The other crisis facing schools

Posted on September 6, 2023 by John Howson

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

Posted on August 28, 2023 by John Howson

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

Posted on August 4, 2023 by John Howson

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 GROUPING	Independent	State	Grand Total
ART	150	992	1142
SCIENCE	936	5848	6784
ENGLISH	585	4185	4770
MATHEMATICS	674	4724	5398
LANGUAGES	499	2668	3167
HUMANITIES	50	464	514
COMPUTING	239	1805	2044
DESIGN & TECHNOLOGY	225	2987	3212
BUSINESS STUDIES	362	1474	1836
VOCATIONAL	23	494	517
RELIGIOUS EDUCATION	122	1245	1367
PHYSICAL EDUCATION	287	1774	2061
TEACHING & LEARNING	30	121	151
PSHE	22	104	126
DANCE	109	576	685
SEND	96	279	375
MUSIC	120	1005	1125
SOCIAL SCIENCES	180	976	1156
PEFORMING ARTS	4	127	131
GEOGRAPHY	184	1874	2058
HISTORY	159	1179	1338
Grand Total	5056	34901	39957

2023 Classroom teachers only
SUBJECT GROUPING	Independent	State	Grand Total
ART	123	1125	1248
SCIENCE	837	6476	7313
ENGLISH	541	5076	5617
MATHEMATICS	568	5234	5802
LANGUAGES	414	3014	3428
HUMANITIES	43	645	688
COMPUTING	223	1964	2187
DESIGN & TECHNOLOGY	218	3026	3244
BUSINESS STUDIES	324	1316	1640
VOCATIONAL	13	419	432
RELIGIOUS EDUCATION	92	1338	1430
PHYSICAL EDUCATION	253	1875	2128
TEACHING & LEARNING	21	129	150
PSHE	10	128	138
DANCE	106	649	755
SEND	82	283	365
MUSIC	85	1171	1256
SOCIAL SCIENCES	152	963	1115
PEFORMING ARTS	3	144	147
GEOGRAPHY	160	2191	2351
HISTORY	142	1266	1408
Grand Total	4410	38432	42842

Difference 2023 on 2022
SUBJECT GROUPING	Independent	State	Grand Total	% change
ART	-27	133	106	9%
SCIENCE	-99	628	529	8%
ENGLISH	-44	891	847	18%
MATHEMATICS	-106	510	404	7%
LANGUAGES	-85	346	261	8%
HUMANITIES	-7	181	174	34%
COMPUTING	-16	159	143	7%
DESIGN & TECHNOLOGY	-7	39	32	1%
BUSINESS STUDIES	-38	-158	-196	-11%
VOCATIONAL	-10	-75	-85	-16%
RELIGIOUS EDUCATION	-30	93	63	5%
PHYSICAL EDUCATION	-34	101	67	3%
TEACHING & LEARNING	-9	8	-1	-1%
PSHE	-12	24	12	10%
DANCE	-3	73	70	10%
SEND	-14	4	-10	-3%
MUSIC	-35	166	131	12%
SOCIAL SCIENCES	-28	-13	-41	-4%
PEFORMING ARTS	-1	17	16	12%
GEOGRAPHY	-24	317	293	14%
HISTORY	-17	87	70	5%
Grand Total	-646	3531	2885	7%

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?

Posted on July 28, 2023 by John Howson

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

Subject	2019/20	2020/21	2021/22
Art & Design	29	33	44
Biology	25	65	30
Business Studies	21	19	29
Chemistry	11	9	16
Classics	3	4	5
Computing	10	17	20
Design & Technology	25	33	42
Drama	11	31	35
English	128	150	145
Geography	19	12	18
History	42	35	24
Mathematics	93	89	125
Modern Foreign Languages	15	24	28
Music	22	27	32
Other	25	41	89
Physical Education	64	97	98
Physics	38	9	22
Religious Education	15	29	17
Primary	614	747	612
Secondary	596	724	819
Total	1,210	1,471	1,431

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?

ITT outcomes: reflections on employment

Posted on July 27, 2023 by John Howson

The DfE has today published the ITT profiles for 2021/2022 Initial teacher training performance profiles, Academic year 2021/22 – Explore education statistics – GOV.UK (explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk) There has bene a change in methodology this year, and only completing postgraduate trainees are now counted. In addition, the data may have been affected by completers with extension from 2020/21 and had been affected by starting their courses during the height of the covid pandemic.

