Mbacc a pipedream without the teachers

Posted on July 30, 2026 by John Howson

In the previous post, I considered trends in teacher supply into state secondary schools for three subjects listed as a part of the Prime Minister’s proposed MBacc. If such a qualification is to be rolled out nationally, then there will either need to be more teachers in schools in certain subjects or more young people will need to be diverted into further education, perhaps at 14 rather than 16. However, even that strategy won’t solve the music and performing arts dilemma regarding the number of teachers’ issue. Abolishing the bursary for music looks even more unfortunate in the light of the MBacc announcement.

How about the wider primary and secondary sectors?

In line with falling pupil numbers, there has been a reduction in trainee numbers in the primary sector. This has resulted in fewer numbers obtaining QTS, and even fewer of those working in the state primary school sector. The 5,882 recorded working in state schools of the 2024/25 cohort should increase as the data is refined, but it is still likely to be only halfthe number of just four years previously, when more than 10,000 new teachers were working in the primary sector at some point in the 16 months after obtaining Qualified Teacher Status (QTS).

Fortunately, those newly qualified teachers not obtaining a teaching post in England, might be able to look overseas for work. With VAT on fees for private school pupils in England, the independent sector is unlikely to offer must of an alternative to the state sector over the next few years; at least until there is some upturn in the birthrate.

I hope that course providers will take note of this data, and not over-recruit to courses in the future, as burdening students with more debt and a restricted chance of securing a teaching post is not really fair on the students.

In the secondary sector, the overall position hides some variations between subjects.

The percentage obtaining QTS among secondary trainees has been falling; from some 95% before covid, to 92-93% in the years since. The overall percentage hides a much greater change in the numbers obtaining QTS, from a Covid high of 19,070 to a low of 12,820 only two years later. Covid may have brought forward the decision to teach that might otherwise have been delayed until a future year.

Fortunately, 2024-2025 saw the number obtaining QTS much closer to pre-Covid levels. With falling rolls, the overall number of trainees, if not the mix within subjects, may be satisfactory for the DfE.

However, post-covid the state school sector lost around five and a half thousand teachers compared with the pre-covid numbers f new teachers entering state schools. To what extend these missing teachers have been replaced by new entrants through the ‘assessment only’ route, isn’t clear from the data.

In the most recent year, 2024-2025, what of the percentages in state schools by secondary subjects?

The low percentage of those qualifying for QTS in Classics instate schools, is perhaps not a surprise given the percentage of state schools that teach the subject. The fact physical education is in second position in the table, with just 59% of those obtaining QTS in state schools should not be a surprise to anyone familiar with the number of trainees recruited and the DfE’s target for the subject.

Only in English and mathematics were there more than 1,000 new teachers working in schools. Given the requirement to teach these subjects to all pupils up to Year 11, and for some in Years 12 & 13, even these numbers may be insufficient. The 234 music, and 133 business studies teachers, and the 321 religious education new entrants, are almost certainly not enough to allow the subjects to thrive in our schools, even before the desire to widen the curriculum to include more MBacc students, and fewer EBacc students.

Alongside the conversation about the curriculum, and the desire of the Prime Minister to make it more relevant for work in the 21^st century, there really needs to be a conversation about how the curriculum changes can be properly staffed, so that all pupils receive a high quality education taught by teachers qualified in their subject, and not just a page ahead of the AI generated lesson plan.

Data from: Initial teacher training performance profiles: 2024 to 2025 – GOV.UK

Numbers granted teaching awards

Posted on August 20, 2025 by John Howson

In a previous post I looked at the prohibition from teaching work of the Teaching Regulation Agency (TRA). However, that is only a part of the work of the Agency. The other main task is to maintain the register of qualified teachers, and to grant admittance to the register. There are two main routes to registration. Obtaining QTS in England via one of the several routes available, including the assessment only route, or to seek registration for a teaching qualification awarded overseas. Various governments at Westminster have approved QTS for teachers from certain countries with acceptable teaching qualifications.

The numbers admitted via the various routes in recent years is shown in the table.

