Tag Archives: recruitment

Should middle leaders be qualified for the role?

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‘Teachers at schools with an Ofsted rating ‘requires improvement’ were significantly more likely to be greatly concerned about disengagement from learning (29%, compared with 14% of teachers at schools with an Ofsted rating ‘outstanding’)’ School and College Panel: December 2021 wave (publishing.service.gov.uk) Page 55.

This finding from the DfE’s Wave Study from December 2021 will surely surprise nobody. However, it has serious implications for such schools especially as the study also highlights the fact that teachers in schools ‘with the highest proportions of pupils eligible for FSM, 35% (of teachers were) greatly concerned about an increase in behaviour issues and 26% about disengagement from learning (compared with 20% and 9% respectively among those with the lowest proportions of pupils eligible for FSM).’

Schools reported on their workforce concerns in the same survey. Overall, schools were most concerned about not having sufficient numbers of teaching assistants and cover supervisors (two-thirds, or 67% of schools). They were also concerned about not having sufficient numbers of teaching staff (50%), supply staff (42%), non-teaching staff (37%) and leadership staff (36%). (Page 7)

In terms of issues relating to their workforce the majority of schools were concerned about stress/burnout of current staff (82%) and staff absence due to COVID-19 related illness (72%). Just under two[1]thirds (59%) of schools were concerned about funding, while just under half (46%) were concerned about staff absence due to seasonal/flu illness. Roughly a quarter to a third of schools were also concerned about staff absence due to isolation (35%), recruitment of teachers (26%) and retention of teachers (22%).

December is usually one of the low points for recruitment, so school leaders were clearly already worried about recruitment for 2022 in December 2021, and only to a slightly lessor degree about the retention of staff.

As recent blog posts have shown, concerns about recruitment were valid for many schools, and the lack of trainees joining the teaching workforce this September is a matter of considerable concern nationally in many secondary school subjects.

At present, it is too early in the recruitment cycle for September to tell whether the types of school highlighted at the top of this blog are facing more severe recruitment and retention issues if they have anything other than ‘outstanding’ ratings from Ofsted. The levelling up agenda requires schools to be fully staffed with appropriately trained teachers, especially if the ambition is not only to deal with the consequences of the pandemic but also to reduce the gap in achievement between schools by levelling up is to be met.

No doubt, the issue of staffing and outcomes will be in the minds of those that research the consequences of the levelling up ambition of government.  In my mind, the issue of well prepared and supported middle leaders is a key component in the ambition to improve outcomes.

The survey results on understanding of National Professional Qualifications are concerning in the respect of developing middle leaders.

‘Over half of leaders and teachers (55%) said that they had heard of the new National Professional Qualifications (NPQs). Leaders were much more likely than teachers to have heard of the new NPQs (93% vs. 49%).

Nearly a fifth (18%) of those who had heard of NPQs said that they had applied to undertake one since June 2021, with those working in primary schools (20%) more likely to have applied than those in secondary schools (15%).

Among leaders and teachers that had not applied for an NPQ since June 2021, a quarter (25%) intended to apply in the future, with a third (33%) saying they didn’t know, leaving two-fifths (43%) not intending to apply for an NPQ.’ (Page 9)

It was worrying that 64% of teachers said that they ‘didn’t have enough time to complete a qualification’. (Page 42) If this means that many would-be or even will-be middle leaders enter that role unprepared, then little progress has been made in professional development since the 1970s.

Middle leaders in any organisation are key to the success of the organisation and schools are no exception to this rule.

33,000 in three months

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How are we to interpret the record number of teacher vacancies logged during the first three months of 2022 by TeachVac?

Subject20202022Percentage +/- (The nearest whole %)
Design & Technology1089164351%
Leadership2278335347%
Business701101845%
Computing828119144%
Primary5059714041%
RE61583536%
Music49864830%
Total259393358029%
Geography816104628%
Creative Arts33442327%
History58974827%
PE72790625%
Languages1397173724%
Science3427395615%
Art49355212%
English2427268110%
Mathematics311533287%
Source www.teachvac.co.uk

There is little point comparing 2022 with 2021, as the covid pandemic resulted in very little activity in the teacher job market during the first three months of 2021.

So, how to explain this year’s surge in vacancies, and what might be the consequences?

