Tag Archives: schools

Education and The English question

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The Education & Adoption Bill has now passed its second reading in the House of Commons. This is the debate that takes places about principles rather than details; these come in the later Committee Stage. Realistically the Bill has but two key clauses, one about coasting schools and the other about adoptions. As the Secretary of State wasn’t able to furnish a definition of a coasting school in time for the second reading debate MPs were floundering around a bit. Indeed, since the original academy programme was devised by Labour to deal with under-performing schools, the opportunities for Labour to attack the Bill on its basic principle of improving schools were somewhat limited.

The debate did, however, offer the opportunity for many new backbench MPs to make their first or ‘maiden’ speech in the chamber. Most, but not I think all, followed convention and paid tribute to the former representative of their constituency. Many said what a great place they were representing and some went on to explain their interest in education.
What was more interesting, in a debate entirely about schools in England, were the contributions from two SNP MPs and the Labour Shadow Minister for School who sits for a constituency in Wales. Since education is a devolved activity one might have expected contributions only from MPs representing constituencies in England.

One SNP MP talked mainly about how wonderful her constituency was and didn’t really seem to mention education very much at all: something of a waste of parliamentary time when backbench members were being restricted to speeches of only six minutes duration. This was later extended to ten minutes, presumably because some potential speakers waived their previously expressed intention to speak.

Listening and reading in Hansard about contributions from MPs from Wales and Scotland speaking on devolved matters in these sort of debates does focus minds on the so-called English question at Westminster. I have no problem if their contribution adds to the store of knowledge on the question under discussion but frankly I see little point in contributions about how wonderful Glasgow is as a city. As a former teacher that SNP MP did finally say something about education at the end of her speech, but not enough on the subject under debate. As she completed her speech with a Gaelic phrase and an MP from a Welsh constituency started in that language, I also wondered how long it will be before simultaneous translation makes an appearance at Westminster?

The Bill now goes to its Committee Stage with the aim of completing this during July. As there are so few clauses this seems like a manageable timetable, assuming agreement can be reached on what is a coasting school? As I wrote earlier today, Sir Chris Woodhead initiated that debate around 20 years ago, so the DfE and Ofsted should have been able to provide some choices for Ministers to select from by the time of the debate.
Finally, I was disappointed not to see a contribution to the debate from one of the remaining Lib Dem MPs: a sign of how times have changes and the new world at Westminster where Scottish MPs can talk on matters that are of little or no concern to them, but the voice of Liberalism might now struggle to be heard.

Food for thought

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Last Friday the DfE published its annual census data on schools. This deals with the number of schools and also provides details about the number of pupils. The headlines, larger classes and larger schools, were well covered by the media. The increases in pupil numbers were not unexpected, although the increase in average class size at KS2, while average class sizes at KS1 remained the same, might not have been predicted by everyone.

Average class sizes in the primary sector are now larger than a decade ago, but remain 1.4 pupils per teacher smaller than in 2006 across the secondary sector as a whole. Average class sizes in the primary sector are at their smallest in parts of the North East, where the growth in pupil numbers hasn’t really happened yet and largest in parts of outer London where they are approaching 30 pupils per teacher in both Sutton and Harrow at 29.6:1. Several other London boroughs have average class sizes of over 29 pupils per teacher.

However, one table that interested me and hasn’t been widely reported on was the take-up of school meals. This was the first year of the free school meals for infant pupils. At the census, the average take-up of school lunches by infant pupils was 85.6%. However, since pupils absent on the day are included in the overall total, the actual take up by pupils present in school was presumably somewhat higher than that in schools where some pupils were absent. Redcar in the North East had the highest take-up at 94.5% of it infant school population if you exclude the 100% in the City of London’s one primary school. Not far behind were a group of six London boroughs that included Kingston and Islington. At the other end of the table were Brighton and Hove, at just 70.5% take-up and Oxfordshire with the second lowest figure of 77.4% take-up. These authorities were followed closely by Thurrock, Medway and Hillingdon. The south east had the lowest take-up of any region at just over 81% whereas Inner London averaged over 90% take-up, closely followed by the North East region.

