Tag Archives: headteacher vacancies

Are headteachers really staying less time in post?

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As someone that started collecting data about the turnover of head teachers way back in the 1980s, and added deputy headteacher posts in the 1990s, and when the Assistant head grade was created added those to my dataset, the latest research from the DfE on leadership turnover is very welcome. School Leadership retention, Reporting year 2024 – Explore education statistics – GOV.UK

However, it comes with a health warning. The methodology section contains the following

Exploratory analysis of Teacher Pension Scheme (TPS ….. suggests that the number of head teachers still in service but not being reported in the School Workforce Census has been increasing in recent years, substantially impacting the trends seen in this release. School Leadership retention: methodology – Explore education statistics – GOV.UK

This warning needs to be borne in mind when considering the trends of length of service in post. The DfE data also excluded headteachers on a temporary contract, and those over 50 where retirement is likely to be their next career move.

On the face of it headteachers are spending less time in post.

Primary
Year of CensusBase% 1 Year% 5 year
201197493.7%78.8%
2012107592.4%77.0%
2013117791.1%76.4%
2014130290.2%73.3%
2015131190.5%74.4%
2016134989.6%73.9%
2017140487.8%71.6%
2018126288.3%70.0%
2019121990.2%70.0%
202096689.2%z
2021111489.2%z
2022141488.9%z
2023127389.7%z
20241199zz

Primary head teachers in post one year after appointment seem to be around 4% less for those appointed in 2023 compared with the class of 2011. After five years, there is around an 8% decline from nearly 79% to 70%, although we have yet to see the effect of covid on turnover.

Secondary 
Year of CensusBase% 1 Year% 5 year
201124091.2%65.0%
201228991.0%64.7%
201332787.2%62.1%
201437885.4%61,4%
201538486.7%62.0%
201643084.7%60.5%
201743784.9%63.6%
201844085.0%60.2%
201942187.6%62.5%
202031790.2%z
202132983.9%z
202240484.9%z
202341685.6%z
2024419zz

For the secondary sector, turnover after one year has increased by nearly six per cent, and by around 5% after five years. In this respect, secondary teacher seems more likely to stay in post longer.

This is not surprising, as an appointment to a secondary headship historically was less likely to lead to another appointment, whereas in the primary sector many heads were first appointed to a small school and then took a subsequent headship in a larger school.

However, the defining feature of the period under discussion is the transfer of a large number of schools from maintained school status to becoming an academy. The next decade will help explain where that period of change was a temporary change in turnover rates or the creation of a new landscape where headteachers move more frequently.

The DfE research also has analysis on whether headteachers remain in any posts in a school within the sector. Again, secondary heads are more likely, (as retirements are excluded), to remain in a secondary school, whereas primary teachers are now less likely than in 2011 to remain in a school. It would be interesting to know where those teachers are now employed, and whether they are still working in education.

No doubt the pressure on the primary sector has been harder for heads to deal with than for their secondary colleagues since many primary schools do not have the same range of support staff as their secondary colleagues. Many more may have also had to content with the outcomes of an ofsted visit.  

This is a useful dataset, but it should be made more comprehensive by ensuing all MATs complete the School Workforce Census and that new categories of posts, such as Executive Headteacher, are captured within the census.

Headteacher vacancies: even in August

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More than 40 years ago, I first started counting heads. That’s actually headteacher vacancies, not actual heads. With some spare time on my hands, I thought that I would go back to my roots and look at what is the current state of play this August?

Of course, August is a quiet month, and there are currently fewer than 60 headteacher vacancies listed on the DfE website that is the main go-to place these days, just as the TES was in the 1980s.   

The DfE vacancy website still contains some of the flaws created when it was established. Anyone trying to use modern methods of’ scraping’ jobs will come across the random duplication outcome that has been a feature of the site ever since its inception. I am not sure whether it was deliberate or a fault in the coding, but it always used to annoy me when I was running TeachVac to see the same job repeated in the listing more than once.

The alternative, pioneered by TeachVac was to ‘scrape’ school websites where schools placed their jobs. However, for obvious reasons, not all schools placed headship vacancies on their website. Presumably not to let staff and parents know of the impending departure of their headteacher.

