Tag Archives: Opportunity Areas

Will the 6,500 new teachers be heading for schools in disadvantaged areas?

Posted on by
Reply

Increasing teacher numbers in disadvantaged areas and core subjects. I was very happy when I read this heading in today’s Public Account’s Committee report on ‘Increasing Teacher Numbers’. Increasing teacher numbers: Secondary and further education (HC 825)

However, when I turned to paragraphs 25-29, this section just seemed like an afterthought. How depressing was it to read that

‘Schools and further education colleges are responsible for deciding the staff they need and recruiting their own workforces. Local authorities employ teachers in maintained schools.’ Para 25

There is nothing factually incorrect in the statement, but although local authorities are the de jure employers of teachers in maintained schools, ever since the devolution of budgets in the 1990s, local authorities have had little to do with the hiring policies for teachers in these schools, and nothing to do with the academy sector.

The Committee did acknowledge that

‘Those schools with higher proportions of disadvantaged pupils tend to have higher turnover rates and less experienced teachers. This impacts the government’s mission of breaking down the barriers to opportunity and means disadvantaged children are at risk of being locked out from particular careers.’

Teachers in schools with higher proportions of disadvantaged pupils are also less experienced

‘In 2023–24, 34% of teachers in the most disadvantaged schools had up to five years’ experience (20% in the least disadvantaged schools).’

They cited the examples of computer science and physics

‘In the most disadvantaged areas, 31% of schools do not offer Computer Science A-level, compared to 11% of schools in the least disadvantaged areas, due to a lack of trained teachers. For Physics A-level, this is 9% compared to 1%.’

This will come as no surprise to regular readers of this blog. Here is the link to a post from the 21st July 2023, almost two years ago.

Free School Meals and teacher vacancies | John Howson

Thos who know my background will know that I started teaching in a school in a disadvantaged part of Tottenham in 1971, and this issue has been one that has concerned me throughout my career in education. I was, therefore, disappointed to read that

‘We asked the Department when we could expect there to be less variation between schools in the most and least disadvantaged areas, but it did not commit to a timeframe. Instead, it noted that its retention initiatives providing financial incentives were targeting schools and colleges with the highest proportion of disadvantaged students.’

This seems to me to be as close to a non-answer as one can expect. Indeed, looking in detail at the oral evidence session, this is an area where answers from the senior civil servants in my opinion suggested little hope, and not as much concern for the values implied in the questions that I would have liked to have heard. In reality, past experience tells me that it is falling rolls and fewer job opportunities that will propel teachers towards schools where they would otherwise not take a teaching post. Iti s the economy, not the DfE that will improve the life chances of children in those schools with a high proportion of disadvantaged children. This is at the same time as the lives of their parents may be worsened by unemployment and welfare cuts. It’s a funny old world.

Missions still need funding

Posted on by
Reply

In February, Sir Keir Starmer outlined his five missions for the Labour Party – one wonders, will they appear on a pledge card, as once before – and the fifth one was ‘raising education standards’ according to a BBC report at the time Keir Starmer unveils Labour’s five missions for the country – BBC News

After a recent announcement about teachers, dealt with in my blog at Labour’s style over substance | John Howson (wordpress.com) came a Leader’s speech today on the subject of what the Labour Party would do about policy for education.

In reality, education seemed to mean schooling, skills and early years, if the press reports are to be believed. Interestingly, the BBC has now substituted the word ‘pledge’ for the term ‘mission’. An example of ‘word creep’, perhaps? Actually, it seems more like sloppy journalism if the text of the speech is to be believed, as it starts by referring to ‘mission’ not pledge. Read: Full Keir Starmer mission speech on opportunity, education and childcare – LabourList

At the heart of the speech seems to be these two questions

‘So these are the two fundamental questions we must now ask of our education system: are we keeping pace with the future, preparing all our children to face it?

And – are we prepared to confront the toxic divides that maintain the class ceiling?’

The speech was about class and opportunity as a means of raising standards. Sir Keir has clearly moved on form the famous ‘rule of three’ and now favour a five-point approach, so we had

Apart from the already announced increase in teacher numbers and the retention bonus, there was little about either how the new education age would be delivered or how it would be paid for. No pledge to level up post 16 funding, so badly hit under the present government.

Plans for Early Years

Oracy to build confidence

A review of the National Curriculum for the new digital age

The importance of vocational and work-related studies

Tackling low expectations

There was little for any progressive politician to take issue with in the speech, but little to demonstrate the drive to accomplish the fine words. Re-opening Children’s Centres will come at a price, as will changing the curriculum.

