Tag Archives: schools

What is the role of a school in its community?

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For everyone interested in either the role of a middle tier in our school system in England or in how pupil place planning and support for vulnerable children is handled in the current shambles around the arrangements for schools in England, this is an important report to read. Local authority provision for school places and support for vulnerable children – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) The recent White Paper on Education was the second one to pledge to change in-year Admissions and this Report indicates why Ministers should act swiftly to make the necessary changes to the current system.

At the heart of the debate about the middle tier is the role of local authorities and the role of academies and the Trusts that run them. The following two quotes from the report sum up current situation nicely in relation to these important issues for the management of our schooling system:

‘Nevertheless, our research also suggested that there are two ways in which academisation can affect local education systems. First, because there are different processes for making decisions and resolving disputes about place-planning and placements of vulnerable pupils for academies and maintained schools, where an “isolationist” school is an academy, it can be more difficult, complex, and time-consuming to resolve issues. Second, while not generalising, school, trust and LA leaders and parents/carers reported that, among the minority of schools that took an “isolationist” approach, these were more likely to be schools that were part of larger regional or national academy trusts.’

‘Furthermore, there was broad agreement among school, trust and LA leaders and parents/carers that LAs were uniquely placed to play this role [place planning]. (In relation to place-planning, a minority of trust leaders and national stakeholders argued that the RSC should be wholly or partially responsible for delivering place-planning.) Whichever way roles and responsibilities are configured, there was consensus about the need for clarity, alignment of responsibilities and decision-making authority, for reciprocal expectations of schools, trusts and LAs around participating in local partnership-based approaches to place-planning and support for vulnerable pupils, and a renewed, more collaborative relationship between local and central government.’

The situation is summed up by a quote from a local authority officer:

‘Nobody wants to roll back the clock. But if we have MATs not working for the best interests of young people in the community, we don’t have any direct levers. We would have to go through the RSC, and not sure they have many levers. A lot of accountability sits with the LA, but the responsibility of delivery sits with schools. Doesn’t feel appropriate. We need some accountabilities placed on academy trusts and schools to deliver expectations [for vulnerable children].’ (LA officer page 106)

We need a system that works for the children seeking an education, and not primarily for those that provide that schooling. This is especially true for our most vulnerable young people and I hope that Ministers will spend time over easter reading this report and then acting upon its findings. State schooling is a public service and must be managed as such.

Forget the White paper: the crisis is now

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There must be a lot of nervous secondary school headteachers at the start of this Easter break. Over the past two weeks TeachVac has recorded 7,800 new vacancies for teachers. These vacancies have been posted by schools across England, but especially by schools in the South East Region. Nationally, the total is a record for any two-week period during the past eight years that TeachVac has been collecting data on vacancies from state and private schools across England.

I can confidently predict that not all these vacancies will be filled, and that some will be filled by teachers with ‘less than ideal’ subject knowledge. So bad is the situation nationally that one major international recruitment agency is offering a rereferral bonus of £250, presumably to attract new teachers to its books to help fill vacancies. With the size of TeachVac’s list of candidates that are matched each day with vacancies that puts an interesting valuation on the company.

Seriously though, TeachVac has an index that compares recorded vacancies with the reported number of trainees from the DfE’s census. This system has used a consistent methodology for eight years and is now also showing signs of how much stress the system is under. Not for twenty years, during what was the severe recruitment challenge around the millennium, have secondary schools, especially in parts of the south of England, but not exclusively in that area of the country, faced recruitment challenges on the present scale.

As readers of previous posts will know, the intake into training for September 2022 isn’t looking healthy either at present as was confirmed in the chat during the recent APPG webinar on the White Paper.

With fewer partners of EU citizens probably coming to work here as teachers while their partners used to work elsewhere in the economy, and the international school scene not yet affected by the geo-politics of the moment, it is probably correct to talk of an emerging crisis now reaching most parts of the curriculum outside of schools recruiting primary school teachers and physical education, history and art teachers in secondary schools.

