Tag Archives: religious education

ITT applications better: but not good enough

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Despite this week being a holiday period for most people, the DfE has published the data about ITT applications up to 19th December 2022. This is the second monthly set of data about applications for 2023 courses. While December is still too early to be certain about the outcome of the recruitment round, it is now possible to see the strength of the interest in teaching as a graduate career at the start of the recruitment round.

The headline is that as far as offers are concerned most subjects have made more offers that at this time last year, but generally fewer than in December 2020. However, some subjects such as religious education, computing, drama, history and physical education have made fewer offers than in December 2021. For history and physical education, the number of offers is probably not of concern since traditionally both these subjects over-recruit against any DfE number supplied for the Teacher Supply Model. For the other subjects, the lack of offers this early must be of some concern since they failed to reach expected levels last year, and the mountain is now looking even steep to climb during 2023.

The total number of applicants by 22nd December was 12,897 compared with 12,310 on the 20th December 2021. This year the applicants generated 33,688 applications compared with 32,016 at December 2021. It is welcome that both these numbers are up this year, but the increase is not enough to suggest that there will not be concern about meeting targets during 2023.

More worryingly, only 196 applicants have been ‘recruited’, although the number of candidates with ‘conditions pending’ is similar to the number in December 2021. Fortunately, the number of candidates that have received and offer and are yet to respond is up by several hundred on the December 2021 figure.

The total number of applications for secondary courses is up on December 2021, by around 2,000 while the number of applications for primary courses is down by nearly a thousand to 14,500. More disturbingly, the number of unsuccessful applications for secondary courses is up from 8,377 in December 2021 to 9,654 this year. Some of these applicants may still find a place though the Apply 2 route later in the recruitment round.

More than 10% of candidates this year are classified as having applied from ‘the rest of the world’. The increase in this group masks the fall in applicants from London; the South East and the East of England regions. As these three regions are the parts of England struggling most to recruit teachers, the loss of potential candidates for 2023 is a matter of concern although applications to these regions are higher than last year, possibly boosted by the increase in overseas applicants.

Applications from candidates age 22, probably recent graduates or those graduating in 2023 are slightly down, applications from most other age groups are at similar levels to last year.

Higher Education courses remain buoyant, with all other types of courses also recording more applications. Of the 196 applicants so far ‘recruited’, 181 have been recruited by higher education providers to their courses.

Two swallows don’t make a summer, and two months data may not represent the rest of the application round, but, unless there is a significant upturn in applicants to secondary courses during the first eight months of 2023, the outlook for courses in autumn 2023 will not be much better than the dismal numbers recorded in the recent DfE ITT Census for courses that started in autumn of 2022. Such an outcome would imply another challenging labour market for secondary schools in 2024 that is unless school funding for future pay awards was such as to drive down demand for teachers to cover the increased pay awards.

ITT disaster

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Congratulations to the DfE. The ITT Census of trainees published this morning Initial teacher training: trainee number census 2022 to 2023 – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) shows a lower percentages of trainees this year compared with last year in every secondary subject except design and technology. In that subject there was an increase from 23% of target to 25% this year.

These trainee numbers are grim news for secondary schools that will be looking to recruit teachers for September 2023, and January 2024. Retention of existing staff must be high on the agenda for school leaders.

Even if all trainees were to complete their courses, and want to work in state schools, there would only be 444 physics teachers entering the market. Allow for in-course wastage and a proportion working either in private schools or Sixth Form Colleges and there may only be around 300 or so looking to work as physics teachers next September in State Schools.

Even in history and physical education, where over-recruitment to target continued again this year, actual trainee numbers appear to be down on last year, with a combined loss of around 600 potential teachers.

Overall, just 59% of secondary target places have been filled this year, even after taking the over-recruitment into account. Physics, as predicted by Jack Worth at NfER and suggested by this both reached only 17% of target.

Modern Foreign Languages slumped from 71% 0f target last year to just 34% of target this year. Even biology, usual a banker for good recruitment in the sciences only managed 85% of total this year.

What should the DfE do now? The bursary scheme isn’t working, and is inefficient and difficult to market. Perhaps it is time to revert to offering a salary during training to all trainees allowing them to build-up pension credits and making career switching more attractive. Some decisions must be taken, otherwise the levelling up agenda is dead in the water as far as schools are concerned.

More later as the whole dataset is reviewed.

STEM subjects ‘late recruiters’?

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Yesterday’s post about the grim news on recruitment onto teacher preparation courses for 2022/23 didn’t mine all the possible information provided in the DfE data published in the monthly update.

