Tag Archives: news

Missing from the budget

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Education didn’t really feature in the budget.

I had hoped that there might be help for 16-18 year-olds in rural areas to access education. Instead, the Chancellor announced that he would help families with younger children through the Bus Fund.

Line 67 Bus Travel: Fund free bus travel for children aged 5-15 in England  from 1 August 2026 until 31 August 2026.

I am sorry he didn’t pick up on the 16-18 issue in rural areas, as it is something I have been campaigning about for years now.

The Chancellor also announced a cut in Red Diesel: Reduce duty rates by 3.7p-per-litre from 15 June 2026 to 1 July 2027 Will that help local authorities with their school transport bills? Sadly, I k not. Another missed opportunity?

Other mentions about education in the budget needed hunting out.

6.122 Books for children – The government will provide £5 million a year for three years from 2027-28 to increase the provision of books for pre-school children, supporting organisations such as the Dolly Parton Imagination Library and BookTrust.

Saldy, that won’t buy many books. For example, if 100,000 children qualified, they would receive £5 worth of books each. Hopefully, the books will circulate, so each child will have access to many books per year. But that approach increases overheads, so I am surprised not to see a match-funded scheme that could leverage more cash for the project.

6.124 School Physical Education (PE) & Sport funding – Funding to the Department for Education will increase by £60 million per year to contribute to the cost of new PE & Sport partnerships, due to be rolled out in England in 2027.

No mention of uprating the music grant by inflation. The grant hasn’t been uprated since 2014, along with a couple of other grants in the DfE’s budget.

Capital spending on education projects is likely to fall as the Treasury raids capital budgets to help fund extra defence spending. The capital spending ‘outurn’ in 25/26 was £6bn, and is expected to £8.1bn in 26/27, before falling back to £7.5bn for the next three years to 2029/30. Hope possibly for schools still awaiting the  removal of ‘bad concrete’, but not much sign of a replacement policy for schools that are time expired, especially as s costs have been increasing due to inflation.

Teachers will be glad to know that on page 34 of the Budget book the government is aware that

‘ DfE’s AI lesson-planning tool is saving teachers an average of around three hours a week, reducing administrative burdens and freeing up more time for teaching and other school responsibilities.’ Budget 2026 – Breathing Space for today, Fresh hope for the future

Overall, a very dull budget for education that will give little confidence to the sector.

Finally, the retention of business rates is good for many communities, but not for university towns such as Oxford, where students don’t pay Council Tax, and the universities often avoid business rates. Hopefully, the overnight levy will at least allow some income from conference visitors and tourists to the city.

EHCP requests and falling rolls

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Have requests for EHCPs passed their peak? It might be expected that where a local authority was starting to witness a shrinking school population that this might also be noticeable in a decline in requests for an EHCP.

I have tested out this these for the London boroughs, based on the DfE’s data on total requests for an EHCP for each year from 2019 (pre-covid) to 2025, (the latest set of annual data published). Release home – Education, health and care plans – Explore education statistics – GOV.UK

Column 2 shows the growth in request over the period from 2019 to 2026 (in one case a small decline) Column 3 shows the percentage increase over the period, ranked from smallest percentage increase to the largest. Column 4 is my interpretation of whether the borough is an inner London or an outer London borough

LA2013-2019% increasesubregion
1-3-38%inner
2345%inner
3129%inner
48418%inner
511521%inner
619523%outer
77236%inner
88537%inner
921039%outer
1010041%outer
1117842%outer
1211447%outer
1340055%outer
1429757%outer
1524358%outer
1629865%inner
1727665%outer
1819568%inner
1932172%inner
2035273%outer
2131380%outer
2215786%inner
2314687%outer
2453491%outer
2548895%inner
2629297%outer
27497101%outer
28395101%outer
29392105%outer
30501110%inner
31432115%inner
32345117%outer
33376133%outer

Thirty-two boroughs showed an increase in requests over the period between 2019 and 2025. Increases ranged from less than 10% in each of two inner London boroughs to seven boroughs with increases of more than 100% increase over the period between 2019-2025 (5 outer London boroughs and two inner London boroughs).

In 14 of the boroughs, the number of requests received by the borough in 2025 was not the highest for any years during the period between 2019-2025. Is that enough to suggest a trend? Possibly so, especially if the key point for many requests for an EHCP is around the transfer point form primary to secondary school.