It is difficult to know what to read into these figures on take-up. Are families in affluent areas happy to ignore the free meals on offer or were these authorities where the meals service had collapsed after the assault on provision during the Thatcher years? The former clearly doesn’t work everywhere as a reason, otherwise places like Kingston upon Thames would not be so close to the top of the list. Perhaps, parents in these areas understand the value of the £400 of saving taking up the free meal deal can provide, especially when the alternative is spending income taxed at 40%.

It isn’t a rural urban divide either, so may be some other factor is at work. As a councillor in Oxfordshire I will be asking questions about why the take-up is so low locally? But, the Tory cabinet member was always opposed to the free school meals policy, so that may have had some effect.

National Funding Formula

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I have been reminded that my last post didn’t explicitly mention the need for a new funding formula for schools. This has been such a long-running saga, started under the Labour government and not brought to a conclusion during the coalition that I confess it slipped my mind.  My apologies to the F40 Group of local authorities that have long campaigned for better funding for their parts of England.

I suppose one good thing to emerge from the coalition was that both the Pupil Premium and Universal Infant Free School Meals were funded at the same rate across the whole country and not pro-rata to authorities on their other funding levels for education. There are those that might argue that the funding wasn’t enough, but it was the same for all. However, that doesn’t obviate the need for a coherent plan for education funding that can be justified on a rational basis. Any reforms must accept the consequences of the raising of the learning leaving age to eighteen. In rural areas the continuation of the old transport rules that assumed staying in education post sixteen was an option need urgent reform.

During the election campaign I met sixth formers of all abilities in both further education and schools that had faced considerable challenges to be able to continue their education. With subsidies to rural bus services under renewed threat this is an unfair burden on young people living in the countryside. If we tried to take away the free travel enjoyed in London there would no doubt be a great outcry.

There is no doubt that what funding there is will increasingly be taken up by increased pay. In those parts of the country, notably London and the Home Counties, where recruitment is at its most challenging it won’t take long for teachers to recognise that the new pay freedoms mean they can ask for more in their pay packets and leave it up to school leaders and governing bodies to decide how to manage the consequences of saying ‘no’.

One outcome is likely to be larger classes, especially in the secondary sector. However, judging by the downward trend in pupil-teacher ratios seen in recent years the system should be able to handle some worsening in ratios and larger class sizes. But, that makes planning teacher supply just that bit more difficult, as trainee PE teachers are no doubt finding out to their cost this year.

Schools will have to look for ways to cut costs, and recruitment advertising is one obvious source of savings as we have shown with TeachVac. By providing a free service to secondary schools that now covers promoted posts as well as main scale vacancies we have created a platform that could save school many millions of pounds as well as providing them with more information about the state of the labour market. If you haven’t visited www.teachvac.co.uk they pay a visit and register. The site will shortly be extending to cover leadership vacancies directly input by schools and I will announce that development on this blog as I will our future plans for extending into the primary sector.

Congratulations Mrs Clarke

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Congratulations to Mrs Rebecca Clarke. The BBC today noted on their Education pages that Mrs Clarke has become the head teacher at Greenleas First School in Linslade, near Leighton Buzzard in Bedfordshire, after starting work at the school as a volunteer and working through a range of posts including lunch-time supervisor, teacher, deputy head and twice acting head teacher before becoming the substantive head teacher.

This is a good news story in several respects. Firstly, as it shows that those coming to teaching later in life, in this case seemingly after her children started school, can still become a head teacher and secondly because governing bodies need to remember that head teachers can achieve without always following the expected path to promotion. That doesn’t mean I advocate dropping in those with no experience of education into the head’s study, as I don’t. But you don’t always need twenty years in the classroom environment before you can become a head teacher. This is especially the case for those women that take a career break to raise a family or care for a relative. Although it may be appropriate to initially return to classroom teaching to regain core skills the profession does need to do far more to facilitate re-entry and accelerated promotion for such people than currently is the case.