One interesting statistic are how the proportion of applicants for secondary subjects has changed over the course of the year. Last December, I wrote a blog post pointing out that nearly half of early applicants came from just three subjects: English, mathematics and physical education.  Half of secondary ITT applicants in just 3 subjects | John Howson (wordpress.com)

As expected, physical education trended lower as the year progressed, and places on courses filled up. The subject ended the year on 19% of total applications – down 5% on December. English also lost ground, down from 13% in December to 8% by September. However, mathematics seemed to be a ‘late attracting subject’, as by September the subject accounted for 18% of applications, up from 12% in December.

Removing these three subjects from the list and comparing the moves among the remaining subjects shows relatively little difference in many subjects in their position in the ranking.

SubjectTotal DecemberPercentage DecemberTotal SeptemberPercentage September% Difference
Art and design3786%24107%1
Biology5529%345710%1
Business studies2835%16014%1
Chemistry5098%405511%3
Classics621%2611%na
Computing3095%22486%1
Design and technology2434%16385%1
Drama3526%14264%-2
Geography3856%24987%1
History105718%453113%-5
Modern foreign languages5689%388011%2
Music1913%11603%0
Other5649%23216%-3
Physics3075%28308%3
Religious education2314%15414%0
5991100%35857100%
When do different subjects recruit?

As might have been predicted, drama and history lost ground once courses filled up. The sciences were the main winners. This suggests that subjects that may have a higher proportion of men may recruit later in the round – we cannot know for certain as the data on gender isn’t published by subject – but it is a plausible hypothesis to discuss in relation to gender and STEM subjects.

The second hypothesis is that subjects where potential teachers know there may be difficulty in securing a place on a teacher preparation course will recruit earlier in the year. These bellwether subjects, such as history, physical education and also the primary sector can provide early warning on what might be to come in the autumn months.

As a piece of history, it was using this second hypothesis in the early 2000s that prompted me to call a recruitment crisis as early as one November and to be warned off by the then Minister’s Private Office in a phone call I took while a passenger in a car travelling down the M5 in Somerset for creating panic. The following March, the training grant was suddenly announced. Perhaps, I have been at this subject for too long.

Knowing this sort of information about recruitment trends can make the use of expensive TV marketing more precise. Is the present TV campaign a good use of money or would it be better aimed at STEM subjects in the spring?

Grim news on recruitment

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The latest monthly statistics on applications and acceptances for graduate teacher preparation courses starting this autumn were published by the DfE this morning. These numbers mark the end of the first year of the DfE management of the application process for all graduate courses except Teach First.

Regular readers will not be surprised by what follows, as the headline outcome around under-recruitment for the year has been expected for several months, and this blog has commented upon the direction of travel each month in its regular updates.

The total number of applications at 39,288 falls well short of the 43,300 recorded for September 2021 as domiciled in England. More alarming is that the recruited number at 20,170 is just short of 7,000 lower than the 27,100 number of September 2021. The conditions pending number at 3,719 is also below the 2021 number of 5,980, and the remining possible applicants either awaiting a decision or from whom a decision is awaited on an offer are also lower than last year.

Compared with September 2021, there are 111,592 applications in September 2022 against 115,300 last year domiciled in England. Especially worrying has been the reduction in applicants from the youngest age groups of graduates. Those new graduates under age 25 form the bedrock of those recruited into teaching as a career and any serious fall is bad news.

Age Group20212022
21 and under39203833
2238103110
2330002347
2423401698
Total placed1307010988
young graduates not interested in teaching as a career?

These are the groups from where the future leaders of the teaching profession will be drawn. According to the data released today, there are just fewer than 15,000 females placed onto courses this year compared with just over 19,000 last September. For males the numbers are 5,514 this year and 7,550 in September 2021. Unknown or referred not to say increased from 440 in 2021 to 175 with only three not in the ‘prefer not to say category’. Fewer candidates with domiciles in each region have been recruited in 2022 than in 2021. However, more important is the split between primary and secondary sectors.

There are 9,763 applications recruited in the primary sector in September 2022 compared with 12,690 in September 2021. Unsuccessful applications have fallen from 38,800 in 2021 to 35,962 this September. However, the percentage of unsuccessful applications has increased from 72% to 74$. Of course, this may mean applicants being accepted and their other applications being shown as unsuccessful. We will need the ITT Census to determine the exact recruitment into both primary and secondary training.