Even with these caveats, there are some interesting issues for policymakers to ponder

Provisional employment rates were 81% for those on a school-led route compared to 69% for those on a Higher Education Institution (HEI) route, with the highest rates seen for those on the High Potential ITT (90%), School Direct Salaried (84%), and Postgraduate Teaching Apprenticeship (83%) routes These three routes have had the three highest employment rates since the Postgraduate Teaching Apprenticeship was introduced in 2018/19, with High Potential ITT having the highest employment rate every year since 2017/18 (joint highest in 2019/20).

Salaried routes seem to do better in terms of immediate employment in teaching. However, does employment in this context only mean employment in a state-funded schools and not a sixth form college, other further education setting or an independent school?

As elsewhere it states that ‘We provisionally estimate that within sixteen months of the end of the 2021/22 academic year, 22,276 postgraduate trainees awarded QTS in 2021/22 will be employed as a teacher in a state-funded school in England, up from 21,889 in 2020/21. This represents 75% of postgraduate trainees awarded QTS, reversing a downward trend from 80% in 2017/18 to 73% in 2020/21,’ it might be sensible to infer that the data on employment only refers to employment in state-funded schools.

It seems logical that those employed in a state-funded school during training would remain there. However, higher education providers also offer many places in subjects such as physics where competition from the private school sector for teachers might well mean that the percentage entering the state-funded school sector would be lower, even if those working in the further education sector are discounted.

The headline statistics don’t break the data down into trainees on primary and secondary sector courses. As a result, it isn’t possible from the headlines to understand why both the percentage awarded QTS dropped to 93% (methodology changes may have been part of the cause) and ‘of these postgraduate trainees with course outcomes, 29,511 were awarded qualified teacher status (QTS), down from 30,101 in 2020/21. This decrease follows year-on-year increases from 2017/18.’

Trainee qualified teacher status and employment outcomes by subject’

Subject	Total Trainees	Awarded QTS	Working in state sector school
Classics	66	97%	56%
Physical Education	1,670	97%	70%
Business Studies	309	90%	73%
Computing	575	86%	73%
Primary	15,098	94%	73%
Drama	473	95%	74%
Other	528	94%	74%
Physics	561	87%	74%
Total	31,747	93%	75%
Art & Design	809	94%	76%
Modern Foreign Languages	1,101	94%	77%
Secondary	16,649	92%	77%
Chemistry	1,088	90%	78%
History	1,531	93%	78%
Mathematics	2,647	92%	78%
Biology	1,059	88%	79%
Religious Education	476	92%	79%
Music	388	93%	81%
English	2,350	92%	82%
Geography	660	94%	82%
Design & Technology	358	94%	83%

Initial teacher training performance profiles, Academic year 2021/22

Perhaps it is not surprising that only just over half of trainees in classics were working in state-funded schools. For physical education and primary, the low percentages may relate more to a lack of opportunity than to a desire not to work in a state-funded school.

More worrying is the ranking of subjects by the percentage awarded QTS

Subject	Total Trainees	Awarded QTS	Working in state sector school
Physics	561	87%	74%
Biology	1,059	88%	79%
Business Studies	309	90%	73%
Chemistry	1,088	90%	78%
Secondary	16,649	92%	77%
Mathematics	2,647	92%	78%
Religious Education	476	92%	79%
English	2,350	92%	82%
Total	31,747	93%	75%
History	1,531	93%	78%
Music	388	93%	81%
Primary	15,098	94%	73%
Other	528	94%	74%
Art & Design	809	94%	76%
Modern Foreign Languages	1,101	94%	77%
Geography	660	94%	82%
Design & Technology	358	94%	83%
Drama	473	95%	74%
Classics	66	97%	56%
Physical Education	1,670	97%	70%

Initial teacher training performance profiles, Academic year 2021/22

Subjects with significant percentages of trainees in higher education have some of the highest completion rate, so higher education per se cannot be faulted for having an overall lower rate of employment than school-based provision.

However, if the government wants to keep trainees in the state-school system, offering salaried courses base din schools seems like a good idea. Wasn’t that what the School Direct salaried route was designed to do? As I pointed out in an earlier blog, the numbers on employment-based routes are now fewer than in the latter years of the last Labour government. Possibly time for a rethink?

Death of the arts

Posted on July 25, 2023 by John Howson

The grim news from the July data on recruitment to ITT postgraduate courses starting this autumn is that most arts subjects are recording offer levels below those of last year. 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)

The 2022 recruitment round was the worst for many years, and while some subjects have recovered from the disastrous offer levels of last year, the arts subjects have continued their downward trend in offers in most cases. This is grim news for schools wanting to recruit for September 2024, as the data in the table below makes clear.