Does the  distribution of the boroughs suggest that inner London boroughs have a smaller percentage of pupils requiring an EHCP, or perhaps a smaller percentage of parents initiating the process of requesting an EHCP? It would be helpful to rerun this exercise for particular types of EHCP and the age of the child at which they were requested. Might this deeper analysis help to explain some of the differences in the percentage increases between boroughs?

It is interesting that some London boroughs with a mix of selective and non-selective schools feature among the boroughs with the highest percentage increase over the period.

If data for individual schools is not available, then measuring the percentage of the borough in each IDACII cell might provide data on any clustering. A simpler way might be to use parliamentary constituencies, but both of these measure of requests suffer from a possible ‘parental choice’ effect. The use of boroughs more closely ties requests linked to residence not to school attended.

If I have a moment, I will look at the data for the top and bottom 20 places regarded by the Children’s Commissioner in her recent report as the best and worst places for children to grow up.

Are Breakfast clubs just a new form of extended school day?

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Research published by the DfE Breakfast club early adopters: final report – GOV.UK provides some interesting insights into the government’s early adopters of their plan for a free ‘breakfast club’ in every primary school.

Some of the comments in the Report’s Executive summary suggest that food is not the real benefit to most families of such ‘breakfast clubs’, but an extension of the wrap around care offered by schools.

‘Parent awareness of provision was high (92%), primarily through school newsletters (36%) and apps (19%). The free breakfast club usage reflected family circumstances: 69% of aware parents reported their child attends, with higher rates among full-time employed parents (79%) and lower among free school meal eligible families (66%).

Enabling employment emerged as the primary motivation for use (53%), followed by child enjoyment (43%) and easier drop-offs (35%).

The free breakfast club sits within existing family routines rather than replacing them entirely. Nearly three-quarters (74%) of families report that their child usually has breakfast at home, though breakfast club users are less likely to eat at home than non-users (74% vs 94%). Current before-school arrangements varied considerably: 45% of families used the free breakfast club for childcare, whilst 41% had a parent or carer at home.’

All from the Executive summary, but with some re-ordering.

One comment that really interested me was that ‘Pupils exercised considerable autonomy in choosing what to eat, which activities to pursue, and how to interact socially, distinguishing free breakfast clubs from structured classroom time. Pupils showed strong engagement with both food and activities, although some attended primarily for social interaction and play.’

Clearly, there are some users of the ‘clubs’ that are there for the food. But, does this justify a universal service, especially with primary schools starting at so many different age groups from age 2 to age 5.

An interesting finding was that ‘Participation rates are higher among families not eligible for FSM (74%) compared to FSM-eligible families (66%), and among parents in full-time salaried employment (79%). The type of provision accessed varies by family circumstances. Most families (70%) exclusively use free breakfast club provision, whilst 16% combine free and paid provision, and 13% use only paid provision. Parents not currently employed are most likely to solely use the free provision (90%), whilst families with higher incomes are more likely to use paid provision either exclusively or in combination with free offerings.’ (page 48)

Also of interest was the higher take-up by parents of children with SEND

‘Parents of children with SEND demonstrate slightly different usage patterns, being more likely to send their child to breakfast clubs every weekday (49%) compared to parents of children without SEND (42%). This higher frequency of attendance aligns with findings from parent interviews, where parents of children with SEND describe breakfast clubs as particularly valuable for providing calm, structured morning transitions.’ (page 51)

In the interviews with parents, there was little mention of the attraction of the ‘free breakfast, only accounting for 8% of one of the top three choices, leading the report to state that:

‘Interviewed parents recognise the provision serves multiple purposes including providing childcare support, facilitating work routines, offering socialisation opportunities, alleviating financial pressures, helping their children settle into the school environment, and building confidence. This multifaceted nature of the breakfast club makes it valuable to families across diverse circumstances.’ (page 53).

