Tag Archives: news

Are there now two classes of NEETS: traditional and Modern?

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Most of the comments about yesterday’s report on NEETs (not in Education, Employment or Training) Young people and work: interim report – GOV.UK by Alan Milburn,  focused on the outcomes, especially the rising percentage of NEETs in the population. Fewer commentators delved deeper into the report to look at some of root causes that are likely to increase the chances off someone becoming a NEET.

I think there are now two groups of NEETs. The long-standing group, discussed below, and a newer second group of university graduates, unemployed or underemployed by age 25. This second group requires different approaches to the first group, but could be disproportionally affected by the increasing importance of AI in the labour market, and especially the loss of entry level jobs that is akin to the loss of manual labour jobs over the past half century. I will reflect upon this issue in another post.

For the first group, the following extracts from yesterday’s Report once again tell us everything we need to know: fail early, fail often.

4.2 Early years: where the trajectory begins

302. The system knows, from the moment a child arrives at school, who is most likely to fail. It has the data, and the unambiguous evidence. A study of over 8,000 young people in Bradford found that children who were not school-ready at ages 4 to 5 were nearly three times as likely to be NEET at ages 16 to 17 years old. 11% of those who did not reach a Good Level of Development at reception were later NEET, compared with just 4% of those who did.[footnote 273] Research tracking children from school entry through to their late teens shows that most of this effect operates through academic attainment.[footnote 274] A child who falls behind at 5 years old is on average still behind at 16 years old. Missing early building blocks propagates forward through every key stage. Around 65% of the relationship between school readiness and later NEET status runs through this academic pathway.[footnote 275]

4.3 Schooling

The attainment gradient

309. Taken on its own terms, much of the schools system looks relatively strong. In England, those aged 15 perform above the OECD average in reading, maths and science.[footnote 287] Level 2 attainment in English and maths by age 19 reached 76.1% in 2023 to 2024, the second highest on record,[footnote 288] although it has fallen back slightly to 73.2% in 2024 to 2025.[footnote 289] Those aged 16 to 19 score above the OECD average in literacy and adaptive problem solving, with significant improvements in literacy and numeracy since 2012.[footnote 290] Only around 5% of non-disadvantaged young people fail to enter a sustained destination after Key Stage 4.[footnote 291]

310. And yet the relationship between social background and educational attainment in England is unbroken. It has survived every reform of the past three decades. Disadvantaged children still perform substantially worse at every stage of education. The gap does not close as children move through the system. It widens.

311. At age 7, the most disadvantaged pupils are 16 percentiles behind their most advantaged peers. By age 18 or 19, the same young people are 29 percentiles behind.[footnote 292] 12 years of schooling, and the gap has nearly doubled.

312. The damage begins early and locks in at primary school. At Key Stage 2, just 47% of disadvantaged pupils reached the expected standard in reading, writing and maths, compared with 69% of their peers, a 22 percentage point gap.[footnote 293]

313. Primary schools do not receive the same level of attention in the public debate on education as secondary schools.  Perhaps that is why the ambitions that have been set for primary school children are surprisingly low.  On the face of it, it is astonishing for example that successive governments have set targets for primary schools to only have 75% of their pupils leaving with the age-appropriate level of numeracy and literacy skills.  In other words, the State assumes that one in four will never achieve that standard.

As I wrote about an earlier Social Mobility Commission Report, Education counts, but so does the family | John Howson

[This report] “raises a number of interesting questions. Most are not new, but they are none the worse for restating.