Is the surge down to schools catching up vacancies not advertised last year; is it – at least in the secondary sector – down to increased pupil numbers; might private schools be recruiting more pupils from overseas and, hence need more teachers; could TeachVac be better are recording or even over-recording vacancies than in the past? I asked the team to check on the last point, and since most of them have been entering vacancies for several years, and we haven’t changed their way of working, it seems unlikely as a reason for the large increase in vacancies.  

On the other side of the equation, could the increase in recorded vacancies be down to more teachers quitting schools in England, either to take up tutoring; to teach overseas or to either reduce their hours or even retire completely? Since we don’t have exit interviews, we will have to wait for the DfE to match teacher identify numbers for those moving within the state system and retiring with a pension and then conjecture what has happened to the remainder of leavers?

As to the consequences, regular readers of this blog will know what will come next because various posts since the ITT Census appeared in December have already been discussing the nature of the recruitment round for September 2022 and January 2023.

The table earlier in this post shows English and mathematics with relatively low increases. Perhaps schools feel that with the change in Ministerial team last autumn the focus on the EBacc subjects might have reduced. If so, might the White Paper provisions see an increase in vacancies in these subjects after Easter?

The increase in leadership vacancies needs further investigation in order to see which sector, and which of the leadership posts; head, deputy or assistant head are most affected by the increase or whether it is a general increase.

Design and technology, business, and to some extent computing are subjects that the government has under-played in its various attempts to increase interest in teaching as a career. Schools still want teachers in these subjects, and the government must help them fill the vacancies.

With many subjects not even meeting the DfE’s indicative target for the need for teachers on teacher preparation routes in 2022, the remainder of the recruitment round may well be a real challenge for many schools.

There is one other possibility, and that is the notion of schools bringing forward recruitment this year, so the peak will have been in March rather than in late April, as has been the normal practice in past years. If so, April will be a lean month for those that put off job hunting until then, unless schools have been unable to fill some of the 33,000 vacancies, and there is a string of re-advertisements this month and next.

TeachVac has a number of different reports to allow schools, local authorities, recruitment agencies and anyone else interested in trends in the labour market in real-time to track the behaviour of the market in anything for real-time to monthly. Email the staff using enquiries@oxteachserv.com for details.

Bad News?

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At the recent NfER webinar on the labour market for teachers some scarry numbers were banded around for this year’s applications for ITT postgraduate courses. On 30th March the DfE released the latest data on applications up to 21st March 2022. Initial teacher training application statistics for courses starting in the 2022 to 2023 academic year – Apply for teacher training – GOV.UK (apply-for-teacher-training.service.gov.uk) For comparison purposes, in 2021, the similar UCAS data was up to the 15th March, so this year’s data contains numbers from an extra week.

Despite the extra week compared with last year, overall candidate numbers at 23,264 are below the 27,170 cited as being domiciled in England in the March 2021 UCAS data. In reality, the DfE’s 23,264 includes around 3,000 domiciled outsides of England, including 514 from Northern Ireland and 2,000 from the EEA plus ‘rest of the world’. So, the domiciled in England number is perhaps no more than 23,500 at best. This would be more than 3,000 below the March 2021 number. Not good news.

Equally disturbing is that the decline in candidates from across the age ranges, with a notable decline in the 25 to 29 age group from 5,900 in 2021 to 4,684 this March. These are often career switchers dissatisfied with their initial career choice after graduation, and choosing teaching as a second career. One of the smaller reductions is in the youngest age group of those age 21 and under, where this year’s number is 4,227 compared with 4,490 in March 2021.

This year, there 6,525 men have applied to become a teacher, compared with 7,620 in March 2021. Female applicants are down from 18,930 to 16,525 for the same comparative period. Last year, by March 2021, 680 men had been ‘placed’ or what is now termed ‘recruited’. This year, 234 have been recruited by March. Fortunately, only 1,515 men has been unsuccessful so far with their applications, along with 2,619 of the 16,525 women.

Applications, as opposed to candidates, are down from 79,790 in March 2021 to 61,755 this year. Higher Education has had 29,566 applications this year compared with 37,050 in March 2021. Not surprisingly, apprenticeship applications are up from 1,680 last year to 2,397 this year. However, the School Direct salaried route only has 3,618 applications compared with 6,460 in 2021. Only 14 have been recruited to this route compared with 40 placed by March 2021. SCITT numbers at 8,458 compared with 9,490 seem more buoyant than the other school-based routes.

