8th March: Should schools reopen?

Posted on February 22, 2021 by John Howson

Earlier this afternoon a journalist rang me to ask my views on this question. What looks like being an ‘all or nothing’ decision by the government, will please some, worry others and upset yet others? As far as the risk to the pupils is concerned the NHS data on deaths is clear:

Number of deaths involving COVID-19 by sex and age group, England and Wales, registered between 28 December 2019 and 5 February 2021

Unit	Number of deaths

	Male	Female
Under 1 year	2	0
1 to 14 years	4	5
15 to 44 years	752	497
45 to 64 years	7,305	4,107
65 to 74 years	11,513	6,695
75 to 84 years	22,269	15,813
85 years and over	22,956	27,304

Source: Office for National Statistics – Deaths registered weekly in England and Wales

The risk of death to pupils is extremely low. However, there is the risk of transmission by pupils to older age groups. However, the data on vaccinations now emerging is encouraging on this issue. So, although multi-generational households with school-age children will have older members more at risk, the risk seems to be mitigated by the vaccine. The risk will obviously be higher amongst those that haven’t been vaccinated. As a result, I would encourage everyone offered a vaccine to take up the offer.

Schools will no doubt test pupils and staff on a regular basis, and cases will no doubt increase in some areas, as they did in the autumn because of the large numbers of pupils mingling in close contact. Some older staff may be more at risk, and there is a case for vaccinating school staff by age, possibly concentrating on the 40-60 age group first.

In terms of learning, what in my youth was called ‘the hidden curriculum’ or ‘the informal curriculum’ may be as important as catching up on learning facts and figures. Young people need time to reform social groups and possibly, in some cases to take out their frustrations on the nearest adults in authority. For many that will be teachers. So, between now and the summer will be a time for re-engagement with on-site learning, ready hopefully for a new school-year in the autumn. There is still the issue of assessing potential to be considered so that students know they will be treated fairly. As an exercise that will take longer than some may think.

Finally, there needs to be an investigation into what went well and were there were faults that created barriers to learning. The education system as a whole seemed to have been suffering from what one might term the ‘Arcadia Approach’ of denying technology will change the business. The lack of preparedness for on-line learning is shaming. Business as usual must not just mean schooling as it was in the past. Not least because the digital divide has been shown to be real and profound. Education for all must mean just that and not education for some to one standard and to a lower level for others.

Open schools on March 8^th and work through to Easter and then take stock. and, if offered a vaccination, please take it.

Understanding Academy Finances

Posted on February 19, 2021 by John Howson

Recently, I came across a new study into the income and expenditure of academies by Xeinadin https://www.xeinadin-group.com/industries/academies/ When following up on that report, I also came across another and lengthier report from Kreston Reeves https://www.krestonreeves.com/news/academies-benchmark-report-2021/ published last month.

Both are interesting in their own ways. However, neither accounts clearly for the fact that there are different pay areas within the School Teachers’ Pay and Conditions Document and the annual recommendations from the School Teachers Review Body. Now, these differences do not matter when percentages are used, but comparing on cash figures may introduce some distortion in the outcomes if the difference between MATs in Inner London and those outside the London and Home Counties pay band areas are ignored, although the Kreston Reeves report does have some regional benchmarking data for six areas of England. Whether lumping together London and the South East and seemingly totally ignoring the East of England is helpful is a matter for the reader to decide.

Neither report considers the labour market for teachers nor the costs associated with it in detail, although there are discussions about both staff and supply teacher costs. Future reports might like to focus on both the costs of retention over recruitment, and the most cost effective ways of recruiting new staff.

I was interested to read in the Kreston Reeves report that:

“The full financial impact of the pandemic will not be known for a while yet. As schools went back in to another lockdown in January 2021, then the savings made in the first lockdown can perhaps be expected to recur, although as there are much higher numbers of key worker children in schools post Christmas, these savings are likely to be more modest. Where this leaves the Academy sector finances for the current academic year is anyone’s guess. The length and frequency of lockdowns, the criteria for allowing children into schools, and the education provided will all have an impact.” (Page 10)

Both reports discuss the matter of how much of a school’s budget is used for central costs of a MAT. They both seem to coalesce around a figure of 5%, although some MATs do seem to operate with either a much higher or lower percentage.