For secondary courses the situation is more complicated because of the different subjects and the different sizes of their graduate pools. The good news is that both geography and design and technology are likely to recruit more trainees than in 2021. The bad news is that the increase, if confirmed by the ITT Census won’t be enough to meet targets set by the DfE. In other subjects, there will be sufficient history and physical education trainees and a large surge in applications for IT and computing may make the total in that subject ore respectable, if these trainees turn up and stay the course.

Overall, the assessment for the secondary sector is that for 2023 to be anything other than a grim labour market for schools and a great time for teachers, there needs to be more returners and fewer departure overseas. I am not sure that either of those conditions will be in place by the time schools start recruiting in January 2023 for September.

TeachVac www.teachvac.co.uk will be monitoring the job market and is the ideal site to find a teaching post.

With the concerns over the shape of teacher recruitment following the DfE’s actions the next few months will be an interesting time in the labour market for teachers and likely outcomes even as far ahead as 2024. While the primary sector will probably not be too badly affected, the issue of selective schools now looms over the secondary sector to add to the other recruitment concerns.

Who wants to be a teacher?

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In this time when history had gained a new relevance in our lives, I thought I would use the time available to me to look back at teacher recruitment in the 1990s. it would be interesting to look at recruitment in 1952, but the world of education has changed so much since then that the numbers really wouldn’t mean a great deal. In those days most teachers that were trained did so through the Certificate route and most only studies for two years. Graduate teachers were mostly untrained and in selective and independent schools. However, I was lucky to attend a state primary school where the headteachers was a physics graduate. How rare was that. W. W. Ashton an interesting character and a rarity in the primary sector of the 1950s.

The following data is taken from the pay review body Report of February 1996 (5th Report of STRB Table 27) I have selected 1994-95 to put alongside 2021-22, as that year marked the high point in recruitment during the five-year period between 1991-92 and 1995-96.

A couple of caveats. The 1994-95 numbers included recruitment in Wales, and the 2021-22 numbers don’t include Teach First and are based on August offers. The table can be updated once the ITT census appears at the end of 2022 as there will be late acceptances and some offered places earlier in the year might not actually start the course. Even with these caveats, there seems to be a story to tell.

SECONDAY SECTOR SUBJECTS19945-95 Number recruited2021-22 August offers excludes Teach FirstChange 2021-2022 on 1994-1995
MOD LANGS1915770-1145.00
DESIGN/TECHNOLOGY1951806-1145.00
SCIENCES29501922-1028.00
MUSIC586286-300.00
GEOGRAPHY744596-148.00
RELIGIOUS ED511388-123.00
MATHEMATICS18881857-31.00
ENGLISH & DRAMA19941969-25.00
PHYSICAL ED13791535156.00
HISTORY9351127192.00
TOTAL1485311256-3597.00
Source STRB 5th Report Table 27 and author’s analysis of DfE data for 2022

Even taking off a number for the recruitment in Wales and adding in possible Teach First recruitment, the comparison shows the decline in interest in teaching in the secondary sector. The numbers are not matched against perceived need as defined in the DfE’s Teacher Supply Model but are nevertheless useful in showing the changing interest in teaching. Physical Education and history teaching are more attractive than in 1994-95, although there may have been a more rigorous cap on applications at that time than currently, so there may have been interested applicants that could not be offered places. For that analysis, the percentage of offer to total applicants will need to be investigated.

Maths and English are at similar levels with offer this year to recruitment in 1994-95 and with swap between the removal of Wales recruits and the addition of Teach First to the totals may well be ahead this year of the 1994-95 total.

For the other six subjects in the table, the picture is very different with savage reductions across the languages and for the design, technology and IT areas. Even if Art as a subject was added to the design/technology total that would still leave a significant shortfall this year.

The number for the sciences is an interesting case. In 1994-95 recruitment was to ‘science’ courses. Nowadays, there are separate totals for each science. This shift while welcome in some respects has meant the opportunity to over-recruit in some sciences is more difficult than previously where there are likely to be shortfalls in other science subjects. The move was a good idea but the need for flexibility of recruitment as the year progresses may still be important.

In 1994-95, the employment-based routes were still in their infancy, and university-based courses were the main route into secondary school teaching.

The question for the new government still remains as to how to reverse the trend in recruitment in so many subjects and once again make teaching a career of choice?

More bad news on ITT

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Yesterday, The DfE published the ITT applications and acceptances data for the period up to the 20th June thus year. In this post I look at the acceptances for June 2020 compared with those in June 2019, the last year before the pandemic struck. By 2019, there was already concern about the decline in interest in teaching as a career. The pandemic to some extent reversed that trend and provided teaching with a recruitment boost. But, was it a false dawn?