If the aim of the government was to encourage more employment among families with primary aged children, then the pilot seems to have been a success. But are they really ‘breakfast clubs’? The report’s recommendations acknowledge this issues:

‘Strengthen the programme narrative beyond breakfast provision. The evidence demonstrates that free breakfast clubs deliver multiple interconnected benefits that extend beyond food provision. The Department should consider strengthening the programme branding and communication strategy to reflect this broader value proposition. Rather than “breakfast clubs,” consider terminology such as “before-school clubs” or “morning clubs” that better captures the comprehensive nature of the provision. This re-emphasis should emphasise the programme as offering a supported transition into the school day (‘soft start’) that can foster pupils’ social development and cross-age relationship building while providing an opportunity eat a nutritious breakfast. To appeal to parents, it should also focus on the free breakfast club as enabling parental employment and reducing household stress. This positions the free breakfast club as one component of a holistic morning experience. This shift in narrative would help address the 49% of non-users who cite “lack of need” by demonstrating relevance beyond food provision alone’. (page 89)

More concerning to me is the fact that ‘FSM-eligible families (who show lower usage despite potentially greater need)’. Should helping these children to make use of the ‘clubs’ better fulfil the ‘breakfast club’ part of the original mission of such clubs?

The data for this sample was limited, and it was based upon an opt-in approach. I would be concerned if across England children eligible for free school meals were making less use of the free food on offer before school and also not joining in on what now looks more like an extended school day than an initiative to help families with their food bills.

Is the trade-off between extra childcare and more employment possibilities, especially for women worth the cost? I guess the government decided the answer to that question before it set up the pilot programme ahead of a national roll out.

Growing up in England: The Children’s Commissioner’s Report

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The Children’s Commissioner, Dame Rachel de Souza, has issued a comprehensive report on growing up in England. ‘The Childhood Lottery: The hardest places to grow up in England’ The Childhood Lottery: The hardest places to grow up in England | Children’s Commissioner for England The data comes from matrixes across the Commissioner’s six pillar of work

Health: health services and outcomes

Care: social care and outcomes

Community; policing, youth justice and services available to children in l where they live

Education: jobs and skills: schools and  post-16 plus educational outcomes

Family: housing, play , poverty and family life

Better world: the environment, children’s voices and citizenship

The data are for the 150+ upper-tier authorities, so London boroughs, metropolitan districts, unitary councils and the remaining shire counties. As a result, the authorities range in size from Rutland to Lancashire and Kent. Some areas are more homogenous than others: some are contiguous with health, police and other non-local government functions, while others are part of larger organisation for policing and health with policies set outside the local authority areas. Some functions are split between upper and lower tier authorities, such as housing and recreation facilities.

Despite these issues, that in some cases make the average for the authority not reflective of its different parts, and highlight some of the issues with dashboards, discussed in a recent post on this blog. Are dashboards useful? | John Howson this is a powerful report bringing together lots of useful data.

There are dangers here. Oxfordshire is ranked equal 11th with York, and the fourth best county to grow up in England. But, tomorrow, I will be at a workshop , initiated by an Oxfordshire-based multi-academy trust, aiming to improve the lives of children in the most challenging part of the county’s urban landscape. (The report classifies Oxfordshire as rural). The issues in this area would have been highlighted if district councils had been used as the data point instead of upper-tier authorities. Parliamentary constituencies, where most of this data is probably kept somewhere for MPs questions, might have been an even better and more equal frame of reference, allowing different between both Tottenham and Highgate within Haringey to have been judged separately.

Rural areas may also have a bit of a raw deal: you can’t count bus data where there are no buses. The data on childcare placement more than 20 miles from their home doesn’t discount kinship care that might be valuable, but not local in a large rural county.

However, it is easy to carp, and one cannot but praise the efforts of the Children’s Commissioner. The survey may also reveal how weakened local government has become. Take youth justice: how many councillors attend local committees to discuss approaches to this vital topic. Do cabinet members for Children’s Services even know that they often have this responsibility?

I was fortunate, when a Cabinet member, to have both a Director of Children’s Services and a Youth Justice lead that kept me informed, and allowed me to understand the importance of this area. On the other hand, the Health and Wellbeing Board was a challenge for me, as it covered so many different areas, and children’s health didn’t have a sub-committee. The fact that Oxfordshire is a Marmot County had nothing to do with me as a cabinet member for children’s services.

There are messages for politicians at all levels in this report, not only about childhood, but also into young adulthood. Sadly, many adults face the same problems, and solving those issues might also help future generations of children and young people growing up in a divided England.

Are London schools’ results slipping?

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The DfE has today published the provisional data about attainment in the school-year 2025/26 Secondary school performance data in England: 2025 to 2026 (provisional) – GOV.UK The data provides two measures, ‘average attainment score’ and the  ‘Percentage of pupils achieving grades 5 or above in English and maths GCSEs’.  