Life changes, at least as far as incomes are concerned, seem to be a combination of education, local labour markets, soft skills and parental ability to offer support for life chances.” John Howson Blog 15th September 2020

We have also known for a long time the importance of ‘soft skills. Here is an extract from my blog written after an earlier Social Mobility Commission Report

In 2009, I concluded that ‘the activities relating to having fun and socialising are the key activities of out-of-school activities.’ The Social Mobility Commission chairman has concluded that

“It is shocking that so many children from poorer backgrounds never get the chance to join a football team, learn to dance or play music. The activity either costs too much, isn’t available or children just feel they won’t fit in. As a result, they miss out on important benefits – a sense of belonging, increased confidence and social skills which are invaluable to employers. It is high time to level the playing field.”  Blog July 19th 2019 The importance of soft skills and those that miss out | John Howson

Even earlier, after a Social Mobility Commission of 2017, I commented that

“Of most concern in the report is the fact that there is still general acceptance that educational opportunity is still shaped by background, with those from poor backgrounds having least opportunities and that the level of opportunity deteriorates between school and university.” June 15th 2017  Class rules: not OK | John Howson

Go even further back to 2014, and an early post on this blog commented about social mobility that

“The Commission also discuss parental involvement and the poor quality of career advice that is often linked to low expectations. More must be done to encourage parents that the education system failed not to let the same thing happen with the next generation. Breaking the cycle of hopelessness is a vital component to raising standards as the Commission acknowledges. How to disseminate best practice rather than ritual nods to devolving training to schools and Teach First might have allowed for discussion about the content of both initial training and professional development of teachers.

Where I do agree with the Commission is in the vital role played by primary schools and the need to focus more attention on success in the early years. Regular attendance and strategies to help pupils that miss school are important moves in helping all pupils achieve success as last week’s publication of the EYFS profiles showed.

For anyone interested in the issue of social mobility this is an important but at times challenging and even depressing Report to read. It can be found at” https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/364979/State_of_the_Nation_Final.pdf

 Blog post 21st October 2014.

So, way back in 2014, much the same comments were being made as in Section 4.2 of the current report, quoted at the start of this post.

We have a lost generation after what happened to those in early years after 2014, including and the slaughter of the Children’s Centres, the banishment of vocational skills from the curriculum, and a decade of teacher shortages leaving many disadvantaged pupils floundering at school in a system that was more interested in tacking organisation issues than creating a school system for all.

Sir John Newsom must be turning in his grave. Half Our Future: A tribute | John Howson

MayDay for some ITT subjects: joy for others?

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Such are the wonders of modern technology that the DfE is now able to publish the monthly ITT data on a bank holiday. The data for May was generated on the 18th May, so is already a week out of date. However, it is good to see civil servants managing to keep to the regular publication date for these statistics, even though it falls on a bank holiday.

With the downgrading by the DfE in their analysis of the Teacher Supply model outputs of requirements for the number of trainees needed in many subjects, some admissions tutors can look for an easy final three months of the current recruitment round.

For others, the remainder of the time until courses start in September will still be take up with encouraging more people into teaching as a career. Worries about AI and graduate careers have not yet seemed to have driven graduates in many subjects towards teaching as a career in larger numbers than in the past.

However, there is a concern, registered by this blog in previous posts, about the dominance of certain subjects in the monthly ‘offers’ table.

Three subjects, mathematics, physics and computing make up 32% of all the offers in secondary sector subjects on the 18th May. Three other subjects (Classics, Business Studies and ‘other subjects’) have made so few offers that these subjects almost certainly won’t fill all the places available this year, based on the DfE target number for these subjects.

Another three subjects are at risk of not filling places this year unless recruitment improves after graduation in June. (Geography, Music and Religious Education). Although Biology almost certainly will fill the places on offer, I have downgraded it to PROBABLY from YES, as overall science ’offers’ already exceed the target.

The likelihood of those offered places in mathematics, physics and computing actually taking up their places needs to be closely monitored, because of this extreme distortion of the overall data by the number of offers made in these subjects.  

Looking at applications, the growth in applications is mostly from career switchers in the 25 to 49 age groups. The under 25 have only seen an increase of 1,078 in applications, compared with 2,465 for the 25-29 age group. Indeed, the youngest age group of new graduates have seen an increase of only 166 on May last year.

There has been a significant increase in male applicants, up from 14,992 to 20,003, when comparing May 2025 with May 2006. This must be the first time in many years that the increase in applications from men has been greater than the increase in applications from women.