The fact that academies are on a different financial year to local authority schools isn’t an issue for these reports, but is something that makes comparisons between the different types of schools more difficult, especially over a short-period of time.

How schools receive and spend their income is a matter for public interest, and these reports are helpful, in as far as they go, in understanding the academy sector, and especially the behaviours of MATs.

As most readers of this blog will know, I personally, prefer schools to be under the democratic oversight of locally elected councillors, albeit with a significant degree of autonomy. The fact that some schools have access to considerable letting income while other schools struggle to educate challenging groups of pupils on far less financial support is but one reason to ask for a system designed to benefit all pupils and not just some.

Teaching School Hubs: will schools be forced to use them?

Posted on February 12, 2021 by John Howson

Has anyone noticed the DfE vacancy site padding out the number of jobs on the site by repeating entries? It doesn’t happen with the search facility, but if you scroll through the pages, some jobs appear more than once. Today, it happened to me with the Head of Sixth Form at Burford School and the Principal at Phoenix College: there may be other examples as well.

Why was I scrolling through the DfE site? Two reasons, I wanted to see if the new Teaching School Hubs were advertising posts yet: at least one is, and I am always interested to know how TeachVac fares compared with the DfE in offering a free site to schools for their teaching posts.

After stripping out non-teaching posts from the DfE site – these include a maternity leave replacement for a cleaner and a school matron – that TeachVac doesn’t handle, the DfE comes in around 40% of TeachVac’s vacancies still within closing date. Both sites offer school a way to save cash for many ‘easy to fill’ vacancies.

The news on Teaching School Hubs https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-teaching-school-hubs-to-be-rolled-out-across-the-country was announced on Wednesday and reminds me of the Teachers’ Professional Development Centre where I worked for two years in the 1970s. Those centres had the advantage of being neutral spaces not associated with particular schools, but the disadvantage of not having pupils on site for demonstration lessons.

The DfE said in the announcement that “Each hub, all of which will be operational and helping schools from this September, will have its own defined geographical patch and will be expected to be accessible to all schools within that area, serving on average around 250 schools each.”

Now this takes me even further back to McNair and his Report, and the development of what were known as Area Training Organisations. This approach, so contrary to the Conservative’s market model approach, suggests a more controlling approach. Will schools be able to buy professional development either where they want or will they be forced to support their local Teaching School Hub?

Will the pupils in the schools benefit from the employment of the best teachers by the Hubs or will the staff of the Hub be fully employed on professional development and initial teacher preparation?

To whom will the Hubs be responsible and will they be inspected by Ofsted or some other body set up especially for that purpose?

What is clear is that the government has so emasculated professional development in the past that some sort of national programme, backed by research, is badly needed to help support the teachers working in our schools. I hope the Hubs will also offer support to those taking a career break that want to return in the future.

The Hubs must also address the conflict between the needs around the professional development of an individual teacher and those of the schools where they work. They may not be the same.

Finally, the government must be sensitive to the fact that next year many teachers will want to recover from the effects of the pandemic and Ministers must not be surprised if teachers want a quiet year to rest and recuperate even if that means avoiding after-school professional development activities.

Pick a teacher by computer

Posted on February 8, 2021 by John Howson

There’s a story on the BBC news site today about AI being used by some companies in their staff recruitment process. https://www.bbc.com/news/business-55932977 Well, that’s nothing new. Maybe that it is just that the technology has become jazzier and snazzier that it used to be.

Way back in the 1980s, I recall a US company telling me it could select who would be a good primary school teacher on the basis of a few questions answered over the telephone. They told me it worked for selecting ice-hockey players, so would work for primary school teachers.

In the mid-1990s, during my brief period as a government adviser, I headed off another challenge to abolish interviews for all aspiring teachers, both at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Success was due to being joined in support by a prominent HMI of the day. Together we made the case for interviews, even though it was both time-consuming and costly.

I would not want the DfE to suggest the automated route for teacher selection be used by the new Institute of Teaching its role in both initial teacher training preparation and professional development. Imagine being judged as to whether you could be funded for a professional development course on the basis of playing a computer game.