Subjects where offers are below the July 2022 and July 2021 levels

Art

Religious Education

Physical Education

Music

History

Subjects where offers are above the July 2022 abut below July 2021 levels

Languages

Mathematics

Computing

Chemistry

Business Studies

Subjects where offers are above the July 2022 and July 2021 levels

Physics

Geography

English

Design & Technology

Biology

Subjects where offers are below the July 2022 levels

Drama

Classics

‘Other’ subjects

Subjects in italics are those where it seems likely that the 2023 target will not be met even if ‘offers’ are better this year.

Both art and music are subjects where offers are down this year compared with 2022. In the case of art from 910 in July 2021 to just 478 this July. For music, the fall during the same period has been from 410 offers to just 224 offers this July. Drama is down from 364 offers last July to 275 this July. Offers at this level, even if all candidates turn up, will not produce enough trainees to meet the needs of schools next year.

The good news, such as it appears to be, is in subjects such as English, languages (other than classics) and geography. These are subjects where the level of applications has been large enough to allow offer levels to mean that the target should be met for the year.

However, a word of warning. Recruited numbers in four regions, including both London and the South East are below the number recorded in July 2022. Overall ‘recruited’ total is 3,395 down on July 2022, of 3,911. Also, those with ‘conditions pending’ are down by 124 on last year, creating a net loss across these two categories. There must, therefore be some uncertainty about the outcome of the recruitment round in terms of trainee numbers that will turn up in September.

Numbers of applicants in the youngest age categories are still below those for July 2022, whereas applications from candidates in the older age groupings continue to be above the levels seen in 2022.

The number of rejected applications has increased from 31,124 in July 2022 to 52,350 in July 2023. Lat year that represented 31.5% of applications. This July, it represented 40% of applications. Whether or not this increase is related to the origins of the applications is impossible to tell from the data. However, it would not surprise me if many of those rejected were in the ‘rest of the world’ category.

Barring any last-minute change next month, and with many school-based schemes not actively recruiting now, it seems likely that 2024 with be another grim year for schools recruiting teachers, especially, but not exclusively in some of the art subjects that the independent sector values more highly that the government seems to do.

ITT: Mixed news

Posted on June 26, 2023 by John Howson

The data provided by the DfE today on ITT applications and offers for postgraduate courses contained some very mixed messages. I am not sure whether the current pay dispute within the universities sector is affecting the data or whether there are genuine differences between subjects, with larger movements between May and June in offers this year than might normally be expected.

Regardless of any data collection issues, the message is the same as ever: offer levels will not be sufficient to meet targets in the majority of subjects, and the reduction in offers in physical education and history will remove the safety valve over-recruitment to high targets in these subjects have offered schools in previous years. Barring any last-minute change in July or August, it is now safe to say that the recruitment round for schools seeking to fill September vacancies next year in 2024 will be challenging unless there is an influx of returners or a reduction in leavers and better levels of retention. Of course, the whole country won’t be affected in the same way, but schools across the South East and parts of London might expect to face similar challenges to this year. You have been warned.

Religious Education and music are two subjects struggling with offers this year, even more than other subjects. Most other subjects are doing better than last year’s dreadful position, but often the offers are little different to the year before the pandemic. However, physics appears to have recovered from last year’s historic low. Whether that is reflected by the numbers arriving at the start of the course, only time will tell.

The 38,795 applicants by mid-June 2023 compared well with the 32,609 in June 2022 and looks like a healthy increase, but numbers recruited or recruited with conditions pending, a group that will include degree classifications from many universities this year, are down on last June’s number, albeit only slightly. Nearly 2,000 more applicants are awaiting a provider’s decision, and it would be helpful to know whether the majority of those are applicants that have applied to higher education providers?

The total number of young applicants, aged under 25, is similar this year to last, so the increase is in older career switchers rather than new graduates. The number of 30–34 year-olds applying has increased from 3,545 last year to 5,088 this year. As reported previously, the big increase is in candidates for ‘the rest of the world’ – up from 2,657 last June to 7,105 applicants this June. The overall total increase masks little change in the number of applicants from most of the regions of England. However, it is worth noting that 54% of London applicants have received an offer, compared with only 15% of those in the ‘rest of the world’ group. For this reason alone, it is important not to read too much into the headline increase in the number of applicants.