So, where has this growth in male applicants come from? It seems likely that the ‘Rest of the World’ grouping has provided many of these applicants, as applications from the ’Rest of the World’ increased from 7,727 in May 2025 to 12,909 in May 2026. London, where the increase has been from 6,708 to 7,534, is the only other region with a significant increase.

Perhaps, surprisingly, considering the wider job market, applications from candidates in the North East, from Wales and from Northern Ireland are all below their May 2025 levels.

The majority of applicants are for secondary subjects, so much so that there are now more than twice as many applicants for secondary subjects as for the primary sector as a whole. Candidates may be perceiving that falling rolls will make finding a post as a primary school teacher more of a challenge, and avoiding that career option.

Higher Education has been the key beneficiary, if you can use that term, of the increase in applications, up from 26,876 candidates in May 2025 to 33,0325 in May 2026. Post graduate apprenticeships, up from 5,505 to 9,184 was the only other route with a significant increase in candidate numbers. Teacher degree apprenticeships increased from 677 candidate in May 2025 to 1,534 in May 2026, not an overwhelming vote of confidence for this route into the profession.

These monthly numbers are becoming so distorted that at the headline level, used by many, they are possibly now misleading. A review of how the data are presented seems overdue.

Finally, I still think the removal of the bursary from music was a mistake. The following chart, although busy, shows ‘offers’ over the past decade. This year, is towards the bottom of the range.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026

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Hurrah for Section 61 and 62 of this new Act of Parliament. These two sections extend control over in-year admissions by local authorities to include academies. This has been achieved by inserting new clauses in the existing legislation, in order to widen the reach from just non-academy schools, historically controlled by local authorities, to now include academies and, I assume, free schools.

Regular readers will know that I started a campaign for this change way back in 2017, after I discovered how long it was taking to place children taken into care in a new school on some occasions, if that school was an academy. See Support ‘Looked After’ young people’s education | John Howson and Don’t forget Jacob | John Howson along with various other posts over the years on this blog.

The previous Children’s Commissioner also campaigned on this issue, and I raised it in November 2024 in questions to the Minister of State at the DfE when he spoke to the ADCS conference in Liverpool that year.

I hope the relevant sections of the new Act will be swifty enacted, rather than just sitting on the statute book.

There is then the issue of selective schools and children that would have attended them if taken into care before the selection process took place.

I hope that local authorities with selective schools in their area will ensure that such children are able to be placed in such schools. After all, a child should not go from the top set in a comprehensive school to a school that will not stretch their abilities to the full.

Now that education is expected of all up to eighteen, it is also important to discuss whether local authorities should have similar powers over the 16-18 age-group and education? This would include further education colleges and the 14-18 sector and studio schools and UTCs that might be a bit of anomaly under some readings of the new clauses in the 2023 Act? Hopefully, some one will tell me that I am wrong on this point.

Here is Section 62

62Power to direct admission: extension to Academies

(1) In section 96(8) of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998 (schools subject to local authority powers to direct admission of individual pupils), for “a maintained school” substitute “—

(a)a maintained school, or

(b)an Academy school, other than one specially organised to make special educational provision for pupils with special educational needs.”

So, my thanks to all that have made this change come about. It has taken too long, but hopefully it will help to reduce the break in schooling for those taken into care that have to move school because of the distance of their new placement from their existing school.

There is much else in the Act to welcome, but where is the Curriculum Review and the need to teach citizenship now the government ahs reaffirmed its intention to reduce the voting age from 18 to 16?

Will teachers vote to take industrial action?

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The BBC are running a story that suggests a teacher association: the NEU will ask its members about whether they support industrial action that could, presumably, include striking and closing schools? Teachers in England move towards striking over pay – BBC News

My guess is that their members will vote for action: at least in the secondary schools. Whether the larger number of NEU members in primary schools will do so, might be more uncertain. Here’s a link to an early post of this blog, way back from February 2013 February | 2013 | John Howson about what happened then.

Now, we live in different times: a Labour government; many years of pay freezes and pay rises below those in the private sector, but two relatively generous recent settlements, and the possibility of a three-year deal in even more challenging times.