At least with headteacher posts, there is no problem deciding whether the vacancy is a repeat listing or a re-advertisement. Headteacher posts are unique, and thus easy to track.

Anyway, what did I learn from collecting the first 50 vacancies? Special schools were over-represented, with eight such schools looking for a headteacher this August. As a part of the White Paper on SEND, I hope that the government will consider the staffing and training of staff for the special school sector that has long been a Cinderella, and if not bullied by the bigger primary and secondary sectors, it is certainly still in search of a fairy godmother.

There are only two secondary schools in the list, and one is a 10-14 school, and the other a private school. That doesn’t surprise me, as secondary schools usually sort out headship vacancies well before the start of the school year. If there is an unexpected vacancy, then there is often a deputy head that can ‘act up’ until an appropriate time to advertise the vacancy.

Of the 50 or so primary schools, including one First School, 17 were faith schools: ten Roman Catholic; six Church of England and one other Christian faith. These numbers don’t surprise me in the least; indeed, I would have been surprised if there were fewer Roman Catholic schools in the list. All the years I monitored headteacher vacancies, Roman Catholic schools often featured prominently in any listings. 

The relative absence of schools from London and much of the South East is interesting, but I need more data to say anything else than that.

Almost all schools provide a starting salary, either as a point on the scale or as a cash sum. One academy adds 5% to the quoted salary. The indication of a starting salary is an improvement over the time when schools rarely quoted a starting salary for those interested in becoming their headteacher.

Whether I keep us this task will no doubt depend upon how much else I have to do, but it was interesting retracing my footsteps.

.

Secondary School Leadership Vacancies – January to July 2023

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Secondary Leadership Scale Vacancies

The Leadership Scale contains three main groups of vacancies: assistant heads; deputy heads and headteachers. There are also executive head teachers in academy trusts, but those posts are not included in this analysis.

Assistant Head vacancies

Vacancies in the three leadership grades in the secondary sector are sufficiently numerous to warrant consideration for each individual grade of assistant; deputy and headteacher. Although TeachVac collects data from the private school sector, these tables only contain details of vacancies for leadership posts in state schools across England.

2022 State Secondary Sector -Assistant headteacher vacancies
GORVacancies
East Midlands102
East of England173
London248
North East39
North West164
South East201
South West174
West Midlands138
Yorkshire & the Humber129
Grand Total1368
2023 State Secondary Sector – Assistant headteacher vacancies
GORVacanciesDifference 2023 on 2022
East Midlands12018
East of England1807
London241-7
North East24-15
North West154-10
South East22120
South West128-46
West Midlands1391
Yorkshire & the Humber13910
Grand Total1346-22

In 2023 there were more vacancies at this level in the South East than in 2022, whereas in the South West there were fewer recorded advertisements than in the same period in 2022. London and the South East regions account for 33% of the vacancies at this level in 2022 and 34% in 2023. Vacancies at this level were rare in both years. However, some schools might have advertised internally or in a form not caught by TeachVac’s recording of the data.

Deputy Head Vacancies

As with the assistant head grade, there were very similar numbers of advertisements for deputy heads during the first seven months of 2023 advertised by state secondary schools in England when compared with the same schools during the same period in 2022.

Deputy Head 2022
GORVacancies
East Midlands67
East of England74
London132
North East28
North West93
South East119
South West74
West Midlands77
Yorkshire & the Humber98
Grand Total762
Deputy Head 2023
GORVacanciesDifference 2023 on 2022
East Midlands725
East of England8612
London1342
North East24-4
North West88-5
South East14728
South West59-15
West Midlands63-14
Yorkshire & the Humber94-4
Grand Total7675

Source: TeachVac

Although the overall total of advertisements was similar in 2023 to the number in 2022, there were some regional differences, with more vacancies being advertised by schools in the south East and the East of England and fewer advertisements in the south West and West Midlands.

 Headteacher vacancies

As with both the assistant and deputy head teacher grades, in the first seven months of 2023 the number of advertisements logged for headteacher vacancies was very similar to the number recorded during the same period of 2022.

