Tag Archives: Physics

It’s a funny old world

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On the day when nurses look as if they will join resident doctors in demanding more pay, figures about applications from graduates to train as a secondary school teacher hit decade high levels, even after removing the degree apprenticeship numbers from the totals. This month, according to DfE data, 58,880 candidates have submitted one or more applications to train as a teacher. This compares with 46,696 list July and 45,000 in 2108, before the pandemic. Initial teacher training application statistics for courses starting in the 2025 to 2026 academic year – Apply for teacher training – GOV.UK

This July, there were 36,283 candidates applying to train as a secondary school teacher, compared with 17,997 wanting to train as a primary school teacher.

By comparison in July 2018, 26,060 women had applied, whereas in July 2025 that had increased to 31,439. However, applications from men had increased from 12,680 in 2018 to 18,904 this July

Traditional higher education and SCITT courses still account for the bulk of the routes into teaching selected by candidates. However, candidate numbers on traditional salaried routes were down this July, from 8,927 to 7,636, but that may be partly the 7,332 candidates that have applied for the Postgraduate teaching apprenticeship route, up from 6,433 last July.

The new Teacher Degree Apprenticeship route that has attracted 1,079 candidates so far this year. This is a new route and, presumably isn’t open to graduates.

Although applicant numbers from the ‘rest of the world’ group are down this July, from 9,586 in July 2024, to 8,563 this July – this number still represents nearly 20% of all candidates.

Some subjects, including art, physical education, physics, mathematics and computing have recorded their highest level of ‘offers’ this year since the 2013/14 recruitment round. How many are multiple offers or from candidate’s not able to fulfil visa requirements won’t be known until the courses start in just over a month’s time.  Interestingly, offers for English courses are below the number of offers made in July 2024.

Despite the significant increase in candidate numbers, some subjects will not hit their targets set by the DfE this year. Subjects most likely to miss their targets are business studies, drama, religious education, music and design and technology. In English, it looks touch and go at this moment in time as to whether or not the target will be hit.

In some subjects, such as physical education, where the target is 725, there is a risk of a significant overshoot in offers. Such a situation might leave large numbers of trainees with additional debt and little chance of a teaching post in England next summer. The DfE will need to be alert to this issue, especially if the growth in ‘AI’ changes the labour market for those with degrees in physics and mathematics, so as to make teaching look like an interesting career at current salary levels.

It would be a funny old world if incentives to train as a teacher had to be switched from mathematics and the sciences to English and the arts.

The crisis in physics teaching

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NfER has published some interesting research about the distribution of physics teachers A widespread lack of specialist physics teachers persists due to recruitment and retention challenges – NFER The most alarming statistic in the report is that 26% of state-funded secondary schools that responded to the School workforce Census had no qualified physics specialist in their science department.

However, there is a caveat to making too much of the data. This is because it is taken from the School Workforce Census. As this is a self-reporting census, the data must be regarded with a degree of caution, as there could be some under-reporting.

As the School Workforce Survey is conducted by the DfE each autumn term, it should have a degree of reliability. However, the NfER report only contains data from 2,296 of the 3,456 state-funded secondary schools in England.

Even so, assuming all the remaining schools have at least one qualified teacher of physics that would mean at least 12% of schools were without a qualified teacher of physics, and more than a third of schools (36%) has either no teacher or only one teacher.

Now some of these schools are 11-16 schools, and a few the remaining middle schools classified as secondary schools. These schools don’t need a teacher for ‘A’ level courses. But who is teaching the GSCE physics courses, and how many pupils from these schools go on to study physics at ‘A’ level?

For the 11-8 schools with no qualified teacher of physics, what arrangements are being made for pupils that want to study the subject at ‘A’ level. If it is matter of having to change school, then what are the costs to the pupils and their families. This is another example of where transport costs may affect choice of courses post-GCSE.

Do schools support each other? This was easy when all schools were maintained schools. In the 1960s, the local girls’ school where I lived could not support Chemistry ‘A’ level, and those girls wanting to study the subject joined the ‘A’ level class at the school I attended. This must be more challenging to arrange these days with competing Multi Academy Trusts.

Interestingly, if you add up all the qualified teachers in the table in the NfER survey it amounts to more than 3,500 qualified teachers of physics: enough for one for every school. However, our distribution system for teachers is based upon open market principles, with teachers free to apply for any post, and teach where they like. Is this the best system for the education of all children, if it means that some are deprived the opportunity to study subjects such as physics because there is no qualified teacher?