Now, I never put a lot of store by the second of these measures, because it is heavily dependent on the ability of schools to recruit high-quality staff. I may be biased, because I didn’t meet this measure at sixteen, but did go on the good grades at ‘A’ level two years later, and thence to university and my subsequent career.

The other measure of ‘average attainment score’ isn’t perfect, but it does allow for a wider range of achievement, but the outcomes can still be affected by the ability of schools to be able to recruit teachers. Smaller local authorities, covering more homogenous communities, may also fare better in any rankings where those communities are likely to contain a higher proportion of parents engaged with their children’s schooling.

Once again, London boroughs dominate the top twenty-five authorities by outcomes for ‘average attainment score’, taking 17 of the top 25 places. Five of the other eight places are local authorities in the South East. If the Isles of Scilly – the one South West authority in the top 25 – is discounted as a special case, the other two authorities in the top twenty-five were, one in the North West and one in the East of England. Both of these authorities, along with four of the ten Outer London boroughs in the top 25, have selective schools within the authority area.

Interestingly, none of the Inner London’s seven boroughs in the top 25 have selective schools by designation. However, two authorities, Kensington & Chelsea and Hammersmith & Fulham are relatively small authorities.

Overall, the worst performing London borough was ranked 74th (Lambeth) with Croydon the lowest ranked Outer London borough at a ranking of 70th.

As discussed elsewhere, London has traditionally been able to fund its schools to provide some of the best pupil-teacher ratios in England.  (PDF) PTRS OVER TIME: A REVIEW OF PUPIL TEACHER RATIOS BETWEEN 1974 AND 2024 AND TWO PERIODS OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT RE-ORGANISATION PTRS OVER TIME: A REVIEW OF PUPIL TEACHER RATIOS

Authorities with selective schools do seem to perform well across the country. As the previous posts on pupil place planning have shown, these schools are often well over capacity, raising questions about differences between the selective and non-selective schools in these authorities.   

At the other end  of the table are many local authorities that are either urban metropolitan districts or relatively small urban unitary authorities. The isle of Wight stands out as an example of small non-urban unitary authority close to the foot of the table.

Knowsley and Blackpool and no strangers to the lower reaches of the table. Blackpool was one of the Conservative’s Opportunity Areas, eligible for additional resources and help, but is still 21.5 points adrift of the best performing London borough without selective schools.  

Finally, Cambridgeshire recorded a score of 48.9 in 38th place, whereas Oxfordshire was 67th with  a score of 46.3. Both are fully non-selective authorities serving rural areas, but dominated by a university settlement at the heart of the county. This difference raises a whole set of interesting questions about our state school system.

The answer to the question in the title is ‘no’ compared with 2024/25 when 17 of the top 25 places were also taken by London boroughs. Oxfordshire slipped from 63rd last year to 67th this year. Effectively, a standstill position. Sadly Blackpool and Knowsley both propped up the table last year, as they have done this year.

Selective schools and falling rolls – Part 2 Do we need a national policy?

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Do we need a national policy on how local areas deal with falling school rolls? If so, who should decide? Local authorities – democratically elected, but with little power over academies and voluntary schools? Regional Directors – covering wide areas, and with no democratic accountability? CEOs advising the Board of Governance of MATs – unelected in both cases? Mayors, where they exist, but what about where they don’t?

My preference is for democracy, so, as regular reads might expect, I vote for local authorities, assisted by a committee from the other groups. However, some of those might not want to take challenging decisions, so they might need some guidelines for the DfE and the Labour government for them to work within.

I have looked at the ‘capacity’ and ‘number on roll’ in three councils with selective schools (Slough, Medway and London Borough of Barnet). In all three of these authorities, capacity exceeds rolls. Generally. However, selective schools exceed capacity more than they have spare places. In non-selective schools the picture is more mixed.

In pupil place planning for the future, whoever takes the decisions, there are some questions to answer, based on the evidence of the data about school rolls from schools in these three authorities.

Have all-thorough schools worked?

Has the extension of faith schools beyond a few Christian denominations and Jewish schools after 1997 worked?

What do parents think of single-sex education these days?

Have new forms of academies and free schools flourished?

What part can parental choice play in a falling rolls scenario?

What is both any economic cost, and any educational cost associated with doing nothing?