Now factor in, falling rolls leading to job uncertainty in many primary schools, better recruitment to lower targets for new teachers, the need for increased spending on defence and welfare, and an electorate that will judge the government on the length of NHS waiting lists rather than what happens in schools, and the balance between expressing concerns by voting for industrial action, and actually taking action sometime in the autumn, is as the saying goes, a ‘whole different kettle of fish’.

My bet is, shake the big stick now, but think carefully about strike action in the autumn. Or perhaps persuade the government to tweak the pay offer, when it comes from the pay review body, so that both sides can claim victory.

It is interesting that this story is running 100 years after the only real General Strike in British history. This is an anniversary that, unlike Sir David Attenborough’s century, has been largely ignored by the media. I guess nobody wanted to drag it up during a period of local and state elections across the United(!) Kingdom.

One interesting fact from Thursday, is that Labour lost control of Haringey Council. They did so in the 1968 local government debacle. In that period of two-party politics, to the Conservatives. This time the outcome is more complicated. In 1968, the year of revolutions across Europe, Labour in government didn’t sack the Prime minister. Indeed, Harold Wilson led the Party into the 1970 general elections: a much closer race than the 1968 results might have predicted.

The Haringey result is interesting to me, as it meant that in 1971, I started work as a teacher in Tottenham under a Conservative administration. I don’t recall much changing when, in 1972, Labour regained control of the borough. Now the remainder of that decade was a turbulent time in British politics and not only the teachers, but also non-teaching staff. They took industrial action, leading eventually during the ‘Winter of discontent’ in 1979, to all Haringey’s schools being closed, not by the teachers, but by the caretakers going on strike. The Labour administration did not expect anyone, even church schools, to try and break that strike.  These days, with the internet, and remote schooling commonplace, such an outcome in terms of teaching and learning might be much less likely.

For a discussion of the effects in 1979 see my posts from 2020  March | 2020 | John Howson COVID-19 PM’s Suez? | John Howson and The State cannot just abandon children | John Howson and especially from February 2020 Closing schools, but not stopping education | John Howson

Discipline in schools – the latest data around suspensions and exclusions in one area

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Now that the local elections are out of the way, it is time to consider other issues – However, I might blog about my thoughts about schooling when all the results have been published and considered.

Earlier this week the DfE published data for exclusion and suspensions by schools for the spring term 202425; i.e. last year. The data came along with time series data for spring terms back to before the covid pandemic, indeed, starting in 2016-2017 school-year; the spring of 2017. Create your own tables on suspensions and permanent exclusions in england – Explore education statistics – GOV.UK

It is worth recalling that during the period under review by the DfE school rolls across the secondary sector have been on the increase, mostly as a result of the earlier rise in the birthrate. Some areas, including the one under consideration have also experienced a significant housebuilding boom for most of the period under review. New housing usually means more pupils.

I looked at the data for both suspensions and exclusions for all the secondary schools in one current local authority area. All but one school are currently academies, and most have been for the whole of the time period. Some schools have changed academy trusts during the time period, and three new schools have opened during the period, and one 14-18 school has closed.

The schools already had noticeable numbers of suspensions before the covid pandemic. Since then, the numbers each year have been much higher, than before the pandemic, as shown in the chart.

The last three years for which data are available witness record numbers of suspensions, although not all schools have increased suspensions at the same rate. The range in the spring term 202425 was from one school with just 6 suspensions, to another with 291, albeit, this was one of the largest schools in the authority. However, it was not an urban school. Eight schools each recorded more than 100 suspensions in the spring term of 202425.

The picture for exclusions is much more encouraging, as can be seen on the following chart. This uses a logarithmic scale to plot both suspensions and exclusions. Exclusions across the authority have rarely exceeded ten in a spring term.

Of course, the total of suspensions for any one school can include multiple suspensions for the same pupil. The length of the spring term can also be affected by the changing date of Easter each year. This factor might have a small effect on each year’s data.