Once back promotion should be relatively swift if those making the decisions can see beyond the bare facts on an application form. With the demise of local authorities it isn’t clear where ‘return to teaching’ courses and support for this type of career development now resides in local areas. At the very least, the NCTL should review the help for returners on offer across the country.

Another primary school in the news this week is Gascoigne Primary in East London: a school featured in its own TV series. Currently with more than 1,000 pupils on roll, it has been suggested that it be expanded to 1,500 across two sites. Now, I wonder whether the expansion has less to do with educational factors and more to do with the fact that if the school was split into two new schools these would both have to become academies, whereas the current school can grow to any size and remain a community school with a closer relationship to the local Council. I am sure that isn’t the thinking, but I am curious about any plan to create mega-schools. When Labour tried to create massive so-called Triton prisons some years ago there was a mighty row in the national press and among those concerned with prison reform. But, it seems as a community we are accepting of such large size primary schools. Personally, having been educated in a 16 form junior school with around 650 pupils, I am not a great fan of very large primary schools, especially when they include very young children on site, as I have said before on this blog.  Still let’s celebrate Mrs Clarke’s achievement and worry about large schools on another day.

 

 

Labour backs Free Schools

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Far more important than Labour’s reiterated pledge announced today to adhere to a watered down class size policy they first introduced in 1997 was the fact that at the same time they seemingly conceded that Labour now no longer universally opposes Free Schools as a concept; they just oppose them where they aren’t needed. Others will know whether this is a major concession or just a bit of real politick. Perhaps such schools might have been more acceptable if they had been branded as ‘voluntary academies’ to sit alongside converter and sponsored academies in the family of schools. After all, there has been a long tradition of voluntary schools in the state system and by no means are all of them faith schools.

Sadly, Labour seems to have ducked the issue of who will enforce class size controls. I assume it will be regional commissioners in academies, but will it still be local authorities in other schools and how will they be funded for such a duty?

The allowance of a year with an oversize class muddies the water since if on day one of the second year the school creates two classes but on day two reverts to one over-sized class for financial reasons will the clock start again providing another year of grace for the school? Realistically, as Labour understood in 1997, but doesn’t seem to now, if press reports are correct, an over-size class needs to be dealt with when it arises and either reduced in size or a dispensation granted because there is no other solution possible. There is also no pledge to extend the limit to the junior age pupils. They can still legally be taught in a class of any size.

I welcome the acceptance that teachers need to be trained and the work that Chris Waterman is doing with SATTAG and the manifesto on teacher education should help make clear to all where the Parties stand on this issue during the general election. Every MP seeking re-election will have received a copy of the manifesto in the post and as a contributor I hope that they read it and make their position clear.

There are big risks for education in England after the election as any coalition propped up by Scottish Nationalist MPs wouldn’t have a majority on education issues in England since it seems unlikely many Scottish Nationalist MPs would want to hang around Westminster to vote or even speak in debates about schooling in England; not a topic they know much about anyway. In that respect, education in England could be the big loser of a hung parliament with the Secretary of State having to be mindful of what might be voted down in parliament. This is an issue that no doubt will be discussed further between now and the 7th May.

Schools rebuff call to use unqualified teachers

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The DfE tables in the 2013 Teacher Workforce Survey that reveals the changes in pupil teacher ratios over time. The data also says something about the use of qualified and unqualified teachers by the different types of school. Despite the increase in pupil numbers, PTRs in the maintained primary sector appeared to have improved between 2012 and 2013. However, they worsened in primary academies. This may well be down to the mix of schools in the two groups and it is more instructive to note that PTRs across the whole primary sector remained unchanged for the second year in a row at 20.5 for teachers of all descriptions, despite schools adding to their cash reserves during this period.

