Tag Archives: politics

Prison Education matters

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This weekend the Liberal Democrats will be meeting in Bournemouth for their annual conference. One of the issues I will be raising with parliamentarians is the story in The Guardian newspaper about cuts to education in prisons. Prisons in England and Wales to cut spending on education courses by up to 50% | Prisons and probation | The Guardian The story says that although the cash value of spending on education in prisons remains the same, the amount of education the cash will buy has inevitably been reduced both by inflation, and the additional costs placed on employers providing the education and skills courses are a result of actions such as the employer’s national Insurance increase.

Regardless of the stupidity of cutting education and skills courses in adult prisons, it is totally unacceptable if the amount of education on offer to the under-18s or indeed the under-21s in custody is to be reduced. I shall be drawing the attention of delegates to this story in the hope that the parliamentary party will take up the issue with the government.  

The Ministry of Justice has been battered with massive cuts for the whole of this century, to a point where parts of our criminal and civil justice systems just aren’t working. Local justice has completely disappeared and, as a result, just to provide one example, shoplifting has increased dramatically. If a police unit that has arrested a shoplifter has to drive 20 miles to take the shoplifter to the nearest custody suite, just for the person to opt for trial at Crown Court when they first appear before a magistrate, there is little incentive to respond to the first call of the day, especially if it means the market town has reduced police cover for several hours while the individual is taken to be processed at the nearest custody suite.

There are times when government’s economy drives have unintended consequences, and cuts to the Ministry of Justice have already been too deep. Cutting access to education and skills for prisoners is not a sensible move.

Fortunately, we have fewer under-18s in prison than last time that Labour was in government, but those that are there probably contain a high percentage of young people for whom schooling had been a painful experience both for them and for those that tried to teach them. If they emerge from custody with both skills and the ability to hold down a job, then there is much less chance of their re-offending.

Will university course cuts mean fewer teachers?

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Estimates are doing the rounds on social media about the number of places on courses in universities already lost through cuts and course closures. Do the cuts matter? Of course, it depends upon what you want from the higher education sector?

Personally, being entirely selfish, I want enough graduates to be able to staff our schools in the future. I am hopeful that HEPI, or even the DfE are monitoring both the cuts to courses that have already taken place and any that are proposed for possible implications around recruitment into teacher training and then on into teaching.

I have seen at least one post suggesting that the cuts to courses already introduced are disproportionally in higher education institutions with more teaching than research. Twenty years ago, I conducted a survey for the then TTA about attitudes towards teaching as a career amongst final year students. A large number of students expressing an interest in teaching came from higher education institutions with a higher profile for teaching than research. If that is still the case, then where cuts take place will matter.

Many of the higher education providers where teaching is really important are located in urban areas, and have strong roots in their local communities. This is also important if, as used to be the case, a large number of new graduates went on to train as teachers at the same university, or in the same area, as they studied for their first degree. I wonder whether anyone is monitoring this trend?

Of course, there are schemes, of which Teach First is one example where they have recruited students into teaching from research intensive institutions without a local link to teacher training, such as LSE, Imperial College and Royal Holloway College in the London area.

However, it would be interesting to hear from university careers services about the views of current students about where they are willing to train as a teacher: is locality important or are other factors affecting decision-making, such as the cost of living for students in some areas.

I always thought it was a shame that the Open University quit teacher training. Not only did the OU bring access to a large number of mature students, but by starting it ITT course in January, it both offered a different staring point for those  that decided they wanted to teach after courses starting in September had closed, but also by ending their courses when they did, the OU also provided new entrants to fill those vacancies that occur in January or even at the start of the summer term.

Taking a longer-term view, when the current reduction in the school population works its way into higher education, where and what courses those students’ study will be even more important for the labour market for teachers.

Fortunately, we now have the apprenticeship routes into teaching. Should we be diverting future teachers from experiencing the university rite of passage and replacing it with the world of work? I am sure that there is an interesting debate to be had on that topic.

‘Stuck’ schools – who teaches in these schools?