	2021/22	2022/23	2023/24	2024/25
ITT in England	37,077	32,877	26,911	25,621
Assessment only route	1,576	1,511	1,697	1,670
Wales/Scotland and Northern Ireland	1,907	1,790	1,457	1,392
OTT recognised for QTS	1,684	5,750	5,233	912
All routes	42,244	41,928	35,298	29,595

Source: Teaching Regulation Agency Annual Report and Accounts 2024-25

Those granted QTS, especially through the ITT routes in England, may not enter service in schools where QTS is a requirement. They may choose to work in the private school sector or those post-16 establishments where QTS is not a requirement. They may also move abroad. On the other hand, those granted QTS by the assessment only route and by converting teaching qualifications from outside of England are highly likely to be either working or expecting to work in a school where QTS is required for a teacher to be paid on the Qualified Teacher Scale.

Schools have aways been able to employ unqualified teachers, once called instructors, either where no qualified teacher was available or where the law did not require them to employ qualified teachers, as in some academies and free schools. That latter exemption may be changed by the current parliamentary Bill once it becomes law.

The decline in ITT registrations is partly down to reductions in the primary ITT numbers. These have declined to meet the reduced need for teachers due to the decline in the birthrate, but the fall in registrations also highlights the ITT recruitment crisis of the years immediately post the covid pandemic. Hopefully, the number of registrations will increase over the next few years as targets should once again be met in many secondary subjects.

Where did overseas teacher applying for QTS apply from?

Country	2023/24	2024/25	Difference
Australia	494	486	-8
Canada	174	148	-26
Ghana	6912	1916	-4996
Hong Kong	107	490	383
India	1762	779	-983
Ireland ROI	93	88	-5
Jamaica	281	157	-124
New Zealand	195	177	-18
Nigeria	5189	1519	-3670
South Africa	617	229	-388
Ukraine	217	131	-86
USA	706	706	0
sub total	16747	6826	-9921

All applications	18,310	12413	-5897
% list of all applications	91%	55%

The response to both a change in the rules regarding overseas trained teachers, and the evidence of a teacher shortage in England, produced a spike in applications in 2023/24 to register as qualified teachers in England from two West African countries, Ghana and Nigeria. Following the exit from the EU, numbers from most EU countries are now very low, amounting to less than 300 in 2024/25, of which 74 applications were from teachers trained in Spain.

Of the countries with the largest number of applications in 2023/24, 1,197 teachers from Ghana; 723 from Hong Kong; 550 from India; 1,309 from Nigeria and 235 from the USA resulted in an award.

Of course, granting an award did not mean that a visa would also be granted, but without these teachers many schools would have found staffing their schools even more of an issue that it actually was in September 2024.

Less than 400 teachers of physics entered service in 2023/24

Posted on August 4, 2025 by John Howson

As a result of the latest data from the DfE, it is now possible to start to see the consequences arising from the collapse in ITT recruitment to secondary courses in 2023/24.

It is interesting to compare the turnaround from the improvement in recruitment brought about by the covid epidemic with the poor recruitment figures for just three years later.

Year Achieved QTS	Achieved QTS	Did not achieve QTS	% Did not achieve QTS
2017/18	25490	1304	5
2018/19	26402	1348	5
2019/20	27542	1191	4
2020/21	30706	1606	5
2021/22	29715	2241	7
2022/23	22437	1840	8
2023/24	21210	1550	7

Initial teacher training performance profiles, Academic year 2023/24 – Explore education statistics – GOV.UK

The reduction in numbers achieving QTS (Qualified Teacher Status) from 30,706 in 2002/21 to 21,210 in 2023/24, a reduction of some 8,500, or more than a quarter in just three years, goes some way to demonstrate the depth of the problems with recruitment schools faced in September 2024 and even more so in January 2025.

Hopefully, these numbers represent the lowest point for secondary trainee numbers over the next few years, after adjusting for the changes in targets that result from falling rolls in schools.

The data on the percentage achieving QTS might suggest that when it is difficult to recruit trainees, more marginal candidates are offered a place by training providers, and, as a result, the percentage not achieving QTS increases.

Because the DfE only records those with QTS teaching in a State-Funded ‘school’ it does not count those employed in a Sixth Form College or other further education college and, does not count any teachers from the cohort with QTS working in the private school sector. This latter omission might account for why only 49% of those trained to teach Classics were teaching in a State-Funded school.