Of course, some pupils may not be ‘excluded’ at all, and hence not feature in these charts, but may be voluntarily removed to ‘home schooling’ by their parents. Whatever happens to pupils suspended or excluded, not being in school is more likely to see them become involved in a life of crime, often more serious crime than if they were in school on a regular basis.

Do some academy trusts have higher rates of suspension than other trusts among their schools? This is a challenging question to answer because it is clear that there is more likely to be a relationship between suspensions and the IDACI group in which the schools sits than the nature of the controlling MAT. However, it is clear than becoming an academy is not a panacea for solving the discipline issue of a school; at least as far as academies in this authority are concerned.  

Are suspension rates now on the way down? I hope so, but an not yet convinced that is the direction of travel. Time will tell.

David Attenborough at 100

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This week the BBC has being paying tribute to Sir David Attenborough, ahead of his 100th birthday later this month. There is no doubting that Sir David has had a great deal of influence on many people through his television documentaries, at first in shades of grey, and then in colours that have improved as television screens have become ever more sophisticated in replicating the colours of the real world.

But who influenced Sir David Attenborough in his choice of career? Way back in 1997, the then Teacher Training Agency decided to commission two cinema advertisements. One, that received all the attention was called ‘talking heads’, and featured head and shoulder shots of a range of celebrities just saying a name to the camera. The trap line at the end was ‘no one forgets a good teacher’.

The other, far less well-known advertisement commissioned by the Teacher Training Agency in 1997 featured a teacher called Horace Lacey and a pupil called David Attenborough. You can see it here. Teacher Training Commercial: Horace Lacey | Catalogue | History of Advertising Trust My thanks to the History of Advertising Trust.

Both adverts were placed in cinemas, and because it was before the general use of websites and urls, postcards were placed in cinema foyers to provide the contact details for anyone interested in teaching. After all, it was impossible to write down a phone number in the dark of a cinema at the time when the advert was actually being played.

At the same time, the agency produced a famous poster with the stap line ‘the dog ate my homework.’ a phrase that passed into common parlance for a period of time.

After a few years, advertisements for teaching as a career started to reappear on TV screens, albeit at the wrong time of year to make any significant short-term difference to recruitment. I made an oblique comment about the effects of TV advertising in this post Do TV adverts work? | John Howson However, I am afraid the title is a bit of a misnomer.

So, my very best wishes to Sir David Attenborough. I hope that all the publicity surrounding his 100th birthday will help inspire the next generation of young people, and the present generation of undergraduates, to take up teaching as a career.  I also hope that the attention to Sir David’s birthday also encourages us to honour the memory of Horace Lacy, and countless hundreds of thousands of other teachers like him that have inspired their pupils down the generations.

Thank a teacher, it is an inspiring job that is like no other. And, although I may not have inspired many of my pupils, I did recognise those around me, both in school and higher education that changed lives and careers. My personal thanks to them.

School Transport- who pays for diesel’s price increases?

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Since the start of the conflict in the Middle East, the price of diesel at the pumps has increased from around £1.42 – the average price before the conflict – to £1.90 at the start of May What is happening to UK fuel and petrol prices? – BBC News By comparison, at the height of the concerns over the Ukraine conflict, the price of diesel peaked at just under £2 per litre.

So, could the pump price charged for diesel fuel in 2026 go even higher than the price witnessed in 2022? As I write this, on the 3rd May 2026, it seems quite possible, and even probably that this will be the case: hopefully, I am proved wrong.

The increase in the price of fuel, the rise in the minimum wage, and other cost pressures due to inflation still being above the Bank of England’s target figure of 2%, will be bad news for those local authorities with significant transport bill for conveying pupils to and from schools, either for SEND or because their pupils live in rural areas beyond the two or three mile distance, historically seen as the distance where it is reasonable for parents to pay to ensure children attend their nearest school.  

Although fuel costs are not as high a proportion of total transport costs as are wages, an increase of a third in fuel prices is going to have an impact on transport contracts being negotiated for the new school year starting in September 2026.

A council with a £40 million education transport bill, not unreasonable for a large rural shire county, might see a 5-10% extra charge. This translated to £2-4 million extra across a council’s financial year, and likely even more across a school-year if prices continue to rise further.

