Tag Archives: schools

The other crisis facing schools

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In my experience, editors usually have September, and the national annual ‘return to school’ event, as a time to ask journalists to look for a school centred story. This follows on from the useful two-week period in August when there are examination results to cover in the month when there is often little news from the political scene.

This year, editors and their journalists didn’t have to work very hard, if at all, for their ‘return to school’ story. RAAC, and the school buildings saga, was a gift send. Would the story have topped the bill at any other time of year? Who knows, as it is an important issue, but more important say that a reshuffle?

What is clear, is that by focussing just on the school buildings issue, editors are missing the opportunity to take a wider look at the health of our schools. Had there not been RAAC, and the still largely hidden asbestos issue, might the staffing of our schools have been the main story this September?

This is a much more difficult story to sell, as except in rare cases such as a special school reported to the DfE in the summer, schools don’t send children home for a lack of teachers. Instead, they cut subjects from the curriculum – I have been told of a school that is no longer offering languages in the sixth from this September; increase class sizes; reduce non-contact time for teachers and, most commonly, employ what might be considered as under-qualified teachers to teach some groups.

Because anyone with Qualified Teacher Status can teach anything on the curriculum, it isn’t easy to identify the problem, as schools, quite rightly, don’t advertise any shortcomings in the staffing of their timetable. However, extrapolating from the last School Workforce Census that provided a baseline, and adding in the results of new entrants being below the targets set by the DfE through the Teacher Supply Model, it seems clear that some schools are not properly staff this September.

Does this matter? Like the lack of a schools’ database on building issues, we don’t know whether some young people are missing grades in those public examinations we celebrate each August because of staffing issues last year or even earlier in their school lives.

This blog has charted re-advertisements of teaching post against free school meal rates in schools. I wrote a blog on this issue last month, just before the exam results season started Are we levelling up? | John Howson (wordpress.com) I won’t bother to repeat what I said then, but it would be interesting to look at examination results in specific subjects at different centres with different levels of staff turnover for a period of three to five years, to see if there is any measurable effect of staff turnover on outcomes, including entry policies.

My hunch is that it is difficult to create a ‘normal’ distribution curve for results subjects such as ‘A’ level physics if many schools cannot offer the subject, and those that do only enter those likely to be successful candidates.

Editors might like to pencil in a story for January 2024, when secondary schools facing unexpected vacancies will find recruitment even more of a challenge than for this September. What might be the effects on their results in Summer 2024 of an unexpected vacancy, especially if they started the school year this September with both a RAAC and a staffing crisis?

Yes, Minister, you did know there was a problem

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School building is an important, but not usually politically interesting, subject. As a result, it is an area of policy often overlooked when policy changes such as academisation are introduced. However, schools do need buildings, and a prudent government would ensure that those building were fit for purpose. For those that follow education, the present crisis has been brewing for some time, and RAAC is only one part of a much bigger issue.

The National Audit office report on Capital Funding for Schools, published in February 2017, had an interesting comment that is germane to the present debate about RAAC concrete and school building. https://www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Capital-funding-for-schools.pdf

Para 15 In seeking to increase choice, introduce innovation and raise standards free schools often meet a demographic need for new school places, but they are also creating spare capacity, which may have implications for schools’ financial sustainability. By September 2016 the Department had opened 429 new free schools, and plans to open 883 in total by September 2020. The Free Schools Programme aims to give parents more choice and increase competition between schools, and thereby improve the quality of education. Free schools also have a role in meeting local need for new school places. There can be an inherent tension in the extent to which they can meet these aims cost-effectively. The Department estimates that some of the places in 83% of the mainstream free schools approved since September 2013 address a need for more school places. It also estimates that 57,500 of 113,500 new places in mainstream free schools opening between 2015 and 2021 will create spare capacity in some free schools’ immediate area. Spare capacity can affect pupil numbers, and therefore funding, in neighbouring schools. The Department’s data indicate that spare places in 52 free schools opening in 2015 could have a moderate or high impact on the funding of any of 282 neighbouring schools. The financial sustainability of free schools themselves may also be affected if a significant number of their places are not filled. The Department assesses financial viability as part of the process of approving free school applications. It has also sought to assess whether creating free schools is having the intended effect of improving educational standards through competition but the sample size is currently too small to draw meaningful conclusions.