Providers across England are reporting lower regional numbers for applications, with London applications down from 16,740 to 14,277 and in the South East from 10,540 to 7,605. Only in the Yorkshire and The Humber Region does the fall seem smaller, at 7,052 compared with 7,980 in March 2021.

These number make for grim reading in a month where TeachVac recorded record numbers of vacancies for teachers posted by schools across England. The aims of the White Paper published earlier this week cannot be met if there are not enough teachers. I still think the NfER prediction for physics that less than 20% of the target number would be reached is alarming, but it is almost certain that the target will be missed for another year, and not only in physics, but also in a range of other subjects.

After 12 years in power at Westminster, a solution to the teacher supply problem must be found by the present government.

Labour Market for Teachers

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Tomorrow the NfER will publish their report on the Labour Market for Teachers. I assume it will say very similar things to the TeachVac Report published in January. A copy of which is available on request

Of more concern at present is not the 2022 labour market – lots of vacancies; not enough applicants in many subjects – but the outlook for 2023.  For more on 2022 see Recruitment 2022: a rough ride to come | John Howson (wordpress.com)

A quick analysis of the DfE’s ‘Get into Teaching’ site reveals that there are still high percentages of courses with the ‘vacancies here’ flag waving. Top of the list is the small number of ‘science’ courses, with 96% of those courses showing vacancies earlier today. Not far behind is Physics, with 93% of the 783 courses showing vacancies.

Interestingly, on 6th March, there were only 777 courses listed. Even though the DfE provides a range of filters, how do you select the best course from 783 varieties? One interesting factor is that a search on Physics ‘QTS only’ courses willing to consider those with a Third-Class degree, such a search brings up 47 courses. Most of the providers of these courses are located in or around the London area or are located in the wider South East region.

When is the government going to provide a strategy that allows all training places in Physics to have a realistic chance of being filled? It isn’t possible to level up, especially in areas with selective schools and many private schools, if there are insufficient teachers in a particular subject or phase. That’s been obvious for many years, but, apart from bursaries, little has been achieved, especially with the failure of the salary scheme option within School Direct.

The good news, well comparatively good news, is that only 42% of the 104 psychology, as opposed to physics, courses currently have vacancies. In PE, two thirds of courses still have vacancies, higher than might be expected for mid-March.

Even 1,412 out of the staggering 1,677 course options for those wanting to train to teach in the primary sector still have vacancies.

Of course, applicants don’t know whether a course has one vacancy or many from the DfE website. These days adding such a feature should be relatively easy to do, even if only in the form of a set of traffic lights: green for lots of space; amber ably quickly; red few spaces left and course might be full by the time your application is received.

I hope the DfE is conducting some evaluation of how the users find the DfE’s site listing courses. Perhaps a map of locations for the course’s teaching base and schools used for practical elements might be another useful addition?

Of course, if the DfE makes any changes to places available all the current evidence might be of little more than historical value. Postgraduate initial teacher training targets: 2022 to 2023 – Official statistics announcement – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) There will apparently be an announcement in April.

TeachVac launches new service for schools

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The DfE Vacancy site for teachers is still a muddled mess. Eight years ago, well before the DfE woke up to the idea that the internet could be used for low cost but effective job matching, I helped create TeachVac http://www.teachvac.co.uk and made it a free service for schools and teachers.

The basic rationale was simple – modern technology can cut the cost of finding a job and schools could save money as a result. After the Public Accounts Committee complained that the DfE didn’t have a grip on the labour market for teachers, the DfE set about creating a job board of their own.

At the start of the pandemic, I offered to share vacancies that the DfE didn’t upload with them to help to create a single free platform for teachers. Go away, I was told.

So, TeachVac still offers a free service, but is now launching its premium service whereby a school can ensure its vacancies are at the top of the list of matches a teacher receives each day. The service also provides a reminder after a few days so that teachers see the job more than once. Schools also receive labour market updates each month. All this for £500 per year for secondary schools and even less for primary schools across both state and private sectors schools.

Contact enquiries@oxteachserv.com for more information or to sign up and receive an early bird discount.

But, back the DfE site. Where, of course, teachers can only search for jobs in state schools. So, the site isn’t useful to those that don’t mind whether they work in state or private schools.