Headteacher 2022
GORVacancies
East Midlands26
East of England31
London55
North East18
North West43
South East48
South West54
West Midlands46
Yorkshire & the Humber44
Grand Total365
Headteacher 2023
GORVacanciesDifference 2023 on 2022
East Midlands19-7
East of England4716
London38-17
North East12-6
North West441
South East5911
South West48-6
West Midlands471
Yorkshire & the Humber440
Grand Total358-7

Source: TeachVac

As with deputy head advertisements, there were more advertisements for headteachers in the South East and East of England in 2023, and fewer in London, where at least one secondary school closed in the summer of 2023. It seems likely that some of the increases may be the result of new schools opening following the building of new housing estates in the Home Counties.

Most secondary schools are able to appoint a new headteacher after their first advertisement. However, around 10% of schools require more than one advertisement before they can fill their headteacher vacancy.

As an exercise, all schools with a re-advertisement for their headteacher posts were matched with their percentage of pupils listed as eligible for Free School Meals. The 33 schools identified as having re-advertised their headteacher vacancy were divided into three groups: schools with less than 20% FSM; 20-25% FSM and schools with more than 25% FSM

The analysis showed that in 2023 there were:

12 schools in the less than 20% FSM group

4 schools with between 20-25% FSM group

17 schools with 25%+ FSM, including two schools with more than 40% that had both readvertised twice so far in 2023.

The below 20% FSM group contained two Roman Catholic schools and a Church of England Middle school. These are schools of a type that often finds recruiting a new headteacher challenging.

Repeating the exercise at the end of September might well add some more schools to the list of those re-advertising for a headteacher as schools often wait until the autumn before re-advertising.

A tale of two markets

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The Labour Market for Teachers in England – January to July 2023 (part one) overview

The months between January and July each year witness the majority of the advertisements for teachers each year. This is because the labour market is skewed towards appointments for the start of the school-year in September.

In a normal year, not affected by factors such as a pandemic, around three quarters to 80% of vacancies are advertised during the first seven months of the year, with the largest number of advertisements being placed during the three months between March and May; with the peak usually occurring some weeks after the Easter holidays.

TeachVac has been recording vacancies advertised by schools through their websites since 2014. The decade can be separated out into three phases; from 2014 to 2019; 2020 and 2021, the covid years, and 2022 and 2023. The last two years have seen a significant change in the volume of vacancies advertised. This trend will be discussed in more detail later.

The demand for teachers depends upon a number of different factors, and that demand can be satisfied in a number of different ways. The most important factor is the school population. Increasing pupil numbers require more teachers, unless teaching groups are to increase in size. Obviously, falling rolls mean less demand, and in extreme cases can even lead to teacher redundancies.

The level of funding of schools also plays a part. Increased resources for schools can result in an increased demand for teaching staff; restrictions on funding can reduce demand for replacements when staff leave. Within the funding envelope, the cost of the salary bill can have a significant bearing on staffing levels. For instance, an under-funded pay settlement can reduce demand for staff as more funds are spent on paying the existing staffing complement. For the private school sector, the demand for places and the payment of fees has the same effect. More demand for places means there is likely to be a demand for more teachers

The third key factor affecting the level of advertisements is the state of the market. A good supply of teachers means most vacancies will be filled at first advertisement or event these days without an advertisement at all. However, if there is a challenging labour market, perhaps because of a shortage of either new entrants or returners, or an increase in departures from teaching in schools in England, then these factors can result in an increase in advertisements, as vacancies not filled are re-advertised. This may be one the factors behind the increase in vacancies recorded in 2022, because in many secondary subjects the numbers entering the profession from training were less than required by the DfE’s Teacher Supply Model.

