Tag Archives: School Direct

Does the teacher preparation system work?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ITT applications looking good for September

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Compared with January 2020, applications for postgraduate teaching courses through UCAS have increased by almost a quarter based on my analysis of the published January 2021 data.

 Interestingly, the lowest growth rate has been in applications from those potential new graduates aged 21 or less, where the percentage increase has been just 14%. However, this age group still comprises a significant proportion of the overall total. The biggest increase has been in the group aged 24, where the increase on 2020 is some 32%. It was almost as high, at 29%, in the 30-39 age group. This suggest that new graduates are not yet seeing teaching as a safe haven in a stormy sea, whereas older graduates, perhaps either furloughed or even made redundant, are considering teaching as a career choice in greater numbers than in recent years.

There are regional differences in the increase in applications, with the North East, where teaching jobs are always in short supply, witnessing an increase of only nine percent in applicants. London, with the most active graduate labour market, has seen an increase on 2020 of 39%, from 2,320 in January 2020 to 3,220 in January 2021.

 Compared with previous upturns in applications to train to teach, this year has seen a different trend to that in the past, with a 27% increase in the number of applications for secondary courses compared with just a 24% increase in applications for primary courses. In the past, the growth in the number of applications for primary courses has often exceeded that for secondary courses.

There remains far more interest in postgraduate apprenticeships in the primary sector than in the secondary sector, although even here numbers are low, and have not offset the decline in applications for School Direct Salaried places in the primary sector.

The higher education sector has seen a smaller increase in applications in the primary sector than either SCITT or School Direct fee courses, although overall there are still more applications for higher education based primary courses than for any other route.

In the secondary sector, there is less of a gap between the increases seen by the different routes, with higher education applications up by a quarter; SCITT applications increasing by 30% and School Direct Salaried courses increasing by 47% on January 2020, albeit from a very low base. School Direct fee courses experienced the smallest increase in applications, at only 24%. To some extent, these changes in applications in the secondary sector are driven by the mix of subjects applicants are seeking to teach and the availability of courses with place still available.

Among the main secondary subjects the number of applications shown as ‘placed’, ‘conditional placed’ or ‘holding offer’ is up on last January in most subjects. Exceptions are biology and geography, where for both subjects the total is down on the January 2020 number. For geography, this may be due to very high levels of offers in recent years leading to over-supply. In biology, with more applications for chemistry and physics, providers may not see the need to be as generous as in past years with offers to biology courses in order to ensure a sufficient supply of science teachers.

In physics, mathematics, design and technology, chemistry and business studies, the offers are at high levels than for any January since before January 2014. However, in design and technology, it is doubtful, even at this level, whether the required number of trainees will be recruited to satisfy the labour market in 2022. There must also be a doubt about the final outcome for physics numbers

Next month marks the point in the annual cycle where predications about the outcome can be made, based upon past trends, can normally be made with some degree of accuracy. Whether that will be the case this year, I am not sure, but check back in a month’s time to see what I say.

My guest blog for Oriel Square Publishing

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By John Howson, chair of TeachVac and County Councillor in Oxfordshire. *This blog was written before the DfE’s announcement on 2nd January 2021 of a new Institute of Teaching.

2020 didn’t prove to be a happy 150th anniversary for state education in England. Hopefully, we will be able to look back on 2021 with better memories. One clear outcome from 2020 was the need to review methods of teaching and learning as pupils were forced to interact with their teachers remotely.

Teacher preparation

The oversight of the school system might have been better managed had there been a strong middle-tier between schools and policymakers.

For many years, too much of the preparation and professional development of teachers has been focused on looking backwards at the past rather than at understanding the possibilities offered by a very different future. The Covid-19 pandemic changed that approach overnight. Parents discovered the reality of teaching and school leaders had to invent new patterns of dialogue between their staff and pupils; often with little help from the government.

Indeed, the planning and oversight of the school system, fractured as it is between local authorities, stand-alone academies and Multi Academy Trusts, might have been better managed had there been a strong middle-tier in operation between schools and policymakers at Westminster.

The role of schools in teaching training

In the course of the past fifty years, the labour market for teachers has oscillated between periods of shortage and times of oversupply.

For many years, I have been an observer of the workings of the labour market for teachers. In the course of the past 50 years that I have been involved with schools in England, the labour market for teachers has oscillated between periods of shortage – occasionally of severe shortages of teachers – and other times where there has been an oversupply.

