Tag Archives: recruitment

National Funding Formula

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I have been reminded that my last post didn’t explicitly mention the need for a new funding formula for schools. This has been such a long-running saga, started under the Labour government and not brought to a conclusion during the coalition that I confess it slipped my mind.  My apologies to the F40 Group of local authorities that have long campaigned for better funding for their parts of England.

I suppose one good thing to emerge from the coalition was that both the Pupil Premium and Universal Infant Free School Meals were funded at the same rate across the whole country and not pro-rata to authorities on their other funding levels for education. There are those that might argue that the funding wasn’t enough, but it was the same for all. However, that doesn’t obviate the need for a coherent plan for education funding that can be justified on a rational basis. Any reforms must accept the consequences of the raising of the learning leaving age to eighteen. In rural areas the continuation of the old transport rules that assumed staying in education post sixteen was an option need urgent reform.

During the election campaign I met sixth formers of all abilities in both further education and schools that had faced considerable challenges to be able to continue their education. With subsidies to rural bus services under renewed threat this is an unfair burden on young people living in the countryside. If we tried to take away the free travel enjoyed in London there would no doubt be a great outcry.

There is no doubt that what funding there is will increasingly be taken up by increased pay. In those parts of the country, notably London and the Home Counties, where recruitment is at its most challenging it won’t take long for teachers to recognise that the new pay freedoms mean they can ask for more in their pay packets and leave it up to school leaders and governing bodies to decide how to manage the consequences of saying ‘no’.

One outcome is likely to be larger classes, especially in the secondary sector. However, judging by the downward trend in pupil-teacher ratios seen in recent years the system should be able to handle some worsening in ratios and larger class sizes. But, that makes planning teacher supply just that bit more difficult, as trainee PE teachers are no doubt finding out to their cost this year.

Schools will have to look for ways to cut costs, and recruitment advertising is one obvious source of savings as we have shown with TeachVac. By providing a free service to secondary schools that now covers promoted posts as well as main scale vacancies we have created a platform that could save school many millions of pounds as well as providing them with more information about the state of the labour market. If you haven’t visited www.teachvac.co.uk they pay a visit and register. The site will shortly be extending to cover leadership vacancies directly input by schools and I will announce that development on this blog as I will our future plans for extending into the primary sector.

Has the ship steadied?

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Data released from UCAS this morning shows that total applications for postgraduate teacher preparation courses still lags behind the same point in 2014. By mid-March 2014 there had been over 102,000 applications from more than 33,500 applicants. This year at roughly the same mid-moth point in March applications were around 85,500 and applicant numbers were approaching the 28,000 mark. In terms of applicants, the gap has widened by around a further 200 applicants during the mid-February to mid-March period. With around 34,000 places on offer there are still not enough applicants to fill every place, even if all were suitable.

Higher education seems to be bearing the brunt of the reduction, with applications down from more than 53,000 in 2014 to fewer than 40,000 in March 2015. That said, although applications to SCITTs have risen, but there are more of them this year, applications to School Direct are down in both categories. The reduction is not a localised issue, but appears in all age groups and across all regions of England. This will make the downward trend more of a challenge to reverse in the remaining period of the recruitment round as it is difficult to know where to focus advertising to gain the most effect. We must just hope that the TV advertising campaign makes a difference by next month.

Although at this stage of the year interpreting ‘offers’ under the system that allows multiple offers to be made is more difficult than in the past, it does seem that in the primary sector the total number of ‘offers’ currently in the system is down on the same point last year by  possibly as many as 400 candidates.