The predictions about any crisis and its depth compared to previous years will be confirmed if there are a large number of re-advertisements in early May, especially if they come with added incentives such as TLRs and Recruitment and Retention bonuses as schools seek to ensure timetables are fully staffed for September 2022.

One casualty of the present situation may well be the levelling up agenda in a market-based labour market. All else being equal, where would a teacher choose to work, a school that is challenging or one that is less demanding?  Last spring, I wrote a blog about the challenges schools in the West Midlands with high levels of free school meals faced in recruiting teachers when compared with other schools in the same area. TeachVac is again collecting this data for schools across England.  However, with this level of vacancies we won’t have the funds to analyse the data this year.

Do graduates want to become teachers?

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TeachVac monitors published data on the level of applications to train as a teacher. This monitoring is in addition to its teacher job matching system at www.teachvac.co.uk.

Each month there is a post on this blog about ‘offers’ to would-be trainees and how numbers compare with the previous year. In 2020, there was a covid bounce in applications, as teaching looked like a safe career if the labour market was about to implode. Thanks to the furlough scheme and changes in working practices, graduate unemployment didn’t take off. As a result, 2021 was a more challenging year for teacher training than was 2020, and, from the ‘offers’ perspective, 2022 looks to be no better and potentially even worse in some subjects than 2021.

Another method of measuring the health of the trainee teacher market is to look at how quickly courses fill up with trainees. The DfE site that has replaced UCAS this year has the number of courses with vacancies by subject and sector and the total number of courses listed. It is, therefore, relatively easy to calculate the percentage of courses that no longer have vacancies. Now there may be reasons other than that the course is full for why the ‘no vacancies’ sign has been raised, but as a quick and crude measure it works. The number of courses can also vary from month to month, as providers either devise new routes or withdraw others.

Anyway, with those provisos, what is the state of play at the end of the first week of April 2022? Not good, is probably the best that can be said of the current situation. Overall, there has been little change in the percentage of course with no vacancies since a month ago, especially in the main subjects. The good news is that 58% of psychology ITE courses don’t have vacancies; the bad news is that 93% of physics courses do have vacancies. This is only 2% less than the figure at the start of March. Apart from in physical education, where only two thirds of courses still have vacancies, and that seems a high percentage for this time of year, most secondary subjects still have around four out of five courses showing vacancies.

Perhaps even more worrying is the fact that 84% of courses for intending primary school teachers still have vacancies. In part, this might be due to the plethora of such course on offer from multiple providers. However, in the past it would be expected that most courses would be full before April.

Of course, one drawback with this analysis is that it isn’t apparent as to whether courses have either just one vacancy that has been kept for a really well-qualified applicant or many vacancies. Such information would no doubt be useful to applicants.

The next two months are likely to see few final year students applying for courses as they focus on the completion of their degree courses, and the majority of applicants will come from career switchers or older graduates that have taken time out of the labour market.

New graduates remain a vital source of trainees, and it is to be hoped that after the degree results are announced there will be an uptake of interest in teaching as a career from that group. If not, this could be a really challenging year for providers: 2023 would then be a difficult labour market for schools.

Should middle leaders be qualified for the role?

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‘Teachers at schools with an Ofsted rating ‘requires improvement’ were significantly more likely to be greatly concerned about disengagement from learning (29%, compared with 14% of teachers at schools with an Ofsted rating ‘outstanding’)’ School and College Panel: December 2021 wave (publishing.service.gov.uk) Page 55.

This finding from the DfE’s Wave Study from December 2021 will surely surprise nobody. However, it has serious implications for such schools especially as the study also highlights the fact that teachers in schools ‘with the highest proportions of pupils eligible for FSM, 35% (of teachers were) greatly concerned about an increase in behaviour issues and 26% about disengagement from learning (compared with 20% and 9% respectively among those with the lowest proportions of pupils eligible for FSM).’