Hopefully, the present position marks the bottom of the staffing cycle, and improved interest in teaching, as reported in this blog and on my LinkedIn pages, means more trainees with emerge into the labour market over the next few years.  The issue then will be how to create teaching posts for them. Wil schools be required to either redeploy an existing member of staff or make them redundant? Those schools with falling rolls and a stable staff might find the former difficult. What is needed is a national plan for physics, and perhaps other subjects where there are teacher shortages. But, sadly, I doubt we will see such a radical idea from this government.

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

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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.

Time to stand up to HM Treasury

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The news that postgraduate apprenticeships for teachers are to  be reduced to nine months in length Red tape slashed to get more teachers into classrooms – GOV.UK and aligned with the school-year, effectively returns school-based training possibilities to where they were two decades ago when the previous employment-based GTTP Scheme was flourishing.

The fact that the government is offering schools up to £28,000 to cover the cost of training apprentices in mathematics, biology, chemistry, physics, computing, and modern foreign languages – the subjects which have the highest teacher shortages – if they take on an apprentice is something of a mixed blessing.

Could we see some applicants ditching higher education courses for a salary and presumably pension and NI contributions as a better bet than a scholarship, especially as once one has a foot in the door, the school is likely to want keep them after the end of the apprenticeship, if they prove successful.

This announcement form the DfE means apprentices pay nothing for their training and will earn a salary while they are training before moving on to full time teacher pay salary. If the salary is better than the scholarship, even without the additional benefits, might some be tempted to move if they become aware of this new route, especially if the school is nearer their home.

The advantage of an employment-based routes has always been their flexibility to offer career changers training near where they live, rather than at a university or SCITT that may be some distance away from their homes.

Of course, there needs to be applicants wanting to start teaching in these subjects, and I believe the current uncertain economic situation will help create the environment for the necessary increase in applications.

Where does this leave those training on other routes without a salary and with student debt around their neck? As they also have no certainty of a job at the end of their training, it appears a poor bet in a time when schools are complaining of under-funding and making staff redundant. Why take the risk of an intensive year of study with no guarantee of a job at the end?

This is why I think the Secretary of State must stand up to HM Treasury, and once again offer the free training for all that was withdrawn by the coalition government in 2010 in a really short-sighted move. Not to do so, could destabilise the whole teacher preparation market, if not in 2025 then certainly in 2026.

I have repeatedly said that the presence of two trainees in adjacent classrooms, one on a salary and the other paying for the privilege of their training, was plainly wrong. This new move on apprenticeships makes it both absurd as well as wrong.

Perhaps the government could offer free training for all as part of the pay bargaining this year with the professional associations. After all, HM Treasury knows that falling rolls will see the schooling budget on a downward trajectory over the next few years, especially as the decline in rolls is greatest in London, the highest cost area in terms of government funding of schooling.

The new on apprenticeships is not a gift horse one should ignore, but one to use as a basis for putting all graduate teacher preparation courses on the same financial footing for those seeking to become a teacher. Not to do so will have consequences.

FE sector and Physics: sparse provision?

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The DfE has recently published some data on the workforce in the further Education sector following a survey of institutions. Further education workforce in England – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) the data was based on the 2020/21 college year.

The majority of those institutions surveyed were either general FE colleges or sixth from colleges. The latter were transferred many years ago from the school sector, but are mainly still offering a school sixth form curriculum that is more biased towards ‘academic’ subjects than the curriculum found in general FE colleges.

Regular monitoring of teacher preparation numbers over the course of the past decade – see frequent posts on this blog – has identified physics as a subject where trainee numbers for the school sector have regularly failed to meet the target set by government through the DfE’s Teacher Supply Model and subsequent allocations to ITT providers. This has produced a teacher shortage in the subject.

In the FE sector, physics accounted for 0.3% of the teaching [sic] workforce, compared with 0.3% lecturing in chemistry and 0.6% in biology. Because of the presence of vocational subjects, staffing percentages for academic subjects would be lower in the FE sector than in the school sector. As this level, physics is ranked alongside philosophy and just above politics and classical studies in the table of staffing percentages. Even just looking at staffing of academic subjects, physics only accounts for 1.5% of staff teaching academic subjects in the FE sector.