There was nothing to show how resources will be channelled into areas of deprivation and under-performance. Will Labour continue the Conservative idea of Opportunity Areas that do nothing for pockets of underperformance in affluent areas or will it revive the Pupil Premium introduced by the Lib Dems, when part of the coalition, ascheme that identified individual need, wherever it was to be found.

I think I still prefer the 2015 approach from the Liberal Democrats to end illiteracy within 10 years: something that can be measured, rather than the more nebulous ‘raising of standards’ offered by Sir Kier.

Finally, from the Labour Party that introduced tuition fees, not a word on higher education and the consequence of raising standards on the demand for places. Perhaps Labour has still to reconcile the brave new world of skills and the place of universities in the new education landscape. With higher standards will come another class ceiling at eighteen?

Bring Back Circular 1 each year?

Posted on by
Reply

Recently, I wrote a post about a Schoolsweek’s story about the DfE and the need to manage ‘sufficiency’ ITT review: DfE forms ‘sufficiency’ group amid places fears (schoolsweek.co.uk) by creating a new group than most people either didn’t seem to be aware of or didn’t know who comprised the membership. ITT places need a review: but not behind closed doors | John Howson (wordpress.com)

Anyway, I was thinking about what the Group might consider if its aim is to ensure that as many schools as possible are able to recruit the most appropriately qualified teachers to fill their vacancies.

Of course, apart from cutting the numbers of trainees to keep them in line with the predictions from the Teacher Supply Model, the Group could decide to do nothing, and just let the current market-based system continue with vacancies advertised, and teachers applying and the private sector making £40,000,000 or more per year from recruitment. (n.b. I am Chair at TeachVac, the job board).

At the other end of the intervention spectrum, the DfE could follow the actions of their predecessors in the Ministry of Education and return to publishing circular 1. This told local authorities each year how many new entrants from training they could employ. If they wanted more teachers, then there were either returners or teachers moving schools or unqualified staff that could be employed. This draconian approach no doubt worked well in the total planning economy of the immediate post-World War Two years, but probably wouldn’t work now, especially with the disparate system of school governance and the lack of a coherent middle tier in schooling that currently exists across England.

However, a variation on that theme would be to create all teachers as government employees and assign them to schools, as happens in some other countries. My guess is that model won’t work with a government pledged to reduce the civil service by some 90,000 employees.  Creating teachers as civil servants might seem to send out the wrong message about the power of the state.

So how else might the government manage the distribution of the ‘sufficient’ new teachers they are aiming to train to help reduce the inequalities currently in the system? Two possible solutions are, either tighten up on QTS by first making it a requirement for academies to ‘normally’ only hire teachers with QTS, and then segment QTS so it is aligned with the preparation course a person undertakes. This would mean those on primary sector courses would not have QTS to teach in the secondary sector, and visa versa. At present, any teacher with QTS can teach anything to any child at any level. In the secondary sector, QTS might become subject specific.

To deal with ‘shortages’ emergency certification could be provided for a limited period, with CPD to allow for full certification if the teachers was going to be employed teaching in that area permanently. This would also show where shortages were affecting schools and make effective use of the CPD budget.

The other alternative is to expand the Opportunity Area scheme by providing certain schools with additional cash to compete in the market to hire teachers in shortage subjects. However, without caping the spending of other schools, this approach just risks developing a race to see who can pay the most for their teachers. Good news for teachers, especially in shortage subjects, but possibly not the best use of resources.

With a significant number of career changers thinking of teaching as a career, a training salary might be a useful tool ensure these would-be teachers can make the switch into teaching. At the same time, ensuring a job for every successful trainee in the September after their course ends is worth considering. At present, those teachers needed to fill January appointment can find themselves without a job during the autumn term; a waste of talent and a loss of skills. Taking such teachers on as supernumeraries, paid from central funds, on the understanding that they are applying for posts would be worth considering.

Of course, none of these initiatives may be necessary if the recession throws up lots more returners to teaching that are the right mix of skills and in the right locations.  

To make decisions about any such scheme to consider needs high quality up to the minute knowledge of the labour market for teachers and school leaders, as well as the ability to understand the data and its implications. Fortunately, in NfER and our higher education sector, the government has the skills available to it to help answer these questions.

But it could abandon levelling up and just leave it to the market for teachers that is now not local, nor national, but global, in its reach for the high-quality teachers produced through the current teacher preparation system in England.