Schools reported on their workforce concerns in the same survey. Overall, schools were most concerned about not having sufficient numbers of teaching assistants and cover supervisors (two-thirds, or 67% of schools). They were also concerned about not having sufficient numbers of teaching staff (50%), supply staff (42%), non-teaching staff (37%) and leadership staff (36%). (Page 7)

In terms of issues relating to their workforce the majority of schools were concerned about stress/burnout of current staff (82%) and staff absence due to COVID-19 related illness (72%). Just under two[1]thirds (59%) of schools were concerned about funding, while just under half (46%) were concerned about staff absence due to seasonal/flu illness. Roughly a quarter to a third of schools were also concerned about staff absence due to isolation (35%), recruitment of teachers (26%) and retention of teachers (22%).

December is usually one of the low points for recruitment, so school leaders were clearly already worried about recruitment for 2022 in December 2021, and only to a slightly lessor degree about the retention of staff.

As recent blog posts have shown, concerns about recruitment were valid for many schools, and the lack of trainees joining the teaching workforce this September is a matter of considerable concern nationally in many secondary school subjects.

At present, it is too early in the recruitment cycle for September to tell whether the types of school highlighted at the top of this blog are facing more severe recruitment and retention issues if they have anything other than ‘outstanding’ ratings from Ofsted. The levelling up agenda requires schools to be fully staffed with appropriately trained teachers, especially if the ambition is not only to deal with the consequences of the pandemic but also to reduce the gap in achievement between schools by levelling up is to be met.

No doubt, the issue of staffing and outcomes will be in the minds of those that research the consequences of the levelling up ambition of government.  In my mind, the issue of well prepared and supported middle leaders is a key component in the ambition to improve outcomes.

The survey results on understanding of National Professional Qualifications are concerning in the respect of developing middle leaders.

‘Over half of leaders and teachers (55%) said that they had heard of the new National Professional Qualifications (NPQs). Leaders were much more likely than teachers to have heard of the new NPQs (93% vs. 49%).

Nearly a fifth (18%) of those who had heard of NPQs said that they had applied to undertake one since June 2021, with those working in primary schools (20%) more likely to have applied than those in secondary schools (15%).

Among leaders and teachers that had not applied for an NPQ since June 2021, a quarter (25%) intended to apply in the future, with a third (33%) saying they didn’t know, leaving two-fifths (43%) not intending to apply for an NPQ.’ (Page 9)

It was worrying that 64% of teachers said that they ‘didn’t have enough time to complete a qualification’. (Page 42) If this means that many would-be or even will-be middle leaders enter that role unprepared, then little progress has been made in professional development since the 1970s.

Middle leaders in any organisation are key to the success of the organisation and schools are no exception to this rule.

33,000 in three months

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How are we to interpret the record number of teacher vacancies logged during the first three months of 2022 by TeachVac?

Subject20202022Percentage +/- (The nearest whole %)
Design & Technology1089164351%
Leadership2278335347%
Business701101845%
Computing828119144%
Primary5059714041%
RE61583536%
Music49864830%
Total259393358029%
Geography816104628%
Creative Arts33442327%
History58974827%
PE72790625%
Languages1397173724%
Science3427395615%
Art49355212%
English2427268110%
Mathematics311533287%
Source www.teachvac.co.uk

There is little point comparing 2022 with 2021, as the covid pandemic resulted in very little activity in the teacher job market during the first three months of 2021.

So, how to explain this year’s surge in vacancies, and what might be the consequences?

Is the surge down to schools catching up vacancies not advertised last year; is it – at least in the secondary sector – down to increased pupil numbers; might private schools be recruiting more pupils from overseas and, hence need more teachers; could TeachVac be better are recording or even over-recording vacancies than in the past? I asked the team to check on the last point, and since most of them have been entering vacancies for several years, and we haven’t changed their way of working, it seems unlikely as a reason for the large increase in vacancies.  

On the other side of the equation, could the increase in recorded vacancies be down to more teachers quitting schools in England, either to take up tutoring; to teach overseas or to either reduce their hours or even retire completely? Since we don’t have exit interviews, we will have to wait for the DfE to match teacher identify numbers for those moving within the state system and retiring with a pension and then conjecture what has happened to the remainder of leavers?

