Recruit now or never

Posted on February 18, 2023 by John Howson

How bad is the current recruitment crisis in teaching likely to become, and what effects might it have on the staffing of schools for September 2023? We already know that the recruitment to postgraduate ITT courses for secondary school subjects, whether located in schools or higher education was dire last September. I discussed some of the reasons this week with a researcher. We didn’t discuss the attractiveness of teaching in terms of pay for graduates, as it is well known where on the public/private sector graduate pay scale teaching is currently located.

For this blog, I want to look at the data from TeachVac on the current supply side. Of course, the supply side is influenced by what happens on the demand side of the equation, and we know the increased pupil numbers will increase demand for teachers by secondary schools this year, even if all other factors stay the same; we can also reckon that a worsening of the pay gap will both take more teachers out of state school classrooms and deter more returners while there are other job opportunities available.

TeachVac www.teachvac.co.uk has for some years used the data obtained from matching vacancies to jobseekers to also construct an index that measures the health of the supply side in relation to new entrants. A worsening index puts the pressure on certain schools to find other sources of supply or to alter their curriculum.

In my previous post, I discussed the extent to which the current level of vacancies has created a ‘false market’ because of the number of re-advertisements. That factor undoubtedly has had an effect on the supply-side index – hence my continued demand for a job reference number.

TeachVac has been collecting data since 2015, and will continue to do so as long as schools continue to sign up to TeachVac’s £10 per week matching service that provides the data for analysis.

So, what might the current position be, half-way through the two weeks of half-terms across England?

Subject	2023 at 17th Feb	Current figure INDEX	Previous worst INDEX	Year
History	NW	764	428	2015
PE	NW	1024	881	2017
Art	NW	295	273	2017
Maths	W	524
English	W	375
All Sciences	W	343
Music	W	35
RE	W	10
Languages	W	106
Computing	W	-71
Geography	W	188
Business Studies	W	-79
D&T	W	-125

NW Not worst recorded W Worst level recorded

Source: TeachVac

The data index is based upon matching the potential ‘open market’ trainee number after discounting those already in classrooms and less likely to be seeking a different teaching post in September against vacancies since 1^st January.

There is little surprising in the index data, except perhaps for the severity of the current index figure in some subjects so early in the recruitment round for September.

How the index moves from here depends upon factors such as: when the government asks the Pay Review Body to Report, and whether the inevitable pay increase will be fully funded or whether schools, often already hard pushed for cash after the energy price increase, will be expected to fund the salary increase from current resourcing. This latter choice would undoubtedly reduce demand for teachers, unless it also drove more teachers out of the classroom into other jobs or retirement. With the present age profile of the profession, the former should be of more concern that the latter.

How challenging is teacher recruitment?

Posted on January 14, 2023 by John Howson

The staffing crisis in the NHS often receives more publicity than the festering crisis in teacher recruitment. This week, TeachVac has supplied data for articles in tes, and by the Press Association. The latter story make many local newspapers, but little impact on the broadcast media that still seems obsessed with the NHS.

Next week, TeachVac will publish its two detailed reviews: one on the labour market for school leaders and the other looking at the labour market for classroom teachers during 2022. Schools signed-up to TeachVac’s £500 recruitment deal for unlimited matches of their jobs can ask for a free copy of both reports. Copies are priced at £100 for each report to non-subscribers. www.teachvac.co.uk

Both reports comment on what is now history. January marks the start of the key recruitment round for September 2023. As part of its data collection, TeachVac, where I am chair, monitors its collected vacancies against the numbers recorded in the DfE’s annual ITT census of trainees. Of course, some of those trainees are already in the classroom on programmes that mean they will be unlikely to be job seeking for September in any large numbers. TeachVac’s index takes these numbers into account when calculating its end of week numbers.

Despite only being at the end of week 2 of 2022, I thought it might be useful to compare 2023 with 2022 at the same point. When looking at the table, it is worth recalling that in many subjects the number of trainees is lower than it was last year, so the supply side is reduced. As a result, it would take a reduction in demand for the index to improve on week 2 of 2022.