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The DfE has today updated the ad hoc data about schools eligible for RISE support. Schools in the RISE programme are those with support from the Regional Improvement for Standards and Excellence advisers and teams. According to the data, some 50 schools have been eligible for the programme for 11 years or more.  Schools eligible for RISE intervention – GOV.UK

To become eligible for RISE a school must be a ‘stuck’ school.

A ‘stuck’ school is defined as a state-funded school that was graded Requires Improvement – or equivalent – at its most recent Ofsted inspection and was also graded below Good at its previous Ofsted inspection.

Where inspections have been completed subsequent to the removal of single headline grades in September 2024 (and in the interim before report cards are introduced), for the definition of stuck schools and for the purpose of its intervention policy, DfE treats a sub-judgement of Requires Improvement for leadership and management and/or quality of education for a school inspected in 2024/25 academic year as equivalent to a previous single headline grade of Requires Improvement.

Following the introduction of Ofsted school report cards, the definition of stuck schools will be updated to “schools which receive a ‘needs attention’ grade for leadership and governance, which were graded below good, or equivalent, at their previous Ofsted inspection”. 

At 30 June 2025 there were 639 stuck schools, and 292,000 pupils in those schools.

Of those:

  • 372 are primary schools, 235 are secondary schools, 21 are special schools and 11 are pupil referral units
  • 90 are local authority maintained schools and 549 are academies or free schools (although some of these were not academies at the time of their most recent inspection)
  • Across the spring, summer and autumn RISE cohorts, 396 academies and local authority maintained schools have been identified for targeted RISE intervention. As of 31 July 2025, 377 schools remain in the programme, 349 of which are stuck and 28 of which are academies in a category of concern.
  • Of the remaining stuck schools, some have changed responsible body since their most recent inspection and are therefore not eligible.  Others will be considered for inclusion in later cohorts.

On average, as at 30 June 2025, the 639 stuck schools were graded by Ofsted as below Good or equivalent for 5.6 years.

  • The 372 primary schools that are stuck have been rated below Good or equivalent for an average of 4.7 years.
  • The 235 secondary schools that are stuck have been rated below Good or equivalent for an average of 6.9 years.
  • On average, as 31 July 2025, the 377 schools in receipt of targeted RISE intervention from the RISE advisers and teams, were graded by Ofsted as below Good or equivalent for 5.8 years. Of these, 50 were below Good for more than 11 years.

As might be expected, ‘stuck’ schools as a group exhibit lower outcomes and higher absence and suspension/exclusions than other school of a similar type.

This data concentrates on pupil outcomes. What I think would be more interesting is information about staffing. How often has the headteacher changed during the past decade in a ‘stuck’ school. What is the turnover of teaching staff, and how many are ‘unqualified’ or on programmes to become qualified compared with other local schools?

Until it is possible to match data about staffing to outcomes, we are not likely to learn anything new. I started my career in the 1970s in a school that undoubtedly would now be one of the 50 with eleven years of issues with performance. Staffing was always an issue throughout the seven years I spent at the school. Not surprisingly, when falling rolls became an issue, it was one of the schools to be amalgamated out of existence. I wonder whether that will be the fate of some of these schools over the next few years?

 I am also remined of the book edited by Paul Marshall in 2013, and call ‘The Tail’ that discussed the issue of under-performance in schools across England. In the introduction he wrote that:

‘.. for good teachers to be deployed in the most challenging schools… reforms to the delivery and accountability of child and adolescent mental health services; and perhaps new types of dedicated provision for the tail.’ The Tail page 17.

No doubt RISE was one outcome, and it would also be interesting to know if any of the 50 schools with the longest eligibility have had access to support from the Teach First programme? We know almost everything there is to know about the pupils, but nowhere near enough about the teachers. Time for a rethink on the workings of the labour market for teachers?

What counts as terrorism?

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Last month I wrote a blog post about the reasons why teachers have been barred so far this year from ‘teaching’ and ‘working with young people’ by their regulatory body.

The fact that a large number of protesters were arrested last weekend for supporting a proscribed terrorist organisation, made me think about how might the regulatory body approach any teacher with a criminal record for supporting a proscribed organisation?