TeachVac’s intelligence reports

Posted on by
Reply

TeachVac has created a new suite of reports on the labour market for teachers. These report on the current state of play in the market for specific areas. However, reports by subjects and phase across wider areas are also available on request to those interested in specific curriculum areas. http://www.teachvac.co.uk

The basic report tracks the vacancies for teachers from classroom to the head’s study across schools in a given area and reports the finding by subjects or the primary phase in three categories:

The reports can be tailored to cover any grouping of schools, although local authorities and dioceses are the most common formats. However, MATs and parliamentary constituency-based report are also possible, along with reports for schools in either Opportunity Areas or the new Education Investment Zones or whatever they are called today.

Academies

Maintained schools

 Private Schools

Reports are produced up to the end of the month, with current report for 2022 covering the period from January to the end of May 2022.

The reports are currently useful for those considering the shape of teacher preparation provision in the future by demonstrating the actual need for teachers in specific parts of the country across both the State and private school markets. The DFE’s own evidence doesn’t take into account the private sector demand for teachers and misses out on some school in the TeachVac pool.

TeachVac’s reports can also be useful for those concerned with professional development by identifying middle and senior leader vacancies where the new postholder may need some professional development.

The basic reports on an individual or group of local authorities costs £250 per primary or secondary sector for a 12-month subscription.  Prices for other grouping or for multiple groupings are negotiable depending upon the amount of work required.

Sample reports are available on request from either John Howson at dataforeducation@gmail.com or enquiriies@oxteachserv.com

Reports can be generated for data up to the end of the previous month in a matter of days once an order has been placed.

Re-learning the role of Recruitment Strategy Managers

Posted on by
Reply

The DfE has published some useful research papers about Education opportunity Areas. The one of immediate interest to me is on recruitment in the Yorkshire Coast Opportunity Area. Inspire by Teaching Recruitment evaluation North Yorkshire Coast Opportunity Area Intervention Level Evaluation Report (publishing.service.gov.uk) At one point, although the report doesn’t mention it, TeachVac provided a report on vacancy trends at specific schools.

There is much re-learning in this report. More than 20 years ago, the DfEE the government Department at that time responsible for schools provided funding for local authority Recruitment Strategy Managers to help specific areas manage a recruitment problem in a period of teacher shortages. A report on their effectiveness was prepared in October 1999 and I have a copy before me as I write this blog.

Nearly a quarter of a century later and there is the evaluation of this project called the IBTR (Inspire by Teaching Recruitment (IBTR) project) that dealt with not only teaching vacancies, but also non-teaching roles.

Some 20% of the vacancies were filled from outside the local area. That raises interesting questions about the cost of national recruitment that this blog has discussed before – Teacher Vacancy Platforms; Pros and cons, 7th December 2020 – and the report does discuss this issue

‘Prior to the project, headteachers would typically take out an advert in the local or national press for their vacancies. A national advert might be in the Times Educational Supplement (TES) and could cost up to £1500, while a local advert could be on a local authority site and cost up to £50. The DfE teacher vacancy website was being established in 2019 around the same time as this evaluation. No headteachers mentioned the DfE teacher vacancy website unprompted during any wave of the fieldwork7’.

Footnote 7 ‘Teaching Vacancies, the DfE’s free search and listing service for state funded schools in England, now plays a larger role than when this report was drafted. As it stands today, Teaching Vacancies is used widely across the region with 220 vacancies in the last year. The website actively directs users to Teaching Vacancies and schools in this region actively use Teaching Vacancies to advertise their vacancies.’  Page 27 and footnote.

Interestingly, TeachVac doesn’t rate a mention in the report even though we were asked to supply staff in the Opportunity Area with a custom-made report on vacancies. Taken together, TeachVac and the DfE site do make the case for a low-cost on-line job board. The issue with the DfE but not with TeachVac is that the DfE only handles jobs from state schools and requires schools to upload vacancies twice, to their site and the DfE site. Teachers want a site with a guarantee of almost universal coverage as a one-stop shop for vacancies, as do those seeking non-teaching posts.

However, back to the issue of what needs to be managed locally and what centrally? Paying £1,500 for national advertising seems these days wasteful of scare resources. If 80% of vacancies are filled either locally or from the region then locally managed projects do seem like good value for money and better value than every school doing their own thing.

TeachVac has now launched its premium service for vacancies based upon a no match: no fee model. We believe that offers a sensible way forward at a low cost of £1 per match and an annual maximum of £1,000 per school – less than the cost of one TES advert quoted in the report. Finally, it is worth noting that the costs of marketing promotion, advertising and web portal for this one Opportunity Area were more than the annual cost of running TeachVac for the whole of England for a year.