Subject	13th January 2023	14th January 2022	Difference
Computing	76%	90%	-14%
RE	80%	93%	-13%
Business Studies	70%	82%	-12%
All Sciences	85%	92%	-7%
Music	84%	91%	-7%
Languages	87%	94%	-7%
Mathematics	87%	93%	-6%
English	87%	93%	-6%
Geography	87%	92%	-5%
Art	93%	97%	-4%
PE	96%	98%	-2%
D&T	73%	75%	-2%
History	97%	98%	-1%

Source TeachVac www.teachvac.co.uk

Sadly, the reduction in trainee numbers hasn’t been offset by any reduction in demand: quite the opposite. All the subjects in the table are indicating a worse position at the end of week 2 in 2023 than at the same point in 2022; even history.

Design and technology’s apparently favourable position is due more to how badly it was faring in 2022 than to any real improvement, as it still has the second lowest index score in 2023, only business studies – the DfE’s forgotten subject – is in a worse position, and will certainly register an amber warning of recruitment challenges by next Friday.

Indeed, computing and design and technology will both also almost certainly have posted amber warning by the end of week 3! Several other subjects might have amber warning in place by the end of the month.

I am sure that the worsening trend in recruitment is why schools and MATs are signing up to TeachVac’s recruitment offer. At less than £10 per week for all a schools’ vacancies to be matched to TeachVac’s database, with no extra work required by the school than doing what it already does, must be the best deal in town. Schools not signed up with TeachVac will no longer see their vacancies matched each day. The fee for primary schools is just £75.

Middle Leaders: harder to find? Part 2 – geography

Posted on November 6, 2022 by John Howson

In the previous post I considered some of the evidence about the vacancies for promoted posts in geography and whether there were issues that were becoming more challenging. The evidence seems to point to the fact that post-pandemic, and especially in 2022, recruitment has become more of a challenge.

The question discussed in this post s whether the challenge affects schools across England as a whole or is confined to certain regions. Evidence from previous studies of the market as a whole have indicated that schools in an around London fact more significant recruitment challenges that schools located further away from the capital and its large graduate labour market.

The evidence for promoted posts in geography where there the data shows a strong presumption of a re-advertisement is shown in the table.

	Schools with re-advertisements
Regions	Number	All Schools	% with re-adverts
London	49	968	5.1%
South East	29	983	3.0%
East England	20	709	2.8%
West Midlands	9	608	1.5%
Yorkshire & The Humber	6	440	1.4%
East Midlands	5	502	1.0%
North West	4	644	0.6%
North East	1	264	0.4%
South West	2	537	0.4%
Total	125	5655	2.2%

Source TeachVac http://www.teachvac.co.uk

The evidence from the table would seem to confirm the presumption that schools in London and the Home counties do indeed find recruiting teachers of geography for positions related to promoted posts with TLRs or other allowances related to the job title than schools elsewhere in England. This holds true even after taking into account the number of secondary schools in the region covered by TeachVac at the present time. However, overall re-advertisement rates are not high even in London, although they may well be on the increase.

The further away from London a school is located, the less likely it has been to need to re-advertise a post in geography with a TLR or other allowance attached. The difference between schools in London and those in either the North East or South West is stark.

The previous posts discussed the issue of the growth of re-advertisements during 2022, and it would seem that schools in and around London have been most affected by the increase.

The next piece of evidence to consider is whether schools with lower-than-average scores in 2022 on either Attainment 8 or Progress 8 are more likely than schools with better scores to re-advertise a promoted post in geography? As an alternative, the percentage of pupils with Free School Meals might also be considered, but the current cost of living crisis may make that indicator less reliable as a proxy for school performance.

One implication of this study is that the operation of the housing market in relation to public sector salary scales may be important when teachers can move form high-cost areas to this with lower housing costs, but not in the opposite direction.

Cost savings

Posted on September 2, 2022 by John Howson

Does your school have a recruitment strategy related to saving money, while still recruiting teachers in the most cost-effective manner?

Perhaps you just employ a firm to do it all for you?

Staff turnover is inevitable, promotions, retirements and a teacher’s partner’s career move all lead to resignations, not to mention time out for maternity leave and other caring roles taken by teachers. So, the first question is – how many resignations were for other reasons, and could they have been prevented? Of course, you might have made a wrong appointment and be pleased to see the teacher depart, but how hard will they be to replace?

The next question is then: will the recruitment cost of the new teachers exceed the retention cost of keeping the current teacher? The answer might be different as between a teacher or physics and a teacher of history. One is likely to be easy to replace, even for a January appointment, while the other post will aways be both expensive and risky in terms of finding a replacement.