The situation in the secondary sector is more challenging to unravel because of the manner in which UCAS present the statistics. However, it seems likely that there may be slightly more ‘offers’ in the system than at this point last year. The anxiety is that they may not be in the traditional ‘shortage’ subjects but in languages, where there seems to have been a large increase in applications, and possibly in physical education. Physics and mathematics have probably reached a level that is sustainable with present bursary and scholarship arrangements if applications continue at the current rate, but the numbers won’t be high enough to meet the level of training places allocated. In many other subjects, demand still remains at levels that are worryingly low and will be insufficient to improve on recruitment totals from last year unless the ratio of acceptances to applicants is altered, especially on School Direct where relatively more applicants weren’t offered places than on other types of course in 2014.

Next month the figures will be affected by the Easter break and, although this is less of an issue in these days of electronic applications, it is still a factor to be taken into account. Thus, the next set of data that can form a realistic comparison between 2014 and 2015 will come in May, after the election. The data will no doubt be an early headache for the new Secretary of State, assuming we have one by then.

London needs teachers

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An analysis of the first 5,600 vacancies recorded in TeachVac www.teachvac.co.uk the free service for schools and teachers that allows schools to place job announcements and those vacancies to be matched with trainees, teachers and returners looking for a classroom teaching post in a secondary school, has thrown up some interesting information.

Firstly, it looks likely that any secondary school looking for a teacher in the autumn term will have to rely either upon returners or using the services of agencies of others prepared to search for applicants. The trainee pool in most subjects is likely to be exhausted by the summer if the current level of advertisements continues, especially if April is the peak month for recruitment advertising, as it has been in past years.

Of course, the rumblings from the ASCL conference about schools budgets may mean that schools have fewer vacancies to advertise than they would wish. But that may be counter-acted by above average wastage from the profession if other surveys from the teacher associations are correct.

Anyway, what is clear from TeachVac is that around half the vacancies in many subjects recorded so far this year are in just three regions of England; London; the South East; the East of England. This is despite the over-representation of Teach First in London compared with the rest of the country even though it now has a role across the country.

The presence of above average numbers of private schools in and around London may account for the higher levels of posts in the separate sciences and in many vacancies for teachers of specific languages in this part of the country. Elsewhere, the tendency is still to advertise ‘science’ vacancies and for ‘language’ teachers. Although numbers are small, London and the South East account for two thirds of recorded vacancies for teachers of classics.

Unless they are just advertising locally, and not using their own web sites, schools in the North West of England have advertised around 25% fewer vacancies than schools in London so far during 2015. It may be that the large number of trainees in that part of the country means that more schools can offer more posts directly to trainees without needing to advertise a vacancy. Before the advent of academies such behaviour might have been regarded askance in some quarters.

Teachers of PE may struggle the most to find a new job for September unless vacancies increase sharply in the remainder of the year, as may teachers of RE looking for a teaching post in the south West.

Next week will see the publication of the March data on applications through the UCAS unified admissions system for teacher preparation courses starting this autumn. These courses will provide the bulk of new entrants to fill secondary classroom teacher vacancies in 2016. Hopefully, the new TV campaign will have boosted applications, although it may be April before any effect can really be noticed. Without more applicants 2016 looks likely to be an even more challenging recruitment round than this year, especially if dropout rates from preparation courses are also on the increase, as has been suggested to me.

News on the pay front

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The latest report from the School Teacher Review Body was published today. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/school-teachers-review-body-25th-report-2015 The report is useful in that it brings all the data about pay and teacher supply issues together in one place. Whether teachers will find it helpful will depend very much on how schools respond to the recommended changes that amount to a 1% uplift on most salary scale minima and maxima, but a 2% uplift on the top of the main scale.

Teachers looking for jobs can now bargain over salary and schools that have signed up to TeachVac are being told our view of the current status of the subject in terms of the market for classroom teachers in secondary schools every time the upload a vacancy. Yesterday, both sciences and mathematics reached the level of vacancies that suggest there have been enough jobs to remove a third of trainees from the market. Today is shaping up to be the largest since day for vacancies in some subjects so far in 2015.

