Tag Archives: schools

Return to teaching: more needs to be achieved

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One of the issues that the DfE’s annual data about the school workforce always revives is that of what happens to those that train to be a teacher and either never teach in state funded schools or leave after a period of service. The data can be found at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/school-workforce-in-england-november-2018

One side of this equation is concerned with retention rates, and that has been dealt with in an earlier post. The other side relates to the possibility or indeed probability in statistical terms of those teachers either ‘out of service’ or with ‘no service’ re-entering or teaching for the first time in state-funded schools.

Now this is not as straightforward an issue as some might think. A proportion of these teachers are certainly teaching, but not in state schools. Some are in further education, sixth form colleges, initial teacher education and private schools and are counted in the ‘other’ column where service is pensionable, but not in a state funded school. Others, and this may be a growing number, are teaching overseas in the schools offering fee-based education in countries where those with the cash don’t want to or cannot access the local school system. Occasionally, as in the case of the Sultanate of Brunei Darussalam, these teachers might also be teaching in the state school system.

The rapid growth of such ‘international’ schools – at least in terms of their staffing – in China remains a concern as a potential drain on teacher numbers in England. Although it isn’t all one-way traffic.

Anyway, returning to the data, about half of ‘out of service’ teachers are older than 45, and thus less likely to return to teaching if still in the labour market. A few might do so, but large numbers of returners from this age grouping are unlikely. Among the younger age groups, some have deliberately decided to take a career break, often to care for young families or elderly parents. With good quality local ‘keep in touch’ schemes, and the sort of bounty paid to armed forces reservists for undertaking a period of professional development each year, this group can be an excellent source of additional teachers.

Although the DfE has managed programmes in the recent past to entice these teachers back into the classroom, the schemes have so far been derisory when compared with those initiated during former staffing crisis.

And what of the 17,000 or so teachers that gained QTS in 2015 and 216, but have no recorded service in state funded schools? How much has the DfE spent on following up what has happened to these potential teachers? Some will be teaching, but not captured in the data. Of those that aren’t teaching, what feedback can we obtain that would either improve their training, if that is the issue, or manage the labour market better to achieve optimum use of a scare resource in our teachers.

It seems daft that location specific career changers cannot be guaranteed a teaching post on successful completion of their training programme. This is surely a disincentive for some to switch careers, especially when they also have to pay tuition fees. Time for a Carter style Review of these issues?

Vacancies still a concern

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The recent data on the workforce in state schools at the time of the 2018 School Workforce Census conducted by the DfE shows vacancies rates overall at similar levels to the previous year in percentage terms, but on the increase in terms of absolute numbers. https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/school-workforce-in-england-november-2018

Given that the data is collected in November, when schools ought to be fully staffed, any vacancy is of concern. Data from before 2010 was collected each January, when vacancy levels might be expected to be affected by those teachers that departed at the end of December and how easy it was to replace them.

Nevertheless, the 1,725 recorded vacancies in the secondary sector in November 2018 was the highest number since 2014, and more than three times the level recorded in 2011, after the financial crisis. Vacancy levels fell in mathematics between 2017 and 2018. This can partly be attributed to the subject having a relatively good year in terms of ITT recruitment in 2015-15 that fed through to recruitment for teaching posts in September 2018. I expect the ground gained between 2017 and 2018 in mathematics to be lost in the 2019 census, with little indication of any improvement in 2020.

Business studies has the largest percentage vacancy level. The subject includes both commercial studies and economics.  It remain a mystery to me why this important subject group for the British Economy does not attract more help for trainee teachers through the scholarship/bursary scheme. Mr Hunt’s idea of paying off student loans for young entrepreneurs seems only likely to make the situation worse if it was implemented. Indeed, I have yet to hear about a solution to the teacher recruitment problem from either of the candidates for the Troy Party leadership.

The other measure of concern is that of the percentage of hours taught in a typical week to pupils in Years 7 to 13 by teachers with no relevant post-A Level qualification. The trend in many secondary subjects continues to worsen, even among EBacc subjects, where recruitment into ITT is buoyant. However, that may be due to changes in teaching methods as much as to a shortage of teachers in history and geography. Where schools employ a classroom teacher approach to some or all of their pupils, generally either Year 7 pupils or those having trouble learning in large classes, these teachers may not be specialists, and this can cause the number of hours taught be a non-specialist in a subject to increase for perfectly sensible reasons.

