Tag Archives: School Teachers Pay Review Body

Gatsby Survey confirms importance of pay and working conditions for would-be teachers

Posted on by
Reply

A Gatsby funded study by a team at London’s UCL has researched assumptions about why people do -or do not- choose to become a teacher in the UK and the US. The findings were that extrinsic rewards drive career choices. The report found that in both countries, extrinsic factors such as salary, working hours and paid leave were the most powerful drivers of career choice. Altruistic motives did play a role – participants were willing to accept lower pay for roles with higher social impact – but these were consistently smaller than the influence of pay and workload.’ New research reveals what really attracts graduates to teaching  | Gatsby Education

These factors were even seen among those undergraduates who already said they were already considering becoming a teacher.

Replies to the UCL study suggested that increasing working hours beyond 40 per week to that of a typical teacher reduced attractiveness of teaching by 15%, and that teachers holiday entitlement increased attractiveness by 11%. Increased salary raised job attractiveness by 9%.

How do these findings compare with previous research? In May 1997, almost 20 years ago, and during another period of challenges in recruiting graduates into teaching, The School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB) commissioned the agency BMRB to investigate what factors influenced the attitudes towards teaching shortage subjects/ This was a small-scale study involving only 82 graduates compared with the 2,000 undergraduates, in both the UK and the US, surveyed by the UCL team.

BMRB students said that

  • Teaching should be a vocation
  • Those sampled felt not all were suited to be a teacher
  • There were serious concerns about both working conditions and stress levels
  • Pay was acknowledged to be a significant factor – although not a deterrent to those determined to teach, a better pay structure would make teaching more attractive to those considering other options.

The views BMRB found ‘were not specific to those studying the shortage subjects … but were common across the different subject areas. ‘

So, the common message from both studies, nearly twenty years apart, and of different participant sizes and survey methods, is that teaching must be competitive in regard to pay and working conditions to attract graduates in a competitive labour market.

Another study, in 2000, for the Office of Manpower Economic (OME), by Whitmuir Research, reported similar finding to the BMRB list, but added, disruptive pupils; lack of parental support and the cost of tuition feed to the list.

A large-scale study of 1,880 final year undergradues across 26 HEIs for the TTA in 1999, distributed through careers services, found more interest amongst women than men in teaching as a career, and amongst those in post-1992 higher education institutions.

A review of where applicants to teaching come from, based on DfE data through the common application process would be a sensible annual outcome in order to see if there are changes in the key undergraduate market with regard to teaching as a career.

It seems likely that the STRB knows the issue around recruiting into the teaching profession. The question every year is – will the STRB stand up to government on behalf of the children of this country and ensure that teaching is an attractive career for graduates across all subjects?

DfE confirms secondary ITT shortfall in evidence to STRB

Posted on by
Reply

The DfE’s evidence to the STRB (pay review body for teachers) contains some useful information about the state of the teaching profess, and changes over the past decade and a half since the DfE moved the teacher census from January to November each year. Much has remained the same, across the whole time period. But, before delving into the past, it is worth looking at the table for offers on secondary subjects for 2025 that I created for an earlier post, but now with the data from Table FD4-FD6 of the STRB evidence Evidence to the STRB: 2026 pay award for teachers and leaders – GOV.UK

Interestingly, the DfE doesn’t seem to have included the offers against targets that might have help the STRB to see where shortfalls are likely once the ITT census is published in December.

SubjectTarget2025/26% increase Sept on Juneaccepted Sept 25 FD6 DfE to STRBover/under target
Total Secondary19,27026%16843-2,427
Primary7,65034%98802,230
Chemistry73049%909179
Biology98536%1397412
Mathematics2,30035%2617317
Design & Technology96533%678-287
Art & Design68033%902222
Geography93533%98146
Classics6032%42-18
English1,95031%1760-190
Drama62030%273-347
Business Studies90029%235-665
Music56528%343-222
Religious Education78028%418-362
Others2,52025%360-2,160
History79023%936146
Modern Languages1,46021%1428-32
Physics1,41019%1313-97
Physical Education72517%1491766
Computing8955%761-134

As I suggested in my previous post, despite the renewed attraction of teaching for new graduates, there are still some subjects that won’t meet their target. Interestingly, the target for recruiting primary teachers is likely to be massively exceeded this year. Whether all those trainees will find jobs next summer is an interesting question.

With the continued shortfall against targets, where do schools find their staff from, and are they appropriately qualified? The answer to the second part of the question seems to be it depends on whether the school is in Pupil Premium decile 1 or decile 10. (Table D7) The data in this table suggests that schools in decline 1 have higher teacher wastage rates; higher percentages of unqualified teachers; higher percentages of teachers with less experience of teaching and a higher percentage of lesson taught by teachers not seen as qualified in the subject they are teaching. None of this is very surprising, but if the government wants to do something to level up outcomes, then they should pay attention to these percentages.

As to where schools find their teachers to ensure they are fully staffed if there are shortfalls in the numbers emerging from training, there has been a shift in the number of teachers coming from the old dominions, and an increase in those from other members of the Commonwealth. I will discuss these changes in more detail in another blog, as well as trends in recruitment for Europe.

Finally, it is worth noting that the secondary school teacher population expressed as Full Time equivalents (FTEs) barely changed between November 2010 and November 2020, increasing by just 265 FTEs, from 218,736 to 219,001. By contrast, the primary teacher FTEs in the same period increased from 196,258 to 215,632 by November 2024, although this was below the 225,537 FTEs recorded in November 2020, before pupil numbers began to fall.