Even more telling is this paragraph a little later in the Report

Para 2.22 The Department expects the condition of the school estate will worsen as it cannot fund all the maintenance and improvement work required. The way the system works adds to the risk that the Department may not achieve its aim of preventing buildings that are in reasonable condition from deteriorating. (bold added by me).

There is no denying that capital project funding in the school sector is complicated, and that the demise of a middle-tier knocked away some of the props underpinning the operation of our schools. The DfE has been warned on many occasions that the academy programme meant that it would be running schools in manner it had never previously experienced. Such operational oversight included the capital programmes of which there are three.

New build – covered well in paragraph 15 of the NAO report. The government appeared to prioritise spare places and parental choice over cash for other purposes

Replacement of existing stock – successive governments have ducked this issue, except during periods of falling rolls when new places are not required. A combination of increased house building and a significant upturn in the secondary school population, plus the extension of the learning leaving age to eighteen all during the last decade of conservative government can explain the pressure on the replacement budget, but cans kicked down the road don’t disappear for ever, as the government is now discovering.

New or replacement build out of revenue reserves – some school buildings have been built by schools underspending their annual revenue income and capitalising the cash into a new building. I have long deprecated this approach. My view has always been that revenue income is for spending on today’s children and not for saving up for future generations and new buildings: not a view all accept.

One implication of this practice is that the DfE may not know which of these building constructed from revenue funding contain RAAC, especially if built by Grant Maintained Schools and academies free from local authority oversight.

The government is currently trying to contain the size of the problem by focusing on RAAC, but asbestos and other issues mean, as the NAO identified in 2017, our school estate is not in good shape. The kicker has caught up with the can, and cannot easily kick it any further away.

RAAC and asbestos: threats to school buildings

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The interview that former Permanent Secretary at the DfE, Jonathan Slater gave to the BBC’s today programme this morning was both revealing and disturbing. Replacing school buildings rather than providing new schools to meet ‘rooves over heads’, where pupils don’t have a school, has long been the policy of the DfE and its predecessors.

Mr Slater’s revelation of the role of HM Treasury in funding school buildings should not come as a surprise, since the DfE doesn’t have income to pay for education, it is always reliant upon the Chancelor and the team at the Treasury and their policies.

The past decade has seen an upswing in the pupil population, so it is not surprising that new schools for new housing estates and other areas of substantial population growth have headed the school building list, leaving little cash for replacement schools, especially where developers can be persuaded to pay for the new school through the planning procedures.  

As Mr Stalter said, the determination to push through the Free Schools policy may also have reduced interest on the part of Ministers in rebuilding our maintained schools, as that task didn’t fit the political narrative of the day.  Interestingly, the capital expenditure brief currently lies with the DfE’s Minister in the house of Lords, Baroness Barran. Perhaps this shows where the thinking about the importance of capital investment lies in the pecking order within the DfE?

In 2017 the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) conducted an inquiry into school building. Here is an extract from their published report

2Condition of school buildings

The state of the estate

19.Between 2012 and 2014 the Department for Education (the Department) carried out a property data survey to examine the condition of school buildings. Based on the survey, the Department estimated that it would cost £6.7 billion to return all school buildings to satisfactory or better condition, and a further £7.1 billion to bring parts of school buildings from satisfactory to good condition.37 Common defects include problems with electrics and external walls, windows and doors. The survey was limited to assessing the condition of buildings and did not assess their safety or suitability.38

20.Some 60% of the school estate was built before 1976.39 The Chairman of EBDOG noted that ‘“system” buildings (a method of construction that uses prefabricated components) from this period were definitely coming to the end of their useful lives.40 The Department said that it had some concerns about these types of school buildings and so had started “destructive testing” as it knocked down buildings to assess how much life similar buildings had left.41 It expects that the cost of dealing with major defects will double between 2015–16 and 2020–21, even with current levels of investment, as many buildings near the end of their useful lives.42 The Chairman of EBDOG illustrated the scale of the challenge by telling us that his own local authority, Hampshire, needed £370 million to repair its school buildings but received only £18 million from the Department each year.43 (indication of references numbers retained)  Capital funding for schools – Committee of Public Accounts – House of Commons (parliament.uk)

Here were two of the PAC recommendations:

Recommendation: The Department should set out a plan by December 2017 for how it will fill gaps in its knowledge about the school estate in areas not covered by the property data survey. Specifically it needs to understand the prevalence, condition and management of asbestos, and know more about the general suitability and safety of school buildings.