Subject	Postgraduate
	2023/24
	Number of trainees
	Total	Achieved QTS	Teaching in a State-Funded School (of those achieved QTS)	Teaching in a State-Funded School (of those achieved QTS)
Classics	69	67	33	49%
Physical Education	1,485	1,438	965	67%
Primary	9,378	8,712	6,271	72%
Business Studies	227	201	146	73%
Art & Design	401	382	286	75%
Computing	413	374	282	75%
Total	22,760	21,210	15,921	75%
Modern Foreign Languages	1,024	970	739	76%
Other	327	310	237	76%
Drama	246	227	175	77%
Physics	540	485	373	77%
Secondary	13,382	12,498	9,650	77%
Geography	822	771	601	78%
Chemistry	764	691	544	79%
Mathematics	1,900	1,762	1,385	79%
Biology	885	818	652	80%
Music	237	223	179	80%
Design & Technology	576	540	437	81%
English	2,210	2,062	1,661	81%
History	977	919	744	81%
Religious Education	279	258	212	82%

It is interesting to note that the percentage of those trained to teach physics teaching in a State-Funded school was the same as the overall average, at 77%. However, that meant that there were only 373 new physic teacher entrants into State-Funded secondary schools from this cohort. It would be interesting to know the routes these 373 took before taking up their initial posts? How many of these 373 were from the PG Salaried High Potential ITT route? (Better known as Teach First).

The relatively small percentage of physical education trainees recorded as working in State-Funded schools may well be a result of the numbers recruited into training compared with the target.

Where trainees are required to pay a tuition fee for a course, what responsibility does the government and the course provider have to the trainee to ensure that there are not way too many trainees for the number of vacancies likely to arise? If this means that the student debt is less likely to be recovered, is this a waste of public money?

In a future post I will explore some other aspects of this dataset.

Stick a thumb up in the air?

Posted on December 22, 2022 by John Howson

In a recent post I discussed the extension of QTS (Qualified Teacher Status) by the DfE to teachers from more countries. Of course, academies don’t need to employ people with QTS as ‘teachers’. However, most choose to do so as it can reassure parents and colleagues that those responsibly for teaching and learning and pastoral activities have undertaken approved training.

This week the DfE has published a short paper discussing how many additional teachers might be added to the stock with QTS each financial year as a result of the extension of eligibility for QTS to teachers from more countries. Forecasts of overseas trained teachers awarded qualified teacher status (QTS) – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

There is no established methodology for identifying how many additional teachers might by awarded QTS under the new scheme. The DfE provide three projections: high; central and low for a financial year. These projections are calculated by taking the most recent published data of QTS awards from currently eligible countries, and estimating the number that would be awarded from newly eligible countries. As the DfE does not hold data on the potential demand for QTS from newly eligible countries, DfE officials have derived the estimate using the relative split between ITT trainees that come from eligible and ineligible countries.

According to the DfE paper, in 2018-19, out of 28,949 total postgraduate trainees there were 1,496 final-year trainees taking ITT in England from countries that are currently eligible to apply for QTS through the TRA, and 550 from countries that are ineligible.

This means that for every one ITT trainee from a currently ineligible country, there were approximately 2.7 trainees from eligible countries. The central estimate of these projections is calculated by dividing the current baseline of Teacher Regulation Agency QTS awards by this ratio. Given the 1,684 awarded QTS in 2021-22, the additional number of QTS awards from previously ineligible countries is 619.

The DfE note in the paper that as a result of the uncertainty involved in these projections, these projections also include a high and low estimate. To calculate these different estimates, the eligible to ineligible ratio has been adjusted by increasing or decreasing the ratio by 50%.

For the low estimate, the ratio has been increased by 50%, to approximately 4.1 trainees from eligible countries to every 1 trainee from currently ineligible countries. At this value, 413 additional awards are projected.

For the high estimate, the ratio has been decreased by 50%, to approximately 1.4. At this value, 1,238 additional awards are projected.

At any estimate, these teachers would be a welcome addition to the supply of teachers in England, but there is neither a split between primary and secondary sectors nor any indication of the possible subject mix of such new teachers in the discussion about the potential new teachers. I assume that the Home Office will control the granting of visas in such a manner as to not allow more teachers in subjects where there is already sufficient supply.

However, there may well be teachers eligible for settled status due to familial ties that could result in an influx of new QTS teachers wanting to work in the primary sector in parts of the country where there are no current teacher shortages. However, these teachers will help improve the balance of teachers with QTS from different backgrounds, and that is to be welcomed. The fact that the DfE is prepared to extend the QTS scheme to more countries reveals the current state of play in the labour market for teachers in England at the start of recruitment for September 2023.

Bring Back Circular 1 each year?