Well, I suppose, if you think about the concept, it not all that different to how some schools and local authorities still select pupils for secondary schools at age eleven. Interestingly, we haven’t heard much about deprivation and the pandemic on the selection of pupils at age eleven, especially in the Home Counties that still cling in some areas to the Victorian notion that pupils’ life chances can be determined at age eleven.

Of course, when there are a lot of job applications, as during a recession, there is a tendency to use tactics to save time in the recruitment process. In the early days of postcodes, I recall two headteachers behaving differently. One rejected every application with a postcode as being pedantic: the other rejected everyone without such a code as not being thorough. Candidates had no idea which approach was going to see them through the next stage.

Still, the increase in applications for teaching posts, reported recently by NfER, is something this blog predicted at the start of the pandemic. Interestingly, vacancies for teachers so far in February are higher than they were in January, but the total for the year is still down on last year.

Judging by the vacancies on the DfE site, support staff vacancies are down even more than those for teachers. I suppose there is less need for classroom assistants and cover supervisors while pupils largely remain at home. Senior posts, such as those for finance officers and business managers are still cluttering up what is badged as a teacher vacancy site.

Despite persuading a few morel local authorities to link their job boars to the DfE site, it still carries far fewer vacancies than TeachVac www.teachac.co.uk and is of no use to teachers that want a post in an independent school.

Schooling also needs a shake up

Posted on February 7, 2021 by John Howson

The news, in a leaked document, stating that the government is considering the way that the NHS operates, prompts me to remind readers that I have long felt that the arrangements devised under Labour for schools that were enthusiastically espoused by Michael Gove in 2010, in terms of how schooling is arranged, also need urgent review.

Some, including myself, have always maintained the importance of ‘place’ in our education system, and especially the school system. A sense of location is often weakest in relation to higher education and the university sector. However, even there, a place name, such as Oxford, has always worked well, grounding a university in a particular location. For schools, the link to a locality is generally much stronger than for higher education, and parents normally want their children to attend a good local school.

The academy programme dealt a severe blow to the locality based school system that was already under threat as local government fell out of favour at Westminster and institution level decision-making became the favoured approach. The 1988 Education Reform Act, with the move to local financial management and placing power in the hands of head teachers and governors, wrecked any chance of creating a locally managed system across England.

The arrival of multi-academy trusts in 2010, sometimes with headquarters many miles away for the location of the school for which it had responsibility failed to build upon the experience of the diocesan school model, where large diocese, especially in the Roman Catholic Church, often had responsibility for schools in several different local authority areas. Sometimes this worked well, but not always.

Crippling the funding for local authorities wrecked features such as staff development across a local area and the ability to talent spot future leaders, especially middle leaders, where most teachers don’t want to move house for promotion. It may be no coincidence that wastage rates for teachers of five to seven years of experience have increased as local frameworks for teacher support have been eroded.

You only have to read the recent post on this blog about Jacob’s Law, to see the important role local authorities play in the admission and management of pupils across a local area. To allow individual schools to frustrate the ability to find a place for a pupil is poor government, as anyone reading that Serious Case Review can easily understand.

The recent problems with the supply of laptops and internet access to those without, would have been better handled locally, with strategic support from government. Managing it from Westminster showed how this central model for operation rather than strategy just didn’t really work.

One question remains, should schooling, like the NHS, be largely run by professionals, with little local democratic involvement or should schooling have a strong local democratic element in the way it operates, in view of both the number of families involved and its role in the local economy. I have made my view known on this blog over the past eight years.

When I started in education, two phrases were in regular use: ‘a local service nationally administered’ or a ‘partnership’. Is it now time to work out what type of school system we want for the rest of the twenty first century?

Miss a year or repeat a year?

Posted on January 30, 2021 by John Howson

Schooling in England has always been about pupils progressing in age-related cohorts based around an August/September birthday cut-off point. The exception was in those independent schools, celebrated in literature such as Tom Brown’s Schooldays, where a ‘remove’ form operated for those so far behind they couldn’t really move forward with their peers.