Recommendation: The Department should use information, including from the property data survey, to develop a robust approach for holding local authorities and academy trusts to account for maintaining their school buildings, including how it will intervene if they are not doing so effectively. It should also assess whether schools can afford the level of maintenance necessary given the real-terms reductions in funding per pupil.

At that time, it was asbestos in school buildings that was the main concern, and possibly still should be in terms of how widespread the issue in schools might be. However, it would be interesting to know whether RAAC concrete was included in the ‘destructive testing’ mentioned in paragraph 19 of the PAC’s report?

Perhaps more should have been done to follow up the Department’s progress on school building replacement through the scrutiny process, especially with the warning that ‘many buildings near the end of their useful lives’. Should this have produced a Red RAG rating somewhere on a risk register?

In July 2023, the PAC started an inquiry into school buildings. The responses to Questions 6-9 from the current Permanent Secretary at the DfE are worth a look for what was said about RAAC. committees.parliament.uk/oralevidence/13508/pdf/ However, even in that session asbestos as an issue seemed to be regarded are more of a concern than RAAC by many. Is that still a ticking time bomb waiting to explode?

This blog has celebrated that period between 1968-1972, when the then Ministry had a plan to replace pre-1906 primary schools. Many are still in use, and with the concerns about RAAC and asbestos seem likely to head towards their second century serving the nation’s children in many places.

Concrete woes

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Would the panic about RAAC and the abrupt closure of schools just before term starts have been handled better in the days when local authorities managed education, and the Ministry in London had a thriving Architects and Building Branch?

Who know? What is certain is that this isn’t the first issue with school buildings. I recall in the 1970s leaving school at 4pm one afternoon with colleagues to go for an early meal before returning to attend a parents’ evening. When we returned, the school was cordoned off because the head had noticed a panel on the CLASP built building that was little more than a decade old had started to become detached from its fastening.

The parents’ evening was cancelled, and the staff spent the next two days in the sixth form block while students stayed at home while the repairs we made, and the rest of the building was checked.

The present crisis seems to have been flagged up well in advance, and one is left wondering why the decision to take action has been delayed for so long? The same could be said of the issue of asbestos in schools. Regular readers of this blog may also recall the debate some years ago about not installing sprinkler systems in schools to deal with fires.

School Buildings are all too often it seems only of interest to Ministers when they can go and open new ones. I suspect that oversight of this type of activity, a routine and mundane task, hasn’t been on the agenda of how to deal with issues under a mixed academy/free-school and local authority economy? Another casualty of the failure to create a working middle tier for all education activities.

I also wonder whether there are any private schools facing issues with RAAC? Perhaps their insurers require regular inspections of property and the issue has already been identified and dealt with?

Governing is about doing the daily tasks well as well as about creating new policy. If a government cannot do the former well, it doesn’t deserve to be in office. Should the Secretary of State take the blame for the handling of the issue if it becomes clear that something should have been done sooner to prevent chaos for the start of term?

Physics: Better. Arts: worse

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Despite today being a bank holiday, the DfE obligingly published the monthly ITT data on applications and offers for postgraduate courses. Initial teacher training application statistics for courses starting in the 2023 to 2024 academic year – Apply for teacher training – GOV.UK (apply-for-teacher-training.service.gov.uk)

Perhaps not surprisingly, little has changed since the last set of figures published at the end of July. With courses about to start in a matter of weeks, there are likely to be few more surprises left in this round. On the basis of the data, secondary subjects can be grouped into three sets: those subjects with higher offers this year than at any time since 2019/2020, or in the case of physics, since 2015/16; those subjects where ‘offers’ this year are above the number at this point in 2022, and those subjects where the offers this year are below the number in August 2022.