Having identified likely turnover, do you just take out a blanket subscription or look to a plan how to spend the cost of recruitment. There are three main groups of vacancies:

Those vacancies that an advert on the school website and a bit of social media will fill easily.

Those where you might as well employ a specialist recruitment agency on a ‘no appointment no fee’ basis if there is no interest in the job on the school’s website after a couple of days. Schools can be certain that the vacancy will have been noticed and passed onto others. If there isn’t someone in the wings just waiting to teach food technology at your school, then you need help finding a teacher of the subject.

The third group of vacancies are those that fall between these two extremes, where knowing your local and regional market is important in deciding how much to spend on recruitment advertising.

A secondary school with ten vacancies in a year; one straightforward; one really challenging and eight of average challenge might consider that whatever it does it will still have to pay for the search for a teacher for the challenging post, but need not pay for the straightforward to fill post.

The question to ask is ‘how much should our school pay to advertise these average vacancies in the present climate?’ Can there be added benefits such as the management of the process of recruitment as a part of the package? Do you know how many possible candidates any recruiter has for your level of job in your area?

Finally, do you know what the labour market looks like for the period when you will be recruiting? If your recruiter tells you, what is the evidence base that they are using?

If you have read this far, you may know that I am Chair at TeachVac, a job board that from October will charge schools for vacancies based upon how successful the site is in making matches with interested possible applicants. At present there is a £250 offer for unlimited annual matches for secondary schools, and £50 for primary schools regardless of size. There is an alternative pay by match scheme. Check out more at https://www.teachvac.co.uk/misc_public/TeachVac%20Brochure.pdf

How much to advertise a teacher vacancy?

Posted on May 5, 2022 by John Howson

Should a foreign owned company earn around £50 million from recruitment advertising largely paid for by schools located in England? I previously wrote about the published accounts of the tes a couple of years ago Teacher Recruitment: How much should it cost to advertise a vacancy? | John Howson (wordpress.com) This morning, Companies House published the TES GLOBAL Ltd accounts for 2020-21 covering the period up to the end of August 2021. The turnover in the UK of the Group was some £54 million; up from pre-pandemic levels of just under £52 million. Most of the income comes from subscription advertising, where schools pay the company an annual fee. Transactional advertising income continued to form a much smaller part of the company’s turnover.

Now, as regular readers of this blog are aware, I am not unbiased when it comes to the issue of recruitment advertising and the teacher vacancy market, having helped create TeachVac www.teachvac.co.uk well before the DfE started their job board.

There is an interesting question as to why schools are prepared to use TeachVac and the DfE site, but still pay shedloads of cash to the owners of the tes job board? For some it will be just inertia: nobody ever got fired for using the established player in the market. For some it will no doubt be a belief that tes has more teachers looking for vacancies than any other platform. TeachVac requires registration, so we know a lot more about our active job seekers than job boards that don’t require a sign-up. Interestingly, there seems little data in the tes accounts about usage of their platform by teachers. TeachVac regularly publishes data on matches, having passed the one million for 2022 earlier this week.

TeachVac has been dedicated to prove the concept that job boards don’t need to be expensive, and its current pricing model of £1 per match up to a maximum of £1,000 per school per year for secondary schools, and less for primary schools, is much cheaper than a subscription to tes.

Interestingly, tes has admin expenses of around £60 million, not all spent on the recruitment side of the business. However, it is vastly more than the £150,000 TeachVac costs to do a similar job of matching vacancies to job seekers. With the possibility of 75,000 vacancies on TeachVac this year, that’s a cost of little more than £2 per vacancy for TeachVac, compared with perhaps £4-500 per vacancy listed by the tes extrapolating from the information in the published accounts. This despite the company further reducing its headcount from 191 to 160 at the end of the accounting period.

In their accounts, tes’s owners cite software and development costs of £43,000,000. I wonder what that values that places on TeachVac’s software when we come to do our annual accounts later this year?

Overall, TES GLOBAL Ltd has returned to losses in 2020-21, after a profit in the year before, when they sold their teacher supply business. The company still has a large interest burden effectively being serviced by schools.

The question, as ever, is, how long will schools be prepared to pay these prices for recruitment advertising when cheaper options are available?

Urgent Summit on Teacher Supply needed

Posted on April 30, 2022 by John Howson

45,000 teacher vacancies were advertised so far in 2022. There were only 65,000 vacancies advertised during the whole of 2021, so demand in 2022 is much higher than in recent years. The pool of teachers to fill these vacancies has largely been exhausted, and secondary schools seeking teachers of most subjects, apart for PE, history, drama and art, will struggle to find candidates to appoint during the remainder of 2022 regardless of wherever the school is located in England.