But, to return to the STRB Report. What is clear is that even without taking into account the fact that teachers entering the labour market are one year older than most other new graduate entrants, pay is slipping outside London compared to other graduates. Perhaps next time the STRB will look at what graduate entrants to large firms earn after their first year and compare that salary with the rate paid to teachers after training. However, using the longer lens going back to before the recession, there is still some evidence that those teachers that joined in the early 2000s are only now starting to see their salary advantages whittled away. For me, the message seems to be; this year the 2% may just about see the government through as a pay increase, but next year, if the economy continues to grow and teaching doesn’t respond, the recruitment situation will probably become worse. The message sent out by this report from the STRB will affect the 2016 labour market if it doesn’t help recruit more teachers into training for this coming September, as the 2015 entrants are the new teachers of 2016.

Now that the TV advertising campaign has finally started, it will be interesting to see what effect it has upon recruitment. Personally, I think it is a bit late in the year and I hope that next time it runs during the autumn term when many more undergraduates are thinking about what future career to choose. Still, I suspect it may be better value for money that the banner advertising School Direct I saw outside one secondary school recently. Personally, I would have though the money spend might have had a better reach either using a social media campaign or good old fashioned press advertising. Relying on the motorists that drive by to take their eyes off the road as means of recruitment seems a risky strategy to me in more ways than one.

Job market starts to hot up

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By the end of February the recruitment site TeachVac www.teachvac.co.uk had recorded just over 4,000 vacancies for secondary classroom teachers since the 1st January 2015, including more than 1,500 during February despite the half-term holiday period.

These are vacancies suitable for trainees, returners and those moving schools, but not seeking promotion. As the DfE have a rule of thumb that 50% of these vacancies go to trainees, this means that around 2,000 trainees may have found a job by now. As there were around 13,000 trainees at the time of the ITT census in November that probably leaves just over 10,000 left in the pool after allowing for those that won’t complete the training year.

As I have suggested from last autumn, not all subjects are faring the same. The trainee pool was probably down to below two thirds by the end of February in English, business studies, design and technology, social studies and computer science. Next week, mathematics, history, geography and the sciences as a whole will probably join the list. Business studies may fall below 50% left in the pool and next week, and there have already been more vacancies recorded in the South West than there are trainees in that subject.

With the bumper recruitment months or March, and especially April still to come, I expect some schools to face recruitment challenges in these subjects.

On the other hand, PE, music and art have seen relatively few vacancies so far this year and in PE some trainees may struggle to find a post, especially if they are not especially interested in vacancies across a wide geographical area.

London and the counties around the capital have so far seen the largest percentage of vacancies relative to the number of schools in the regions even though Teach First is active in London. By contrast, the North West has seen comparatively few vacancies posted by schools so far this year.

TeachVac is free for both schools and trainees to use and offers a range of data analysis to anyone interested in the labour market for teachers in England on a real-time basis.

TeachVac will soon be expanded to allow registration by returners and teachers moving between schools as well as adding promoted posts to the vacancies on offer. However, it will remain free to both schools and teachers allowing substantial savings over other recruitment routes. The video demos on the TeachVac site show both schools and teachers how to operate the TeachVac system. All that is necessary for schools is to know the difference between their URN and their DfE number when they register.

In return, schools that register vacancies receive a real-time update on the state of the market in that subject where it is one of the main curriculum subjects tracked by TeachVac.

If you know of a trainee or teacher looking for a teaching post in England, whether in the state or private sectors, or a school wanting to post a vacancy for free, do point them to www.teachvac.co.uk

Divide by three

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The government’s new TV advertising campaign to attract entrants into the teaching profession cannot come soon enough. Data released today by UCAS shows that at the halfway point in the recruitment cycle the grim picture I highlighted when the January data emerged has not improved; in some cases it has even become worse.