Posted on August 25, 2022 by John Howson

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Government action on teacher supply crisis

Posted on June 11, 2022 by John Howson

Yesterday, the government made two important announcements. Firstly, they capped the rate of interest on student loans at 7.3%, instead of the projected rate of more than 12% from September. The latter rate was based upon current rates of inflation. As the government press notice helpfully explains:

‘This is the largest scale reduction of student loan interest rates on record and will mean, for example, a borrower with a student loan balance of £45,000 would reduce their accumulating interest by around £180 per month compared to 12% interest rates. This is on the total value of the loan, as monthly repayments do not change.’ Student loan interest rates capped – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

So, the balance doesn’t change and could still be increasing if a graduate’s earnings are not enough to match repayment rates. However, the move must be regarded as at least a step in the right direction. Regular readers know that I don’t think that graduates should need to take out loans to train to teach in state schools.

The other piece of news way a widening of the welcome to teachers trained anywhere in the world by the DfE, and thus no longer limiting QTS to just EU/EEA and Gove approved countries. England opens doors to world’s best teachers – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) There is a section on the Teach in England pages on the DfE website dedicated to helping teachers from overseas teach in England Teach in England if you trained overseas | Get Into Teaching (education.gov.uk)

The site helpfully reminds teachers about the 4-year rule that doesn’t require QTS

Employing overseas teachers without QTS (the 4-year rule)

Overseas teachers can teach in maintained schools and non-maintained special schools in England without qualified teacher status (QTS) for up to 4 years. This is called the 4-year rule.

It is illegal for overseas teachers to continue working as a teacher in a maintained school or non-maintained special school in England for longer than 4 years without QTS unless there is another legal basis to teach.

The 4-year rule applies to overseas teachers who meet all of the following conditions:

they have qualified as a teacher in a country outside of the UK
they have completed a course of teacher training that is recognised by the competent authority of that country
they are employed in maintained schools and non-maintained special schools, but not a pupil referral unit

Bizarrely, the DfE then reintroduce the term ‘instructor’ that disappeared in favour of ‘unqualified teacher’ more than a decade ago. It would, of course, be insulting to call these teachers ‘unqualified’. Here’s what the DfE says

‘There is no definition of special qualifications and experience. These are matters that the local authority or governing body need to be satisfied with. An overseas teacher can only be employed as an instructor if they have the special qualifications or experience needed for the instructor post.’

Overseas teachers can also work as teaching assistants (without QTS) for any period of time.’

Make of that what you will. However, I take it to mean that the four-year time limit can be disregarded on the basis of experience alone due to the judicious use of the word ‘or’.

Of course, all overseas teachers without ‘leave to remain’ will need to meet the demands of the points-based immigration system introduced by the present government. The scheme may limit the numbers actually recruited.

The government as also been putting flesh on the bones of its iQTS scheme for teachers to train overseas.

How all these measures dovetail into the re-accreditation of teacher education to produce a holistic strategy for staffing state schools across England remains a bit of a mystery to me. But no doubt Ministers have a cunning plan to ensure no pupil is taught by a teacher lacking the appropriate skills and qualifications

To hypothecate or not?

Posted on March 13, 2022 by John Howson

Civil Servants don’t seem to be very good at procurement if you read the latest report from the Education Select Committee at Westminster into the National Tutoring Programme. Disadvantaged pupils facing ‘epidemic’ of educational inequality – Committees – UK Parliament this has not been a success. The Secretary of State recognised this in his speech to the ASCL Conference.

The issue of procurement and value for money is something that I have written about before on this blog. Bulk buying back in vogue | John Howson (wordpress.com) With the present pressure on prices due to the world situation, schools and the whole education sector are going to need to review their spending. If we were to take 100,000 extra children from Ukraine, as announced by the Secretary of State Education Secretary addresses Association of School and College Leaders conference – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

‘And we have a team that’s already making plans for a capacity of 100,000 Ukrainian children that will come in and take their places in our schools.’

This will impact on funding unless the government is prepared to fully fund the extra places. Wil the funding by hypothecated, as will be the £350 per month householder grant for refugees or just added to the normal school funding round?

At least teachers from Ukraine will be able to work in England as the Secretary of State also said in his speech:

“And because teaching is an increasingly global profession, I want to attract the very best teachers from across the world.

That is why we will also introduce a new relocation premium to help with visas and other expenses for teachers and trainees moving here from abroad.

But even this is not enough: I want our country to be known around the world as the place to train and practise teaching, rivalling the likes of Shanghai, Canada and of course Finland.”