Overall, staff with physics lecturing as their main subject, based on the data from this survey, would seem to mean that there were only around 250 lecturers across the whole of England in the FE sector in 2020/21. A significant minority are likely to be found in the 44 Sixth Form Colleges, with the remainder spread between the 187 general FE colleges. If spread out evenly, this would mean every college would have one lead specialist in physics. I assume the remainder of any teaching of physics is carried out either by part-timers or by those with qualifications that contain elements of the subject.   

There does seem to be a question about the teaching of physics in the FE sector.

Cumulative percentage outcomes by centre type – grade A and above

Level 5 qualifications

Centre type  – Physics% achieving grade in 2019% achieving grade in 2023Difference 2019 and 2023
Other19.4%25.2%5.80%
Further education establishment18.4%17.2%-1.20%
Independent school including city training colleges (CTCs)42.4%47.2%4.80%
Secondary comprehensive or middle school21.7%25.6%3.90%
Secondary selective school25.8%29.2%3.40%
Free schools27.8%31.2%3.40%
Sixth form college24.3%27.0%2.70%
Academies21.1%22.6%1.50%
Secondary modern school/high school37.4%37.0%-0.40%
Ofqual data by Centre

FE establishments, along with secondary modern schools, both saw smaller percentages of grade A and above in 2023 than in 2019. Could this be down to staffing issues or is it a change in the mix of students enrolled or were their students learning more affected by covid?

The workforce data for the FE sector has provided a source of information that leads to many more possible questions about learning and outcomes in the FE sector.

Which one is Physics

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Ofqual have helpfully provided some data on the 2023 Level 5 results that came out today. Congratulations to all candidates on their achievements, even if they are tempered by the type of referencing system employed to suit the demands of the system.

In the past, I have looked at the A and A* percentages in Physics and Media/Film/TV Studies as an interesting contrast. This year it is also possible to look at the percentages of such grades in both 2019 (the last pre-pandemic year) and 2023. Outcomes by centre type (ofqual.gov.uk)

Cumulative percentage outcomes by centre type – grade A and above

Level 5 qualifications

Centre type  – Physics% achieving grade in 2019% achieving grade in 2023Difference 2019 and 2023
Other19.4%25.2%5.80%
Further education establishment18.4%17.2%-1.20%
Independent school including city training colleges (CTCs)42.4%47.2%4.80%
Secondary comprehensive or middle school21.7%25.6%3.90%
Secondary selective school25.8%29.2%3.40%
Free schools27.8%31.2%3.40%
Sixth form college24.3%27.0%2.70%
Academies21.1%22.6%1.50%
Secondary modern school/high school37.4%37.0%-0.40%
https://analytics.ofqual.gov.uk/apps/Alevel/CentreType/

Normally, I would ask you to work out which table was the Physics and which Media/Fil/TV Studies, but this year have added the subject titles because not all centres are represented in the Media/Film/TV Studies subject group table by the types of centres.

Centre type – Media/Film/TV Studies% achieving grade in 2019% achieving grade in 2023Difference 2019 and 2023
Independent school including city training colleges (CTCs)27.7%26.8%-0.9%
Further education establishment10.0%9.4%-0.6%
Academies11.6%12.6%1.0%
Sixth form college11.7%13.3%1.6%
Secondary comprehensive or middle school9.7%12.2%2.5%
Secondary selective school21.7%30.4%8.7%
Source ofqual data

Generally, despite the shortage of teachers of physics, the percentage of grades A and above is higher than in Media/Film/TV Studies (MFTVS) and often higher in 2023 than in 2019 except in the FE sector and secondary modern schools. This highlights the risk of using data in an uncontextualized manner.

My suspicion is that in physics it is only those likely to do well that are entered, whereas the entry policy for MFTVS may be wider, and hence there are more lower grades.

It will be necessary to investigate candidate numbers to see whether the increase in A and above grades in MFTVS in the selective schools is down to either a more selective entry policy or some other factor?

I find some of the groupings a bit odd as well. Should ‘city training colleges’ actually be ‘city technology colleges’ and why are ‘high schools’ included with secondary modern as a group when they could be any type of school? The inclusion of ‘middle schools’ in Level 5 qualifications for physics is even more odd.

So, an interesting set of statistics that not a great deal can be read into, except that there are generally more higher grades in physics than in MFTVS. Is the shortage of teachers of physics having an effect, especially in the FE sector? I cannot be sure, but as further education colleges have a lower percentage in 2023 than in 2019, there might be a case to answer, especially as the recent DfE workforce in further education study suggests that there might be fewer than 250 leading physics lecturers across the whole of the FE sector.

But perhaps outcomes might just be down to who is enrolled?