In the secondary sector, where more schools are academies of one sort or another, PTRs for qualified teachers worsened from 15.5 to 15.7 after improving in the previous year. The overall PTR for the secondary sector is still 1.5 pupils per teacher better than in 2000, so the support for funding in schools during this parliament seems to have helped, at least with staffing levels.

The DfE also published data on the difference in the ratio between qualified teachers in schools and all teachers, qualified and unqualified. As the latter include Teach First and probably some School Direct trainees on the salaried route ‘unqualified’ isn’t the same as the former ‘instructor’ category. As this data is two recruitment rounds after Michael Gove freed academies to employ anyone as a teacher it is interesting to see what signs there have been of any change in the balance between qualified and unqualified teachers being employed.

In primary maintained schools the difference between qualified and all teachers remained at 0.4 of a pupil between 2012 and 2013. In primary academies it reduced from a gap of 0.8 to 0.7 of a pupil; so no dramatic swing towards unqualified teachers there. In the remaining maintained secondary schools the gap between qualified teachers and all teachers widened from 0.5 of a pupil to 0.6. In academies it also widened by 0.1 of a pupil from 0.7 to 0.8.

Among the different types of secondary academies, in free schools the ratio between qualified and all teachers widened from 1.3 to 2.3, a noticeable change in the ratio in a single year. However, in converter academies there was little change in difference between the PTR for all teachers and for just qualified teachers increasing by just 0.1 of a pupil.

In UTCs and Studio Schools serving the post-14 age-group the gap was largest of any group of schools, with a difference of 3.4 pupils per teacher between the all teacher PTR and the qualified teacher PTR. This was up from 1.7 in a year, possibly because of the number of these schools opening had increased.

Overall, there doesn’t seem to have been a large swing towards the use of unqualified teachers and much of the change may be down to the expansion of Teach First and School Direct between 2012 and 2103. Rejecting the unprincipled use of unqualified teachers is sensible. Whether, as a recruitment crisis develops, there will be enough qualified teachers to go around is another matter. As regular readers know, we are tracking that situation in secondary schools through TeachVac at http://www.teachvac.co.uk if you are interested. The February newsletter to be issued next week will reflect our latest finding.

Happy 2nd birthday

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240 posts in 24 months: more than 30,000 views: visitors from across the globe. Little did I think when I posted my first entry to this blog in January 2013 that it would reach such an audience only two years later.

My thanks to those of you that read the postings regularly. I fear that the blog has strayed slightly from its original purpose of re-telling the stories behind the numbers into a wider range of topics.  Perhaps that was inevitable given the range of issues arising out of education policy over the past two years. However, the topic that has come to the front, especially during the past eighteen months, is that of teacher supply, and recruitment into both training and employment.

I started my career in teaching in January 1971 in the middle of a recruitment crisis, being hired as a supply teacher to cover parts of two vacancies the school couldn’t fill. The school was a challenging one and a place some teachers came to look, but didn’t bother to stay even for the interview as they know there were other vacancies they could apply for in easier schools. I don’t want to see this situation again. We came close to it in 2003, and the risks are once again in plain sight.

By the time the general election campaign is in full swing in April the situation both regarding recruitment for September and for recruitment into training for 2016 employment will be well known and the government will have nowhere to hide if the situation has deteriorated compared with last year, especially for entry into training.

As a Lib Dem county councillor I am still aware that the issue left over from the Labour government of a well defined and engaged middle tier to sit between Westminster and the schools still hasn’t been properly solved. Academies, as the recent events over their accounts show, are not part of a unified system working for the good of all. Competition hasn’t yet been fully replaced by cooperation, and the notion of good schools for all with choice between good schools and not between a good school and a less good one is still little more than an aspiration on parts of the country.