Under the coalition government, and especially under the stewardship of Michael Gove as Secretary of State for Education, schools were encouraged to be at the forefront of teacher supply. Traditional higher education routes of teacher preparation were out of favour, and narrowly missed disappearing altogether when faced with recruitment controls.

At its zenith, the ambitious School Direct salaried route into teaching accounted for 12% of postgraduate entrants into teacher training.

The ambitious School Direct salaried route into teaching reached its zenith in 2016/17 when such trainees accounted for 12% of postgraduate entrants into teacher training. By the government’s 202/21 training year census the same route only accounted for five per cent of trainees, despite a larger number of trainee places being available. …

To read the rest of the blog go to https://www.orielsquare.co.uk/blog/index.php/2021/01/05/teacher-training-putting-the-past-behind-us/

Employment based routes hit new lows

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In a year when recruitment to teacher preparation courses was on the increase, any aim the government might have had to increase the share of school-based preparation courses has stalled. The government issued the annual census of trainees on teacher preparation courses today.https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/initial-teacher-training-trainee-number-census-2020-to-2021

I am not a great fan of the new way of presenting statistics, and especially of the challenges it present when trying to create specific tables. However that aside, the key points are that as expected: trainee numbers are up, but that not all subjects met the Teacher Supply Model number for the year. Regular readers of this blog will not be surprised by that fact as I had predicted that would be the case, despite the increase in applications in the March to September period.

Higher Education, no doubt helped by the offer of both undergraduate and postgraduate places, increased its share of the market from 38% to 41%. Still way off its former levels, but no longer on a downward trend. School Direct Salaried route, the classic employment based route, was the big faller; down from 7% to 5% this year. Teach First took 4% against 5% last year. SCITTs held steady at 12% as did the Fee-based School Direct route at 23% of the total.

Some tables produced today by the DfE may include the small number of trainees forecast to join courses after the census date, but the differences are small.

Future blogs will explore the data in more details, but arts and humanities, and some subjects that have recruited poorly in recent years, have done well, even if in the case of Design and Technology and Physics and Chemistry, mathematics and Modern Languages they still did not meet the Teacher Supply Model number for the year.

The increase in Physics from 42% to 45% of the TSM number was especially disappointing, but not surprising.

Of more concern to those on courses and HM Treasury must be the over-recruitment in history –up from 115% to 175% of target and Physical Education, up from 105% to 135%. In these subjects, all trainees will struggle to find teaching posts in England in 2021 and it would be ironic if the government is funding teacher preparation for teachers forced to work overseas to practice their professional skills due to a lack of teaching posts in England.

Primary courses also over-recruited to target, and some may struggle in some parts of the country to find teaching posts for September or at the end of undergraduate courses if the decline in school rolls continues.

Some subjects may still be short of teachers in 2021

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The covid-19 pandemic has come too late in the recruitment round to ensure that all teacher preparation courses for graduates in all subjects will recruit enough students for September 2020 in order to ensure enough teachers for September 2021 vacancies.

On the basis of the July data from UCAS, the number of ‘Placed’, ‘Conditionally Placed’ and ‘Holding an Offer’ applications were sufficient in biology; Business Studies; English; history; music; physical education; religious education; art and modern languages to reasonably expect the DfE’s Teacher Supply Number to be reached. The percentage in art and design is the highest number recorded for more than a decade. The primary sector should also exceed its target set by the DfE.

On the other hand, computing and geography might meet the target with a few more acceptable applicants during the summer. However, it seems unlikely that chemistry; design & technology; mathematics and physics will meet the desired number this year. There simply haven’t been enough time to attract applicants, unless that is there is a stream of highly qualified applicants between early July and the start of September.

Interestingly, 24% of applications in physics were in the ‘Placed’, ‘Conditionally Placed’ and ‘Holding an Offer’ categories by mid-July 2020. This was the same percentage as in 2019. The figure for mathematics was also 24% in both July 2019 and July 2020. In Chemistry it had dropped from 25% in 2019, to 23% this year, although there were nearly 600 more applications for providers to process, so the final percentage might be higher.