In the first category are: physics -the subject has recorded 729 offers, the highest August number since the 840 of August 2016. However, this is still not a high enough number, even if all those offered actually turn up, to meet the DfE’s target. Also, in this group of subjects are; geography, design and technology and biology. The offers in design and technology will still not be sufficient to come anywhere near meeting the DfE’s target.

In the middle group, of subjects better than last year, but worse than 2021, are: mathematics, English, computing and chemistry.

In the group where this year’s offers are below last year are: art and design, religious education, physical education, music, history and business studies – in this case almost the same as last August.

In the case of music, the 232 recorded offers are the lowest recorded in recent years. This is despite a high conversion rate of 21% of applications into offers.  In religious education, the 259 recorded offers are also the lowest level of offers in recent years in this subject. In both these subjects, this level of offers will not be enough to satisfy the demand for teachers in a normal recruitment round. By comparison, only eight per cent of physics applications have been converted into offers, and in biology the percentage is 13%.

Compared with last year, most of the increase in candidate numbers has come from those age 24 or above. The youngest age groupings of 21-23, have seen an increase of 400 from 10,116 to 10517. By contrast, the 40-44 age grouping alone has increased from 2,477 to 3,621, an increase of more than 1,100 applicants.

As reported previously, when compared with two years ago, the largest increase in candidates is the group applying from ‘the rest of the world’, up from 3,216 to 8,406, an increase of more than 5,000. By contrast, the East of England number two years ago was 3,495 and this year it is 3,440.  The South East numbers are: 4,651 two years ago, and 4,825 this year: a meagre increase.

This data suggests that schools will find recruitment in some subjects that they have not been concerned about in the past, may well become difficult during the 2024/2025 recruitment round unless the consequences arising from the pay settlement depress demand below that seen in the past two years.

Fewer salaried entrants to teaching?

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Ever since Kenneth Baker introduced the Licensed and Articled Teacher Schemes, wat back in the last century, when he was Secretary of State for Education, there have been possibilities to earn and learn to become a teacher.

Since 2000, the main schemes have been the Graduate and Registered Teacher Schemes; Teach First/High Achievers route/School Direct Salaried route/Postgraduate apprenticeship route and a few specialist routes such as troops to Techers and Teach next. The government has recently proposed a new undergraduate apprenticeship route (see Bring back King’s Scholarships? | John Howson (wordpress.com) on this blog).

Over the years numbers on these employment-based routes have fluctuated. The table is my best estimate of numbers each September starting such courses. The total should be treated as indicative rather than absolute for two reasons: some routes, numbers from some routes such as Fast Track and troops for Teachers aren’t included, and the numbers published often changed between the original ITT census and later published data containing both late registrations and early departures.

YearEBR ITT
20004120
20014810
20026810
20037676
20047417
20057403
20067635
20077282
20086963
20095699
20105842
20116890
20126057
20133701
20144146
20154750
20164485
20174115
20183969
20194246
20204078
20213197
20222850
Source: Various government publications

From the turn of the century up to 2012, the GTTP was the main source of employment-based entry, after the Fast Track Scheme ended. Whether that latter scheme really qualified as an employment-based route is anyway debatable, although the management of their careers did ensure some sort of control not present in other routes.

After the Gove revolution, the School Direct Salaried route took over as the main employment-based route into teaching, alongside Teach First (High Achievers route) that had been steadily growing in numbers since its inception as a short-service route for those prepared to teach for a couple of years.

Even allowing for the caution about the data, it seems that since the Market Review of ITT by the DfE numbers on employment-based routes have dropped to their lowest levels this century. At their peak, the various routes were recruiting more than twice as many new teachers through employment-based routes as in 2022. Indeed, Teach First is, seemingly, now the main route for those wanting an employment-based route into the teaching profession. Is this what the DfE intended when it set up the Market Review?

School-based preparation exists in other forms, through the SCITTS and School Direct Fee routes, but neither are as attractive to those that want to earn while teaching.