Paul Harris, a human rights lawyer, has written an interesting article about the prescription of Palestine Action Why proscription of Palestine Action is a mistake | COUNSEL | The Magazine of the Bar of England and Wales In his view the prescription was too draconian a response.

I asked him about the position of teachers arrested protesting the proscription, and this was our exchange on LinkedIn:

John Howson Paul, Thank you for writing this. I wonder whether the Teaching Regulatory body would disbar someone from teaching for the act of terrorism of holding up a placard?

Paul HarrisAuthor Barrister and senior counsel at Doughty Street Chambers, Cornwall Street Chambers, Erik Shum Chambers, Hong Kong

John
Maybe not for just holding up a placard if they were not charged. But if convicted of an offence of supporting a proscribed terrorist organisation because of holding up the banner then it seems to me the Teaching Regulatory Body would have little choice but to disbar.

I am not sure why a Labour government took the decision it did over Palestine Action. It is interesting to compare it with how the Conservative government behaved when Extinction Rebellion were protesting by both sitting down on motorways and through other types of disruptive protest.

Following on from Paul Harris’s comment, I think that any direct action protest, and the actions of Extinction Rebellion supporters was seen as just that, and punishable under existing laws raises interesting questions. Did the behaviour of the courts in Extinction Rebellion cases set a precedent for state action over protests. There is, I suppose, a question mark over any such precedent when the direct action involves defence assets, such as airplane engines.

However, even if direct action could be seen as terrorism, I don’t think reacting to the government’s decision to prescribe and organisation by supporting the existence of the banned group through holding up a placard makes those that take that action guilty of terrorism.

However, in the light of Paul’s comment, my guess is that any teacher holding up a banner with any reference to Palestine Action might well be risking their career in the present circumstances, even if they are doing so in their own time, and nowhere near their place of work.

Clearly, it is time for the professional associations to engage with the Secretary of State for Education, both in her cabinet role, and in her role as a possible candidate for the post of deputy leader of The Labour Party, to ensure peaceful protest is not classed as terrorism, even in support of a banned organisation.

The idea of a Labour Secretary of State for Education supporting a regulatory body’s decision to bar a teacher for holding up a placard is not one I ever expect to have to consider on this blog.

Virtual Schools have a key role

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Do you know what a Virtual School is? I will assume that regular readers of this blog will know, but for the newcomer or casual readers, it is the local authority service that provides support for the education of both Looked After Children, and those children previously looked after. Recently the role of the service has been extended to include all children with a social worker and, even more recently, children in kinship care.

In many respects the virtual school embodies the very essence of local authority Children’s Services, bringing together support for children in need and their education.  In that respect, it is disappointing that too often the Head of the Virtual School is often only a third-tier officer not reporting directly to the Director of Children’s Services.

The extension of the work of virtual schools to include children with a social worker has been the subject of a recent research report looking at the outcomes of extending the role of the virtual school to encompass all children with a social worker.

Evaluation of the Extension of Virtual School Heads’ Duties to Children with a Social Worker Final Report

The report indicated that attendance, and the consequences of challenging behaviour – suspensions and exclusions – have featured significantly in the work of virtual schools with this new group of young people. Improved attainment, has been less of an outcome. The effects of covid-19 on both attendance and exclusions may well have meant less resources for improving attainment of this group; or that improving attainment may just take longer, and be a consequence of improvements in attendance. Either way, I would have liked to see more discussion about the age at which a child is linked to a social worker, and whether it is easier in the primary sector than the secondary schools to improve attainment?

In many ways, the report makes disappointing reading more than 15 years after the government department at Westminster responsible for education added children’ services to its remit under the last Labour government.

Too often there has been a lack of awareness of the educational needs of these vulnerable young people on the part of schools and social workers, and a real lack of data to allow effective tracking of such young people’s education attainments, partly because of data protection issues.