Military families missing out

Posted on by
Reply

Neither Oxfordshire nor Wiltshire were included in the published list of Education Investment Areas designated as part of the government’s levelling up programme. Package to transform education and opportunities for most disadvantaged – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) This may be important because these are two of the local authorities with large concentrations of military families attending schools within their areas.

The RAF will generally benefit because the whole of East Anglia and Lincolnshire are included in the list of authorities and that is where many RAF bases are located. The inclusion of Plymouth and Portsmouth will cover many naval families. However, the families of troops based on Salisbury plain at Tidworth and many other barracks in Wiltshire will still need to rely just upon the Service Children’s Premium and the Pupil Premium for extra support. The same is true for garrisons in Oxfordshire at Bicester, Abingdon and Didcot, and the RAF bases at Benson and Brize Norton.   

Troops moving from Catterick in North Yorkshire or RAF bases in Lincolnshire to Wessex will find the support for their children’s education may reduce under these plans.

Now, our armed forces may be a small part of pupil population, but they do serve to highlight the fact that there are children that don’t stay in one place for their school life. Levelling up probably needs to be more than just about geography and picking areas off a map.

A geographical strategy is anyway easier to achieve when there is a coherent basis for local government areas. Sadly, that is not the case at the present time. Cambridgeshire includes the successful parts of Cambridge, although I acknowledge that like Oxford the whole of the city is neither affluent not without need for extra funding. Was Cambridgeshire included because it is part of a combined authority with a mayor, whereas Oxfordshire is one of the few remaining two-tier local government setups, with no unitary authority.  

I wonder how Medway and parts of Cumbria feel looking at the list of Education Investment Areas? Do they feel that they have missed out?

As I wrote, in the previous post on this blog, the education measures will need to be backed up by hard cash to have any real effect. In terms of teaching staff turnover, TeachVac has provided a number of the Opportunity Areas with data about their local teacher labour markets and can do so for the new Education Investment Areas.

One thing is certain is that teaching cooking and healthy eating to secondary school pupils is going to need a rethink about staffing as within design and technology – a subject that attracts few to teaching these days – food technology is the most challenging discipline in terms of finding teachers anywhere in England.

Levelling up is as important today as ever for our schooling system. How far these moves will help is a matter for debate.

Levelling down?

Posted on by
Reply

There are suggestions of a policy towards limiting access to higher education for those without traditional qualifications. For a government that proclaims its belief in levelling up, this would seem a strange policy to even consider. Minimum entry requirements would do the opposite of levelling up | Wonkhe

Such a policy must not be allowed to drive a coach and horses through the policy of ‘life long learning’. Many that come to higher education later in life than through the traditional route had a fractured schooling, with poor outcomes. Any change in policy must not damage their ability to return to learning, especially at the level of higher education.

However, more seriously, while the government has continued to operate a policy of not providing enough qualified teachers in some subjects, notably mathematics and physics, but also design and technology and languages, the young people on the receiving end of teaching from less than ideally qualified teachers much not have their ability to attend a university jeopardised by a failure in government policy.   

By now, the government should have some indications as to whether its idea for ‘Opportunity Areas’ has borne any fruit in terms of levelling up in some of the northern areas where the scheme was trailed.

A market-based approach to teacher supply may encourage teachers to work in schools where pupils have less struggles with learning and more support from home. These schools usually have less trouble attracting teachers as the study of vacancies and free school meals reported earlier this year by this blog demonstrated.  

With the world starting to open up again for both travel and work opportunities, there must not be a large outflow of teachers from England to schools overseas. The ending of the pay freeze is welcome news, as is the recognition of the importance of professional development. However, the government does need to pay more attention to the distribution of teachers and the locations where there are shortages of fully qualified teachers.

Using professional development approaches to improve the qualifications of teachers is one route to overcoming shortages; stemming losses must be another action. The National Audit Office make it clear some years ago that improving teacher retention was a cost-effective route to solving the recruitment issue. However, it doesn’t always solve the issue of the distribution of teachers.

It will be interesting to see whether there is any correlation in Ofsted ITT reports between programmes that are deemed either ‘inadequate’ or’ requiring improvement’ and the schools used to prepare teachers?

If levelling up is to make a difference in education outcomes, then among the many strands needing to be woven together for a successful outcome is the approach to teacher supply and distribution.

Equal not fair: the new direction for education?

Posted on by
Reply

So Boris wants a ‘superb’ education for all children. His recipe for achieving this is to offer all primary and secondary schools the same cash amount per pupil of some £5,000. No mention of special education, further education or indeed higher education in that part of his speech.