A final question. Why does the DfE not have admissions policies for three schools across the authorities; two in one authority?

As these are all urban/suburban areas, transport costs don’t matter very much for most families. I will look at selective schools in rural areas later in another post.

It is interesting that the London borough has a smaller capacity gap than either of the other unitary councils. However, the total in all three authorities conceals a wide range of outcomes. I referred to this issue in my post Are dashboards useful? | John Howson where I made clear that just looking at totals is rarely good enough. Measures of central tendency also need to be considered.

The data in this post has used ‘capacity’ and ‘numbers on roll’. Reviewing authorities will also have primary transfer numbers, and group sizes for predictions of future transfer numbers for the next 5-7 years.

If a Scrutiny Committee of an upper tier authority hasn’t considered pupil place planning in the authority recently, then I would suggest they put it on the agenda for a spring meeting, and ask for a detailed paper, even if it means going into confidential session. Not to do so, won’t make the issue go away.

Finally, why did I choose these three authorities? They are in London and South East, where there are a significant number of selective schools, and, the authorities were of a size where I could handle the data. Selective schools and falling rolls | John Howson

 I might next look at three more diverse areas (The South West, West Midlands and East of England regions spring to mind).  

Selective schools and falling rolls

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Way back in history, well 2018 to be precise, I wrote a blog about selective schools during a period of rising pupil numbers. A fudge with no teeth | John Howson As the country now heads into a period of falling pupil rolls, discussed in my previous post in relation to all secondary schools, I thought that I would take a look at rolls across the selective school sector in the autumn of 2026.

The DfE uses two measures ‘capacity’ and ‘number on roll’. Capacity is defined as ‘The number of pupil places the establishment can accommodate.’ Outwood Academy Hasland Hall – GOV.UK link used as an example. In a rational system might the number on roll (NOR) be expected to be somewhere between +/- say 5% of the capacity number? In reality, in the selective school sector, currently this is not the case.

Selective schools fall into one of three groups;

within the 5% of NOR                                    69
NOR more than 5% below capacity20
NOR more than 5% above capacity74

Just over a half of selective schools are either within or below capacity, whereas 46% of these schools are more than five per cent over the DfE’s recorded capacity.

Are there any regional differences? Answering that question must acknowledge that the spread of selective schools is not even across England, with for fewer in the north and the midlands than in the south and west of England.

Regionwithin the 5% of NOR               NOR more than 5% below capacityNOR more than 5% above capacityTotal% above 5%
East of England404850%
East Midlands7631619%
London61121963%
North East00000
North West12431916%
South East244295751%
South West55102050%
West Midlands80111958%
Yorks & Humber312633%
Total67217416246%

The East Midlands has relatively few selective schools, mostly in rural areas, and most are either within or below capacity. Might this be down to transport issues, and any absence of free transport to  selective schools from rural areas? Both the North West and Yorkshire and the Humber’s regions few selective schools are mostly within or below capacity. Again, might transport be an issue?

In  London, the South East, South West, East of England and the West Midlands, at least half the selective schools are more than 50% over capacity, by DfE data.

London, has the highest percentage of selective school more than 50% over capacity at  63%, followed by the West Midlands at 58%. Both regions have few, if any, schools with selective school operating at more than 5% below capacity. Whether the urban nature of these regions males a difference isn’t clear, but the North West also has few schools operating below capacity.

The next piece of research is to consider the urban/rural nature of selective schools below capacity and whether the lack of free transport might be affecting these schools?

However, the big question is who will lose cash as pupil rolls fall? Will over-capacity selective schools reduce their rolls, and either stop hiring or make staff redundant or will non-selective schools have to bear all the loss of income resulting from falling rolls under the present pupil led funding system?

This is where the importance of pupil place planning becomes clear. What will a Labour government do? Favour selective schools or ensure they return to capacity?

This is an interesting question that needs airing, especially as this Labour government seem as unwilling as the last to design a secondary school system fit or all pupils.  

Falling Rolls: a matter of urgency, but whose?

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In 1977, Haringey council’s Chief Education Officer produced a plan to deal with falling school rolls: it was to cost him his job. His mistake was to be too far ahead of public opinion, for in 1980, school closures, and a reorganisation as a result of fewer pupil numbers became inevitable in Haringey. Among the changes was the closure of the secondary school in Tottenham where I had worked from 1971 to 1977.