Normally, in past years most primary PGCE places have been taken up by now. This year, applicants are holding 7,610 offers compared with 8,540 at the same date in 2014. Now, because of the new, expensive and unhelpful admissions arrangements, candidates may hold a number of offers for a period of time. Thus, real acceptances this year could be less than 3,000, including candidates required to meet conditions such as passing the skills tests. In 2012, there were 18,700 applicants for primary courses at this point in time, whereas if we assume the current 37,000 applicants have all made their possible three applications then there may be fewer than 12,500 applicants for primary courses are in the system. That’s a big drop in four years.

The picture is little better in secondary where many of the subjects that under-recruited last year aren’t doing much better this year. The total of offers are higher than at this point last year in languages; PE; art; and probably in IT and Chemistry. They are basically the same as at this point last year in Physics; mathematics; history; English; business studies; and biology. Most worrying is the fact that current offers are probably below last year in RE; music; geography and probably design and technology. The concerns over the future of the arts in schools are probably not mis-placed and no doubt potential teachers in these subjects are picking up on the messages.

With School Direct closing down applications in many cases during July, there are less than 20 weeks to turn around the current situation. A TV advertising campaign may not be enough: Fees should be either abolished for all trainees or guaranteed by the government. Increasing bursaries that are tax free risks trainees being paid more after tax and NI than the mentors helping train them in the schools. It also risks trainees having to take a pay cut on entry into the profession, especially if the £25,000 bursary is grossed up from the time spent in training to an annual salary.

There is a rumour that the NCTL is handing out more places to providers willing to take them. That is not a sensible move at this stage as it risks destabilising the sector. Providers that cannot fill enough places to make ends meet and cover their costs might just pull out. This is especially true of small primary school providers put in jeopardy by the current drop in applications. The government should look at possible safety net arrangements for providers faced with a shortage of applicants but serving parts of the country where their disappearance would cause real supply problems.

Unless teaching can attract career changers, and so far only 10,000 of the 24,600 applicants are over 25, then there will be few new applicants from now until after final exams finish in May or June. That will be too late to redeem recruitment failures earlier in the cycle.

 

The myth of teacher wastage

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Many years ago Mike Tomlinson gave an interview with The Guardian. It was soon after he became Chief Inspector. In it he referred to a figure of about 40% of new teachers not entering the profession. Like Chris Woodhead’s earlier claim of 15,000 incompetent teachers this figure has entered the mythology of education. Helpfully, in the additional data now published with the 2013 Workforce Census tables the DfE unpick the latest data on what happens to trainees after they qualify to help us understand whether this view is correct.

At this stage it is worth setting the ground rules for understanding the data. Most trainees have to compete for teaching jobs with ‘returners’ and those existing teachers changing schools for whatever reason. There is no logic to the use of teacher resources, so a trainee in their 30s with a house and a partner with a job might not secure a teaching job near where they live, but a footloose graduate in their early 20s might take that job even though they could work anywhere. As training numbers are established some years in advance, although not as far advance as in the past, changes in economic circumstances can radically affect the labour market. The new DfE figures go up to 2011 and concentrate on the early years of the recession when secondary school rolls were also falling.

Overall, the DfE calculate there were 106,000 trainees still under the age of 60 who had never worked as a teacher in circumstances where their employment would have been recorded by the DfE in March 2012. Interestingly, 24,300, or approaching a quarter of the total, emerged from training in the years 2009-2011 after the recession hit in late 2008. Some of these will have started undergraduate degrees way back in 2006 in an entirely different economic climate. The recession matters because the GTCE that still existed then identified a large number of teachers that re-registered with them in 2009. Presumably, some were casualties of the recession and looked to re-enter teaching and were competing with newly qualified teachers for the available jobs. The three years from 2005-2008 only have around 12,000 not recorded as entering teaching, about half the number in the later years. This suggests that it might not have been from a disinterest in teaching that the numbers were higher, but that there were more candidates than jobs.