As this blog has recorded in the past, post-16 and further education is seriously in need of a cash injection, probably even more than the schools sector. Although secondary schools will benefit from more cash for their Key Stage 3 & 4 pupils under Boris’s idea, this won’t help fully fund sixth forms and will leave further education colleges still drifting towards financial meltdown in some cases.

What is the future for the High Needs Block of funding and a ‘superb’ education for all our pupils with special educational needs? I guess much will depend upon how Mr Williamson, as the incoming Secretary of State for Education, interprets the words of his boss? Personally, I hope he reminds Boris that Eton doesn’t charge the same fees as many other private schools and asks whether he believes that what is right for public education should be applied to private schooling as well?

More seriously, the idea of the same cash for all is based upon a very simplistic notion of education, where equal means ‘the same’. In 2002, I wrote a paper for the Liberal Democrats espousing the ‘compensatory principle’. This is based upon funding the needs of a child to reach the outcome levels desired by the system: some children need more resources to achieve the desired outcome than others.

Such a principle recognises the need for additional funding for both specific children and particular areas within local government boundaries. The Coalition introduced the Pupil Premium to recognise this need, and the Mrs May’s government created additionally funded ‘Opportunity Areas’. What happens to these modification of £5,000 for all will be a real test of the values of this government.

Extensive research shows all children do not arrive at school with the same degree of development, whatever their innate capabilities. The system should recognise that fact and take it into account in funding. Furthermore, if the State mandates the same funding for all schools, should it allow schools in more affluent areas to top-up the State grant and once again create a funding differential?

The teacher associations have calculated that the headline £5,000 for all is relatively cheap to implement, costing only about £50 million a year according to the BBC. However, to restore funding levels to where the teacher associations would like them to be might cost close to £13 Billion rather than a few million pounds. Such a sum, even without the demands of the further education sector, is a different order of magnitude.

Sadly, for a Prime minister that likes headlines, the £5,000 is a good headline figure and seems like a lot of money: these days it isn’t. How schools are treated will reveal the true values off the new government.

Not a bribe, but a gift or Scholarship?

Posted on by
Reply

It is difficult to know what to call the payments to teachers of mathematics and physics in parts of the north of England and the Opportunity Areas, announced by the DfE today. https://www.gov.uk/guidance/apply-for-mathematics-and-physics-teacher-retention-payments

As the DfE make clear in their announcements, these payments are neither part of a teacher’s salary nor an allowance, as they don’t require either the teacher receiving the cash or the employer to pay either National Insurance or tax and presumably are not part of pensionable pay. I am not sure how HM Treasury regards this handout that has similar characteristics to the bounty paid to reservists with the forces.

Paying someone just for teaching specific subjects in particular geographical areas might have unintended consequences. There are some great schools in Harrogate, one of the areas included in the scheme, and I haven’t noticed that the schools in that area have any more challenges recruiting that do schools in London boroughs, so might we see a flight from London to teach mathematics in the Yorkshire Dales and Wolds. Interestingly, the Lake District and deprived Cumbrian Coast is not included in the list of qualifying local authorities. Surely an oversight?

This scheme looks like a blunter form of the Mrs Thatcher’s Schools of Exceptional Difficulty payments of the early 1970s, although that cash went to all teachers in the qualifying schools, but not to other staff.

How biologist and chemists teaching physics at Key Stage 3 will feel about this payment that they won’t receive unless they have the appropriate academic qualification in the subject, even if they have undertaken considerable professional development, is, no doubt, something the teacher associations will have to discuss with their members. Such teachers cannot just stop teaching physics, since head teachers can require staff to teach any subject where timetabling or other reasons require them to do so.

Making this announcement on EU election day does make it seem a bit like a Jo Moore story, one to be buried in the middle of a lot of announcements on a busy news day – the announcements were 12th and 13th down the list issued by the DfE this morning, although The Times newspaper, did carry the story today, so presumably the press was forewarned.

By not making this a salary supplement, the DfE presumably hopes to head off the question of equal pay for work of equal worth from other teachers working alongside the lucky recipients. I suspect head teachers will also want to ensure they can claim for these payments and not have to pay out of existing budgets. There was no mention in either of the government announcements about the mechanics of the scheme other than the statement that ‘details about the application process and the first year payment process will be available soon.’

TeachVac www.teachvac.co.uk will monitor trends in vacancies for teachers of physics and mathematics and report any changes seen. However, the way the scheme will be organised it should not have much immediate impact on the labour market.