(an earlier version of this post contained a mistake in the table and the post has been corrected and updated)

The other crisis facing schools

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In my experience, editors usually have September, and the national annual ‘return to school’ event, as a time to ask journalists to look for a school centred story. This follows on from the useful two-week period in August when there are examination results to cover in the month when there is often little news from the political scene.

This year, editors and their journalists didn’t have to work very hard, if at all, for their ‘return to school’ story. RAAC, and the school buildings saga, was a gift send. Would the story have topped the bill at any other time of year? Who knows, as it is an important issue, but more important say that a reshuffle?

What is clear, is that by focussing just on the school buildings issue, editors are missing the opportunity to take a wider look at the health of our schools. Had there not been RAAC, and the still largely hidden asbestos issue, might the staffing of our schools have been the main story this September?

This is a much more difficult story to sell, as except in rare cases such as a special school reported to the DfE in the summer, schools don’t send children home for a lack of teachers. Instead, they cut subjects from the curriculum – I have been told of a school that is no longer offering languages in the sixth from this September; increase class sizes; reduce non-contact time for teachers and, most commonly, employ what might be considered as under-qualified teachers to teach some groups.

Because anyone with Qualified Teacher Status can teach anything on the curriculum, it isn’t easy to identify the problem, as schools, quite rightly, don’t advertise any shortcomings in the staffing of their timetable. However, extrapolating from the last School Workforce Census that provided a baseline, and adding in the results of new entrants being below the targets set by the DfE through the Teacher Supply Model, it seems clear that some schools are not properly staff this September.

Does this matter? Like the lack of a schools’ database on building issues, we don’t know whether some young people are missing grades in those public examinations we celebrate each August because of staffing issues last year or even earlier in their school lives.

This blog has charted re-advertisements of teaching post against free school meal rates in schools. I wrote a blog on this issue last month, just before the exam results season started Are we levelling up? | John Howson (wordpress.com) I won’t bother to repeat what I said then, but it would be interesting to look at examination results in specific subjects at different centres with different levels of staff turnover for a period of three to five years, to see if there is any measurable effect of staff turnover on outcomes, including entry policies.

My hunch is that it is difficult to create a ‘normal’ distribution curve for results subjects such as ‘A’ level physics if many schools cannot offer the subject, and those that do only enter those likely to be successful candidates.

Editors might like to pencil in a story for January 2024, when secondary schools facing unexpected vacancies will find recruitment even more of a challenge than for this September. What might be the effects on their results in Summer 2024 of an unexpected vacancy, especially if they started the school year this September with both a RAAC and a staffing crisis?

Physics: Better. Arts: worse

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Despite today being a bank holiday, the DfE obligingly published the monthly ITT data on applications and offers for postgraduate courses. Initial teacher training application statistics for courses starting in the 2023 to 2024 academic year – Apply for teacher training – GOV.UK (apply-for-teacher-training.service.gov.uk)

Perhaps not surprisingly, little has changed since the last set of figures published at the end of July. With courses about to start in a matter of weeks, there are likely to be few more surprises left in this round. On the basis of the data, secondary subjects can be grouped into three sets: those subjects with higher offers this year than at any time since 2019/2020, or in the case of physics, since 2015/16; those subjects where ‘offers’ this year are above the number at this point in 2022, and those subjects where the offers this year are below the number in August 2022.

In the first category are: physics -the subject has recorded 729 offers, the highest August number since the 840 of August 2016. However, this is still not a high enough number, even if all those offered actually turn up, to meet the DfE’s target. Also, in this group of subjects are; geography, design and technology and biology. The offers in design and technology will still not be sufficient to come anywhere near meeting the DfE’s target.

In the middle group, of subjects better than last year, but worse than 2021, are: mathematics, English, computing and chemistry.

In the group where this year’s offers are below last year are: art and design, religious education, physical education, music, history and business studies – in this case almost the same as last August.

In the case of music, the 232 recorded offers are the lowest recorded in recent years. This is despite a high conversion rate of 21% of applications into offers.  In religious education, the 259 recorded offers are also the lowest level of offers in recent years in this subject. In both these subjects, this level of offers will not be enough to satisfy the demand for teachers in a normal recruitment round. By comparison, only eight per cent of physics applications have been converted into offers, and in biology the percentage is 13%.

Compared with last year, most of the increase in candidate numbers has come from those age 24 or above. The youngest age groupings of 21-23, have seen an increase of 400 from 10,116 to 10517. By contrast, the 40-44 age grouping alone has increased from 2,477 to 3,621, an increase of more than 1,100 applicants.