Of more concern, and not provided in the Tables, would be any evidence of increasing levels of teachers lacking subject knowledge teaching groups in Years 11 to13. Although even here a case can sometimes be made on the basis of teaching experience and non-formally acquired subject knowledge, such as through high quality Professional Development activities.

Within the detailed tables, there is far more data on these matters, but it will take a little more time to work through the data. However, there is no room for complacency over retention and every reason, as the school population increase over the next few years to continue to express serious concern at the trends emerging in relation to mid-career retention of teachers.

 

 

 

Retention still an issue?

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The School Workforce data for 2108 published yesterday is always worthy of several posts on this blog. Indeed, this is the third in the series so for about the 2018 data. You can find the data at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/school-workforce-in-england-november-2018

Slightly fewer teachers left the profession in the year up to the 2018 census than in the previous year, 42,073 compared with 44,376. This was a reduction in the percentage of the teaching force departing, from 10.2% to 9.8%, the lowest percentage since 2013. However, apparently, only among the over-55s did the percentage of the age group leaving decline. This suggests that more teachers may be remaining in service longer and the number retiring early may be falling. Certainly, the number of recorded retirements reduced from 8,188 in 2017 to 6,294 in 2018.

This blog has raised concerns about the growing loss to the state school system of teachers with five to seven years of experience, those that might be expected to take up the middle leadership vacancies. In the data released, the DfE have updated the table of the percentage of the cohort starting in a particular year remaining in each subsequent year. This Table has data that stretches back to the 1996 entry cohort, of whom 45.9% were still teaching in state schools some 22 years later. The notes to the Table suggest there may be some under-recording of part-time teachers, by about 10%.

Of more interest is the fact that the 2018 entry cohort was the smallest since 2011, and, at 23,820, almost exactly the same as last year’s 23,829 entrants. Only among teachers with 10 years’ service was the percentage remaining in 2018 above the percentage reported last year, at 62% compared with 61.7%.

Record lows abound across the Table, with the 70% level now being breached after just four years and the 60% level after 11 years of service. Of course, there was a data collection change in 2010, when the School Workforce Census was introduced, although the Database of Teacher Records is still used to help provide a complete picture where schools do not fully complete the Census each November.

The DfE is yet to update the Teacher Compendium that put real numbers to the percentages and allows for analysis by different phases and secondary subjects https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/teachers-analysis-compendium-4 and although the overall picture is helpful to know, it is the data relating to certain subjects and teacher retention that is of even more interest, as would be data on geographical trends in retention. Do more teachers in London leave teaching in state schools earlier than those in the north of England and in the South West?

Interestingly, young women teachers under the age of 30 earn more than young men in both the primary and secondary sectors and also across both maintained schools and academies. However, the effect or differential promotion rates and greater numbers of women taking a break in service for caring responsibilities means that as a whole male teachers on average earn £1,400 more than their female compatriots. However, there are more women in the primary sector earning more than £100,000 than there are men. The same cannot be said for the secondary sector.

An Auger effect already?

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The publication of the data on ITT applications for June 2019 coincided today with the DfE’s date for publishing its annual raft of statistics on teachers and schools. The DfE data is, of course, backward facing, whereas the UCAS data tells us what to expect in the teacher labour market in 2020.

With only three months left in the current recruitment round, it is usually easy to predict the actual outcome of the recruitment round. However, with the current levels of uncertainty over issues such as the funding of schools after the new Prime Minister is elected by Conservative Party members, and assuming there isn’t a general election in the autumn, as well as what happens to tuition fees in the short-term, the past may not be a guide to the future. Nevertheless, this blog will try and made some inferences from the data as it currently stands.

Overall applications are down on last year. The current total of 32,720 applicants is some 490 below the figure for June 2018. Perhaps of most concern is the decline in ‘placed’ applicants in London and the South East, where the figure is down from 900 last year to 710 this year. There has also been a decline in ‘conditionally placed’ numbers in these two regions, although numbers ‘holding offers’ are similar to last year at this point.