So, what of the first seven months of 2023? The tables below show the record of vacancies as measured by advertisements for schools in England

2022       
 PrimarySecondaryOverall
IndepStateTotalIndepStateTotalTotal
Classroom119117449186405056349013995758597
Promoted post198166418621655119211357615438
Assistant Head2777680382136814502253
Deputy head488919391237628851824
Head teacher1514691484323653971881
Grand Total147922249237286948493175626579993
2023PrimarySecondaryOverall
IndepStateTotalIndepStateTotalTotal
Classroom79615409162054410384324284259047
Promoted post123135714801266136341490016380
Assistant Head1358659967134614132012
Deputy head37723760957678621622
Head teacher1912591278293583871665
Grand Total98819334203225867545376040480726
PrimarySecondaryOverall
IndepStateTotalIndepStateTotalTotal
Change 2023 on 2022-491-2915-3406-108152204139733
% change-33%-13%-14%-16%11%7%1%
Source: TeachVac

Source: TeachVac

The key feature to note is that there was little change between 2022 and 2023. Overall, the number of vacancies, as measured by advertisements, increased by one per cent in 2023 when compared with 2022. This was an overall increase of 733 advertisements from 79,993 to 80726.

However, the overall total hides two very different picture for the different sectors. Advertisements for teachers and school leaders in the primary sector fell from 23,728 in the first seven months of 2022 to20,322 in the same period of 2023: a fall of 14%.

The fall in the primary sector affected vacancies at all levels except for headteachers in the independent sector, where a small increase in advertisements was recorded in 2023 when compared with 2022.

Advertised vacancies for classroom teachers declined from 18,640 in 2022 to 16,205 in 2023, with both the state and independent school sectors recording a fall in advertisements.

In the secondary sector, the position was very different. Overall, the recorded number of advertisements increased from 56,265 in 2022 to 60,404 in the first seven months of 2023. Within the secondary sector, the increase was not universal. The independent school sector recorded a fall in advertisements for most posts, whereas state sector secondary schools recorded an increase for classroom teachers and promoted posts, but little change in the number of vacancies for leadership posts.

Further posts will explore the different categories in more detail.

All agreed then: there is a teacher recruitment and retention crisis

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The House of Commons Education Select Committee held its first oral evidence session this morning as part of its inquiry into recruitment and retention. The Committee discussed with representatives of the teacher and further education professional associations their views on the present state of affairs with regard to recruitment and retention.  

It was not a surprise to hear all the witnesses explain that the present situation in both schools and colleges represented a crisis, and that there was no solution in sight. Interestingly, nobody mentioned the effects of any downturn in the economy on teacher recruitment – not even evidencing what happened at the start of the covid pandemic when interest in ITE increased sharply. There was also no mention of teaching as a global career and the growth of UK private schools overseas as a source of jobs for teachers.

Pay, working conditions and morale all came up, and were cited as areas where the DfE needed to take action. The fact that all four professional associations are in dispute with the DfE was mentioned, but the lack of the STRB Report received relatively little consideration.

Two issues discussed in detail were the question of school leadership and how attractive it is. There was the usual discussion about how to keep good teachers in the classroom and some statements about teachers not wanting to become head teachers. There was also a discussion about how teaching behaves in relation to ‘protected’ groups in society.

Talking the first issue on leadership, it is interesting to look at the recent data from the School Workforce Survey on deputy and assistant heads working in the primary school sector in the under 49 age groups and specifically, for assistant heads, the under 39 age groups.

 AHDH
FEMALE25-2938899
30-3943522571
40-4939544123
86946793
MALE25-2911143
30-391108962
40-49674888
18931893
NON-G25-2910
30-3902
40-4900
ALL25-29500142
30-3954603535
40-4946285011
105888688

There were around 6,000 assistant heads in the primary sector under the age of 40 in November 2022. That ought to be sufficient to provide candidates for deputy headships, at least at the national level.

There are somewhere around 1,500 primary headships advertised each year. With less than 4,000 deputy heads under the age of 40 that means schools will need to draw heavily on the 5,000 primary headteachers in their 40s for many vacancies. This does leave the ratio of candidates to vacancies worryingly low, especially as the recruitment round progresses, and good candidates are appointed to vacancies. I think that there is a matter for concern here that the NAHT were wise to draw the Committee’s attention to in oral evidence.