This example from history is important for two reasons: firstly, we are living through another period of declining pupil numbers, and secondly, the mechanism for system planning is much weaker today than it was in the 1970s.

In the 1970s, education was often described as a ‘national system locally administered’. Boroughs, such as Haringey, had within the past decade received approval from the government at Westminster to introduce a comprehensive form of secondary schooling. Local planning ratified by government could be seen as normal practice, although not all schools were maintained schools and churches, city livery companies such as the Drapers and the Stationers, as well as other charities had a strong interest in the running of schooling in the borough. However, the ability of the local council to determine how schooling was managed across the borough was not really in question.

How different the world is today, a rump of maintained schools sits alongside the remaining voluntary schools and the block of academies, whether stand-alone of gathered together in Trusts or Committees in local authorities many facing an uncertain future.

Local authorities notionally still have responsibility for pupil place planning, but devolved budgets, powerful Schools Forums and the differing policies of academies and their trust leaders mitigate against local authorities being able to successfully plan the local school system, especially when for the past decade the focus has been on opening new schools.

Overlaying the weak position of local government is another difference from that faced by Haringey’s Chief Education Officer in the 1970s: parental choice: first enshrined in Section 6 of the 1980 Education Act, and now taken for granted.

To view the current  position, I have taken a random sample of secondary schools that have so far this school-year advertised for either a new headteacher or a teacher of music. In both cases, I have looked at DfE data on the notional roll and the actual roll, as shown on the DfE’s public website on 6th October 2026.

The results are interesting.

regioncapacityrolldifference
SE1440759-681
L1150795-355
WM785445-340
NW700364-336
SW1050714-336
L13301092-238
NW12001023-177
SE15601409-151
NE13501201-149
L12601115-145
EM625486-139
YH17501616-134
EE12101084-126
NW750661-89
SW1050990-60
L315272-43
L455436-19
WM11001084-16
EM860847-13
YH710699-11
L10071000-7
NW900894-6
L14501445-5
L121312141
SE4804822
L1164119127
WM60463228
L990102838
WM1253130653
EM1383145471
L12001302102
WM14141524110
L11401271131
SE12191354135
NW9891157168
EM13321809477

There are some very large differences between the ‘capacity’ as shown on the DfE site and the number on roll shown on the same site. There are 13 schools with more than 100 empty places, only three in London.

On the other hand, there are six schools with more than 100 over capacity, two of which are in London.

This was a random sample, so I wondered what might be the implications in selective systems if selective schools were taking more than their ‘capacity’ on other schools and their budgets. I will do a bit of research to find out and report back.

However, it does seem that there is a serious question around effective pupil place planning and the consequences of not doing anything on some children’s learning in the future, if schools are losing income while others are still over-capacity.

Teacher shortages are commonplace across the globe

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OECD has today published the 2026 edition of ‘Education Indicators At a glance’. Education at a Glance 2026 | OECD The section on teacher shortages has already received several comments on LinkedIn and elsewhere. I though I might look in some detail about the United Kingdom section in the ’country report’ about teacher shortages.

On the face of it, the UK fares well compared with other countries. Apparently, only 2.9% of teachers in state schools are not fully qualified. I wonder what the percentage would be for Further Education?

Teacher shortages

  • Shortages of skilled workers have affected many sectors across the OECD in recent years, and the teaching profession is no exception. Teacher shortages manifest in different ways across education systems: in some countries, a lack of fully qualified teachers is reflected in a higher share of non-fully qualified staff, while in others a significant number of teaching positions remain unfilled.
  • Non-fully qualified teachers refer to teachers who do not yet meet all the requirements to be recognised as fully qualified teachers under national regulations. In most countries, they either possess the required academic qualifications but lack mandatory certification or teacher training, have completed the required teacher training but do not hold the required academic qualifications, or lack both. In England, 2.9% of all primary and secondary teachers in public institutions were not fully qualified in 2024/25, below the OECD average of 9.1% (Figure 1).
  • Countries use two main approaches to measuring teacher shortages. The first approach estimates shortages before or at the start of the school year based on projected recruitment needs. The second approach measures shortages by counting the number of positions that remain vacant at the start of the school year or shortly after it begins. England uses the second approach, and 0.6% of all teaching positions in public secondary education were unfilled at or shortly before the start of the 2024/25 school year (Table 2). Education at a Glance 2026: United Kingdom

However, it is important to delve into what’ ‘Qualified’ actually means.