The front page of the DfE site is a real muddle. There are lists of ‘towns/cities and ‘counties’ although Chester West and Chester East aren’t counties, but unitary authorities. Towns within shire counties such as Oxford, Exeter, Chelmsford and many others don’t have a listing on the front page.  London has a single listing, not even split into the different pay area: not helpful if there are lots of vacancies in the Capital’s schools.

Milton Keynes receives a mention, but the rest of Buckinghamshire doesn’t. Still, there is a search buttons for key words and locations. A search on ‘secondary’ and ‘Oxford’ brings up 12 results. Four are non-teaching posts; two are in special schools or PRUs and only six are in secondary schools.

There is an alert function, but if it sends non-teaching posts as well as teaching vacancies it doesn’t do the job for which it is intended, unless the civil servants at the DfE think teachers that cannot find a teaching post will consider non-teaching roles and have the appropriate qualifications for such positions.

TeachVac is breaking records each month with 500,000+ matches so far in 2022, and over one million in this school year to date.

The earlier a school signs up for the premium service, the higher up the daily list of matches it will be placed. Don’t delay: sign up today by emailing enquiries@oxteachserv.com to express interest.

London teachers more likely to receive additional payments

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On 11th February 2018, I wrote a blog post about pay flexibilities for teachers, and the use of allowances. Pay flexibilities for teachers | John Howson (wordpress.com) The DfE’s 2022 evidence to the STRB, referenced in recent posts on this blog, has a table on page 65 that allows an update for the position in November 2020.

According to the DfE’s evidence to the School Teachers Review Body (STRB) in 2018 only 64%, just fewer than two out of three schools, paid any of their staff Teaching & Learning Responsibility allowances (TLRs as they are usually known). I guessed in 2018 that most of the remaining nearly 8,000 or so schools were mostly small primary schools, with only a handful of teachers and a head teacher? In November 2020, the percentage of schools paying a TLR was almost the same as in 2018, at 63.7% of schools. Presumably, it was still the small primary schools where there were no TLRs paid to staff.

Interestingly, the DfE record that 76.7% of schools in 2020, compared with 75.2% of all schools in 2018, make some form of payment to some of their teaching staff. The lowest percentages were for schools in the East midlands and Yorkshire and The Humber Regions.

In 2020, 20.7% of schools were using SEN payments, rising to 27.8% of schools in the South East of England. In the Yorkshire and The Humber Region only 14.2% of schools were making SEN payments: not far short of half the percentage of schools making such payments in the South East of England. This difference seems significant enough to need further investigation.

Even less common than SEN payments, despite all the talk about a recruitment crisis, has been the use of recruitment and retention payments to teachers; only 8.9% of schools across England were recorded as making such a payment in November 2020. However, the percentage does rise to 18.2% schools in the Inner London area – That’s not technically a region and the DfE evidence doesn’t define what it means by Inner London and whether it is pay area or some other definition. By contrast, only 4.7% of schools in the South West makes any payments to a teacher or teachers for recruitment and retention reasons. The DfE doesn’t make clear how many teachers in the schools receive such payments. It is enough for just one to teacher to receive a payment for a school to qualify for inclusion in the table.

The use of additional payments to teachers doesn’t seem to have changed much during the past few years. This despite the challenges schools have faced in recruiting teachers with some specific subject knowledge. The pressure on school budgets may well have accounted for an unwillingness to spend more of the school’s funds on extra allowances, over and above those already in the system.

It will be interesting to see how schools will react to the challenge of the £30,000 starting salary and the need to motivate more experienced staff if differentials are reduced, especially if new teachers retain the right to a lighter timetable.

Middle Leaders need attractive salaries as well as new entrants

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Contained within the DfE document to the STRB that was discussed in the previous post is the annual update on retention and wastage rates for teachers. This year, as part of a much more detailed analyses, there are tables for different subject groups and phases as well as for different parts of England.

As usual, the data are presented as percentages that need to be converted into numbers to make real sense what is really happening. The gross numbers for the profession as whole for entrant and those still in service after a year for the recent past are shown in the table.

New entrants into teachingentered serviceend Year 1loss in Year 1
201223998208783120
201324490213063184
201425927222973630
201526780230313749
201625560217263834
201723754201913563
201823872202913581
201923338198373501
Teachers in service

The number remining can vary by several thousand depending upon the starting number. Thus, 2015, a good year for recruitment into training, resulted in 23,031 new teachers in service at the end of year one. By contrast, in 2019, although nearly 250 fewer teachers departed than from the earlier entry year, the lower starting number resulted in only 19,837 of that cohort of teachers remaining. That’s some 3,000 fewer than from the 2015 cohort of starters.