 The risk is that some operators might well collapse under the price increase, especially if they are in fixed price contracts with a local authority, leaving a seller’s market, as operators will know that pupils must be transported to school.  Could this outcome drive prices even higher?

How will local authorities cope with these prices increases? Those with reserves, will draw on them until the next round of council tax rate setting in February 2027. However, many local authorities don’t have large reserves, and with local government reorganisation looming for the rural areas, running up a deficit may not be possible.

What remains is either cuts to other services or a government bailout to cover the extra cost of fuel. With social care, and adult social care especially, taking the lion’s share of the budgets of rural counties, there may be few services where cuts are possible, especially since adult social care can involve its own significant fuel costs associated with ‘care in the community’.  

Protecting services such as the youth service and the funding for under-fives could be at risk if local authorities have to bear the brunt of transport related cost increases, especially since the war started just at the wrong time for local government financing, when budgets for 2026-27 were already finalised.

With so many different political parties now in charge, it will be interesting to see how they approach this problem, and who is asked to take the consequences.

Labour market for music teachers: update to end of April 2026

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Regular readers will know that I am tracking two parts of the labour market for teachers in state schools across England during the 2025-26 school-year: vacancies for headteachers and vacancies for teachers and middle leaders of music.

Regular readers of this blog will also know that one of the reasons that I selected music as my subject to track was the government’s removal of the training bursary for those applying for postgraduate teacher preparation courses starting in the autumn of 2026.

By tracking vacancies this year, I have a baseline for next year, if, as seems likely, the removal of the bursary reduces interest in teaching music. However, the government has also slashed its published number of trainees needed – see ITT Offers – public money being wasted? | John Howson and my more recent post on the situation after the report on April offers was published.

Anyway, back to the update on published vacancies for teachers of music, and how these vacancies compare with the expected output from this year’s preparation courses.

By the end of April, I had recorded some 389 vacancies for teachers of music. 86 of these were for promoted posts, with an allowance attached. It could be assumed that these vacancies were not intended for teachers straight out of their preparation courses. However, in some smaller secondary schools, this might be the only full—time post and include responsibility for choirs, orchestras and ensembles. However, for the purpose of this exercise, such posts have been eliminated.

After removing the promoted posts, this leaves some 303 vacancies suitable for new entrants into the teaching profession advertised between January and the end of April 2026.

The DfE’s ITT census recorded some 367 trainees on preparation courses in December 2025; mostly for entry into the labour market in September 2026. Assuming all 367 entered the labour market for teachers in state schools, there are still sufficient to fill another 64 vacancies.

However, we know that not all trainees last the courses, and of those that complete the course, not all start teaching in state schools. Some entre the private sector; some further education; some music services and some don’t enter teaching at all.

As a result, the chart shows the remaining trainees available if 10% and 20% of trainees aren’t available to state schools. This approach reduces the remaining number of trainees to little more than 50 trainees. With around 75 vacancies a month so far in 2026, if May’s vacancies follow the pattern of the first four months of 2026, then the remaining total of trainees will be exhausted before the end of May, and resignation deadline day.

Of course, not all basic vacancies are filled by new entrants from teacher preparation courses: some are filled by returners – we can ignore school switchers as we can assume that leaving one school to fill a similar vacancy at another school is neutral in terms of jobs. However, if the move is for promotion, the there is a new vacancy.

Returners would need to fill around 30% of vacancies across the whole year – they are generally the only source of teachers for January appointments, so for September it looks as if schools will struggle to fill any late appointment resulting from resignations close to the 31st May deadline.  However, the picture will be clearer at the time of next month’s update.

Finally, although I do not track vacancies posted by private schools, both in England and abroad, I do survey the market. Generally, this market has twice as many vacancies as posted in any one month by schools in England.

One wonders whether the current cohort of new graduates might have missed out on gap year travelling because of the after-shocks from the covid pandemic and might, therefore be more willing to teach overseas? This has the advantage of not losing income to student loan repayment, and the bursary isn’t repayable.