The number of offers made in the primary sector is down by 1,585 on the June 2022 figure, to just 9,182. Whether that will be enough to satisfy demand for teachers depends partly upon whether the secondary sector decides to recruit and retrain primary qualified teachers to fill their vacancies left by the reduction in history and PE teachers exiting training in 2024.

Over the summer, the DfE might like to reflect with the sector how these monthly statistics can be improved to make them more useful. We know nothing about ethnicity and little about regional breakdown of offer by subjects in the secondary sector. Both would be useful additions to the debate about whether the recruitment crisis is continuing or abating.

TeachVac’s index shows depth of teacher recruitment crisis

Posted on June 4, 2023 by John Howson

How bad is the recruitment crisis in teaching? That is the question everyone is asking. This blog has suggested that the situation is dire. But what data do we have to support such a position? An index created by TeachVac eight years ago looks at the number of trainees in the DfE census each year that might be looking for a teaching post. Some trainees, such as Teach First and other salaried trainees can be assumed to be already in the classroom, and so not job hunting for the September after the census date. In addition, some trainees in the census either won’t finish the course or will opt to stay in higher education or indeed find a teaching post overseas or even a job outside of teaching.

The number that is left has been called the ‘free pool’ available for teaching posts across state and private schools and sixth form colleges. How quickly that pool is reduced by the number of vacancies demonstrates the balance between supply and demand in the teacher labour market.

When recruitment into ITT is good, the depletion of the ‘pool’ is slower than when recruitment misses the targets, assuming no change in demand. Add increasing pupil numbers and funding that allows for a constant class size in the face of increasing pupil numbers, and demand for teachers will increase. Decreasing pupil numbers, as in the primary sector at present, will reduce the demand for teachers when funding is so closely driven by pupil numbers.

What does the change in the index look like between the first week in June in 2021 and 2023 that is the first measurement point aft the 31^st May resignation date.

Subject	2021	2022	2023
History	75	54	33
PE	72	47	31
Art	63	34	-22
Maths	42	-13	-74
English	53	-20	-102
All Sciences	48	-40	-113
Music	36	-48	-128
RE	41	-60	-151
Languages	52	-58	-129
Computing	20	-79	-216
Geography	57	-91	-96
Business Studies	-38	-215	-337
D&T	-17	-409	-278

Source: TeachVac

Apart from geography, where recruitment into ITT has improved somewhat, and design and technology where schools seem finally to have accepted that advertising vacancies is a waste of money, in all other subjects there has been a significant worsening of the index. In June 2021, all subjects bar business studies and design and technology were still in positive territory. This week, only PE and history are still positive, and both at less than half their levels of 2021. With reduced targets for 2023 in these two subjects, this time next year they may well also be in negative territory on the index.

The index matters, because it provides a useful indicator for schools that are still recruiting for September or will need to recruit for January 2024. Returning teachers and teachers switching schools will be the main source of supply for these vacancies, along with any teachers that can be attracted from overseas. The need for overseas teachers may explain the enthusiasm for this route within the DfE. Whether the Minister responsible for migration is as keen is another matter that need not concern us here.

Physics looks like a success story

Posted on May 22, 2023 by John Howson

This morning the DfE published the data on applications for postgraduate ITT courses up to the 15^th May 2023. As ever, the key table at this time of year is the number of offers that have been made to candidates. The good news is that the 469 offers in physics represents the highest number in May since 2015/16, albeit the total is only nine above that in May 2021. Still, we must celebrate good news where it is to be found. However, the 469 offers still means that the target for the year will likely be missed by a long way unless there is an influx of new graduates over the next three months wanting to train as a teacher of physics.

Elsewhere, design and technology as a subject is also doing well compared with the dreadful lows of recent years. Mathematics, geography computing, chemistry and modern languages are all subjects that have bounced back from last year’s incredibly low levels, but have yet to recover to pre-pandemic levels of offer for this point in the recruitment cycle.

There is less good news in the arts, with art, religious education, music and history recording their worst offer levels for a decade. Business Studies is also recording a low level of offers. Drama, classics and the catch-all of ‘other’ are also recording lower levels of offer than last year.

Both physical education and history that have provided a buffer of new entrants through over-recruitment in the past seem less likely to do so this year. Indeed, history with only 721 offers – the lowest number of offers in May since before 2013/14 – might end up being classified as a shortage subject for the first time in recorded memory.