The following table compares the June 2019 UCAS data on ‘offer’ with that from the DfE data issued yesterday.

Subjects2018/192021/22Difference in offers
Biology1430524-906
Science24301531-899
English22901418-872
Geography1010519-491
History11801000-180
Computing410290-120
Religious Education400304-96
Design and technology450355-95
Mathematics15901511-79
Music240228-12
Chemistry600597-3
Physics4004000
Business studies15019747
Art and design41046858
Physical education12901469179
Dramana334na
Classicsna64na
Otherna429na
Sources: UCAS and DfE

On this basis, as I warned in my previous post, 2023 will be another challenging labour market for schools. Only in the same three subjects where there is least concern in 2022: history, art and physical education, is there likely to be anywhere near sufficient supply of new entrants unless there is a sudden rush over the next two months that frankly looks unlikely at this point in time.

The science number is based on an aggregation of totals from the three sciences and doesn’t represent whole new category of potential trainees. The most significant declines in the number of offers since 2019 are English, geography and computing. However, at these levels most subjects won’t reach their Teacher Supply Model number unless there is a significant input from other sources such as Teach First. I am not sure how likely that will be as they don’t publish their data in the same way to the general public whatever they share with the DfE. There are currently more ‘offers’ in mathematics than there are in English and at this level, English departments may struggle with recruitment in 2023.

Overall, there have been 32,609 applicants by 20th June. This compares with 37,790 applicants domiciled in England that had applied through UCAS by June 21st 2021. There are 2,229 ‘recruited’ applicants in 2022, when there were ,5830 ‘placed’ according to the UCAS data in June 2021. The conditional placed or conditions pending groups are 18,363 this year compared with 23,620 in June 2021. Many of these will be awaiting degree results, and this number will reduce next month just as the ‘recruited’ number’ will show an increase. Interestingly, the number that have declined an offer this year is shown as 760 compared with 370 in June last year. Another straw in the wind of how challenging recruitment has become.  However, withdrawn applications are down from 1,520 to just 1,002.

There must be a concern that applications – as opposed to applicants – in the South East provider region are down from 14,390 to 10,795. This is the region with the largest proportion of vacancies each year, and where the private sector vies most strongly with state schools of all types for teachers. An analysis of acceptances by subject by provider region would help schools identify the seriousness of this decline, and whether it is in both the primary and secondary sectors?

Applications overall are down for both sectors, with primary down from 48,520 last June to 39,712 this June, and secondary down from 61,480 to 48,047, a very worrying reduction. School Direct salaried continues to be replaced by the PG apprenticeship route that has had 3,864 applications this year compared to 5,315 for the School Direct Salaried route. However, similar numbers have been placed on both routes, at around 500 trainees on each route.

With some schools ceasing recruitment as term comes towards its end, it will be up to higher education to recruit most of the additional applicants over the summer. Will those providers threatened with not being re-accredited show the same appetite to recruit as they would if their future was secure in teacher education? The DfE must surely how so as every extra trainee is a welcome bonus for schools in 2023 struggling to recruit teachers.

Start worrying about September 2023

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While I have been waiting for the DfE to produce the June data about admissions and acceptances to ITT postgraduate courses, I thought that I would have another look at the percentage of courses no longer showing as offering vacancies as listed on the DfE website.

In passing, UCAS used to publish a calendar of dates when the monthly data would be published and generally stuck to that regime. There seems to me to be little logic to the reporting by the DfE this year.  

Anyway, what are the portents for September, and thus for the recruitment round that will provide staff for schools in the 2023/24 school year? Sadly, they don’t seem great.

The data I used matches ‘courses with vacancies’ against the ‘all courses’ number. Now, of course, a course may only have one vacancy or many, and the data doesn’t show that information, useful although it might be to applicants trying to decide where to apply to at this point in the cycle. I assume that those advising applicants are privy in order to use the data to help maximise successful outcomes.

Below in the table is the percentage of courses with vacancies ranked from least to most.