As to the consequences, regular readers of this blog will know what will come next because various posts since the ITT Census appeared in December have already been discussing the nature of the recruitment round for September 2022 and January 2023.

The table earlier in this post shows English and mathematics with relatively low increases. Perhaps schools feel that with the change in Ministerial team last autumn the focus on the EBacc subjects might have reduced. If so, might the White Paper provisions see an increase in vacancies in these subjects after Easter?

The increase in leadership vacancies needs further investigation in order to see which sector, and which of the leadership posts; head, deputy or assistant head are most affected by the increase or whether it is a general increase.

Design and technology, business, and to some extent computing are subjects that the government has under-played in its various attempts to increase interest in teaching as a career. Schools still want teachers in these subjects, and the government must help them fill the vacancies.

With many subjects not even meeting the DfE’s indicative target for the need for teachers on teacher preparation routes in 2022, the remainder of the recruitment round may well be a real challenge for many schools.

There is one other possibility, and that is the notion of schools bringing forward recruitment this year, so the peak will have been in March rather than in late April, as has been the normal practice in past years. If so, April will be a lean month for those that put off job hunting until then, unless schools have been unable to fill some of the 33,000 vacancies, and there is a string of re-advertisements this month and next.

TeachVac has a number of different reports to allow schools, local authorities, recruitment agencies and anyone else interested in trends in the labour market in real-time to track the behaviour of the market in anything for real-time to monthly. Email the staff using enquiries@oxteachserv.com for details.

Bad News?

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At the recent NfER webinar on the labour market for teachers some scarry numbers were banded around for this year’s applications for ITT postgraduate courses. On 30th March the DfE released the latest data on applications up to 21st March 2022. Initial teacher training application statistics for courses starting in the 2022 to 2023 academic year – Apply for teacher training – GOV.UK (apply-for-teacher-training.service.gov.uk) For comparison purposes, in 2021, the similar UCAS data was up to the 15th March, so this year’s data contains numbers from an extra week.

Despite the extra week compared with last year, overall candidate numbers at 23,264 are below the 27,170 cited as being domiciled in England in the March 2021 UCAS data. In reality, the DfE’s 23,264 includes around 3,000 domiciled outsides of England, including 514 from Northern Ireland and 2,000 from the EEA plus ‘rest of the world’. So, the domiciled in England number is perhaps no more than 23,500 at best. This would be more than 3,000 below the March 2021 number. Not good news.

Equally disturbing is that the decline in candidates from across the age ranges, with a notable decline in the 25 to 29 age group from 5,900 in 2021 to 4,684 this March. These are often career switchers dissatisfied with their initial career choice after graduation, and choosing teaching as a second career. One of the smaller reductions is in the youngest age group of those age 21 and under, where this year’s number is 4,227 compared with 4,490 in March 2021.

This year, there 6,525 men have applied to become a teacher, compared with 7,620 in March 2021. Female applicants are down from 18,930 to 16,525 for the same comparative period. Last year, by March 2021, 680 men had been ‘placed’ or what is now termed ‘recruited’. This year, 234 have been recruited by March. Fortunately, only 1,515 men has been unsuccessful so far with their applications, along with 2,619 of the 16,525 women.

Applications, as opposed to candidates, are down from 79,790 in March 2021 to 61,755 this year. Higher Education has had 29,566 applications this year compared with 37,050 in March 2021. Not surprisingly, apprenticeship applications are up from 1,680 last year to 2,397 this year. However, the School Direct salaried route only has 3,618 applications compared with 6,460 in 2021. Only 14 have been recruited to this route compared with 40 placed by March 2021. SCITT numbers at 8,458 compared with 9,490 seem more buoyant than the other school-based routes.

Providers across England are reporting lower regional numbers for applications, with London applications down from 16,740 to 14,277 and in the South East from 10,540 to 7,605. Only in the Yorkshire and The Humber Region does the fall seem smaller, at 7,052 compared with 7,980 in March 2021.

