Tag Archives: Mathematics

More from the land of the White Rabbit

Posted on by
Reply

Yesterday The Guardian newspaper published some figures about recruitment to teacher training for this September. I am not sure whether this was based upon a leak or data provided by the DfE but given solely to The Guardian newspaper as I have not been able to locate the figures anywhere on the DfE web site. Either way the numbers, as they appeared in the newspaper, are a challenge to interpret.

Take the total shown as accepted for Physics, the subject of a recent post on this blog. According to The Guardian some 560 people have been accepted to study as Physics teachers. This it is claimed fills 57% of the target of 990 places. Eagle eyed readers will already be wondering about the use of the term target as the DfE has recently been using the alternative word ‘allocation’ to account for the number of training places available. Anyway, leaving that matter aside, according to the Statistical Bulletin published by the DfE on the 13th August, there were 1,143 Physics places issued to providers. That’s 153 more than the number quoted in The Guardian. So is the real number 560 of 1,143? This would be 49% filled, not 57% as quoted in the paper. Either way it is a big fall from the 925 Physics and Physics with Mathematics entrants recorded in the ITT census last November.

There are similar issues with the numbers quoted in other subjects. Mathematics is cited as having 1,910 accepted candidates for 2,460 places when the DfE Statistical Bulletin showed 3,054 places or 2,929 if undergraduate numbers are excluded. Last November, 2,635 trainees were recruited, so we have apparently lost 700 possible Mathematics teachers in one year; that’s about one for every five schools.

The claim that 90% of secondary places have been filled is dubious in the extreme. I am very curious that Chemistry apparently has a bumper crop of applicants as that is not what I am hearing. Even in primary, where there should be no issue in filling places, word is reaching me of anxiety in some quarters about the outcome of the pre-entry tests. It is to be hoped that the Select Committee will be able to sort the numbers issue out on Wednesday when they quiz the Minister. But, the definitive point of reference will be the ITT Census in November. By then we will also know how enthusiastic schools are about taking up all the places in School Direct for 2014.

Headlines ignore the real story on English and maths

Posted on by
Reply

Between the summer of 1963 and January 1966 I took my GCE English five times, eventually passing two Boards at the same time in January 1966 at the sixth attempt. As a result I read today’s story about the need to continue English and maths beyond the age of sixteen with more than a passing interest.

The headlines seem to suggest that those who don’t pass at sixteen drop both subjects. Now I am sure that is true in some cases, but it certainly isn’t for all. The DfE has good evidence of what is happening, and shared it with us in March 2013 as part of Statistical Bulletin 13/2013.

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/221793/sfr13-2013.pdf

These results may come as a surprise to those reading the BBC and other headlines that seem to suggest everyone who doesn’t pass immediately drops any further study of these subjects. That clearly isn’t the case. Although in 2012 there was a small drop, for the first time in some years, in the percentage achieving both English and maths post-sixteen, it was still around one in six of those without a Level 2 at sixteen, and higher for those young people without special educational needs. As the Bulletin writer observed: ‘The gap in attainment at age 19 between young people with a Statement of Special Educational Needs (SEN) and those with no SEN continued to widen at each of Level 2, Level 2 with English and maths, and Level 3.’

The failure rate also seemed to be higher in the FE and apprenticeship sectors than in schools; with academies posting a small improvement, although it may not be statistically significant. Perhaps this ought to have been a BiS story rather than a DfE one. One might also ask how well those 16-18 year olds in the care of the Ministry of Justice have fared in improving their literacy and numeracy levels: but that’s another story entirely.

One of the most interesting stories lies in the ethnicity figures. The Bulletin writer states that: ‘The change in the relative performance of the Black summary ethnic group between 16 and 19 at Level 2 is notable. In the [age] 19 in 2012 cohort, attainment of Level 2 in the Black group was 4.6 percentage points lower than the average for all known ethnic groups at age 16, but by age 19 it was 3.1 percentage points above the average.’ Maybe some young people come to recognise the value of education later than others. The challenge now is to work with this group to persuade them of the value of schooling before sixteen.

So, overall, there is still more to be done to achieve better outcomes in the key basic subjects of English and maths for all pupils, but for some this is already a good news story rather than story of a failure of our schools.

Perhaps the real story, and it has become mangled somewhere between the idea and its execution, is those who pass English and maths at Level 2 by sixteen but then drop the subjects for ever. Should we be providing a means for them to continue to enhance their knowledge and understanding, or is GCSE enough? I think not.