So, we now wait to see what will happen after the general election. Will there be another whirlwind, as there was in 2010 with the Academies Act arriving on the statute book less than three months after the election. I would be surprised if that turns out to be the case. Much, as ever, will depend upon the personality of the Secretary of State and what they want to achieve. Gove wanted to be Education Secretary: does either of the current Labour or Conservative politicians with the brief really want the job after May?

This year I have helped create TeachVac as a new and free matching service for schools looking for teachers and applicants looking for teaching posts. Full details are at www.teachvac.co.uk. This may take more of my time, so I cannot guarantee to continue ten posts per month in the next year: but I will see what can be done. Once again, thanks for reading.

 

 

Prediction comes true

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In December I wrote on this blog in a post headed crocodile tears that: ‘One must assume that since the majority of academies are secondary schools the overall figure for school balances might be in excess of £4 billion and possibly even higher across the system.

’ According to figures obtained from the DfE and printed in the Guardian today schools are carrying balances of more than £4 billion and, as I predicted, academies had more than £2.4 billion in reserves at the end of March 2014, although one must be slightly careful as that isn’t the end of their financial year as it is for other state funded schools.
Although schooling is big business, with millions of pupils and more than half a million teachers, this is still a sum across all schools equal to half the level of investment it is suggested that the NHS needs in England between now and 2020. The question must therefore be, is this level of reserves necessary at the school level and, if not, what can be done about the situation?
Guidelines suggest reserves of 5% for secondary schools; 8% for primary schools and I would suggest perhaps 10% for the smallest rural primary schools. However, the Minister in his answer to Frank Dobson’s question referred to schools holding one month’s expenditure as the test of solvency. That equates to just over 8% of annual revenue, so probably a bit high for a large secondary school since academy financial years mirror the school year so salaries are secure for the whole of an academic year.
Today Children’s Services Weekly has reported that Cambridgeshire faced a large increase in home to school transport costs due to more staying on after sixteen and increased SEN transport costs. This highlights the dilemma facing our education system: putting the funding where it is most useful. Certainly sitting idle in schools bank accounts because there might be a rainy day at some point in the future, is a waste of public money. As regular readers of this blog know, I dislike revenue spending being saved and turned into building projects for future pupils. The money is, in my opinion, for the education of the present generation not for their younger brothers and sisters.
Personally, I think the government should now publish the revenue balances of all academies in the same manner as they do for other publicly funded schools. They should also measure overheads paid to academy trusts compared with local authority charges for similar services and those bought directly from the private sector. Protecting the education budget is one thing, but obtaining value for money is another and equally important duty.
As regular readers know TeachVac launches today. It was originally an idea to collect data about the labour market but now, like the disruptive retailers, it has been shown to offer significant saving while providing the level of management information any large organisation should possess about the turnover of its workforce. If you haven’t been to http://www.teachvac.co.uk do pay a visit and view the demo videos on both the schools and teachers sections of the web site.

Unqualified Teachers: where next?