Does the DfE think that there should be an employment-based route for career changers, as opposed to new or recent graduates, and if so, how is it prepared to fund such a scheme?

The proposed school leaver apprenticeship model seems to want to tap into a market that may not exist, while the government doesn’t seem to have a plan for career changes that need to earn and learn. This seems like an odd approach driven more by the spare cash from the Apprenticeship Levy sloshing around the system than any sensible approach to market planning.

Hopefully, someone will correct my thinking and tell me of the DfE’s grand plan for career changers wanting to become a teacher. After all, this was the fastest growing segment of those showing interest in teaching as a career this year.

Extend education free travel to 16-18 year olds

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One of the irrational features of our education system in England is that although the ‘learning leaving age’ has effectively been raised from 16 to 18 by the government, although no legislation has been passed enforcing the change,, the provision of free transport for those that are able to access such a service during their education up to age 16 hasn’t been extended by the government to include such travel for the time when they are 16 to 18 year olds. There is no free right to transport to education for this age group. This is an anomaly that has consequences, especially in a time when there is a cost-of-living crisis that is hitting the least well off much harder than the more affluent families in our society.

One way this anomaly may manifest itself is in the percentage of 16-18 year olds classified as NEETs (not in Education, Employment or training). The Office for National Statistics (ONS) published an update for this group this week, showing a rise on the quarter. All data related to Young people not in education, employment or training (NEET), UK: August 2023 – Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk)

The publication of the ONS data prompted me to look at the DfE data published earlier this year NEET and participation: local authority figures – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) What especially interested me was whether there was a difference between rural and urban areas in the percentages of NEETS. A simple crude measure is to compare the London boroughs – where TfL has supported travel for this age group – with the remaining non-unitary council ‘shire’ counties that have large tracts of rural areas where young people receive free transport up to school up to the age 16.

A quick check of the NEET data revealed that there were more than three times as many ‘shire’ counties in the worst 50 local upper-tier authority areas compared with the number in the best 50 authorities. By comparison, 31 of the London boroughs appeared in the top 50 local authorities, and the remaining boroughs only just fell outside of the top 50. All London boroughs were in a better position in terms of NEETS than Oxfordshire. On this basis there is at least a discussion to be had about whether providing transport post-16 enhances education opportunities and thus life chances?

The problem is complex in the rural areas partly because, post-16, some students opt to move to a further education centre that offers the course they want, but may be further away from the school that they attended.

The answer to the question of providing free transport is dependent on how much the accident of geography – whether you live in a rural area or a conurbation or town – should affect you chances of an education to age 18?

Perhaps the DfE could survey its own civil servants to see how many experienced this problem as teenager, and how they overcame it?

Appeals reflect changes in pupil numbers

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Yesterday, the DfE published the data about admission appeals for the year 2022/23. There were different trends between the primary and secondary school sectors over the use of the appeals process by parents. Admission appeals in England: academic year 2022 to 2023 – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

This year, there were just 14,900 appeals lodged for admission to primary sector schools by parents. Of the appeals lodged, 9,628 appeals were heard relating to primary school places for 2022/23. This represented 1.2% of new admissions. The other appeals presumably were not continued, perhaps because a place became available before the appeal was heard.

The rate in the primary sector is unchanged from last year. Prior to 2021/22, the number and rate have been gradually dropping since 2015/16, when 22,820 primary appeals were heard (2.6% of new admissions) and this year the total was half of the total of 28,471 appeals lodged in 2017.

Of those appeals heard in 2022/23, 1,580 primary appeals were successful: a rate of 16.4%. This is a 0.8 percentage point increase on 2021/22 (but is the second lowest success rate since 2015/16). This might suggest that only the most difficult cases now make it to appeal as the pressure on primary schools nationally eases with the reduction in the birthrate and Brexit.

The ONS announcement this week that there were just 605,479 live births in England and Wales in 2022, a 3.1% decrease from 624,828 in 2021 and the lowest number since 2002 suggests pressure on primary school places may continue to ease, unless there is a policy of closing schools due to falling rolls that seems likely once surplus places reach a certain level and school budgets come under pressure.