 I understand that concern, and there is an interesting vignette in the report of child that had a social work for a brief period because of domestic abuse being offered extra maths teaching by their new school because of having been a ‘child in need’ for a brief period. The mother had hoped for a new beginning at a new school. This illustrates the complexity of the challenges in working with these young people and their families.

Many ofsted reviews of Children’s Services highlight challenges with inter-service working, and this report also has concerns. My worry is that in education, the growth of MATs and the downgrading of local authority roles, has made it more challenging for the development of policy around the education for all children with a social worker. The almost total absence of any contribution for elected cabinet members to the review worries my immensely. As with the NHS, local political input is seen as of little effect and not worth considering.

Personally, I think that view is wrong, and a strong local political sense of place in both education and social work with children is vital, as those that have read my demand over the years for Jacob’s Law, and the success of the Clause in the new Bill on in-year admissions will understand.

Serendipity Part 2

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I mentioned in my previous post that yesterday I had been reading a random volume of the TES in a library and had found comments about special needs and the transfer of funding to schools after the 1988 Education Reform Act. I am grateful to the Chief Finance Officer at a leading MAT who straightaway sent me an article about funding of schools in Edmonton, Alberta in 1990. Thanks for the article, and for reading my blog.

In the same volume of the TES, I also discovered, again quite by accident, an article I had written and sent to the TES. I think it was my earliest contribution to the TES, and one I had completely forgotten about.

I have reproduced it here so I once again have it my collection, and also because of the up-coming budget in November that might be one for growth rather than business, and if so,  might the Chancellor risk overlooking any consequences for teachers and other public sector workers in any dash for growth?

Bad business for teaching

Chancellor Lamont’s budget for business is bad news for teachers. Like many public sector workers they will be reflecting that the new share option schemes and the 6p off the basic rate of tax which can now be earned through profit-related pay schemes will benefit their friends in the private sector without offering any incentives to them. However, if these changes help to bring down the level of basic pay settlements in the private sector then they will directly affect the level at which next year’s pay settlement for teachers is fixed; teachers could find themselves losers all round.

As consumers of large amounts of in-service training, teachers might have expected to benefit from the new tax relief on vocational training. But the present proposals only refer to national vocational qualification awards and will be of no use to the many teachers who currently pay for their own studies. This will particularly affect married women seeking to return to teaching who often need to finance further studies before they can regain a teaching post. This clause needs urgent consideration during the passage of the Finance Bill to ensure teachers are not seriously disadvantaged as an occupational group.

Finally, the increase in petrol duty and the associated rise in VAT may well have serious consequences for the already fragile labour market for teachers. Many schools are some distance from public transport, in housing estates or rural villages with only one bus a week. The increase in petrol prices may make it more difficult to attract teachers to work in these schools.

If Kenneth Clarke [then SoS for Education] saw the drift of the budget proposals before last week’s Cabinet meeting then he must accept responsibility for their effect on the teaching profession. Undoubtedly, however, our archaic system of placing the Chancellor on ice for a period before he delivers his budget has probably meant that in their enthusiasm for delivering a ‘budget for business’ the Treasury team has ignored the effect of their changes on those who work in the public sector, and particularly in education.

These days there is much more transparency about possible budget proposals, so fewer rabbits are pulled out of the hat on budget day. However, the bus that ran once a week, probably disappeared many years ago, but petrol duty hasn’t risen in line with inflation, and electric cars now offer an alternative. By the way, how many schools have EV charging points in their car parks, and do MATs offer a salary sacrifice scheme to help with the purchase of an electric vehicle? Is there an electric mini-bus schools can purchase? And I didn’t write the headline.

Special Needs – is nothing new?

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Serendipity is defined as a fortunate finding of something unexpected. The origin of the term is credited to Horace Walpole. Earlier this afternoon, while waiting for some data on ITT statistics from the early 1990s that were being brought up from the reserve stacks of a library, I browsed through a bound volume of the TES for March 1991 that happened to be available.