In England, possession of QTS allows teachers, not, interestingly, a reserved occupation term, to teach anything to anyone at any level. For the past 25 years, I have been asking for QTS to be linked to phase and subject studied in ITT. However, apart from in the Liberal Democrat Manifesto in 20025, there has been no political appetite to limit QTS in any way. I still think that is a mistake. The over-supply of PE and history teachers has helped keep school fully staffed during the recruitment crisis that started way back in 2013, but may now be coming to an end.

It is also worth pointing out that schools can be fully staffed in England by adjusting the curriculum, and dropping subjects they cannot staff. The other alternative, as OECD noted, is using less well-qualified staff. The figures on combined versus separate science at Key Stage 4 between different types of school are stark. The former can be staffed with teachers with less subject knowledge than the latter. If you don’t pass the 11+, you probably won’t study Physics as a subject by KS4 | John Howson

I was surprised that OECD appears to have accepted the DfE data at face value and not to have a definition that would deal with the fact that QTS is so broad as to be meaningless at both primary and secondary school levels.

Mixed results across the ITT targets this September

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Earlier this year, (in April) the DfE slashed the targets for new trainee teachers, citing falling rolls. In some case, this won’t have made a difference because either the new target was still unattainable or those in ITT had already exceeded the new target, and presumably couldn’t or wouldn’t withdraw offers already made.

So, what does the landscape look like this September, now that the DfE has released the data that will be close to the final outcomes for courses, at least those recruiting through the DfE portal. The Teach First, and other such programmes must be added to the data. However, before the ITT census there will undoubtedly be some dropouts or no-shows to courses. As a result, the September numbers accepted should provide a good idea of the basis for calculating the number of new teachers emerging onto the state school labour market for September 2027. (Take of 6% for in-course-wastage, and then 15-20% of the remainder for those not wanting to teaching state schools – these are conservative percentages). This means there may well be shortages in some subjects, especially the arts that Labour seemed to want to espouse, as the table shows.

The final percentages for mathematics and physics may well depend upon how many overseas students can obtain a visa, firstly to study and then to work in England?

It really is time to open up what the DfE means by ‘others’, and include some more actual subjects in the list. Computing may be the first subject to be benefitting from concern over the loss of jobs to AI.

I very much doubt  whether the total for music, biology, religious education, design and technology, geography and English will be enough to meet the needs of schools in 2027. Rolls across the country just are not falling that fast, whatever is happening in London.

I am not sure what the DfE has calculated for the effects oof VAT on the private school sector, but if numbers fell in that sector, the sector would need to recruit fewer teachers. This would only have an impact if it was a reduction in overseas student numbers, as, presumably, home students would transfer into the state system, requiring more teachers, even at the worse pupil-teacher ratio of the state sector.

Where are acceptances down on last year?

Applications submitted were 62,633 this year, compared with 55,637 last year. However, accepted numbers were down from 26,714 to 24,850 meaning an increase of more than 4,000                                           applicants rejected.

The number of acceptances fell across all age groups, larger falls were in the age-groups normally associated with career switchers, and there were relatively small falls for new graduates. This is encouraging news for the long-term health of the profession, as younger trainees that stay the course should provide for the cadre of future leaders.

Most of the fall in acceptances were of females: down from 17,918 to 16,189, with males just declining from 8,516 to 8,382. This may reflect the greater number of females that apply for primary sector courses.

More worrying is the fact that while acceptances from ‘rest of the world’ applicants remained steady at 1,440 this year compared with 1,428 last year, most UK regions witnessed a decline in acceptances.  There were 9,661 acceptances for primary phase courses compared with 9,887 last year, while secondary phase acceptances declined from 16,829 to 15,190.

Apprenticeships bucked the trend, witnessing more acceptances (1,453 against 1,310 for PG and 261 against 198 for degree apprenticeships). Salaried route acceptances slumped from 618 to just 304, presumably as a result of the apprenticeship route, which may be cheaper for schools.

Finally, all training provider regions witnessed a decline in acceptances, with fewer than 1,000 trainees across the North East region being accepted ( 911 compared with 1,078 last year).

If I have time, I will compare the 2026 September acceptances with   census to measure whether there is any significant amount of change between the two datasets.