A second table produced by the DfE confirms that those NQTs that enter teaching are likely to stay. The percentage in regular service after one year has never been below 90% since 1997 and after five years generally around 75% remain in teaching. Even after ten years two thirds of entrants are still teaching. For a profession with so many young women in it, some of whom might be expected to take a career break, this is an impressive percentage. The fact that 55% of those that entered teaching in 1997 were still there 17 years later raises interesting questions about the perception of the profession as a quick in and quick out area of work. But then the DfE made this all clear some years ago in the chapter on teacher wastage in their detailed review of the 2010 workforce Census that can be found at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/a-profile-of-teachers-in-england-from-the-2010-school-workforce-census The charts on pages 77-79 are especially helpful in understanding what happens.

 

IN MEMORIAM

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Death has been a looming presence in education during the past year. From the single death of a teacher in a Leeds classroom to the remembrance of the multitude of deaths in the conflict that started 100 years ago; the Great War; the War to end all wars; the First World War: a conflict with many names and millions of deaths.

All deaths are a tragedy, especially unnecessary deaths from the actions of others. And while we recall these deaths, there have been the others such as those resulting from the Ebola outbreak in West Africa and for many other reasons that have passed into memory for all but the family and friends of those who died.

Among those that influenced my career, I celebrate the life and work of Professor Halsey who died in 2014. Although he was a socialist, and I am a Liberal, his work had a powerful influence on many in my generation of educators. I would hope that his view of equality would have espoused the Pupil Premium as a link to the doctrine of ‘to each according to its need’ even if the ‘from each according to their ability to pay’ still seem some way from achievement. However, the universal free school meals for reception and infant pupils introduced in September recognised that sometimes the policy of a universal benefit is better than attempting to define where to draw a line on resource allocation.

The change of Secretary of State from the ideological Michael Gove to his less determined successor slowed the pace of reform, including some rowing back on the timing of parts of the examination reforms, although not yet a recognition of the role of AS levels in the post-16 world of achievements. A rebuke from the head of the government statistical service just before Christmas suggests a Secretary of State that might not yet have the depth of knowledge to challenge the rightward drift of Conservative thinking. It would be a tragedy of the first order if, in a mis-guided moment, grammar schools were allowed to expand; for where one creates a breech others will surely follow.

However, the big news story of 2014 and sadly for 2015 as well, at least as far as I am concerned, and it has been chronicled on this blog, is the worsening state of teacher supply.  A combination of factors has made teaching less attractive to possible entrants to the profession and schools in some parts of the country are already expressing concern about teacher shortages. These will only become worse during the recruiting season for September 2015 that starts in earnest in the new year. I have established www.teachvac.co.uk to monitor what is happening on a daily basis. The site also allows vacancies to be posted for free and for new teachers to receive notification of jobs as they arise.

The main event of the first half of 2015 will almost certainly be the general election. At present, it looks the most unpredictable election since that of 1974; with more Parties than ever, it may become the defining moment as to whether the two-party state is finally replaced by a mutli-party democracy in Britain. That might be one European import it will be difficult to repudiate. Unless it comes with a change in the voting system, it could produce some interesting times in the future. Perhaps a better educated society no longer accepts the notion of political compromises within Parties, but is prepared to look for them between Parties. 2015 will give us some idea.

More or less, but not enough

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Last week in the House of Commons, the Secretary of State for Education confirmed that ‘some 32,543 trainee teachers started undergraduate or postgraduate initial teacher training in 2014-15—236 fewer than last year’. She went on to add that on the fact that ‘one reason more teachers are attracted to the profession is the recovering economy’. I am not sure whether that was a slip of the tongue or a deliberate juxtaposition of two seemingly different facts?

Either way, the numbers are nowhere near as high as the DfE has predicted will be needed to meet the demands of schools in 2015 for teachers unless there are more returners than expected or, as now seems likely, schools start recruiting overseas. BBC Radio Kent is covering the issue on Tuesday morning in their Breakfast Show, as it seems likely that some schools in the county are already considering looking overseas for teachers.