These number make for grim reading in a month where TeachVac recorded record numbers of vacancies for teachers posted by schools across England. The aims of the White Paper published earlier this week cannot be met if there are not enough teachers. I still think the NfER prediction for physics that less than 20% of the target number would be reached is alarming, but it is almost certain that the target will be missed for another year, and not only in physics, but also in a range of other subjects.

After 12 years in power at Westminster, a solution to the teacher supply problem must be found by the present government.

Special Needs Consultation

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What a mess. Underlying the government’s Green Paper SEND Review – right support, right place, right time (publishing.service.gov.uk) published yesterday is a feeling that without a strong middle tier there can be no overall management of a SEND system to help our most vulnerable young people.

The DfE has recognised the need for a regional tier – that’s not up for consultation – but the Green Paper is weak on exactly what the structure below that would look like. With no coherent local government system in place across England, it will be a challenge to create a system that works effectively at the sub regional level, especially where rural ‘donuts’ surround urban unitary authorities. Schools Forum don’t seem to even receive a mention in the Green Paper, despite holding the purse strings for schools in general through the DSG. Will a hard Funding Formula make them little more than a talking shop?

The aspirations to make the NHS play the part designated for it in 2014 with the creation of EHCP is to be welcomed, although it will be interesting to see how general practice and the hospital sector step up to their responsibilities. Still, new data sharing arrangements are long overdue between health and education.

There is little said in the Green Paper about reform of the SEN Tribunals that almost unanimously find, at least in part, in favour of parents. What may be needed is an approach similar to civil court personal injury compensation, where judgements are set down, if necessary, by the high court, and only new conditions or cases need to go to a Tribunal. Saying ‘no’ all the way to the door of the Tribunal, possibly to save a local authority money should be a thing of the past. Such a system won’t be easy to create, but the present system places intolerable burdens on families in terms of both financial and emotional demands.

The Green Paper accepts that alternative provision is a mess, but doesn’t really identify the causes of the mess and which parts work well. If anything, this is an area where my suggestion of multi-purpose practices of teachers might work well and bring fringe activities within a regulatory framework. All pupils should be on a school roll until 18. Off-rolling should be a positive decision that for teenagers needs to be carefully scrutinised as to why ‘now’ and not earlier in a child’s educational journey. The child’s voice must be part of the decision, however uncomfortable that might be for some parties to that child’s education.

Hovering over all the good intentions is the spectre of funding. Perhaps this is why it is a Green and not a White Paper. Unless the Treasury finds the cash for a better system ‘fine words will butter no parsnips’ as the old saying goes.

More young people are been identified as requiring different approaches to learning than the average child and it is interesting that ‘gifted’ children no longer form part of the SEND agenda. However, an education system based upon the needs of every child is expensive and needs good coordination. The aim is there, but it will be well into the autumn before we see the result of this consultation and thus 2025 before any significant outcomes that don’t need legislative change. For changes requiring legislation it seems unlikely anything will happen this side of the next general election.

Most frightening part of the White Paper?

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We will embed tutoring in every school

101. Government has invested £1 billion to establish the National Tutoring Programme. We will deliver up to 6 million tutoring packages by 2024, which when combined with our programmes to deliver tutoring for young people aged 16-19 equates to around 100 million hours of tutoring. Small group tuition has an average impact of an additional four months in primary schools and two months in secondary school, 63 and it is our vision that tutoring no longer be the preserve of families who can afford to pay for private tuition, but the right of any child in need of additional support.

102. We will continue to financially incentivise schools to provide tutoring – and we expect every school to make tutoring available to children who need it. Schools have the flexibility to use their own staff, bring in dedicated new staff or use external tutors from accredited organisations to provide high-quality tuition that best meets the needs of their pupils. Tutoring will be a core ‘academic’ option in the Pupil Premium menu. 63 Education Endowment Foundation. Teaching and Learning Toolkit. 40

103. From 2024, we will have cultivated a vibrant tutoring market, serving schools right across England. We will expect tutoring to continue to be a staple offer from schools, with schools using their core budgets – including Pupil Premium – to fund targeted support for those children who will benefit.