In the secondary school sector, the trend was in the opposite direction to that seen in the primary sector. 30,379 appeals were heard relating to secondary school places for 2022/23. This represented 4.1% of new admissions. This a slight increase on last year, when 28,687 (3.9% of new admissions) appeals were heard.

The number of secondary appeals shows more variation than at primary level, with the number heard rising as high as 35,648 in 2019/20, before dropping for the two subsequent years. This year is therefore the first rise for three years.

Of those heard in 2022/23, 6,358 secondary appeals were successful, representing 20.9% of the number heard. This is just a 0.2 percentage point decrease on 2021/22. Overall success rates are notably lower than in 2015/16, when 26.3% of secondary appeals were successful and probably reflects the pressure secondary schools and especially popular schools are under in terms of competition for places. It will be interesting to see what happens in this sector once the numbers transferring from the primary school sector start to fall.

In London, falling rolls have already caused the closure of one secondary school this summer. London secondary school to close this summer | John Howson (wordpress.com) Appeals and their success rate do vary between different local authority areas.

In-year admissions are not generally dealt with by local authorities for academies in the same way that local authorities handle all September admissions. As this blog has noted – Jacob’s Law Time for Jacob’s Law | John Howson (wordpress.com) – this can cause problems for children taken into care and although two White Papers have recommended changes, the government has not found the time or inclination to put in-year admissions on the same footing as September admissions and the subsequent appeal process. This seems unfortunate as the change does not require primary legislation.

Are we levelling up?

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England has a teacher supply crisis in its secondary schools. Not, please note in most areas in its primary schools. Years of missed targets for trainee numbers must have an effect on the labour market unless other sources of teacher supply can be found.

From today the effect of missed targets on examination results will also start to become clear. Will those young people most likely to stay in the local economy have fared less well than those that will disappear off to a university, and then who knows where (likely London in many cases) after graduation, rather returning to their local area where they were brought up. If so, what are the consequences for those local economies?

As the latest in my series on the what happened in the labour market for teachers, as measured by advertisements tracked by TeachVac between January and the end of July 2023, I have managed a quick calculation of number of advertisements for teachers by the Free School Meal percentage of schools. This measurement might suggest whether schools with higher percentages of FSM pupils have more staff turnover?

This is a crude measure because it doesn’t standardise for school size. A better measure is for turnover measured after taking pupil numbers into account and matching the resultant outcome against the percentage of FSM pupils. I haven’t yet had time to do that calculation.

Adverts by school>1010-2021-3031-4041+Total schools
FSM
0-10201162562813460
11-204153231603655989
21-303102551206360808
31-40162150803437463
41-509789502715278
51-603432144589
60+5410111
total122410154811921863098
40+136125653121378
Adverts by school>1010-2021-3031-4041+
FSM
0-1044%35%12%6%3%100%
11-2042%33%16%4%6%100%
21-3038%32%15%8%7%100%
31-4035%32%17%7%8%100%
41-5035%32%18%10%5%100%
51-6038%36%16%4%6%100%
60+45%36%9%0%9%100%
total40%33%16%6%6%100%
40+36%33%17%8%6%100%
Source: TeachVac

There is some evidence from the tables that schools with lower percentages of pupils on Free School Meals do have a lower turnover of staff, and that schools with a higher percentage of such pupil do experience did experience high numbers of advertisements for teaching staff during the January to July 2023 period.

This type of analysis is important because too often the focus is on the student: attendance rates; previous history of examination taking and other factor such as free school meals, but these are not linked to school factors.

Thus, today, BBC Radio 4 has been worrying about the performance of students in the North East compared to students in London. Nick Gibb, The Minister, on the world at One on Radio 4, (I don’t often agree with him), but I do in this instance, suggested it was more a London and the rest of the country difference. However, The Minister didn’t say that there are more independent schools in the south than the north, and that the ability to recruit staff might be a factor in the widening gap in outcomes between those regarded as ‘disadvantaged’ and other pupils.

To ignore staff turnover, is to miss an important component in a system that has failed to train sufficient teachers in many subjects for nearly a decade now. Such shortfall in a market-based recruitment system must surely have consequences?