Wastage doesn’t stop after the first year, and the DfE document considers wastage over time between STEM and non-STEM secondary subjects, although it doesn’t provide data for individual subjects. Taking design and technology as a STEM subject, the DfE’s 2013 ITT census had a total of 410 trainees. Now assuming the 82% STEM subjects after QTS is based for that group based upon the ITT census would leave some 336 teachers still working at end of year one.

Assuming the data is actually those granted QTS, and allowing for a 5% non-completion of the course, this brings the entry number down to 390 and those remaining after a year to 320.

From the 320/336 teachers must eventually come those to be promoted to TLRs, including as heads of department. Now, after five years of service, those with continuous service and excluding those with a broken service record, might be in the range of 220/250 teachers across the subject using the DfE’s percentage remaining in service for STEM subjects.

According to TeachVac’s database, there were 390 recorded vacancies with TLRs in 2020 across design and technology as a subject area, and 470 in 2021. Up to the end of the first week in March 2022, there had already been 228 advertised vacancies with TLRs in design and technology. Now some of the vacancies will have been repeat advertisements, and others re-advertisements. However, even if half were discounted for these reasons, it might still mean 200 or so posts each year. Such a number would be a very large percentage of the cohort of teachers in the subject and adds a further level of concern to the future of the subject.

Middle leadership is of vital importance to the successful operation of our schools, and in concentrating on the starting salary the DfE and STRB must not lose sight of the need for successful teachers willing to spend their careers in our state school system.

Is £30,000 enough?

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Congratulations to the team of civil servants at the DfE. Now that’s a sentence you probably didn’t expect to read on this blog. However, the detailed evidence from the DfE to the STRB issued yesterday 2022 pay award: Government evidence to the STRB (publishing.service.gov.uk) marks one of the most comprehensive analyses of the functioning of the labour market for teachers that has been published in recent years.

Perhaps, I can now retire, since the government has accepted almost everything that I have been pointing out for the past decade, and has also provided the evidence in minute detail that might provide some interesting posts for this blog over the next few weeks.

When a starting salary of £30,000 for teachers was first mooted, it was generous. Now with inflation running at a ten-year high, and the world looking like it might be facing a re-run of the 1972 oil price shock that led to a decade of high inflation and wage erosion, and incidentally did for the plans for much better CPD for teachers in the wake of the James Report, the £30,000 figure may not be as generous as intended. Time will tell.

There are two anxieties behind the good news. The first is whether small primary schools with falling rolls due to a decline in the birth rate will be able to afford the new pay structure? The DfE evidence could have done more to model this scenario, and the possible consequences for different parts of rural England in particular.  Church schools in urban areas may also be affected.

My second anxiety revolves around the extent to which the DfE has taken on board the relationship between training and employment and the global nature of the teaching profession. Of course, a willingness to work overseas might change, but with the growth in international schools being largely outside of Europe, might mid-career teachers witnessing their differential to less experienced colleagues diminish consider whether they could earn more teaching overseas? Perhaps, TeachTapp could ask that question?

Schools can restore differential for mid-career teachers by the judicial use of Recruitment and Retention Allowances, and it is interesting to see how these have been used across England, with areas where the labour market is tight seeing schools more willing to use such awards. Of course, it also depends upon having the cash in the budget to be able to do so.

Schools in parts of South East England outside the London pay structure, but with strong competition from the private school sector, such as in Oxfordshire, may well also be concerned about the likely consequences of this pay settlement.

One sensible move that doesn’t need to STRB involvement, would be to better match training to employment to guarantee sufficient supply to all areas. At present, the supply pattern isn’t anywhere near as effective as it should be, especially with the levelling up agenda.

If you are interested in teacher supply, do please read the DfE evidence as it is well worth the effort.

Not the ITT data for any predictions

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This isn’t the place to discuss a knighthood for a former Secretary of State for Education, except to say I haven’t been more surprised since the time when a Prime Minister knighted his raincoat maker.

I was almost as surprised to find the DfE publishing the February ITT applications data today. Well done for producing the data much faster than UCAS used to achieve. However, it is less helpful not to have a pre-announced timetable for these publications. If there is one, I haven’t seen it.