On the negative side, the conflict in the Middle East may well be deterring some teachers from working in that part of the world, and may have increased the number of returners once more seeking a teaching post in England. We shall see.

Are rainy day savings by schools affecting outcomes?

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Is there any relationship between the reserves a school holds and the outcomes for its pupils? One thesis might be that schools that spend more of their revenue budgets, and don’t add to their reserves each year, do better for their pupils than those schools more concerned with ‘saving for a rainy day’ or adding to their reserves for some other reason. Of course, this thesis only really works with a funding model that funds schools appropriately. Nevertheless, it is question worth asking.

This post looks at the evidence around the relationship between the quoted reserves of the primary schools across three multi-academy trusts (MATs) of differing sizes. The schools are in a range of different locations, and have a range of pupil numbers, but are all located within the boundaries of a single local authority.

KS2 achievement Percentage %No of KS2 Pupils 24/25 reserves per KS2 pupil
4230 £        24,333
6916 £        16,313
6422 £        16,273
3625 £        14,480
2711 £        12,364
9111 £        12,249
4715 £        10,600
3429 £        10,172
6913 £        10,077
5016 £          9,375
5016 £          8,688
3327 £          7,667
5645 £          7,267
5648 £          6,896
6916 £          6,813
6939 £          6,692
9315 £          5,933
5831 £          5,484
8318 £          5,287
8211 £          5,091
7218 £          5,000
6531 £          4,258
5022 £          4,182
5531 £          4,129
4821 £          4,098
7359 £          3,847
5028 £          3,536
7315 £          3,467
7528 £          3,214
4827 £          3,111
7061 £          2,738
6758 £          2,535
9123 £          2,531
5657 £          2,509
8323 £          2,087
5944 £          1,864
7131 £          1,677
5770 £          1,614
9212 £          1,362
5260 £              950
7629 £              862
7260 £              700
5618 £              611
4529-£         1,655
8614-£         1,714
7919-£         2,474
5831-£         3,084
867-£         3,295
8938-£         4,756
5315-£         8,667
4825-£       11,040

The range of reserves, as taken from the reserves in the accounts filed at Companies House by the MAT, vary per KS2 pupil from a high of £24,333 per pupil, to £611 for schools with those schools with reserves. Eight schools are shown as having deficits

Leaving aside, at this point for schools with deficits, it is worth comparing the other schools in the table with the average outcome for all pupils in the local authority of 62%.

The schools in the table, are of different sizes. In the schools in the table the range of KS2 pupils extends from schools with just 11 KS2 pupils, to one with 70 KS2 pupils. Where a school has a stable intake, the KS2 reserves per pupil is easy to spread across the schools, although some schools still start pupils, at age 5, many at age 4 and a few even younger and with a nursery class, and this may make a difference to reserves.

In this era of falling rolls, allied to parental choice, some school’s KS2 numbers would overestimate the school population if grossed up across all year groups. For that reason, I have just used the KS2 pupil number for this exercise.

Six of the top 10 schools with the highest reserves per pupil had achievements below the local authority level of 62%. This compares with four of the ten schools with the lowest reserves (not with a deficit).

It is interesting to note that one MAT has 12 schools in the top 15 schools with the largest reserves per KS2 pupil, and 15 in the top 20 schools. Of the other two MATS, one has three schools in the top 20 schools by reserves per KS2 pupil, and the other just two schools.

I suspect that both these MATs more actively work with their schools than the other MAT in terms of making use of their cashflow. All the schools in this latter MAT in the top 20 by reserves are also well above average for performance levels. The position is more mixed for the other smaller MAT, but I suspect its policy is evolving as it has acquired more schools.

How much does parental choice, and falling rolls play a part in determining reserves? Certainly, primary schools that have no spare places across all year groups will do better with a funding model that is weighted towards pupil numbers than schools unable to make full classes even by mixing year groups together. In another post, I will look at school size and reserves.

It would be interesting to conduct this exercise across all schools in a local authority. However, pooling of reserves by some MATs, and a lack of visibility for the reserves of maintained and voluntary schools makes that task effectively impossible.