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On the day before the Carter Review is expected to publish its awaited report there has been a flurry of interest in the use of unqualified teachers. Since the data from the DfE is nearly a year old and relates to data collected from schools in November 2013 it might not be expected to be a topic to attract much interest. However, perhaps it has been a slow news day ahead of Carter and at least one post on another bog appeared on the subject this week.
It is worth reminding ourselves of the DfE definition of an ‘unqualified teacher’. Such a person is: ‘a teacher in an LA maintained school is either a trainee working towards qualified teacher status; an overseas trained teacher without QTS or an instructor who has a particular skill who can be employed for so long as a qualified teacher is not available.’ Now an academy may employ such people according to the doctrine of the former Secretary of State. Michael Gove but the DfE definition doesn’t seem to have caught up with that change in their School Workforce Survey, at least in the 2013 edition.
However, it probably doesn’t matter because the total number of unqualified teachers in November 2013 was still below that in the early 2000s during the Labour government’s period in office. In November 2013 there were 17,100 unqualified teachers in all state funded schools in England compared with 18,800 in 2005 and 18,200 in 2006. The 2013 figure will have included both those on the first year of Teach First, a programme introduced by Labour, and probably those on the School Direct salaried route where they are employed by schools. As their predecessors on Labour GTTP Scheme were also included in the totals there is little change methodology there, although the supposed popularity of the scheme might have been expected to boost the numbers. But, this blog has already pointed out that there are fewer School Direct salaried trainees this year than there were GTTP trainees in secondary schools a few years ago.
It would be helpful to know how many instructors are being employed in schools by returning to the separate categories for trainees and ‘instructors and other unqualified teachers’ employed by the DfE until a few years ago. This would allow commentators to check trends in genuinely unqualified staff that had no intention of obtaining a teaching qualification. Such numbers are important to know with a looming teacher supply crisis and mixing up school-based trainees and staff recruited to fill vacancies otherwise unfilled or because a schools doesn’t believe in the present preparation methods for teachers isn’t helpful, but perhaps it wasn’t meant to be.
Tomorrow is the official launch of TeachVac our free service for schools seeking secondary classroom teachers and trainees looking for their first job. http://www.teachvac.co.uk has already attracted sufficient trainees to make over 1,000 matches in the first two weeks of January and provide valuable information about the state of the job market. Do take a look at the video on the site if this is an area of interest.

Worrying reports for teaching

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Two new pieces of evidence that support the ‘NO FEES for trainees’ campaign launched by this web site at the beginning of January were published today. High Fliers, the organisation that has been monitoring graduate recruitment since 1995, updated its forecast for 2015 graduate recruitment to suggest the market is still growing and that Teach First will be the largest single employer of new graduates in 2015. But, they don’t count the 30,000 graduates entering training to be teachers in their survey partly because to do so would demonstrate how teaching dominates the graduate labour market.

The second piece of evidence was a research report by Income Data Services for the NASUWT on pay in teaching. This shows pay on entry falling behind. Governments have always been reluctant to accept that by imposing an extra year of unpaid preparation on would-be teachers that affects the decision of some that would become teachers when there are plenty of other graduate job opportunities. Making trainees pay fees just adds insult to injury and further reduces the incentive to teach. It have pointed out before that if the Ministry of Defence can pay trainee officers at Sandhurst, the DfE should be able to pay all trainee teachers rather than impost a levy on training through the fees.

With the labour market for graduates now recognised as buoyant, the fee remission is something that can be achieved quickly and relatively cheaply for government and could make a difference to recruitment. Yes, some individuals would have become teachers and be prepared to pay for the privilege, but the same is true for army, navy and air force officers, not to mention civil servants and many others in the public sector.  We don’t expect them to, so why teachers?

After the recruitment crisis of 2000-2003 teachers’ pay rose in relation to the private sector, partly because Ministers took the brakes off the progression through to the Upper Pay Spine. It may have been reasonable during the recession for public sector pay to be kept down, but once pay starts becoming uncompetitive something has to be done or a teacher recruitment crisis develops. The warning signs have been there since 2012, as readers of this blog know.

With most graduate jobs located in or around London traditionally it is in the capital that pay pressures have been likely to exert the greatest effect. But, with new businesses able to start in bedrooms these days and then turnover many thousands of pounds through a single computer pay and conditions have become a national issue that the government’s broadband strategy will only make worse.

Schools can offer what salaries they like these days, and we will try to monitor this trend. Schools may seek to use their reserves to offer higher salaries and savvy trainees will undoubtedly use the evidence from today’s reports to negotiate higher starting salaries, especially if they know that they are in a shortage subject. Schools that register their vacancies with www.teachvac.co.uk will be told about the size of the market and can respond accordingly.

At the end of this month we will know the initial recruitment figures for 2015 training places and can compare the situation with January 2014. Any deterioration will be bad news. Cut tuition fees now.