In music, the percentage in the ‘Placed’, ‘Conditionally Placed’ and ‘Holding an Offer’ categories by mid-July 2020 was 32%, one of the highest for any subject, and up from 26% in July 2019. Physical education, not a shortage subject, has seen their percentage increase from 20% in July 2019 to 24% in July 2020.

So, 2020 looks like being the best year for recruitment into training for teaching for five or six years, but it seems unlikely that all subjects will meet their targets. However, there may well be a glut of both physical education and history teachers entering the market in 2021, unless all the vacancies lost this year by schools either retrenching or not needing to recruit appear again for September 2021.

Would I take on the extra debt to train as either a PE or a history teacher? Well, I would certainly look at the employment record of the course offering me a place this year and check with TeachVac www.teachvac.co.uk what the job situation is like in these subjects, especially in view of any debt to the government that will be incurred by joining the course. After all, we don’t know what might happen to interest rates and repayment terms as the government seeks to manage the economy over the next few years.

Academic data

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In many ways the data produced yesterday by UCAS about applications and acceptances for postgraduate teacher preparation courses is now merely academic. I will be very surprised if the current pandemic doesn’t see a sharp increase in applications to train as a teacher during the rest of this admissions round. Indeed, in some subjects, there is already some evidence of a recovery in offers from the levels of the last few months.

So, first the good news. There has been a surge of offers in Business Studies, art and music. These are welcome, but not yet enough to ensure these subjects will recruit sufficient trainees this year. Offers in physical education are also above last year, but don’t rate being classified as a surge. Most other subjects are still tracking where they were at this point last year. However, geography offers are below last year’s numbers and that might be a concern if the numbers don’t recover over the next few months. The real issue is with Modern Foreign Languages. Here, published offers are well down on last year. Some of this may be due to the method of reporting the data in this subject area, but it remains a concern.

On applications, the overall total for England is startlingly similar to March 2019; 63,820 this year compared with 63,570 in March 2019. However, applications for primary courses are down on last March; from 28,670 to 27,870; somewhere around 250-300 less applicants in all probability. This means that applications for secondary subjects are up from 34,600 last March to 35,940 this year: in excess of 400 new additional applicants, many in the arts subjects.

Higher education has around 400 few applications for primary courses, whereas there are 130 more applications for primary PG Teaching Apprenticeships. School Direct Salaried is the other route to have seen a significant decrease in applications.

On the secondary side, all routes have seen an increase in applications, although for the School Direct Salaried route it is only some 60 extra applications in total to bring the number to 2,130.

As far as the age of applicant is concerned, there are small increases in those in the 24 age-group and the 40+ age-group, and a small fall in those aged 22. All other groups have similar numbers to March last year. There is also little change in the gender balance of applicants when compared with March 2019. This year, 7,260 men have applied compared with 7,140 last year. For women, the numbers are 17,800 this year compared with 17,740 in March 2019.

I expect applications to increase sharply over the next month or so in response to the pandemic. I send my best wishes to everyone working in both schools and teacher education at this difficult and challenging time.

 

 

 

 

 

Flat Lining: not good enough

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Yesterday, UCAS announced its latest numbers for applications to postgraduate teacher preparation courses. Next month will witness the half-way point in the current recruitment cycle. At this stage of the year there tends to be a levelling off in the rate of applications from current students, as they head towards final examinations and dissertation submissions, and the momentum in applications tends to be driven by career changers.

Both the current world health outlook and this week’s falls in stock market prices are too recent to have affected decisions about teaching as a career option but, if either, and certainly if both, continue then the period after final examinations this summer might see an upturn in applications for teacher preparation courses. This would obviously be helped if companies reduce or stop hiring graduates this year.

But, all that is for the future. These figures suggest very similar overall outcomes to this point last year, with some subjects doing slightly better than last year, while others are faring less well.  Applications for primary sector courses continue their downward trend.

Still, there are some crumbs of comfort for the government. Applications to providers in the key London and South East regions are up on last year, whereas in the other regions applications are lower. As ever, it would be helpful to see these changes by primary and secondary sector applications. Overall applications for primary courses are down by nearly a thousand applications, whereas those for secondary courses are up by around 500. However, this might translate into less than 200 additional applicants. In fact, there are some 50 fewer applicants overall than this point last year: a reduction of around one per cent.

Applications for Teaching Apprenticeships continue to increase on this point last year, although the level of applications remains at little more than ‘noise’ in the system. Primary School Direct (non-salaried) courses remain the only bright spot in the primary sector, with a small increase in applications, against falls elsewhere.

