Tag Archives: school workforce census

PTRs worsen in 2016

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The DfE has today published its first results from last November’s School Workforce Census https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/school-workforce-in-england-november-2016 With an ever changing landscape across the school sector, it is sometimes difficult to discern the longer-term trends. However, it does seem as if the years of plenty are being replaced by more challenging times as the head teachers across southern England told the parents at many primary schools yesterday.

It is worth recalling the current environment. Pupil numbers have been rising for some years now in primary schools but falling in secondary schools. September 2016 market the first school year where the number of pupils in secondary schools started increasing. The DfE analysis comments that

The nursery & primary school population has been rising since 2009 and reached 4.50 million children in 2016. Based on 2016’s pupil projections the rate of increase is forecast to slow and the population is projected to stabilise in 2020 at 5 4.68 million children. The secondary school population rose to 2.76 million in 2016 (the first rise since 2005) as the increased births from 2002 reached secondary school age. The secondary school population is projected to continue increasing to 3.04 million by 2020 and further until 2025 when it is expected to peak at 3.33 million.

If pupil funding remains constant and there are no additional cost pressures, pupil teacher ratios should remain stable. Worsening, PTRs i.e. higher numbers of pupils per teacher, often indicate cost pressures on schools, although not always if a school has spare capacity and fills up existing spaces without the need to create new classes.

The best PTRs in recent years for all primary state funded schools in England were recorded in 2014 in at 20.9, while rolls were rising. By 2016, the primary PTR for qualified teachers was 21.3, a deterioration of 0.4 pupils per teacher. However, some of this difference may have been made up by unqualified teachers on School Direct and Teach First salaried schemes. The PTR is still far better than the 23.3 recorded in 2000, when schools were still suffering from the funding crisis of the 1990s.

In the secondary sector, the best year for PTRs was 2013, when it reached 15.5. It has always been better in the secondary sector than in the primary sector. By 2016, secondary PTRs had reached 16.4, a deterioration of 1.1 pupils per teacher despite the falling rolls during this period. I suspect that the change may have been greater in 11-18 schools because of the driving down of funding for the post-16 sector during the period since 2010 and the relative difference between Pupil Premium funding in the primary and secondary sectors.

Looking further ahead, it seem difficult to see the increase in pupil numbers helping the PTR to improve in the secondary sector in many schools; indeed, the prediction may be for the rate to continue to worsen back towards the 17.2 recorded across maintained secondary schools in 2000.

State funded special schools also recorded their first pressure on PTRs for many years, although their overall pupil adult ratio remained constant for the third year running.

Of course, as the mix of staffing changes in schools the use of a single ratio such as a PTR may become less significant than the wider pupil adult ratio.

Another warning sign

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Yesterday, the DfE published the 2013 School Workforce Census conducted last November. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/school-workforce-in-england-november-2013 It is a tribute to the power of new technology and the hard work of government statisticians that a census of approaching 25,000 workplaces, and covering close to a million employees, can now be published within six months of the date it was conducted. Along with the headlines about a rise in the number of unqualified teachers – probably in fact increases in Teach First and School Direct trainees rather than entrants plucked straight from the street to the classroom – there was a worrying sign in the trend in reported vacancies.

A census taken in November is always going to report low levels of vacancies. After all, schools have had nearly three months to find a teacher after the start of the school year, and only the most determined and disillusioned teacher will have quit mid-term, knowing that to do so would make the chance of every working again in the profession very slim. For these reasons the fact that in the four years since the first of the new censuses was taken in 2010 the number of vacancies has almost doubled from 630 to 1,220, and that between 2012 and 2013 there was a 50% increase from 800 to 1,220 in vacancy levels suggests a cause for concern in this sensitive indicator. Even more of a concern is the fact that the increase was not confined to ‘traditional’ shortage subjects, but included almost all subjects except languages and music must be of concern. The significant increase from 150 to 230 in the number of vacancies for teachers of English is especially concerning in view of the relatively small number of trainees being recruited as a result of DfE modelling that seems flawed in some way.

In the past the DfE used to release data about vacancies on a regional basis as well as by subject. The absence of that data from the published tables makes it difficult to know how far the issue is concentrated in certain parts of the country, possibly London and the Home Counties, or whether the malaise has spread nationwide. No doubt Ministers will be reviewing the evidence in order to see how the regional balance of allocated training places might help alleviate the situation.

Perhaps just as alarming as the growth in vacancies for classroom teachers is the fact that vacancies for school leaders also increased for the first time in a number of years. Here the actual numbers are tiny, but each school that fails to make an appointment of a school leader risks the continued progress of that school during any interregnum, however well-intention and experience the interim leader is.

Taken as a whole, the news from the School Workforce Census of a shift in direction from ‘no recruitment issues’ to one where vacancies are starting to rise at a time when recruitment to training is now acknowledged to be under pressure for the second year in succession must move the traffic light for those that make policy in this area from green to amber. The seeming success in attracting more recruits to design & technology courses this year by the creation of a £9,000 bursary and some subject knowledge enhancement courses shows what can be achieved, especially if it boosts recruitment beyond the 410 achieved in 2013. We cannot as a nation afford another teacher supply crisis if we want a first-class school system. Either we recruit enough trainees or we have to change the way schooling is delivered.