Subject24th June vacanciesall courses% with vacancies
Psychology2810626%
Latin51631%
Social Sciences3611531%
Classics71839%
Heath & Soc Care163644%
Comms & Media Studies183946%
Physical education26256347%
Dance357050%
Business studies17027263%
History40664263%
Drama22735065%
Economics253866%
Computing37356166%
Art and design32547968%
Music26638769%
Primary1200171670%
Citizenship142070%
Design and technology35049471%
English57580871%
Modern Foreign Languages69196672%
Religious Education34748072%
Mathematics63087172%
Chemistry56176673%
Geography50167175%
Biology55173375%
Physics60779676%
Science212584%
Source: DfE website

Only ten subjects have more than a third of courses currently ‘closed’ with no vacancies. The assumption must be that these courses are ‘full’ although there might be other reasons for the course not shown as currently offering vacancies.

Leaving out the small number of ‘science’ courses, there are three subjects, biology, physics and geography with more than three quarters of courses still returned as with vacancies. Even the primary sector has 70% of courses with at least one vacancy.

Such high levels of courses can be seen as a ‘good thing’ if there happens to be a flood of late applications. However, it is possible some school-based providers will no longer recruit after the end of term, and are thus not taking applications after the end of next week.

If the ability and willingness to recruit throughout the summer is not a criterion for re-accreditation then it ought to be, otherwise the government risks shooting itself in the foot by missing out on late applicants. There are those that don’t decide to become a teacher until August, and want to start in September.

As Teach First has started recruiting again, for this summer, it looks fair to say that that data are pointing to 2023/24 being another challenging year for schools needing to recruit staff. Currently, the average number of vacancies for schools in London and the South East stands at 10 per school.

TeachVac’s Premium Service helps schools connect with potential applicants for a fixed annual price of a maximum of £1,000 or £20 per week. With TeachVac’s growing list of teachers and trainees the service offers excellent value for money.

New Schools Bill published

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The Schools Bill, (no apostrophe) foreshadowed in the Queen’s Speech, has now been published as a House of Lords Bill. This means that the legislation starts in the House of Lords before then progressing to the House of Commons rather than the other way around. This isn’t unusual when there is a heavy legislative schedule. For instance, the 2003 Licensing Act started life as House of Lords Bill Schools Bill [HL] (parliament.uk)

The government has issued a set of notes and policy explanations for each section of the Bill Schools Bill: policy statements – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) Key sections are on Academies, funding and attendance. The Bill is very technical, and looks in its initial iteration to be sorting out some oversight issues to ensure a national education system with minimal democratic involvement, just like the NHS.

I especially like Clause 3

3 Academies: power to apply or disapply education legislation

(1) The Secretary of State may by regulations provide—

(a) for any relevant provision to apply to an Academy (or to a type or 5 description of Academy) as it applies in England to another educational institution, subject to any prescribed modifications;

(b) for any relevant provision which applies in England both to an Academy and to another educational institution not to apply to, or to apply subject to prescribed modifications to, an Academy (or to a type or description of Academy).

There are some exceptions listed, but this is the sort of sweeping power for the Secretary of State that used to worry parliamentarians.

Part Three of the Bill is about School Attendance, and will no doubt carry much of the discussion at the Second Reading next week. The argument revolves around child safeguarding and children’s rights to education versus the right of a parent to decide the education of their child or children. The Bill doesn’t go so far as to require schooling, but it does seek to tighten up knowing what choices parents have made for their children’s education. The establishment of a register may raise questions for the traveller community.  

Sadly, despite appearing in the past two White Papers, I cannot find anything in the Bill about the return on in-year admissions to local authorities. I hope someone may decide to put down an amendment to Section Three to include this provision, not least for the benefit of children taken into care requiring a new school, and those with an EHCP that move into an area with limited special school places.

Even if the government can argue that there are regulations to cover the change, it would still be better on the face of the Bill.

Following the decision on a National Funding Formula, I am not sure what role Schools Forums will play in the future, and whether headteachers will take them seriously anymore?

The Chief Inspector will now be able to ask a Magistrate for an entry warrant in certain circumstances. Along with the provisions for regulation of independent education establishments this continues the theme of protecting children, but some may see it as heavy-handed from a Conservative government. The debate next week will make for interesting reading in Hansard.

Find a teacher

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As the 26th May and ‘Thank a Teacher’ Day draws nearer I have looked at TeachVac statistics for vacancies in 2022 up to the 10th May compared with the vacancy number for the whole of 2019, the last full year before the pandemic. The statistics make for grim reading.

In seven areas, the total vacancies recorded so far in 2022 exceed the total recorded for the whole of 2019.