As to minority groups, there is work to be done here to encourage men, ethnic minorities and those with disabilities to take up teaching as a career. Here are a couple of links to my blogs on the topic written in past years

Are new graduate entrants to teaching still predominantly young, white and female? | John Howson (wordpress.com)

‘We need more black headteachers in our schools’ | John Howson (wordpress.com)

This is an area where clearly the DfE seems to be paying less attention than in the past. Perhaps, it shows a consequence of the lack of a dedicated unit on teacher supply, training and professional development.

Such a unit might have helped the DfE create a coherent policy to solve the current staffing crisis in our schools and colleges that should have caught nobody unawares.

Cut recruitment costs

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TeachVac is currently receiving a number of calls from schools that are finding either very few or no responses to their adverts for teaching posts. This is not a surprise to me because this blog has been predicting a very challenging recruitment round in 2023 ever since the DfE published its ITT census in December of 2022.

However, I imagine it must be galling to a school leadership team to have handed over thousands of pounds for recruitment advertising and not to have received a single response to an advert. TeachVac was founded on the principle that modern technology could reduce prices dramatically. Up until this year, schools have often ignored the cost of advertising on the grounds that their recruiter delivered results. Not anymore.

TeachVac has been offering secondary schools a three-month deal of £125 for unlimited vacancies during the three months that covered the key recruitment season. This offer is still available at www.teachvac.co.uk

For schools thinking about their recruitment budget for the next school year starting in September,  TeachVac will offer secondary schools the same package as this year; £500 for unlimited matches for all teaching jobs advertised during the year.

As an incentive, secondary schools signing up in June will only pay £400 if they pay on sign-up or £500 if invoiced in August. Primary schools continue to pay £75 for the year. Groups of schools can benefit from further discounts depending upon the volume of vacancies and the number of schools in the grouping.

Currently, TeachVac also has rates for agencies and other non-school advertisers wanting to match their teaching jobs with TeachVac’s database of jobseekers. Rates start from as low as £3 per vacancy registered, with users identifying the specific local authority area where the school with the vacancy is located and £10 for matches across a government region such as London or the South East. Matches are made for 21 days or until the closing date for the vacancy.

TeachVac’s database of registered users is growing by the day. As a ‘closed’ system users need to register to be matched with vacancies as they are posted. This means that TeachVac has an accurate count of registered users. The basic service remains free to teachers seeking a job.

TeachVac www.teachvac.co.uk invites schools to discuss any specific needs beyond the basic service offered, including the wider placement of vacancies on social media, and advertorials about the benefits of working in the school.

TeachVac has a wealth of information on the job market, and can produce reports tailored to the needs of MATs; local authorities; dioceses or others interested in the working of the labour market.

Unlike the DfE site, TeachVac’s closed system does not muddle up non-teaching and teaching posts and also offers teachers the chance to see job opportunities across both state and private sector schools in one place.

TeachVac is backed by eight years of operation and staff with 40 years of knowledge of the labour market for teachers. It is also UK owned.

School Leadership trends in 2022

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This week TeachVac www.teachvac.co.uk has published its 2022 Review of Leadership Vacancies in schools across England. Next week, the report on classroom teacher vacancies will be published. If you would like a copy of either then email enquiries@oxteachserv.com Schools signed up to the TeachVac platform can request a copy of both reports.

These are challenging times for the public sector. Education, and in particular schools, has not escaped the challenges of a period of high inflation and full employment. However, the most serious effects in schools are to be found at classroom teacher and middle leader levels and the recruitment of non-teaching staff. These will be discussed in a future post once the Classroom Teacher Review of 2022 is published.

Leadership vacancies are mostly filled by those already working in schools or other posts in the education sector. Headteacher posts are frequently the final post in a teacher’s career, although some headteachers do change schools, often from a smaller school to a larger school, specially in the primary sector.