In the secondary sector, there are increases for all types of courses, but the School Direct Salaried route is still attracting only a small number of applications, and acceptances are down on this point last year to just around 140 applications.

The bad news on the subject front is the slump in ‘offers’ to languages courses continues, and the various subjects within this group are now registering their lowest levels of ‘placed, conditionally placed and holding offers’ applications since the 2013/14 recruitment round. Both mathematics and physics are also down on last year’s offers. Where there are increases, as in art; business studies and design & technology they come from such a low base that they are not yet anywhere near sufficient to ensure that the Teacher Supply Model number will be reached; still in these subjects every additional trainee is to be welcomed.

With increasing pupil numbers for 2021, when this cohort of trainees enters the labour market, just keeping pace with last year is to be heading backwards in terms of need for new teachers even at constant funding levels. Any increased funding for schools, if not absorbed in other cost pressures, just makes staffing issues worse.

 

10 Adverts per school in 2019

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The average secondary school has placed 10 adverts for teachers during 2019. The figure is higher for most schools in London and the Home Counties and lower for many schools in the north of England.

The data are from TeachVac www.teachvac.co.uk the leading job boards for teachers looking for posts anywhere in England.

Of course, the average is a crude measure, as it isn’t related to the size of the school in terms of its pupil population. There are schools with more than 2,000 pupils and also at the opposite end of the scale there are those with only a few hundred pupils.

Once the year is over, TeachVac will link the number of vacancies to the pupil roll of the school, as supplied by the DfE in its data, and compare the outcome with indicators such as the percentage of pupils with Free School Meals. As TeachVac has data for several years, it will be possible to start to identify trends and whether there are certain types of school where staff turnover is more common.

Of course, now that the number of pupils entering secondary schools is on the increase, and there are also new schools being established, the picture is not as clear cut as if it were a steady state in relation to the size of the secondary school population.

The data also reveals how the demand for teachers corresponds to the supply, at least for new entrants. Data on returners seeing work is still patchy, and a national register might be a useful tool for the new government to consider.

After all, what is the point of training teachers if there are also returners willing to work as teachers? As I have said before on this blog, enticing mature entrants into teaching and then not offering them work is a wasteful misuse of human resources. Nowhere can this be seen more clearly than in the Humanities.

There are far more history and geography trainees than required by schools. History trainees, unless lucky to be on Teach First or School Direct Salaried Scheme, have to pay fees and find the cost of looking after themselves during their training, all this expenditure with no guarantee of a job.

This year, 2019-2020, according to DfE figures, some 178 history trainees are being supported by public funds (65 on School Direct Salaried Scheme and 113 on Teach First). By comparison, some 1400+ trainees are using student loans and other funds to train as a teacher.

With such over-recruitment into training, it isn’t clear why the government allowed spending on 178 history trainees at a cost of perhaps £400,000 of public money? That’s unnecessary public expenditure. Add in those 130 geography and PE trainees also on salary schemes, subjects where supply of trainees also exceeds demand for teachers, and the cost to the public purse is well over half a million pounds.

The current hybrid system of training teachers looks overdue for a re-think. Whether it will get one from the next government is probably unlikely while planning for Brexit continues to dominate the agenda.

 

No Great Flood: ITT data November 2019

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November data from UCAS on applications to postgraduate ITT courses, published yesterday, is always the first data from the new cycle; a cycle that will end next September. As such, the numbers already offered places, holding offers or already placed are small. However, we now have four years of data from November, so something might be inferred about trends from even these small numbers.

Suffice to say, in secondary subjects at least, there is no great change, at the offer level, in most subjects areas, with six of those subjects followed showing higher offers than last year; six lower and three the same. Of course, with rounding and such small numbers, the inferences must be limited.

However, modern foreign languages; music; mathematics; geography; computing and chemistry are all lower than last year in terms of all the offer categories. Of these, mathematics, chemistry and computing will be the subjects where even now there should be a watch on what is happening, because the DfE’s ITT Census, published yesterday, revealed lower numbers this year compared with 2018. In mathematics and chemistry, the Teacher Supply Model number for September 2020 is higher than last year: the mountain peak just became a bit further to climb than last year.