Secondary School Leadership Vacancies – January to July 2023

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Secondary Leadership Scale Vacancies

The Leadership Scale contains three main groups of vacancies: assistant heads; deputy heads and headteachers. There are also executive head teachers in academy trusts, but those posts are not included in this analysis.

Assistant Head vacancies

Vacancies in the three leadership grades in the secondary sector are sufficiently numerous to warrant consideration for each individual grade of assistant; deputy and headteacher. Although TeachVac collects data from the private school sector, these tables only contain details of vacancies for leadership posts in state schools across England.

2022 State Secondary Sector -Assistant headteacher vacancies
GORVacancies
East Midlands102
East of England173
London248
North East39
North West164
South East201
South West174
West Midlands138
Yorkshire & the Humber129
Grand Total1368
2023 State Secondary Sector – Assistant headteacher vacancies
GORVacanciesDifference 2023 on 2022
East Midlands12018
East of England1807
London241-7
North East24-15
North West154-10
South East22120
South West128-46
West Midlands1391
Yorkshire & the Humber13910
Grand Total1346-22

In 2023 there were more vacancies at this level in the South East than in 2022, whereas in the South West there were fewer recorded advertisements than in the same period in 2022. London and the South East regions account for 33% of the vacancies at this level in 2022 and 34% in 2023. Vacancies at this level were rare in both years. However, some schools might have advertised internally or in a form not caught by TeachVac’s recording of the data.

Deputy Head Vacancies

As with the assistant head grade, there were very similar numbers of advertisements for deputy heads during the first seven months of 2023 advertised by state secondary schools in England when compared with the same schools during the same period in 2022.

Deputy Head 2022
GORVacancies
East Midlands67
East of England74
London132
North East28
North West93
South East119
South West74
West Midlands77
Yorkshire & the Humber98
Grand Total762
Deputy Head 2023
GORVacanciesDifference 2023 on 2022
East Midlands725
East of England8612
London1342
North East24-4
North West88-5
South East14728
South West59-15
West Midlands63-14
Yorkshire & the Humber94-4
Grand Total7675

Source: TeachVac

Although the overall total of advertisements was similar in 2023 to the number in 2022, there were some regional differences, with more vacancies being advertised by schools in the south East and the East of England and fewer advertisements in the south West and West Midlands.

 Headteacher vacancies

As with both the assistant and deputy head teacher grades, in the first seven months of 2023 the number of advertisements logged for headteacher vacancies was very similar to the number recorded during the same period of 2022.

Headteacher 2022
GORVacancies
East Midlands26
East of England31
London55
North East18
North West43
South East48
South West54
West Midlands46
Yorkshire & the Humber44
Grand Total365
Headteacher 2023
GORVacanciesDifference 2023 on 2022
East Midlands19-7
East of England4716
London38-17
North East12-6
North West441
South East5911
South West48-6
West Midlands471
Yorkshire & the Humber440
Grand Total358-7

Source: TeachVac

As with deputy head advertisements, there were more advertisements for headteachers in the South East and East of England in 2023, and fewer in London, where at least one secondary school closed in the summer of 2023. It seems likely that some of the increases may be the result of new schools opening following the building of new housing estates in the Home Counties.

Most secondary schools are able to appoint a new headteacher after their first advertisement. However, around 10% of schools require more than one advertisement before they can fill their headteacher vacancy.

As an exercise, all schools with a re-advertisement for their headteacher posts were matched with their percentage of pupils listed as eligible for Free School Meals. The 33 schools identified as having re-advertised their headteacher vacancy were divided into three groups: schools with less than 20% FSM; 20-25% FSM and schools with more than 25% FSM

The analysis showed that in 2023 there were:

12 schools in the less than 20% FSM group

4 schools with between 20-25% FSM group

17 schools with 25%+ FSM, including two schools with more than 40% that had both readvertised twice so far in 2023.

The below 20% FSM group contained two Roman Catholic schools and a Church of England Middle school. These are schools of a type that often finds recruiting a new headteacher challenging.

Repeating the exercise at the end of September might well add some more schools to the list of those re-advertising for a headteacher as schools often wait until the autumn before re-advertising.