Subject 20192022Percentage +/- (The nearest whole %)
Teaching and Learning(Pastoral)50271542%
SEN61084539%
Social Sciences888107721%
RE1127132818%
Design & Technology252426646%
Leadership470850036%
IT182618461%
Business16571599-4%
Languages29322793-5%
Vocational432408-6%
Geography18121702-6%
Music11801031-13%
History13651190-13%
Total6456954453-16%
PE19831575-21%
Primary1664612964-22%
Science80596066-25%
Mathematics68485017-27%
Art1337952-29%
English63874253-33%
Source: TeachVac http://www.teachvac.co.uk

These include subject areas such as religious education and design and technology where there have already been more vacancies posted in the first four and a bit months of 2022 than during the whole of 2019. Grim news for any school looking for a September appointment and possibly a catastrophe for schools that will need to make an appointment for January 2023.

Interestingly, it is still the EBacc subjects where recruitment is less buoyant. In the case of maths, English and the sciences, vacancies are still adrift of the 2019 total by some margin. That doesn’t mean everything is great, even in these subjects because the vacancies are still close to the total for the pool of new entrants, especially once those trainees already committed to schools are excluded from the calculations.

So, ‘Thank a Teacher’ Day must also be ‘recruit a trainee into teaching’ day, week and month if we are going to continue to improve the education for all children wherever they live and whatever school they attend.

At TeachVac, we monitor trends at every level from geographical to phase and subject and career grade. Our reports provide invaluable intelligence to schools, MATs, dioceses, local authorities and others interested in the labour market for teachers. The reports are also the most comprehensive daily reports available.

There are still a couple of weeks to go to the resignation date at the end of May and so far, this week, TeachVac has recorded more than 2,800 new vacancies in the course of just two days. By the end of this week, the total for 2022 could be in excess of 55,00 or less than 9,000 behind the total for the whole of 2019.

The teaching workforce crisis doesn’t receive the same attention as the NHS crisis, but its effects are just as key to the nation’s health, welfare and economic prosperity. Sadly, there was no recognition in the Queen’s speech of the issues facing teacher supply. Rearranging the organisational structure of schooling by making all schools academies may be a solution, but don’t bet on it.

Not much of a Christmas Present

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There is a need to be cautious about making too much of the latest DfE data on applications to start graduate training as a teacher in Autumn 2022. The newly published data covers the period up to mid-January 2022. However, this included both the Christmas break and the omicron infection surge of covid cases plus the first Christmas break for the new DfE application process.

Any one of these factors might have been a reason for treating comparisons with previous years cautiously. Taken as a whole, there must be a view that it won’t be until the February data – the half-way point in recruitment – that a clear picture will emerge, especially because of the large number of applications awaiting a decision from a provider.

Nevertheless, some comments are possible. In the primary sector, applications are close to the level of January two years ago at 18,300. In reality, this is the lowest January number for many years for applications, but should not be a cause for concern. In the secondary sector, the 20,254 applications are some 2,000 below the 2020 figure for January and 8,000 down on the admittedly high 2021 number. Comparison with 2020 is probably more helpful. In terms of applicants, there were about 750 more than at this point two years ago, but some may be making fewer choices.

Translating the overall number of ‘offers’ into issues for individual subjects produces four different groups. Firstly, those subjects where ‘offers’ – note ‘offers’, not applicants as that data aren’t available – are up and the expected recruitment level should be met. Amongst the subjects tracked, there are no subjects in this grouping. Secondly there are subjects where there are more offers, but the recruitment level won’t be reached on present levels. Physics, design and technology and chemistry fall into this group.

The third group is where there are either similar offer levels to two years ago or fewer offers than at this point in the cycle two years ago, but recruitment targets should be met. History, physical education, biology and art fall into this group.

Finally, there are subjects such as languages, religious education, music, mathematics, geography, English, computing and business studies where ‘offers’ are below the same point two years ago and unless the number of ‘offers’ made picks up, recruitment target may well not be met. As noted earlier, this list should be treated with some caution for the three reasons stated earlier.

Slightly worryingly, the largest increase in applicants seems to be amongst those in the oldest age groupings, with 140 more applicants aged over 55 at the point that they made their application than two years ago. New graduates still form the bulk of the applicants, but the 2,989 age 21 or under compares with 2,830 two years ago from this age grouping: an increase, but not a massive endorsement of teaching as a career. For the 22-year-olds the increase is from 2,080 to 2,098: hardly noticeable. London and The South East account for around a third of applications. This is good news if there are sufficient places on courses and the applications are spread across all subjects, as these are the two regions where demand for teachers is at the highest levels.

In summary, there is a degree of caution about the data in this monthly release, but there is almost certainly work still to be done to avoid another year of under-recruitment and a tight labour market for schools in 2023.