There has been a reversal in the recent trend in age profile of applicants, with fewer applicants than last year in all age groups, except for new graduates 21 or under, where the number is up from 4,630 last year to 4,670 this year. ‘Placed’ applicants over the age of 25 are down this year by 130 to some 1,440. In the past, this age group has help keep applicant numbers up as younger applicants have fallen away.

The number of applications are down from both men and women, mostly as a result of fewer applicants being ‘placed’. As degree results are confirmed over the next month or so, the number of ‘placed’ applicants should increase rapidly over the next two months. This is a number that will need watching very carefully.

The data on application status by provider region (Table B6 of the UCAS monthly data) confirms that there needs to be a focus on what is happening in London. Placed numbers are down by 100, and ‘conditionally placed’ by 160, with only those ‘holding offers’ up by 50, for a net change across the three categories of around 200. Application numbers to providers in London are down by around 600. With London schools seeing growth in pupil numbers, and so far in 2019 having advertised 10 vacancies per secondary school (www.teachvac.co.uk data) these numbers must be of concern.

So far it is primary courses that have borne the brunt of reduced applications, down from 41,180 in 2018, to 38,880 in 2019, whereas applications for secondary courses are up from 52,530 to 53,250. But, before anyone hangs out the bunting and declares a ‘dance and skylark’, it is worth delving deeper into the statistics for individual subjects. History, English and biology al doing extremely well, and could recruit their largest numbers of trainees in recent years.

On the other hand, art, chemistry, IT, mathematics, music and physics are recording new lows for June in terms of those ‘placed’ and either ‘conditionally placed’ or ‘holding an offer’. Based on the evidence of previous years, none of these subjects will hit the required Teacher Supply Model number in 2019.  That’s bad news for the 2020 recruitment market for teachers.

Has the Auger Report with its suggestion for lower fees already had an effect on recruitment onto UCAS courses for this September? If so, the government must react sooner rather than later to stem any further losses ad protect teacher supply.

 

 

 

 

Worsening PTRs herald a sign for the future?

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The DfE has today published a raft of statistics about schools, their pupils and the workforce. This post will concentrate on the data about the teacher workforce, collected by the DfE in the 2018 School Workforce Census completed by schools during November 2018. https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/school-workforce-in-england-november-2018

As ever, and as under any government, the DfE highlights what it sees as the positive: more teachers and teaching assistants and fewer leavers, but readers sometimes have to dig down to uncover the nuances behind the numbers However, the time series graphs by themselves are very revealing. For instance, although sixth form numbers aren’t rising yet, the pressure of an increased number of Year 7 pupils may well be behind the increase in Pupil Teacher Ratios in the secondary sector to 1:16.3. This is the fourth increase in a row, and takes the ratio from 1:15 in 2014, to its present level, an increase of 1.3 pupils per teacher and not far short of a 10% increase since 2011. By contrast, the primary sector has only seen PTRs increase from 20.5 in 2015, to 20.9 in 2018, the same level as it was in 2017.

The DfE has produced an interesting one page infographic of the teacher workforce that shows 74% of teachers are women – on a full-time equivalent basis – and that nearly a quarter of teachers are aged under 30. Just over 13% of teachers are BAME and almost a quarter of teachers are part-time. In the year up to 2018, entrants to teaching exceeded leavers, but not by very much, and this followed a relatively good year for recruitment into training in 2016-17.

So, excluding short-term supply teachers, there were 453,411 FTE teachers employed in November 2018, up from 451,968 in 2017. Although the number of teaching assistants also increased, the number of other support staff decreased from 232,031 to 229.949, a sign of the pressure school budgets are now under.

The upward trend in the full-time numbers of ‘teachers’ without QTS continued, possibly as more primary schools have recruited School Direct salaried entrants to the profession, no doubt in some cases converting them after a period as a classroom assistant. Although the number of part-time teachers with QTS increased over the 2017 figure, it was still the second lowest number recorded since 2010. However, the dip in the recorded number of occasional teacher recorded in the 2017 figures was revered in 2018, with an increase to 12,853 such teachers recorded by the DfE.

Technicians, mostly employed in secondary schools, were the support staff group that continue to bear the brunt of cuts, falling to their lowest number since the 2010 Census. By contrast, teaching assistants were at record high numbers in 2018.