I assume that these changes will be introduced in time to help Ukrainian teachers fleeing the war with their families, as well as any Russian citizens unhappy with their government and fleeing a prison sentence for protesting against the war that might be teachers.

As my recent post on the dilemmas of teaching discussed, hypothecating finance isn’t just a national matter. Schools have to decide how to use their budgets between the needs of different pupils. In this respect, the announcements about SEND will be eagerly awaited, as funding for that sector is in woefully short supply.

Finally, local authorities especially in the shires, will be facing rising transport bills for school transport and social services visits along with other cost increases. For the past eight years, I have demonstrated how recruitment advertising can be much cheaper than it has been. Perhaps, it is now time for the DfE to get together with professional associations and other interested parties to work out how real saving can be made without reducing services. The past few years have seen an explosion of talent in education entrepreneurship. BETT would be a good place for the Secretary of State to announce new initiatives to help avoid wasting cash as has happened in the past.

iQTS: DfE delivers plans for 2022 pilot

Posted on November 18, 2021 by John Howson

This week the DfE produced the document outlining the plans for its new international teacher preparation qualification.

The DfE document states that the iQTS is a new, UK government-backed international teaching qualification which will be recognised by the Department for Education (DfE) (via an amendment to regulations) as equivalent to English qualified teacher status (QTS). It will be delivered by accredited English ITT providers to trainees all over the world.

The DfE cites that the aims of iQTS are to be:

provide opportunities for accredited English ITT providers to expand into the growing international teacher training market
make high quality training accessible around the world, allow trainees to benefit from evidence-based ITT and allow schools to develop local talent
increase the global pool of quality teachers and support global mobility within the teaching profession

According to the DfE the iQTS is built on evidence-based English methods and standards of teacher training with contextualisation for the wide variety of settings trainees may be in.

To be eligible providers of the pilot must be:

approved by DfE to offer iQTS
already accredited to deliver ITT leading to QTS in England

Introducing the international qualified teacher status (iQTS) pilot – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

Also according to the DfE, iQTS is suitable for candidates living outside the UK, including:

UK citizens currently working abroad who wish to start teacher training or develop their teaching career
non-UK citizens who wish to begin teacher training or build on existing teaching experience
UK and non-UK teachers without QTS who wish to improve their employability in England and internationally with a UK government-backed and approved professional qualification

iQTS will be recognised as equivalent to QTS by DfE, although at present that outcome is still subject to the will of Parliament, via an amendment to regulations. When approved by Parliament this will mean that iQTS holders will be able to apply to gain QTS in order to teach in England. Those who have successfully completed the iQTS qualification will be eligible to apply for the professional status of QTS through DfE’s system for recognising overseas school teachers for QTS.

Once awarded iQTS by their provider, if a candidate wishes to gain QTS they will apply to the DfE alongside other teachers who are already eligible for QTS on the basis of having an overseas qualification.

If the iQTS holder then wishes to teach in a maintained school or non-maintained special school in England, they will need to complete an induction period in order to work in a relevant school^. They will be able to complete their induction either in a DfE-accredited British School Overseas (BSO) or in a relevant school in England^. During their induction, they will be assessed against English Teachers’ Standards.

Providers who wish to offer iQTS will:

run their own application process,
set course fees
award the qualification at the end of the course provided all of the iQTS Teachers’ Standards have been met.

The pilot year will be used to test, learn from and iterate the framework. The DfE state it is their intention to make iQTS available to all interested accredited ITT providers by September 2023 after the pilot year is complete.

This announcement comes before this afternoon’s House of Lords debate on Initial Teacher Training. The government’s plans for the shake-up of ITT in England have yet to surface and it will be interesting to hear what the Minister has to say in the Upper Chamber this afternoon on either the place of England in the global teacher preparation market or their plans for the home market.

Does the teacher preparation system work?

Posted on July 29, 2021 by John Howson

Fewer than 350 of the 2019/20 cohort of physics trainees were teaching in state schools according to the latest DfE ITT Performance data https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/initial-teacher-training-performance-profiles-2019-to-2020 Apparently of the 533 physics trainees in that cohort only 83% were granted QTS and of that 83% or around 450 trainees only some 73%, or less than three-quarters, or some 350 new teachers were teaching physics in a state school. Such a number means that many secondary schools seeking to appoint a new teacher of physics would have been disappointed.