Opportunity for all – Strong schools with great teachers for your child (publishing.service.gov.uk)

Great idea, what’s wrong with it and why do you call it frightening?

My concern is that the consequences of this scheme might not have been thought through.

‘From 2024, we will have cultivated a vibrant tutoring market’. Not only do markets cost money to operate but there is also the question of where will these tutors come from? Will they come from the existing teacher workforce with teachers switching to tutoring from full-time teaching and, if so, where will their replacements come from?

The government does have an answer, but whether or not it has been agreed by the Home Office is another matter.

Paragraph 40 of the White Paper reads: ‘To make teaching here even more attractive to the best teachers from around the world, we will introduce a new relocation premium to help with visas and other expenses. This will be complemented by bursaries for international trainees with the potential to be brilliant teachers in priority subjects. By bringing forward legislative changes and introducing a new digital service, we will recognise high-quality teaching qualifications from all over the world in this country.’

Will the relocation premium be available to teachers returning to England after teaching in international schools or only to foreign nationals?

Fear not, there are other measures to boost teacher supply

 ‘We will therefore incentivise new teachers to work in places where they are needed most through our Levelling Up Premium. This will be worth up to £3,000 tax-free for eligible maths, physics, chemistry and computing teachers, in years one to five of their careers, who choose to work in disadvantaged schools, including in the new Education Investment Areas.’ (Paragraph 38).

Nothing about how to create more business studies, design and technology and geography teachers despite severe shortages in these subjects. Still there will be initiative to help engineers teach physics, and to improve the supply of languages teachers, although of which languages is not specified. The pledge for many teachers of Mandarin sees like something from a different age.

ITT will have more frequent ofsted visits, but seems to have escaped relatively lightly compared with some predictions.

A White Paper for an economic crisis. Reminds me of Education for All: A Framework for Expansion that was Mrs Thatcher’s attempt when Secretary of State for Education. That was scuppered by an oil price crisis.

Opportunity for All?

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The government published it Education White Paper today. They didn’t make it easy to find the whole document, but it can be accessed at Opportunity for all – Strong schools with great teachers for your child (publishing.service.gov.uk) For younger readers, it is called a White Paper because when such documents first appeared they had white covers. Later when documents with suggestions and not proposals appeared they were called Green Papers as they had a green cover.

Enough of the history, although it is worth looking back to the last education White Paper. It promised to look at returning in-year admissions to local authorities, but nothing happened. This time on page 53 there is a graphic that just says LAs will ‘manage’ in-year admissions. It is not clear where the management role will have sanctions to back it up. I hope so.  If local authorities are provided with ‘backstop’ powers to direct in-year admissions that will be a step forward and should be put into place as soon as possible. The intention is summarised in paragraph 163. As a final safety net to cover rare circumstances where collaborative working breaks down, we will consult on a new backstop power for local authorities to direct trusts to admit children. Trusts would have the right to appeal this to the Schools Adjudicator. Please start the consultation as soon as possible – Time for Jacob’s Law | John Howson (wordpress.com)

The news in the White Paper that local authorities can run academy trusts is to be welcomed as correcting one of the wrongs of Mr Gove’s original 2010 Academies Act. However, in the spirit of strong schools, will schools in existing academy chains be able to make a transfer either to another chain or to a local authority trust, and will local authorities be able to include schools outside their boundaries in a Trust, such as Swindon schools in a Wiltshire trust or Blackpool schools in a Lancashire Trust? Will there need to be Chinese walls between an LA Trust officers and other officers with powers to direct Trust, as over admissions?

The White Paper downgrades Regional School Commissioners to Regional Directors, a less threatening title to local democracy. However, the amount of power local authorities can wield will depend upon funding. At least local trusts should have the same financial powers as the present trusts to manage central costs.