The TES for the 22nd March 1991 contained a report of the annual conference of educational psychologist, the spring being education conference season even then. The report contained the following report

‘The government confirmed that there has been a widespread increase in the number of children referred for special help to support the claims of educational psychologists who believe that their numbers have increased by 50%. … Anthea Millett HMI for special needs said many local authorities reported an increase in referrals for assessment by educational psychologists.’ (TES 22/3/91 page 3)

One reason suggested was that as schools were becoming liable for their own budgets under local management of schools that had been set out in the 1988 Education Reform Act, schools were more anxious to obtain the statutory help that a statement of special needs brought with it.

Interestingly, in 1990, over 100 MPs had signed an Early Day motion in the House of Commons to the effect that ‘many children in urgent need of help and advice from an educational psychologist are waiting unacceptable lengths of time’.  (TES 22/3/91 P3)

In an editorial in the same edition as the news item referred to above, it was claimed that devolution of funds to schools had exposed the crudeness of existing formula for special needs that had made proper funding for children with special needs a lottery for schools, and that the 1988 Education Reform Act had not paid attention to the needs of children with special needs. The prediction that children with special needs would be a casualty of the Act was now coming true.

All of this seems very reminiscent of the current situation of a growth in demand and concerns over the funding for that growth, as does the analysis in the editorial that devolving funds to schools had allowed schools to identify many children with needs not being met that required extra funding.

As the editorial concluded, ‘The pre-LMS discretionary targeting of resources by LEAs according to putative need was often little more than a system of rationing inadequate funds. Those with the most efficient advocates or most obvious handicaps (sic) got first pickings. The rest got little or nothing – often not even a proper assessment.’ (TES 22/3/91 P21)

Reading this bit of history, reminded me of the present explosion in demand for EHCPs as schools struggled with demand they felt was not funded. This time around, local authorities faced with the 2014 Act opted for running up deficits rather than rationing, except that is by using the NHS favoured outcome of rationing by waiting time for assessments.

One wonders what the government has learnt about special needs funding over the past 35 years, and what the White Paper will do? Will it just tell schools to devote more of their resources to dealing with the issue? Or, will there by more cash – this seems unlikely, but one can but hope.

Think Tank weighs in on SEND

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Policy Exchange, the Think Tank that describes itself as ‘the UK’s leading think tank’, and ‘an independent, non-partisan educational charity whose mission is to develop and promote new policy ideas that will deliver better public services, a stronger society and a more dynamic economy.’ Has published a new report on SEND, with a foreword by a former Conservative Chancellor of the Exchequer.

The report contains a great deal of interesting evidence, much of which will already be know to anyone that has been involved with the emerging crisis in SEND that was already apparent from well before the covid crisis hit in 2020. Policy Exchange – Out of Control

A telling paragraph in the report lays bare the need for action

The SEND system established by the Children and Families Act 2014 and the 2015 SEND Code of Practice is inefficient, ineffective and has failed to deliver improved outcomes for children with SEND. Fundamental flaws have created perverse incentives for actors in the system. The current SEND regime was designed to support a much smaller number of acute cases. It has failed to adapt to changing social definitions of SEND that have widened demand. Instead, the concentration of resources and bespoke support at the top end of the spectrum has prompted an escalation of needs which has overwhelmed the system and undermined its long term sustainability. (Page 66).

The paragraph leaves one wondering why the Conservative government that was responsible for the 2014 Act didn’t take action to deal with the problem when in office?

In December 2018, I wrote a blog SEND on the agenda again | John Howson drawing attention to a report from the Local Government Association. There was already concern in local government circles about what was happening in SEND. It is worth repeating the key points from the LGA report.

Addressing the points raised in paragraph 17 of the Report would go a long way to creating a sustainable and successful system for young people with SEND.