QTS levels were generally higher in 2020 in subjects where there were many more applicants than places on offer on preparation courses. Thus, 96% of PE trainees were granted QTS. However, so large was the over-supply of such trainees than only 64% found a teaching post in a state school. This disparity reveals the waste of money that training too many teachers can cause. The situation was little better in history, where only 70% of successful trainees were working in state schools.

Some of the successful trainees not shown as working in state schools will be employed in private schools, in the further education sector, including Sixth Form Colleges, or in international schools around the globe. Others will be undertaking further training or staying in higher education to conduct research. Some may qualify to obtain QTS but decide that teaching really isn’t for them.

However, the labour market for teachers in 2020 was affected by Covid and some may have been caught by the drop in recorded vacancies in the spring of 2020, especially in London, and thus been unable to find a teaching post.

Trainees in the Black ethnic group were least likely to obtain QTS, at 86% compared to 92% of the White group. Women were more likely to be awarded QTS than men. Asian teachers awarded QTS were the least likely to be working in a state school. The highest proportion of trainees working in state schools were to be found in London and the Home Counties, despite the drop in demand in this part of the country in 2020.

Training to be a teacher in the North East or North West meant a greater chance of not finding a teaching post in a state school. This is not a new phenomenon, but wastes public money if such teachers are unable to use the skills learnt on their teacher preparation courses. It seems that trainees from higher education establishments were least likely to be teaching in state schools. This could mean either that they failed to secure a teaching post or that that greater numbers from that route were working in the private sector in the international schools.

It is, perhaps, not surprising that teachers trained in school-based settings are more likely to find a teaching post, sometimes in the same school. Indeed, it is somewhat surprising that only 89% of those on apprenticeships and 87% of School Direct salaried trainees were measured as working in state schools. However, the percentage was substantially higher than for higher education where the bulk of trainees in subjects with the lowest rates of employment in state schools are located, and where trainees have no prior loyalty to a particular school or indeed to state schools compared to independent schools.

The present system is not effective at placing trainees where needed using the least amount of public funds.

QTS for life?

Posted on July 7, 2021 by John Howson

Re-reading my submission to the Carter Review https://johnohowson.wordpress.com/2014/06/23/a-submission-to-the-carter-review/ from way back in 2014, made me think that the recent Market Review of ITT discussed in the previous two posts on this blog missed another important point. Because it was focused on the delivery mechanism and content of ITT and not the candidates undergoing the training in deciding how to create world class teachers it missed discussing some important issues, such as should QTS last for life and can a world-class profession continue with a QTS award that allows any teacher to teach anything to any pupil with no check. What is the point of a subject knowledge requirement if at the end of a course a PE teacher can be employed to teach science on the basis that they have a sports science degree?

Changing the rules on preparation courses without looking at the ‘downstream’ consequences is a bit like closing the stable door before you have even put the horse inside. What’s the appropriate preparation to teach humanities if it contains elements of history; geography and even religious education? Do you need post ‘A’ level qualifications in each subject area to be able to teach it? As far as I can tell, the Market Review is silent on this type of discussion. Then there are the subjects taught at Key Stages 4 & 5 that are barely recognised in the Teacher Supply Model but where schools actively recruit each year. These subjects include, economics, psychology, sociology and law. Most of these subjects have more posts advertised each year by schools than does Latin, a subject recognised by the DfE in the Teacher Supply Model.

As already alluded to, the issue of moving from training to employment is a discussion that merits more attention that was paid to it in the Review. It is appropriate to assume that the best quality trainees are the first to secure teaching posts: a sensible assumption if the market works properly. Such an outcome would leave the weakest students sometimes without a teaching post for September, but available to fill the vacancies that arise for the following January, often due to maternity leave arrangements. How should the system deal with these teachers-in-waiting? Ignore them as at present? Hope that they will pick up supply work? Ensure every teacher passing the training component is offered a teaching post for September of at least one year in duration?

A Review that talks about world class teachers and deals with initial training and professional development, but ignores the realities of life, won’t easily achieve its aims for the system as a whole. The issue of the length of time a teacher could spend working as a supply teachers was tackled some time ago, but the issue of a gap between completing training and starting teaching in the subject and phase of your training has not really been addressed. I think such an omission is a mistake.

I am sure that the All Party Parliamentary Group on the Teaching Profession and its associated Special Interest Group or SIG will be taking a look at the Review before the summer.

John Howson

Education and the numbers that affect what happens

Tag Archives: QTS