The issue of how to deal with lost learning as a result of the covid pandemic and school closures has started to revolve around the debate about either missing a year or repeating a year. Both have resource implications, as well as an impact on learners

By chance, I have experience of both approaches. The north London selective secondary school I attended in the late 1950s and early 1960s with my twin brother had a policy whereby the top form – of four – missed out the third year (Year 9) and progressed to complete a full set of ‘O’ levels in four rather than five years. Those pupils also studied Latin rather than taking woodwork or domestic science (food technology within design and technology for those not familiar with historical education terminology). The aim was to allow time for a third year in the sixth form to prepare for Oxbridge entrance examinations for those deemed bright enough to take that route.

These pupils subject to accelerated progression certainly lost some learning in all subjects, but the curriculum in subjects where there is a clearly defined path to examination success were not allowed to suffer.

As the twin, that took the usual five years to progress through the system to examinations at sixteen, I benefitted from having my other twin forge a path. When we were both in the sixth form this meant that by choosing the same three subjects for ‘A’ level I had a ready-made set of notes to use.

As a result of the happenstance of our parents taking a civil service post in Africa, and the problem of needing to pass ‘O’ level English Language, I repeated the final year of the sixth form, spending three years in the sixth rather than the more usual two, and thus experiencing some of the issues around repeating a year.

There are pros and cons to both approaches, but what might determine the outcome is resources. Do schools have the staff and space to allow a whole year group to repeat a year? For secondary schools, so long as they don’t have an intake, it might be feasible, but that would put pressure on primary schools to accommodate an extra year group. Where rolls are falling, this might be possible, but in some areas there won’t be the space, although finding the staff should be less of an issue.

Higher Education and further education would lose an intake, and the funds associated with these students. The government would need to compensate these institutions for lost revenue or risk financial pressure sending some institutions into real financial trouble.

A whole cohort missing a year might require a rethink of the examination syllabuses, but there are plenty of examples of children that prospered despite having missed education for health reasons. Indeed, I missed quite a lot of Year 8 due to having two operations. Perhaps that is why I struggled with the English Language examination.

A decision will need to be made soon, especially if the government wants to spend more cash on a catch-up scheme. This is not a decision that can be left to the market to solve fairly for all pupils.

ITT applications looking good for September

Posted on January 28, 2021 by John Howson

Compared with January 2020, applications for postgraduate teaching courses through UCAS have increased by almost a quarter based on my analysis of the published January 2021 data.

Interestingly, the lowest growth rate has been in applications from those potential new graduates aged 21 or less, where the percentage increase has been just 14%. However, this age group still comprises a significant proportion of the overall total. The biggest increase has been in the group aged 24, where the increase on 2020 is some 32%. It was almost as high, at 29%, in the 30-39 age group. This suggest that new graduates are not yet seeing teaching as a safe haven in a stormy sea, whereas older graduates, perhaps either furloughed or even made redundant, are considering teaching as a career choice in greater numbers than in recent years.

There are regional differences in the increase in applications, with the North East, where teaching jobs are always in short supply, witnessing an increase of only nine percent in applicants. London, with the most active graduate labour market, has seen an increase on 2020 of 39%, from 2,320 in January 2020 to 3,220 in January 2021.

Compared with previous upturns in applications to train to teach, this year has seen a different trend to that in the past, with a 27% increase in the number of applications for secondary courses compared with just a 24% increase in applications for primary courses. In the past, the growth in the number of applications for primary courses has often exceeded that for secondary courses.

There remains far more interest in postgraduate apprenticeships in the primary sector than in the secondary sector, although even here numbers are low, and have not offset the decline in applications for School Direct Salaried places in the primary sector.

The higher education sector has seen a smaller increase in applications in the primary sector than either SCITT or School Direct fee courses, although overall there are still more applications for higher education based primary courses than for any other route.

In the secondary sector, there is less of a gap between the increases seen by the different routes, with higher education applications up by a quarter; SCITT applications increasing by 30% and School Direct Salaried courses increasing by 47% on January 2020, albeit from a very low base. School Direct fee courses experienced the smallest increase in applications, at only 24%. To some extent, these changes in applications in the secondary sector are driven by the mix of subjects applicants are seeking to teach and the availability of courses with place still available.