As reported previously, when compared with two years ago, the largest increase in candidates is the group applying from ‘the rest of the world’, up from 3,216 to 8,406, an increase of more than 5,000. By contrast, the East of England number two years ago was 3,495 and this year it is 3,440.  The South East numbers are: 4,651 two years ago, and 4,825 this year: a meagre increase.

This data suggests that schools will find recruitment in some subjects that they have not been concerned about in the past, may well become difficult during the 2024/2025 recruitment round unless the consequences arising from the pay settlement depress demand below that seen in the past two years.

State schools still looking for secondary subject teachers

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Classroom Teachers and promoted posts

(This is part 3 of the review of the labour market for teachers during the first seven months of 2023 – previous parts have already appeared on this blog. The next part will discuss promoted posts)

Secondary Sector

For many years secondary schools have controlled the location of their vacancy advertising. With the rise of the multi-academy trusts there have been some recent changes in the marketplace. Some trusts have consolidated all their vacancies into a single job board similar to that in use local authorities in the primary sector. Some Trusts have gone further and arranged with one of the emerging players in the recruitment market for them to handle the vacancies across the Trust’s schools.

To date the changes in the marketplace have not significantly dented the position of the ‘tes’ as a key website for vacancies, but there is no doubt that the market is undergoing its largest shake-up since the move from print advertising to on-line advertising.

Then there is the DfE site. Despite several years of operation and cajoling by Ministers and civil servants, schools do not always routinely post their vacancies on this free site. TeachVac and others have demonstrated how an efficient free service and covering all schools can operate at a lower cost to the taxpayer than the DfE site, and provide the government with a better real-time understanding of the working of the labour market.

As the Education Select Committee is currently conducting an enquiry into the supply of teachers, it will be interesting to see whether or not they address this issue when they come to write their report, presumably sometime in the autumn.

Classroom teacher vacancies

The outcome for the first seven months of 2023 was an overall increase of seven per cent in recorded vacancies for classroom teachers.

2022 Classroom teachers only
SUBJECT GROUPINGIndependentStateGrand Total
ART1509921142
SCIENCE93658486784
ENGLISH58541854770
MATHEMATICS67447245398
LANGUAGES49926683167
HUMANITIES50464514
COMPUTING23918052044
DESIGN & TECHNOLOGY22529873212
BUSINESS STUDIES36214741836
VOCATIONAL23494517
RELIGIOUS EDUCATION12212451367
PHYSICAL EDUCATION28717742061
TEACHING & LEARNING30121151
PSHE22104126
DANCE109576685
SEND96279375
MUSIC12010051125
SOCIAL SCIENCES1809761156
PEFORMING ARTS4127131
GEOGRAPHY18418742058
HISTORY15911791338
Grand Total50563490139957
2023 Classroom teachers only
SUBJECT GROUPINGIndependentStateGrand Total
ART12311251248
SCIENCE83764767313
ENGLISH54150765617
MATHEMATICS56852345802
LANGUAGES41430143428
HUMANITIES43645688
COMPUTING22319642187
DESIGN & TECHNOLOGY21830263244
BUSINESS STUDIES32413161640
VOCATIONAL13419432
RELIGIOUS EDUCATION9213381430
PHYSICAL EDUCATION25318752128
TEACHING & LEARNING21129150
PSHE10128138
DANCE106649755
SEND82283365
MUSIC8511711256
SOCIAL SCIENCES1529631115
PEFORMING ARTS3144147
GEOGRAPHY16021912351
HISTORY14212661408
Grand Total44103843242842
Difference 2023 on 2022
SUBJECT GROUPINGIndependentStateGrand Total% change
ART-271331069%
SCIENCE-996285298%
ENGLISH-4489184718%
MATHEMATICS-1065104047%
LANGUAGES-853462618%
HUMANITIES-718117434%
COMPUTING-161591437%
DESIGN & TECHNOLOGY-739321%
BUSINESS STUDIES-38-158-196-11%
VOCATIONAL-10-75-85-16%
RELIGIOUS EDUCATION-3093635%
PHYSICAL EDUCATION-34101673%
TEACHING & LEARNING-98-1-1%
PSHE-12241210%
DANCE-3737010%
SEND-144-10-3%
MUSIC-3516613112%
SOCIAL SCIENCES-28-13-41-4%
PEFORMING ARTS-1171612%
GEOGRAPHY-2431729314%
HISTORY-1787705%
Grand Total-646353128857%

However, the increase was neither consistent across all subjects nor uniform in those subject groupings where there was an increase. Five subject groupings recorded decreases in vacancies during the first seven months of 2023, when compared with the same period in 2022: Business studies; vocational subject not classified elsewhere; teaching and learning; Special Needs without a TLR and the social science subjects not classified elsewhere.