TeachVac’s main findings for 2022 are that:

  • There were more leadership vacancies on offer during 2022 that during the previous two years, when recruitment was badly affected by the covid pandemic
  • In the primary sector 2034 headteacher vacancies were recorded during 2022, compared with 1,556 during 2021. In the secondary sector, the numbers were 585 headteacher vacancies in 2022 compared with 368 during 2021.
  • For schools advertising during the 2021-22 school-year there was a re-advertisement rate for primary schools of 25%, and 19% for secondary schools. The South East was the region with the highest re-advertisement rate for primary headteachers
  • Schools advertising for a headteacher outside of the first quarter of the year were more likely to need to re-advertise their vacancy, as are schools that differ from the norm in size, type of school or control by a faith grouping.
  • After two years of lower vacancy number for deputy headteachers, 2022 levels recorded a rebound to pre-pandemic numbers across both the primary and secondary sectors.
  • There was a strong demand for assistant headteachers in both the primary and secondary sectors during 2022. The grade is now popular in schools across more regions than previously.
  • One effect of the covid pandemic may have been more retirements of senior leaders. Any effects resulting from ‘long covid’ on the labour market for senior staff in schools is yet to be fully appreciated. 

Readvertisement rates are for the 2021-22 school year to allow for re-advertisements during the autumn term to be included in the totals. Re-advertisement rates in the primary for headteacher vacancies are towards the lower end of expectations, whereas re-advertisements for secondary headships are at a percentage more in common with long-term trends.

The most interesting statistic is the increase in vacancies for assistant heads during 2022. Is this because middle leaders of large departments need the salary available on the Leadership Scale to attract them to apply for such posts, especially in high cost areas in and around London? Some of the increase may be due to new schools building up their leadership teams, but that fact alone does not seem sufficient to account for the increases.

What will 2023 bring in terms of leadership vacancies? As around half of such vacancies appear during the first three months of the year, we won’t have long to wait to find out.

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.

Headship: does school type matter when recruiting?

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How much does the type of school matter when trying to recruit a new headteacher? More many years than I can count, indeed almost since I started researching the labour market for school leaders in England, way back in the1980s, it has seemed that data has always pointed to certain schools finding recruitment a challenge.

So, with a bit of spare time, I thought I would look at the experiences in one large shire county (not Oxfordshire) in the period between January 2021 and the end of July 2022.

Vacancies for headteachers in state-funded primary schools – one shire county Jan 21-July22

ADVERTSINFANTJUNIORPRIMARY – MPRIMARY – CEPRIMARY – RC
1108891
265790
320010
431000
502020
6+00020
TOTAL211615231
2+1177140
% 2+52%44%47%61%0%
Source TeachVac

Interestingly, although Infant schools appear to fare better than other schools in terms of recruiting after a single advertisement, three of the ten schools in the table placed their first advertisement during either June or July of 2022. Discounting those schools produces a 2+ percentage for infant schools of 61% and not 52%. This is the same as for Church of England Primary Schools.

However, although most infant and junior schools in this locality are Maintained schools, there are some Church of England Infant and junior schools, and they seem more likely than the maintained schools to have to re-advertise.

Indeed, Church of England schools account for all of the primary schools with more than two rounds of advertisements for a headteacher. These include one school with the original vacancy plus six rounds of re-advertisements and another school with the original advertisement plus nine further rounds of advertisements between May 2021 and June 2022.

In any normal year, about half of headteacher vacancies appear between January and March. Vacancies advertised later in the year tend to be harder to fill unless there is local interest in taking on the school. Unless a primary school has access to subscription advertising for its vacancies, this can become an expensive business, especially for a small primary school. MATs may be able to cover these costs, but with local authorities not able to top-slice school budgets in the same way, this can be an expensive problem for governing bodies, especially if headteachers only stay in post for a few years in such schools.

There is much less of an issue in filling vacancies for headteachers of secondary and all-through schools, although some of the same caveats about timing remain. Also, for the secondary sector, the type of school and its Free School Meals ranking outside of recessionary times may affect the degree of interest. These issues are discussed further in TeachVac’s annual review of the leadership labour market in England.

So, a community primary school advertising in January each year should have little difficulty finding a new headteacher. The governing body of a Church of England school whose headteacher needs replacing in June will probably find themselves facing a challenge in their search for a replacement.

School Funding: looking for savings

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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.