The data, correct up to Friday 29^th April was collected by TeachVac, the National Vacancy Service for all teachers. www.teachvac.co.uk The situation in terms of teacher supply at the end of April is worse than in any of the eight years that TeachVac has been collecting data on teacher vacancies.

Schools can recruit teachers from various sources, including those on initial teacher training courses where they are not already committed to a school (Teach First and School Direct Salaried trainees are employed by specific schools); teachers moving schools and the broad group classified as ‘returners’ to teaching. This last group includes that previously economically inactive, usually as a result of a career break to care for young children or elderly relatives, plus those switching from other sectors of education including further education or returning from a period teaching overseas.

In extremis, where schools cannot find any candidates from these routes, a school may employ an ‘unqualified teacher’. This year that may include Ukrainian teachers displaced by the war as well as anyone else willing to take a teaching post. This was the route that I entered teaching in 1971. Generally, such teachers need considerable support in the early stages of their careers.

Normally, the labour market for teachers is a ‘free market’ with vacancies advertised and anyone free to apply. Can such a situation be allowed to continue? The DfE should convene a summit of interested parties to discuss the consequences of the present lack of supply of teachers facing schools across England looking to recruit a teacher in a wide range of subjects.

On the agenda should be, the effect of a lack of supply on the levelling up agenda; the costs of trying to recruit teachers; how best to use the remaining supply of PE, history, art, drama and primary sector trained teachers to make maximum use of scare resources, and how to handle any influx of ‘unqualified’ teachers.

The data for geography teacher vacancies, not normally seen as a shortage subject, reveals the seriousness of the current position for schools still seeking to fill a vacancy for September 2022 or faced with an unexpected vacancy in the autumn for January 2023.

	jobs 2015	jobs 2016	jobs 2017	jobs 2018	jobs 2019	jobs 2020	jobs 2021	jobs 2022
07/01/2022	25	32	20	24	6	6	16	35
14/01/2022	56	79	76	75	47	56	41	92
21/01/2022	56	129	130	135	93	119	73	164
28/01/2022	114	152	165	174	159	186	106	240
04/02/2022	157	188	200	220	208	265	149	324
11/02/2022	182	236	235	270	262	341	206	399
18/02/2022	190	261	272	302	324	436	250	471
25/02/2022	190	291	318	336	356	476	268	541
04/03/2022	254	349	383	370	398	537	321	625
11/03/2022	289	387	438	468	477	629	375	739
18/03/2022	320	423	491	492	527	712	421	834
25/03/2022	367	451	537	533	592	754	487	958
01/04/2022	381	487	593	580	656	794	553	1078
08/04/2022	381	512	638	603	747	837	578	1175
15/04/2022	483	565	662	639	801	870	601	1220
22/04/2022	550	624	695	687	826	902	664	1288
29/04/2022	613	680	767	788	881	966	748	1440
06/05/2022	652	711	825	863	986	1029	814
13/05/2022	715	767	884	936	1063	1088	903
20/05/2022	778	814	932	1007	1137	1153	977
27/05/2022	803	845	987	1068	1208	1190	1043

Source: TeachVac www.teachvac.co.uk

With recruitment into training for courses starting in September 2022, already under pressure the issue of teacher supply is not just one for this year. Unless teaching is made a more attractive career and steps are taken to ensure maximum effective use of the teachers available then some children’s education will be compromised and their future career choices put in jeopardy.

Are you overpaying to advertise your teaching posts?

Posted on November 26, 2021 by John Howson

New service for schools from TeachVac

Does your school pay an annual subscription to post your teaching vacancies, but then have to pay extra for leadership posts?

Does your supplier tell you how many matches there were for each vacancy you advertised?

Do you know the size of the market in your area, as well as the likely annual demand for teachers?

TeachVac can answer your questions

After seven years of successful matching and designing a system specifically for schools in England, TeachVac is now asking schools to pre-register for free for its new enhanced service and in return receive a report on the labour market for teachers. Pre-registration now costs nothing, but allows for faster delivery of matches to pre-registered schools. When live in the New year, here’s how the new system will work.

Register your school now for just £100 plus VAT and receive 200 free matches. That means the first 200 matches made with your vacancies will be free on all leadership, promoted posts and classroom teacher vacancies advertised in 2022.