Business Studies and design and technology (a 1% increase) are both subjects that schools have struggled to recruit teachers for many years. Perhaps the reduction in recorded vacancies means that schools have now accepted the difficulty in recruitment and stopped advertising. No doubt that will have affected the curriculum being offered as well.

The 34% increase in vacancies classified as for humanities that may have partly been the result of concerns from pervious years about the shortage of teachers of geography; not actually an issue in 2023. However, there was also an above average increase in recorded vacancies for teachers of geography and the vacancy rate is very different for the rate for history teachers, where demand is much lower. However, for 2024, the reduction in ‘offers’ may make finding even teachers of history more of a challenge next year.

The other key subject with a significant increase in demand, as measured by vacancies advertised was English. The recorded increase in vacancies was some 18%, and was entirely as a result of more recorded vacancies from schools in the state sector.

For most of the other EBacc subject groupings, the increase was in the range of 5-10% in 2023 when compared with the same time period in 2022.

However, independent sector schools as a group recorded a lower demand, as measure by vacancies advertised, during 2023. Down from 5,056 to 4,410, a reduction of 646 vacancies advertised. As will the state sector, there was not a uniform decline and some subject that were in the list of subjects in the state sector that experienced year-on-year declines in vacancy advertising did not do so in the private sector: business studies is one such subject.

The is undoubtedly an unmet demand for secondary school teachers in a range of subjects that will not be met until either recruitment into training increases or more teachers are persuaded to return to teaching in state schools. School and trust leaders would be well advised to focus their attention on retaining staff wherever possible and by whatever means as this is often a cheap option that trying to recruit a replacement member of staff.

Assessment Only route into teaching: sideshow or useful source of teachers?

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How well is the assessment only route to QTS doing, and what part has it played in helping reduce the shortage of teachers in some subjects? The recent data on outcomes for 2021/22 year for this route was contained as a part of the ITT profiles statistics and does produce some interesting information. Initial teacher training performance profiles, Academic year 2021/22 – Explore education statistics – GOV.UK (explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk)

Assessment only candidate numbers by subject and phase

Subject2019/202020/212021/22
Art & Design293344
Biology256530
Business Studies211929
Chemistry11916
Classics345
Computing101720
Design & Technology253342
Drama113135
English128150145
Geography191218
History423524
Mathematics9389125
Modern Foreign Languages152428
Music222732
Other254189
Physical Education649798
Physics38922
Religious Education152917
Primary614747612
Secondary596724819
Total1,2101,4711,431
Initial teacher training performance profiles

The numbers in some shortage subjects, such as physics, (leaving aside 2020/21 as possibly affected by the covid pandemic) only represent a small fraction of the total candidates on the Assessment Only route to QTS: around two per cent in 2021/22. Computing candidate numbers were even lower in 2021/22, at just 20 candidates.

Around 40% of the candidates on this route were working to become qualified teachers while in the primary sector, so we do not know the range of subjects that they might contribute expertise to when they have obtained QTS.   

In the secondary sector, only English and mathematics were subjects with candidate numbers in three figures, although physical education – hardly a shortage subject – just missed reaching 100 candidates with a total of 98.

The government web site on teaching says that

You can take the assessment only route to QTS if you already meet the standards for qualified teacher status, so do not need any further training.

Instead, you will undertake a series of assessments. This may include lesson observations, providing a portfolio of evidence to show you meet the teachers’ standards, or written assessments. This will vary by your provider.

The assessment programme takes up to 12 weeks.

To be eligible, you need (all of the following):

  • to be able to show you meet the teachers’ standards(opens in new window) without any more training
  • to have worked in 2 or more schools
  • a degree
  • GCSEs at grade 4 (C) or above in English and maths (and science if you want to teach primary)

Specific entry criteria may vary by teacher training provider. 

There are nearly 100 providers of the Assessment Only route certification, although only four are open to non-UK citizens. Based upon the data in the table, some providers must receive very small numbers of registrations each year. Is there a case for rationalisation to provide a smaller number of providers in each region to allow for larger cohorts?