Perhaps the biggest change in policy terms in the White Paper is the ending of the freedom of parents to control the education of their children as paragraph 77 make clear, the government will also introduce legislation to establish a register for children not in school, exploring how this data should be used by local authorities and multi-agency teams to undertake their duties and support children’s education. The 1870 Act required parents to educate their children. The 2022 White Paper now also requires them to tell the authorities how they are doing that education. Will the next step be to ensure that all children receive high quality education of id the white Paper’s real time ‘Opportunity for all in state funded schools?

Overall, the White Paper is not as dramatic as it was thought it might be.

Paying more for school transport

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The County Councils Network has recently released a new report which analyses the challenges county authorities face in delivering home to school transport services, including the impact of the record fuel price increases. Councils face difficult decisions as spiralling fuel prices impact on school transport services, report warns – County Councils Network

With fuel prices hitting record highs this month, the CCN is warning that this is having a significant impact on school transport services, with councils facing having to pay providers significantly more for operating school services and providing taxis.

According to the County Councils Network the local authorities that supplied data to this study transported 248,000 pupils for free last year, of which 51,000 were young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).

The report calls for short-term support for local authorities to help weather the storm of rising fuel prices, which has, according to the research, led to transport companies re-tendering for contracts up to 20% higher than last year.

Even before the fuel price increase, county authorities were facing yearly increases in costs in home to school transport services, particularly for SEND pupils.

Released ahead of the government’s long-awaited SEND Review, the report by the County Councils Network urges the Government’s review of SEND to address the root causes of a rise in costs and demand in SEND services, including home to school transport. The report finds an increasing number of pupils becoming eligible for Education, Health and Care Plans and an increase in young people attending special schools.

Based on data from 28 CCN member councils, the report finds:

  • County authorities spent a total of £555.6m on free school transport last year, up from £472.6m in 2016/17. This increase is largely down to a 33% rise in expenditure for pupils with SEND – up from £250m five years ago to £336m in 2021. This is the equivalent of 11% of on average council’s entire children’s services budget.
     
  • The number of pupils using SEND free school transport has increased from 41,185 in 2016/17 to 51,558 in 2020/21 – a rise of 10,373 pupils. Over the last three years, the average cost of individual pupils has increased by £206 to £6,099 a year – due to rising costs, such as fuel price increases.
     
  • Almost two-thirds of councils (60%) who responded to a separate survey for the report said that their expenditure on SEND school transport was ‘unsustainable’ and 34% said it was ‘difficult.’ Just one said it was ‘manageable’. Costs for taxis, private hire, and minibuses for these pupils had increased from £175m in 2016 to £244m in 2021.
     
  • Despite yearly growth in population numbers, and rising costs, councils’ expenditure on mainstream home to school transport has remained the same throughout the period – £212m in 2016 to £208m in 2021.

Council taxpayers have to pay the cost of any transport not covered by government grants and that is a burden not carried by those living in urban areas where most home to school transport costs fall on families.

As a result of cost pressures, many councils have had little choice but to reduce eligibility for free school transport for mainstream home to transport due to facing significant financial pressures over the period, including in SEND school transport. There were almost 20,000 fewer mainstream pupils using free transport to their school in 2021 compared to 2016/17.

Especially mean cuts are where only transport tot the ‘nearest’ school is provided and there is a system of selective education. The selective school will rarely be the nearest school and so families may not be able to take up a place at a selective school if they cannot afford the transport costs. As a twin, I understand how this can impact on some families.

The situation is even worse where the selective school is an academy in another authority as face children, for example, on Canvey Island, part of Castel Point local authority and where the nearest selective schools are in the city of Southend-on-Sea.

Councils need to publish data on how much of their home to school transport to academies is funded by government grant and how much by council Tax payers and through business rates.  

The government might also need to consider help for small rural schools that are using oil for heating, as those costs have risen sharply as well. It would be unfair if the present world situation hastened the end of rural primary schools and thus forced costs for transport even higher, threatening other local services as cash had to be diverted into supporting yet more school transport.