February marks the mid-point in the annual recruitment cycle, and is the month when it is normally possible to ‘read the runes’ and speculate on the final outcome of the recruitment round, and hence, the labour market for the following year.

At present, 2022 looks a lot like 2020 was at this point, but any predictions made that February turned out to be wide of the mark. I fear that with the war in Ukraine, any predictions this March based on the February data would only be on the basis of a ‘normal’ recruitment round. The remained of 2022 is not going to be anything like normal.

As a result, I am confining myself to saying that the indications to date are less interest from home students and that 10%+ of applications have come from applicants domiciled outside of England. This includes 482 applicants from Northern Ireland and 1,427 for the ‘rest of the world’ category. There have also been 318 applications from people in Wales to train in England.

An interesting piece of analysis made possible by the DfE dataset is the percentage of applicants offered a place, awaiting a decision and unsuccessful with their current application.

The offer category includes those shown as recruited; conditions pending; deferrals and received an offer.

Subject% offers% unsuccessful% awaiting offer
Classics26%49%26%
Music26%49%25%
Business studies15%59%25%
Design and technology26%53%21%
Religious education24%55%21%
Computing18%62%19%
Drama27%51%22%
Physics20%54%26%
Art and design25%52%24%
Geography26%52%22%
Other25%57%18%
Biology21%58%21%
Chemistry20%56%25%
Modern foreign languages20%52%28%
History25%56%18%
English24%58%18%
Mathematics20%58%22%
Physical education24%64%12%
Source: DfE dataset

The table is ranked by the number of applications received, with the subject with the lowest applications at the top and physical education with 4,589 applicants at the bottom of the table. Interestingly, lots of applicants doesn’t always mean a high percentage of offers. Similarly, small numbers of applicants may also mean high percentage of unsuccessful applicants, as in physics (54%) and computing ((62%). Does this mean that quality is not being compromised, perhaps because of concerns over ofsted judgements?  Perhaps, it means more and better applicants might come along later, so it is worth keeping places for them. Unsuccessful applicant percentages will increase as courses fill. Thus, physical education already has the highest percentage of unsuccessful applicants.  

There are still lots of interesting data needed, such as ethnicity of applicants and their outcomes and outcomes by type of course. Perhaps providers could lobby for these changes?

Private schools: important sector of job market for teachers

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Nearly one in five vacancies for teachers of mathematics that were advertised during the first two months of 2022 placed by schools in England came from private schools responsible for educating children of secondary school age. This included both senior and preparatory schools across England. However, the vast majority of posts from private schools were advertised by located by schools in London and the South East of England. There were relatively few vacancies from schools across the north of England.

The data produced by TeachVac, the national vacancy service for teachers, shows that the private sectors share of the job market for teachers so far in 2022 has increased from, around 12% of vacancies in the first two months of 2021, to 14% across the first two months of 2022.

Other subjects, apart from mathematics, where the private sector dominate the job market for teachers include, perhaps not surprisingly, classics, but also some posts for teachers of specific languages, including Russian, where there have been three recorded vacancies so far in 2022.

Schools in the state sector usually advertise for teachers of modern languages rather than for teachers of specific languages. The same balance between advertising for teachers of specific subjects and a generic vacancy is often also seen in vacancies for science teachers. Private schools favour vacancies for teachers of specific subjects, whereas state schools advertise for teachers of science, at least at the classroom teacher grade.

As with the state sector, there has been less demand for teachers of arts and humanities so far in 2022 by private schools. At least in England, this is not a part of the curriculum likely to absorb the over-supply of such teachers being trained at the public expense.

The next three months will cover the period between March and May when the majority of vacancies for teachers will appear. Nationally, across both state and private schools, and the primary and secondary sectors, nearly 20,000 vacancies for teachers have already been advertised in 2022 according to TeachVac’s records. 2022 might well see a total for the year of close to 70,000 unless demand falls away later in the year.

Should some universities decide to withdraw form government funded teacher preparation courses then they may well still be able to maintain initial teacher education by providing recruits for the private school sector. As academies don’t need to employ qualified teachers, any universities outside the government scheme can also provide new recruits for that sector, providing that a funding route can be found for trainees, perhaps based upon a greater use of a salaried scheme funded by schools. It would be interesting to speculate what such a divergence of public and private training might do for the levelling up agenda?