Matches are then £1 each up to a maximum of £1,000 per school each year. All further matches are free for the rest of that year.

You fee will make our teacher pool even larger than at present. We aim for the largest pool of teachers that are job hunting to match with your vacancies at the lowest price to schools. TeachVac can do this with its own sophisticated technology written with schools in mind.

TeachVac can save you money

No matches: no cost. No subscription to pay after the registration fee of £100 plus VAT and that is covered by your first 200 matches.

Additionally, we tell you information about the likely pool of teachers and how fast it is being depleted as the recruitment round unfolds between January and September.

TeachVac has been matching teachers to jobs for seven years and its low-cost British designed technology has made more than 1.5 million matches in 2021 for schools across the country.

And receive our latest report on the Labour Market for teachers. Schools that don’t register will no longer be matched with our increasing pool of candidates. TeachVac listed 60,000+ vacancies in 2021 and made more than 1.5 million matches. https://teachvac.co.uk/school_doc.php

Demand for teachers

Posted on June 19, 2021 by John Howson

How is demand for teachers shaping up so far in 2021 now that schools are returning to what might be described as the new ‘post-modern’ normal?

An examination of weekly vacancies this year compared with the past three years data conducted by TeachVac www.teachvac.co.uk has concluded that demand remains weak for teachers of:

Physical Education

History

Geography

Art

Mathematics

English

And Science overall, although demand for some specific subjects remains stronger.

Compared with pre-pandemic levels.

Over the past few weeks, demand has been strengthening for teachers of music (after a weak start to the year) and teachers of languages.

Demand remains strong for teachers of:

Religious Education

Business Studies

IT/Computing

Demand for teachers of Design and Technology is at record levels.

Some of the weakness in demand in Mathematics may be attributable to a better level of supply requiring fewer re-advertisements. Conversely, some of the increased demand for Design and Technology teachers may be due to increased levels of re-advertisements as schools struggle to find suitable candidates.

In terms of the location of vacancies, the South East region has witnessed the greatest demand from schools so far in 2021 whereas the North East region is still the part of England where jobs are hardest to find.

Vacancies are now reducing across all categories, as the summer holidays approach. The likely overall number of vacancies for 2021 is going to be somewhere between 55,000 to 60,000 as recorded vacancies by TeachVac. Up on last year, but unlikely to match the record level seen in 2019, when demand outpaced supply in many subjects across the year as a whole.

With reports that the independent sector has recorded a decline in pupil numbers, presumably due to a reduction in overseas students, any recovery in that sector will likely increase demand for teachers in 2022.

Bounce back

Posted on May 16, 2021 by John Howson

Data from TeachVac www.teachvac.co.uk suggests that vacancies for teachers in schools in England are up by 47% between 1^st April and 14^th May this year when compared with the same period in 2020. Of course, that was the period at the height of the first lockdown. The increase for primary sector vacancies is even more dramatic: up by 95% from 2,770 in April and early May last year to 5,413 this year.

In the secondary sector, demand is up, but in subjects such as art, but only around two per cent. In the key curriculum subjects of the English Baccalaureate the increase is in the range of 20-30%, although IT vacancies are up by 34%, and those for languages by 38%. Interestingly, the increase for mathematics is only 17%. This may be down to the need for fewer re-advertisements than in past years as existing teacher stay put and more of those training to be teachers actually opt to enter the classroom.

However, it is not all good news. TeachVac has ‘red’ warning out for business studies and design and technology. This means schools anywhere in England, but especially in the South East and London areas, could experience challenges if trying to recruit teachers in these subjects. The same challenge will apply for physics but, as most science posts are advertised as general science vacancies, it is not possible to quantify exactly the extent of the problem. Teachers may apply for either specific physics posts or those for a ‘science’ teacher.

Although demand in the London area is weaker than in recent years it is still higher than in many parts of England. At present, the South East Region is the region with the greatest demand for teachers. Yorkshire and The Humber Region is the area north of London where vacancy rates are at their highest in the secondary sector.

Part of the reason for the level of demand in the South East is the high number if private schools. Demand for teachers from those schools appears to be holding up well.

On the basis of the evidence from the 34,000 vacancies for teachers identified so far in 2021, the demand for teachers is once again going to become an issue in parts of England by 2023. It will be important to track the level of interest in teaching as a career over the next few months and compare it with the same period last year. If a decline in those likely to be career changers is not matched by increased interest from new graduates, then that will be an early warning sign for policymakers.