So, what about overall applications? Applications for primary phase courses are down this November on both last year and the year before at 7,980 compared with 9,750 two years ago. In the secondary sector, the number at 9,860 is 50 above this point last year and 700 up on two years ago: so that’s good news at the overall level. But, just taking mathematics as an example, the all states number this November is 830 compared with 930 last year: still well above the 640 of November 2017, but heading in the wrong direction.

As with the ITT Census, it seems as if the trend towards older applicants has continued. More over 30s and fewer early applicants from final year undergraduates and those in the 22 year old age bracket. Applications are down from both men and women; women by just under 400 applicants and men by around 80 applicants, to only 1,950. At this stage, we don’t have the gender breakdown by phase or subject in term of applicants.

In terms of overall applications, there has been a modest increase in applications for Teaching Apprenticeships at the postgraduate level, up from 80 applications to 150. Applications to SCITTs are at similar levels to this point last year, but other routes have seen declines in overall applications. In the case of higher education down from 9,230 two years ago to 7,910 this year. For School Direct Salaried, applications are down from 2,760 last year to 2,360 this year; about the same level as two years ago.

I don’t know whether the strikes in the university sector will affect offers being made to candidates over the next month or so, but it shouldn’t make much, if any, difference to applications since UCAS is the first point of entry.

So, no great tidal wave of applicants this year as the recruitment process opened. The increase in the starting salary and the funds for schools being offered as part of the general election campaign have yet to bear any significant fruits, at least in terms of increased applications for teaching as a career by graduates.

However, it is only the start of the cycle and at this point one must remain positive and hopeful.

 

More lows than highs

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Schools are going to have to rely upon reducing wastage rates among serving teachers and encouraging returners back into teaching in order to survive the 2020 recruitment round, if the data released by UCAS today about offers for teacher training courses starting this September don’t show dramatic improvements over the next couple of weeks. The DfE is doing a valiant job fast tracking enquiries received by their ‘get into teaching’ site, but so far it isn’t enough to prevent another potential year of problems for schools.

Let’s start with the good news: history has more offers than ever before, and languages; religious education and design and technology have recorded more offers than in August last year. However, design and technology is still way below target numbers needed to meet the Teacher Supply Model number for this year.

Biology, English, geography and physical education are at similar levels to this time last year in terms of recorded ‘offers’ and should produce sufficient teachers to meet needs next year on a national scale, even if there are local shortages because of where training is located. Chemistry is also at a similar level to last year, but that may not be sufficient to meet demand for teachers of the subject.

Now for the bad news: some subjects are recording lower offer levels than at this point in 2018. Business Studies and art, although lower than last year are not at their lowest levels for August during the past six recruitment rounds. However, IT, mathematics, music and physics are recording offer levels that are lower than at any August during the recruitment rounds since 2013/14. Schools across England are likely to experience recruitment challenges in these subjects in 2020 that could be worse than this year unless supply is boosted in other ways.

This grim news, is backed by a depressing 500 fewer placed applicants in England and slightly fewer ‘conditionally placed’ applicants. The additional 30 applicants ‘holding an offer’ do not make up the difference. Overall, some 72% of applicants domiciled in England have been made an offer (73% at August 2018). The published monthly statistics don’t allow for easy comparison by subject for applicants as opposed to applications which, as I have pointed out in the past, is a disappointment.

Nevertheless, most of the reduction in offers is to male applicants, where ‘placed’ applicants are down from 9,250 in August 2018, to 8,800 this August; a reduction of around 450 or the majority of the reduction in offer numbers. It is career switchers that have disappeared, especially those between the age groups of 22-29. The youngest ‘new’ graduate numbers are very similar to last year, but there are more applicants in their 30s than last year.

The School Direct Salaried route continues to be the big loser in terms of offers, but not in terms of applications. Only 770 applications are shown as with offers of any sort compared to 990 last August for the secondary sector. In the primary sector the number is higher at 1,840, but last August the number was higher at 2,000.

There are still very many offers recorded as ‘conditional’ even at this late point in the cycle. Only in history, Mandarin, PE and Religious Education, among the larger subjects, are ‘placed’ numbers shown as higher this August than in August 2019.

Next month will mark the end of the monthly date for this recruitment round. I wish I could say that I was optimistic, but despite the potential turmoil faced by the country over the political situation, I cannot be anything other than concerned for the teacher labour market in 2020 based upon these data.