No doubt the DfE could ask the question about why there is so much difference in reserves per pupil between schools, and could ask if some schools could achieve more for their pupils if they kept less in their reserves? School governors, MAT trustees and the teacher associations, as well as local politicians, might also like to ask this question.

UK graduates not yet rushing into teaching

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There has been a lot of talk about how challenging graduates are finding the job market at present. Is this ‘difficult’ job market for graduates showing up in renewed graduate interest in teaching as a career? The DfE has published the latest (April 2026) data about application to teacher preparation courses as a 20th April 2026. Initial teacher training application statistics for courses starting in the 2026 to 2027 academic year – Apply for teacher training – GOV.UK

While there has been a modest increase in applications to be a teacher for most areas of the United Kingdom – the North East, Northen Ireland and Wales excepted – the biggest increase continues to be from the ‘rest of the world’ grouping, up by a massive 42% on April 2025. Only three regions in England have percentage increases in double figures: the East Midlands, London and the North West. The South East, South West and Yorkshire and The Humber regions have increases in applicants of less than five per cent.

AreaApr-26Apr-25Difference% Diff
EM2427206236515%
EE283126302017%
LON6504571179312%
NE10681108-40-4%
NW4106359551112%
SE397538171584%
SW216720661015%
WM336231202427%
YH28082720883%
292482682924198%
  
EEA582528549%
NI447473-26-6%
RoW122517096515542%
SCOT20319673%
WALES384418-34-9%
UNKNOWN106120-14-13%
139738831514237%

Increases at this level do not yet suggest a significant switch to teaching in large numbers. Indeed, the increase in England as a whole is just 2,419 extra applicants, or 8%.

One significant increase is that of male applicants, up from 13,234 to 18,111. However, it is impossible to know how many of these extra male applicants have come from the ‘Rest of the world’ pool?

There are also large differences in the increases from ‘new 2026’ graduates and older graduate. However, the ‘Rest of the world’ effect may be skewing this data

AgeApr-26Apr-25Difference% Diff
21312629941324%
22425639682887%
23368233693139%
24282826132158%
25-29102877824246324%
30-3467634618214532%
35-3951443899124524%
40-443524286066419%
45-492012175625613%
50-54956919374%
55-59446455-9-2%
60-64158145138%
65+3733411%
unknown47-3-75%
4322335460776318%

Total applicants at 43,221 remains well below the record of 67,269 applicants for similar courses recorded by the UCAS GTTR scheme in the 2009/2010 round during the aftermath of the 2008 economic crisis. To that number must be added those that applied for school-based courses, such s the GTTP that did not recruit through UCAS, as well as the Open University, that also did not recruit through UCAS.

Higher Education – up from 24,028 to 30,104 has borne the brunt of the extra applications. SCITTs have shown little growth, up from 11,293 to 11,544, perhaps because overseas applicants are less familiar with this toute into teaching. This might also explain the lack of any increase in the ‘partner-led’ courses. Apprenticeships are on the increase, up from 4,783 to 7,894, but ‘salaried route remains static at 5,883 compared with 5,389 last year in April 2025.

Even before the DfE announcement of the ‘needs’ numbers for 2026, ‘offers were down at 20th April at 17,880, compared with 18,297 in April 2025.

I have written a separate post about the state of play with regard to ’offers’ in secondary subjects. In the primary phase, applicant numbers are up from 12,502 to 14,797, but ‘offers’ for primary courses are little changed, up from 6,992 to 7,106. However, as the DfE ‘need’ has reduced ‘need’ from 7,650 to just 5,520 for 2026, there are likely to be few if any more offers, as the ‘need’ figure is already some 1,500 below the ‘offer’ number.

So, there is no great rush towards teaching as a career from United Kingdom graduates. Whether that will change over the next couple of months as final examinations are completed, and the reality of the job market hits home, only time will tell. But, for would-be primary teachers, I expect that the  ‘bus has now left the stop’ and it was already fully laden.