The transfer window and teachers’ pay

Posted on by
Reply

The football transfer window closes tomorrow. This is not something that directly affects schools, but it does raise two questions in my mind. Firstly, could all this money be better used tackling (sorry for the pun) youth unemployment. It does seem somewhat obscene that a football club in Spain may well pay a world record fee for a player while youth unemployment in that country is devastating a whole generation. UK clubs have spent lavishly this summer and, although our unemployment rate isn’t as high as in Spain, I do wonder whether that cash could have been better employed in other ways. The rich are happy to indulge in buying and selling football players and indeed whole clubs while leaving many young graduates with nothing more to do than stay at home and watch an endless succession of matches from around the word. If you read the history of Liverpool and Everton football clubs you will find the suggestions that they grew out of church teams. Now the church is no longer the force it once was in society, but if we could find a way into diverting some of the transfer cash into job creation schemes it might surely do a bit more good for society. How about a transfer tax for youth job creation?

The second question is closer to home. Will the ending of the teachers’ national pay scales, like the ending of fixed wages in football all those years ago, have any effect on teachers’ pay? Perhaps the Secretary of State hopes it will depress wages, but, as I have suggested before, it might just have the opposite effect.

Even now there could well be the educational equivalent of player’s agents plotting how they will get a group of mathematics teachers together in a hotel early in 2014, and sign them up. The agent would then approach schools asking if they wanted a mathematics teacher, and how much they would pay for them. They could point out that advertising a job, and going through the recruitment and selection procedure, is both risky and expensive, and this is a cheaper option at say 5% of salaries. Perhaps Universities might see it as a way of attracting trainees to their courses, and away from School Direct by saying, ‘don’t be tied down too soon to one school’. ‘We will offer you a wider range of training and negotiate the best salary for you at the end of your training.’ It would be interesting to see how Teach First would react to such an outcome. Even those, such as history teachers, whose skills are traditionally not in short-supply might benefit from a bit of group action on pay.

The first step is discovering how supply and demand across the country might affect opportunities. Anyone interested the answer to that question might start by looking at the Report I did for the Pearson think tank almost exactly a year ago. For the position since then, you would have to contact me directly.

Scaremongering!

Posted on by
3

So now I know I am officially a scaremonger. A DfE spokesperson, helpfully anonymous, is quoted by the Daily Mail today as saying of my delving into the current teacher training position that there was no teacher shortage, adding: ‘This is scaremongering and based on incomplete evidence.’

Well the first thing to note is that I haven’t said that there is a teacher shortage, just that training places are not being filled: not the same thing. Indeed, I have said a teacher shortage is less likely than in the past in the near future because Mr Gove has mandated that qualified teachers from Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the whole of the USA can teach here as qualified teachers with no need to retrain. With an oversupply of teachers in parts of both Canada and Australia that should prevent any short-term problem developing even though another part of the government isn’t very keen on importing workers from abroad, presumably including from within the Commonwealth and a one time colony.

More serious is the charge of using ‘incomplete evidence’ in reaching my conclusions. If the DfE has figures to show that more places will be filled this September on teacher training courses than I am predicting, then please will they share them with the wider community, if not, will they please justify what they mean.

It could be that they take issue with my colleague Chris Waterman’s assessment of the number of those likely to be taught Mathematics by unqualified teachers. However, it is worth noting that earlier this year the DfE produced its own evidence to show that 17.9% of the Mathematics hours taught to years 7-13 were led by those with ‘no relevant post A Level qualification’. That was some 85,000 hours of instruction. Assuming each class of pupils has six hours of contact per week that makes more than 14,000 classes already being taught by unqualified staff, and with no programme in place to improve their qualifications if they are intending to teach the subject for a period of time. If each class has only 20 pupils, the total number of pupils already being taught by teachers with no measurable post A Level qualification in Mathematics can easily be worked out. It is also worth pointing out that the DfE showed that in November 2012 less than half of those teaching Mathematics had a degree that could be classified as a Mathematics degree, with 23% having a PGCE as their highest Mathematics qualification and a degree in another subject, hopefully with lots of applied mathematics as a apart of the degree.

As Chris Waterman has rightly pointed out the raising of the participation age to 17 this September and 18 a year later should increase the demand for Mathematics teachers as the Wolf Report endorsed the now widely held view that more youngsters should continue to study Mathematics until the age of18.

The government has taken a bold gamble with teacher education: moving training to schools; introducing pre-entry tests in literacy and numeracy; raising the cost of training in many subjects to £9,000 for fees plus living costs. It is important that there is a credible debate about how these changes are working.

After all, in 2010, Mr Gove promised 200 teachers of Mandarin would be trained each year, and although some providers such as the London Institute offer it as an option I doubt that target was ever reached. It is time for a radical overhaul of teacher preparation to really meet the needs of a 21st century education system.