  1. To create a more sustainable funding settlement going forward there may be merit in considering some key questions around how incentives in the system might be better aligned to support inclusion, meet needs within the local community of schools, and corral partners to use the high needs block to support all young people with SEND as a collective endeavour. These might include
  2. setting much clearer national expectations for mainstream schools;
  3. rethinking how high stakes accountability measures reflect the achievements of schools which make good progress with children and young people with SEND or at risk of exclusion;
  4. correcting the perverse funding incentives that mean that it can be cheaper to pass the cost of an EHCP or a permanent exclusion onto the high needs block than making good quality preventative support available in-school;
  5. looking again at the focus and content of EHCPs to afford greater flexibility to schools in how they arrange and deliver the support needed;
  6. providing ring-fenced investment from government designed explicitly to support new and evidence-based approaches to early intervention and prevention at scale;
  7. providing additional capital investment and flexibility about how that can be deployed by local government;
  8. issuing a national call for evidence in what works for educating children and young people with these needs, backed up by sufficient funding to then take successful approaches to scale and a new focus for teacher training and ongoing professional development;
  9. more specific advice for Tribunals, parents and local authorities on how the test on efficient use of resources can be applied fairly when comparing state and non-state special school placements; and
  10. reaffirming the principle around the equitable sharing of costs between health and education where these are driven by the health needs of the child or young person.   

https://www.local.gov.uk/have-we-reached-tipping-point-trends-spending-children-and-young-people-send-england

Failures by the conservative government up to 2024 to provide enough educational psychologists to meet the growing demand, and to not index-link the basic grant to schools helped produced a system where the explosion in demand broke the system.

While any report with an analysis of the problem and suggestions for how to tackle it, ahead of the present government’s White Paper, is welcome, we should not have reached the current position.  

One final point, the report seems light on the issue of training for all staff from TAs to teachers to school leaders. The lack of an appreciation of the needs of those that work in schools has been another feature of the long period of Conservative government.

I look forward to see what the Labour government’s White Paper will suggest when it appears.

Is VAT affecting private school results?

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It might well be a bit of a stretch to believe that the effect of VAT being imposed on private schools in January 2025 is responsible for the decline in the percentage of pupils in such centres awarded Level 7 or above in GCSE level qualifications in some subjects this year, but, interestingly, there has been a decline in the percentages awarded Level 7 or above in some key subjects in such centres.

The subjects include: biology; business studies; chemistry; citizenship; drama; England; English Literature; mathematics; physics and social sciences. Most of the falls are probably not significant, being only a matter of a decimal point or two, and thus within the expected margin of error. Indeed, in most subjects the percentage gaining level 7 of above is still higher than in 2019, before covid struck.

This year, although physics dropped from 60.8% in 2024 to 60.0% in 2025, and mathematics from 33.5% to 32.0% – subject where percentages in the public sector schools generally increased, although they still remain well below the percentages achieved by the private sector centres. In both subjects the private sector percentage was above the 2019 outcome. In mathematics, it might be that 2024 was ‘a good year’, and 2025 is a more normal outcome?

Now, another possible explanation for the drop in percentages, if it isn’t disappearing pupils, might be that the teacher supply crisis is finally impacting private sector schools in some subjects where recruitment is challenging. This might possibly be responsible for the declines in physics and mathematics percentages.

Another possibility is a change in entry policies that allowed marginal candidates to enter, but considering the financial consequences of widening entry at a time when private sector schools might be expected to be looking for cost saving measures, this reason seems unlikely.

Since many private schools are day schools, as a result it would be interesting to know to what extent parents have invested additional funds in private tutoring and Easter revision classes for pupils where there were concerns about outcomes after any ‘mock’ examinations. However, I suspect such investment would be more likely be at ‘A’ level than at GCSE, except perhaps in English and mathematics.

There is a useful table that allows comparison between public and private sector institutions Outcomes by centre type

The outcomes for physics at Level 4 or above are interesting

Grade 4 and above in Physics GCSE %2019202320242025diff 2023 to 2025
All State Funded91.490.290.491.00.80
Independent schools inc CTCs96.896.296.495.9-0.30

The trend in state funded institutions has been upward, despite any possible issues with staffing, whereas the picture is more mixed in the private sector. However, neither percentage take account of who is allowed to take the subject and the prevalence of combined science in many state-funded schools rather than the separate sciences.

Perhaps even more interesting is how different state schools perform with different groups and the extent to which MATs can achieve good results across the Trust.