Any qualified teachers in the USA, Canada, New Zealand and Australia thinking about working in England as a teacher are reminded that they have automatic qualified teacher status and this means they can be paid the same rate as teachers qualified in the UK or EU. In the event that they need a visa to work in England, some agencies are adept at making a case to the Home Office to grant a visa. Teachers and schools should always check the track record of agencies in this respect as well as whether they are members of the Recruitment Employer’s Confederation, a trade body for the industry.

Vacancies in November may well have been higher than in the past few years. We have recorded more than 3,000 main scale posts notified by secondary schools across England.

Schools can register these vacancies for free at www.teachvac.co.uk – the site has a demo video of the simple registration and recording process: trainees and teachers can also use the site to tell us where they want to teach. Overseas teachers can register and use the site to monitor vacancies in areas where they are interested in teaching and there is a demo video for teachers about the site as well. At present, the site is restricted to main scale posts in the secondary sector.

Trainees using the site also have access to a monthly newsletter with information about making the best of applications, interviews, and, in coming months, the current state of the job market.

Based upon current sign up numbers we are starting to create a picture of possible job hotspots in certain subjects and as we expect to be able to offer advice on how the recruitment season will unfold between January and some point in the summer term. With schools already having a good idea of their budgets for 2015/16, recruitment is likely to start early to provide schools with the best opportunity to access the largest number of potential teachers, especially in those subjects where recruitment is likely to be the most challenging: physics, design & technology, English and business studies.

A teacher recruitment crisis in 2015?

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Yesterday this blog reported on the ITT census for 2014. Most of the trainees counted in the figures will be looking for teaching posts starting work in September 2015. The fact that there are around 1,300 fewer secondary trainees this autumn than last year is certainly an alarming statistic. However, many subjects are yet to reach the sort of shortages noted at the end of the last century when a severe  staffing crisis developed.

If we compare this year with recruitment into training in 1998/99, then that year only 52% of places for maths trainees were filled, compared with 88% this year. Similarly, in English, 89% of places were filled in 1998/99, compared with 122% this year, although the actual number of places on offer was probably less this year, so that might have made a difference to the percentages. Certainly, recruiting fewer than 1,700 trainee English teachers this year is unlikely to be enough to satisfy the demand for such teachers across England.

At least two subjects fared worse this year than in 1998/99: Religious Education filled 81% of places in 1998/98 compared with 71% this year and in music it was 81% this year compared with 82% in the earlier year. Changes in subject titles mean that direct comparisons aren’t possible for all subjects over time, but the fact is that schools cannot afford another poor recruitment year for trainees in 2014/15 if a real crisis of the level not seen since the early 2000s is not to re-occur.

Clearly, the bursaries and scholarships are helping keep up recruitment in some subjects, but once again the government taking over paying the fees for all graduate trainees would be a simple and clear message to all that there is no extra student debt burden as a result of training to be a teacher through any postgraduate route. Looking to create apprenticeships in subjects like Physics where studying for a degree requires ‘A’ level grades not achieved by some candidates might open a new route into the profession.

As a support to trainees and schools during the recruitment round I have set up a free service at www.teachvac.co.uk to allow schools to notify vacancies suitable for NQTs and for trainees to identify where they want to teach. Trainees will receive details of vacancies as they arise and schools will be kept informed of the size of the potential applicant pool and how it is reducing. The DfE suggest that 50% of main scale posts are taken by NQTs and the figure may be higher in the key January to June recruitment period. Where the 450 D&T trainees and 373 music trainees want to work may be crucial and by registering with TeachVac we will keep schools informed.

Trainees have the added advantage of a newsletter offering advice on recruitment. The December newsletter, out next week, offers trainees advice about interviews following on from the advice n how to fill in an application form in the November edition.

2015 is going to be a challenging year for schools and I hope to make it bit less stressful for heads and for trainees.