Among the main secondary subjects the number of applications shown as ‘placed’, ‘conditional placed’ or ‘holding offer’ is up on last January in most subjects. Exceptions are biology and geography, where for both subjects the total is down on the January 2020 number. For geography, this may be due to very high levels of offers in recent years leading to over-supply. In biology, with more applications for chemistry and physics, providers may not see the need to be as generous as in past years with offers to biology courses in order to ensure a sufficient supply of science teachers.

In physics, mathematics, design and technology, chemistry and business studies, the offers are at high levels than for any January since before January 2014. However, in design and technology, it is doubtful, even at this level, whether the required number of trainees will be recruited to satisfy the labour market in 2022. There must also be a doubt about the final outcome for physics numbers

Next month marks the point in the annual cycle where predications about the outcome can be made, based upon past trends, can normally be made with some degree of accuracy. Whether that will be the case this year, I am not sure, but check back in a month’s time to see what I say.

ONS comment on covid deaths and the Teaching Profession

Posted on January 26, 2021 by John Howson

The Office for National Statistics has produced new data on covid related deaths by occupation groups. Their comments on the teaching profession are reproduced below. They cover the period between 9^th March and 28^th December 2020:

Deaths involving COVID-19 in teaching and educational professionals

Teaching and educational professionals refers to those qualified to teach in a wide range of settings from primary school through to university level education. It does not include other jobs in the teaching and educational sector such as administration.

There were 139 deaths involving the coronavirus (COVID-19) in teaching and educational professionals aged 20 to 64 years registered between 9 March and 28 December 2020 in England and Wales. For both sexes, rates of death involving COVID-19 for this group were statistically significantly lower than the rate of death involving COVID-19 among those of the same age and sex, with 18.4 deaths per 100,000 males (66 deaths) and 9.8 deaths per 100,000 females (73 deaths), compared with 31.4 and 16.8 deaths per 100,000 in the population among males and females respectively.

Of the individual occupations, it was only possible to calculate a reliable rate for secondary education teaching professionals, who accounted for 37.4% of the total number of deaths among all teaching and educational professionals (52 deaths). With 39.2 deaths per 100,000 males (29 deaths) and 21.2 deaths per 100,000 females (23 deaths), rates of death involving COVID-19 in secondary education teaching professionals were not statistically significantly different than those of the same age and sex in the wider population.

ONS also compared the teaching occupations with all other professional occupations, allowing ONS to see how the deaths compare with professions with similar broad economic and educational backgrounds.

ONS found that rates of death involving COVID-19 in all teaching and educational professionals were not statistically significantly different to the rates seen in professional occupations (17.6 deaths per 100,000 males; 12.8 deaths per 100,000 females) as a whole, true for both sexes.

Of the specific teaching and education professions, the rate of death involving COVID-19 in male secondary education teaching professionals was statistically significantly higher than the rate of death involving COVID-19 in professional occupations in men of the same age.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/causesofdeath/bulletins/coronaviruscovid19relateddeathsbyoccupationenglandandwales/deathsregisteredbetween9marchand28december2020

The previous ONS data on teacher deaths due to the pandemic was reported by this blog on the 11^th May 2020 in a post entitled ‘Give us the data’.

The ONS data file also identifies in the occupational tables that there had been recorded 42 deaths of teaching assistants; 12 deaths of nursery nurses and four school secretaries.

As in May, male secondary classroom teachers seem to be the highest risk group and to quote ONS ‘the rate of death involving COVID-19 in male secondary education teaching professionals was statistically significantly higher than the rate of death involving COVID-19 in professional occupations in men of the same age’.

Those staff in schools in the older age groups look to be more at risk, even if the risk is less than for some other occupations, and male secondary teachers in the older age groups, not in leadership positions, might benefit from working more with a school’s on-line offering than with the children still in school until they have been vaccinated.

8th Birthday

Posted on January 25, 2021 by John Howson

Today, 25^th January, is the 8^th birthday of this blog. Last year the blog’s 7^th birthday was a very special occasion, as it coincided with the 1,000^th post. This year, the blog has reached 1,106 posts, including this one. Last year, in the celebration post, I mused about stopping at 1,000 posts as viewer numbers were falling away. Throughout the spring there were relatively few posts, but then came the pandemic and a new impetus to communicate education stories.