Applications for primary courses remain subdued with 33,392 applications compared with 35,401 in May 2022. Overall, candidate numbers were 32,481 this May, compared with 28,977 in May 2022. On the face of it, this is also good news. However, ‘Rest of the world’ applications are up from 2,310 in May 2022 to 5,781 this May and those from the EEA from 411 to 485. The 3,545 extra applications from these two areas outside of the United Kingdom may account for all the 3,500 additional applications this May compared with May 2022. Certainly, there are fewer applications from the London area this year. However, there are more applications across most of the north of England and the Midlands.

Young new graduates are still not being attracted to teaching in the same numbers as previously. Applications from those age 21 or under are still lower than in May 2022, as are applications form those age 22. It is not until the 25-29 age-group that the upturn in applications becomes apparent. The decline in applications for primary courses may be reflected in this trend to fewer young applicants to teaching.

Perhaps related to the geographical distribution of applications is the increase in rejections; up from 22,136 in May 2022 to 33,580 in May 2023. Numbers actually ‘recruited’ have fallen from 1,519 to 1,102 this May. However, perhaps because of the many bank holidays, the number of applications awaiting provider decisions has increased sharply. Next month should provide a clearer picture about the trend in ‘offers’ for September 2023.

Despite the limited good news in some subjects this recruitment round looks as if it will be another one where targets are missed and schools recruiting for September 2024 will again face a challenging labour market unless the STRB report and the rumour of a 6.5% pay award boosts recruitment over the next three months.

Bit late for ITT targets

Posted on April 27, 2023 by John Howson

The DfE has finally published the ITT targets for courses starting this autumn. Postgraduate initial teacher training targets: 2023 to 2024 – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) In addition, they have also supplied details of the Teacher Supply Model that allows the workings behind the calculation of the targets to be discussed. This is a welcome return to open government after a few years of limited information on the thinking behind the numbers.

Two points arise from the announcement. Firstly, it is incredibly late in the recruitment round. For most subjects that fact won’t matter because the targets aren’t going to be met. But what will happen in Classics and physical education where there are currently more offers than places in the target? Will potential trainees have their offers withdrawn? Will providers recruit over target, and will there be any consequences for doing so? Will the DfE look at overall recruitment by a provider rather than on a subject-by-subject basis?

The DfE’s decision may well influence how providers approach the business of making offers in future rounds. Historically, these targets were issued in the autumn so that providers knew their allocations before they had started to make many offers. Such an approach is much more sensible than announcing the target after Easter, more than half-way through the recruitment cycle. In the past, there were also indicative targets for future years. This helped providers manage their workforce planning.

The more alarming feature of these targets is the addition of the under-recruitment from earlier rounds. I have addressed this issue before. Schools do not start each new year sending children home because they couldn’t recruit enough teachers. They botch, by recruiting those teachers that they can, and adjusting the timetable and the underlying curriculum to fit the staff they have recruited. There are as a result not the vacancies there were in the training cycle.

Suppose there was an unexpected economic slowdown because of US bank failures and teaching suddenly recruited to these new targets? Would these additional trainees find jobs in 2024. The answer is we don’t know because the demands on school funding, especially for staff costs are not yet known, but it would seem unlikely. So, if a school has employed a biologist to teach physics and were offered a physics teacher for 2024 would they sack the biology teacher? Or let the physics teacher wait for an opening to arise?

Adding unfilled places to future targets has been tried in the past, and didn’t work. I am surprised to see it being used again this year.

As a result of the increase in targets in many secondary subjects – and it isn’t clear whether these targets include Teach First numbers or not – the April offer numbers represent only a small fraction of the DfE’s target number in many subjects, as the data in the table reveals.

Subject	Offers as a % of target
Business Studies	12
Others	12
Physics	13
Design & Technology	14
Computing	20
Music	20
Modern Languages	24
Religious Education	27
Total	33
Geography	35
Art & Design	36
Chemistry	39
Mathematics	41
English	42
Biology	46
Drama	65
History	80
Physical Education	170
Classics	192

Source: TeachVac www.teachvac.co.uk

History and drama may well meet their targets, but all other subjects probably won’t. Will the DfE add any shortfall on these targets onto those for next year, making the totals even higher and harder to achieve?

Finally, how will these target numbers play out with the newly accredited providers? Are the institutions going to take the extra numbers or might the loss of some providers be a matter for regret?

John Howson

Education and the numbers that affect what happens

Tag Archives: Physics