a different sort of leadership takes over. The Americans have this line delineated between Principals and Superintendants, and historically here it was between heads and Education Officers. But, with many heads now earning more than Directors of Children’s Services despite many fewer responsibilities the present system is clearly in need of an overhaul.

At least the gender balance of the review group has been weighted in the right direction, although one might have welcomed the presence of a middle leader juggling a young family and a career to be able to talk about current pressures on career development, especially for late entrants to the profession.

After the abolition of the mandatory NPQH the group might start by asking the Secretary of State whether he actually believes in national standards of performance assessment and recruitment, and if so whether that is for all qualified staff or just leaders of schools, however defined. Headship is not a task for the faint hearted, and the group might ponder what might make recruitment, especially in primary schools, easier than it traditionally has been. However, without an obvious Roman Catholic on the group, it is doubtful whether they will reach a helpful answer.

John Howson

Education and the numbers that affect what happens

Tag Archives: governing bodies