The other ‘unknown’ is workings of the international school market for teachers, and its impact on the market in England. Will there be a flood or returning teachers from say China, Hong Kong and the Middle East or will demand hold up and fresh demand take more teachers out of the home market? Only time will tell.

Are schools wasting £30 million pounds of public money?

Posted on May 2, 2021 by John Howson

TES Global, the largest supplier of paid-for teacher recruitment advertising in the field of education has just published their accounts for the year ending 31^st August 2020. Those so far published are for TES Global Limited. Those for TES topco are yet to appear. The published accounts can be found on the Companies House page, by searching under TES Global.

The accounts for the year to 31^st August 2020 included almost six months of the pandemic, so it is not surprising that turnover from continuing operations fell by around £2 million to £59.2 million. Thanks to interest receivable and other income of £25.3 million, the Group made an overall profit of £22.3 million. Without that income there would have been a loss of around £3 million; this despite cutting the wages and salary bill from just under £14 million to around £9.5 million, and slashing headcount from 235 to 191.

The sale of the TES owned Teacher Supply Business in December 2020, for a total consideration of £27 million including upfront cash of £12.5 million, will no doubt further help to strengthen the balance sheet. However, the income from those businesses were, presumably, included in these accounts.

Of interest to me, as Chair of TeachVac, and no doubt civil servants at the DfE running the DfE teacher vacancy site, was how the TES was doing serving the teacher recruitment market, and how much cash was it securing from state-funded schools for recruitment advertising, all of which is now on-line, like both TeachVac and the DfE sites.

As the TES has been pursuing a policy of persuading schools to pay an annual subscription for several years now, rather than point of sale advertising, the TES Group income has been less affected by the downturn in vacancies during the pandemic than it would have been if each advert had been paid for individually. A quick calculation from the published accounts suggests that while overall revenue fell by 4%, advertising revenue continued to benefit from the switch to subscriptions. Such income rose from £37.6 million the previous year to £42.4 million in 2019-2020. Traditional advertising income fell from £17.7 million to £10.9 million during the same period.

The TES has some 1,000 international schools and presumably schools elsewhere in the United Kingdom, as well as non- state-funded schools that contributed to the £42.4 million of revenue. A generous estimate might suggest perhaps £35 million was paid by state-funded schools in England in subscription income in 2019-2020 to the TES.

It is interesting to compare this with the DfE evidence to the STRB earlier this year, where at paragraph 45 they stated that:

With schools spending in the region of £75m on recruitment advertising and not always filling vacancies, there are very significant gains to be made in this area. Over 75% of schools in England 14 are now signed up to use the service and over half a million jobseekers visited Teaching Vacancies in 2020. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/967761/STRB_Written_Evidence_2021.pdf

According to the latest DfE announcement, some 78% of schools have now signed up to the service https://www.publicsectorexecutive.com/articles/councils-encouraged-sign-dfes-free-teaching-vacancies-service?utm_source=Public%20Sector%20Executive&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=12340062_Newsletter%2027%20Apr&dm_i=IJU,7CHNI,AUR327,TT9F6,1

I wonder where the other £30 million of so is going – surely not to the local press or eteach and The Guardian?

Either way, that is still a lot of cash schools are spending because they don’t have enough confidence in either TeachVac or the DfE sites to allow them to take the risk of not signing up to the TES. Or is it just inertia?

If the government is serious about helping schools save this money spent on recruitment advertising for other purposes, and the cash will surely be needed in the post-pandemic world, however speedy the recovery, given the amount of public cash spent in the past twelve months. There must be a campaign to encourage teachers to use the free sites, and for schools to always ask where applicants either received notice of the vacancy or saw the vacancy that they applied for. This will allow schools to evaluate the effect of paid-for advertising and the TES subscription compared with the use of the free sites instead.

Interestingly, TeachVac reached a new high of 6,000,000 hits in twelve months at the end of April. This was despite the fall in vacancies on the site during the past twelve months as schools cut the number of teaching post advertised.

May 2021 should be the first 1,000,000 hit month for TeachVac, with corresponding highs in visitors and vacancies matched as schools return to a more normal recruitment pattern, as explained in a previous post on this blog.

John Howson

Education and the numbers that affect what happens

Tag Archives: recruitment advertising