The blog has also found a new audience in the USA, were visitors numbers have never been higher than in the past six months. Indeed, the autumn witnessed a resurgence in readership, with views in October 2020 being higher than in any month since January 2018, when the fall off in views started; reaching a low point in February last year, of fewer than 20 views a day that month.

The most read post of the past twelve months was the one about the PISA Study entitled ‘Poverty is not Destiny – OECD PISA Report’ that has had 1,592 views since it appeared on the 30^th September 2020. I hope that the most recent post ‘Jacob’s Law’ will do similarly well, as it also deals with a very important issue.

In the past year, the posts have totalled some 63,000 words, for an average of around 550 words per post. That’s close to my aim of creating easy to read posts of around 500 words. There have been 128 likes of the posts, and 75 comments, including my responses to comments from other people.

The past year also witnessed the 50^th anniversary, earlier this month, of the start of my teaching career, and I celebrated that event with a special post.

The covid-19 pandemic has shaped all our lives, and the lack of statistics, not least about attainment, has influenced what posts could and could not be scribed. The blog still aims to look at stories behind the numbers, but also now ranges more widely across the education landscape.

Today also makes a special day for TeachVac, the free job board for teachers www.teachvac.co.uk where I am chair of the Board. A significant milestone in registered users was passed today. The platform has retained some 77% of all registered users, a higher figure than this blog. But, then it serves a different purpose.

So, what lies ahead? I hope to keep this blog going for another year, and aim to reach its 10^th birthday in January 2024. However, other distractions could always mean a premature end to my writing, especially if viewing figures once again slide away to a level where the effort does not seem worthwhile.

After all, I might have a new career writing travel books, based upon the success of Twin Tracks https://www.facebook.com/twintracksthebook price £12.99 if ordered directly from the Facebook page or web site or by email to me.

Thanks for reading; keep safe and remember that education is a wonderful job, despite what many parents have discovered.

DfE to review ‘Children’s Social Care’

Posted on January 18, 2021 by John Howson

Last week the Secretary of State for Education announced a ‘wholesale independent review of children’s social care will set out to radically reform the system, improving the lives of England’s most vulnerable children so they experience the benefits of a stable, loving home.’ https://www.gov.uk/government/news/education-secretary-launches-review-of-childrens-social-care

According to the DfE, ‘the review will reshape how children interact with the care system, looking at the process from referral through to becoming looked after. It will address major challenges such as the increase in numbers of looked after children, the inconsistencies in children’s social care practice, outcomes across the country, and the failure of the system to provide enough stable homes for children.’

These terms of reference remind me somewhat of the Carter Review into ITT, similarly led by a chair with links to the DfE. This review comes after a period where successive Ministers have not seemed much interested in this part of the work of the DfE.

I hope the review will tackle the issue of the relationship between social work and education. Should the social work part of the system be re-integrated with adult social work in local authorities as a family service; removed from a joint service with education to create a distinct service reporting to a cabinet member in each local authority and with a statutory head of service or remain as it is?

The present system of a hybrid department worked when schooling was travelling towards a national service under Labour and Michael Gove’s academy programme. Now it sits less well with a director often taking strategic decisions about an area of operation where they sometimes don’t know the right questions to ask.

Education departments should retain responsibility for the Virtual School and also need strengthened powers over in-year admissions for children taken into care required to move school. This blog has made that point several times.

I favour a new service for children operating under a cabinet member in each local authority and supported by a corporate parenting committee or scrutiny panel. Each local authority should have a Children in Care Council run by young people that regularly surveys the views of the young people themselves.

I recall being powerfully moved after reading a poem written by a child in care about coming home and finding all her possessions in a couple of bin bags waiting in the hall for the social worker to arrive to take her to a new foster placement. No wonder these children are often troubled and not easy to teach at school.

Every ITT course should be addressed by both a child in care and an adopted child so that trainee teachers can confront the reality that they may never have experienced in their own lives.

Finally, I hope that the review is not long and drawn out, but reports quickly and that there will be the funds to back up its recommendations. These young people should no longer be left on the margins of society.

John Howson

Education and the numbers that affect what happens

Tag Archives: schools