Part-time teaching is still dominated by women, with just 8,745 qualified male teachers working part-time, compared with 111,755 qualified women teachers working part-time in 2018. The ratio among unqualified teachers is a slightly lower number.

Over the next few years, as more pupils enter the secondary sector, with its lower PTRs, and assuming post-16 numbers in schools don’t fall, then teacher numbers will probably increase in the secondary sector but fall in the primary sector. I expect that secondary PTRs will continue to worsen for 2019. Beyond that it will depend upon any funding injection schools do or do not receive in the next spending review.

 

Social mobility requires teachers

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Living and working as I do in Oxford, I am not surprised about the Sutton Trust and the Social Mobility Commission findings, published today, about the importance of private schools in the education of those at the top of many career ladders. These universities, and others in disciplines not addressed by Oxford and Cambridge, will always turn out those likely to become the leaders in their chosen fields.

The debate sparked by this fairly commonplace research, but nevertheless worthwhile as a reminder of the real world, has been mostly about how to create access to these universities for a wider group of students? Both Oxford and Cambridge are now creating schemes to take more pupils from a wider range of backgrounds than when the present leaders in society were heading for university all those years ago.

However, for me, the key issue remains the need to provide enough teachers all of whom are inspiring for all pupils in our schools. To further the Oxford theme, BMW don’t want to produce any sub-standard cars at their Cowley plant, and they put in place quality assurance mechanisms to prevent that happening. Politicians on the other hand don’t view schooling in the same way. Parents are required to educate their children, but if they trust the State to undertake that education, there is no guarantee of quality or even, as recent data about pupils with special education needs has revealed, a guarantee of a school place.

One issue that I have raised consistently over the past two decades is that of the credentials that teachers need in order to teach. For teachers in the secondary sector, subject knowledge, a knowledge of pedagogy, and the ability to marry the two together, are, in my view, vital in allowing teachers to teach their subject, especially as it become more complex to understand and explain.

However, governments of all persuasions have continued to remain satisfied with a minimum standard that allows those with Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) to teach anything to anyone of any age in schools. Indeed, thanks to Michael Gove, you don’t even need to have that basic qualification to teach in most state-funded secondary schools these days, and teachers trained in a range of different countries have automatic right to obtain QTS.

Is this minimum standard, with no requirement to keep it up to date during a teacher’s career, still acceptable in the 21st century? Well, it allows Ministers to talk of record teacher numbers, not of record shortages of teachers equipped to teach physics, business studies or many aspects of design and technology.

This lack of respect for parents and children by a state system that is not staffed by teachers knowledgeable in their subject lies behind a large part of why some children, however able, cannot reach our top universities.

A labour market based upon open competition, with schools increasingly setting their own pay rates, favours schools with access to more funds. These nearly always aren’t the schools in the most deprived areas: those schools also lack access to the same degree of parental funding and support, whether through direct monthly cash payments or by parents paying for private tuition that help keep up a school’s outcomes.

More about Middle Leaders

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In the previous post, I discussed the issue of how many new entrants to teaching this September were likely to end up as a middle leader, and whether the supply pipeline was sufficient to meet the likely needs of schools. Since the DfE now provide a useful compendium of statistics from the Teacher Workforce Census, it is possible to look back and compare the data in the previous post with what might be happening this year, based upon the number of NQTs entering service from the 2014 cohort, including late entrants.

ITT 2014 ITT 2018
Subject Revised % as HoDs Revised % as HoDs
Design & Technology 16% 75%
Art & Design 28% 57%
Business Studies 33% 153%
Drama 38% 72%
Religious Education 53% 85%
Computing 72% 89%
Music 83% 126%

Source: TeachVac www.teachvac.co.uk

The cohort of 2014 were the first cohort where real evidence of a potential teacher supply crisis was beginning to emerge during the period when they were applying for teacher preparation courses , during 2013 and the first nine months of 2014.

As the table reveals, the number of new entrants in 2104 was generally sufficient to provide for a pipeline of middle leaders for 2019. However, even in music and to a certain extent in computing, that had a poor year for recruitment that year, there would have been signs of possible difficulties, had anyone wanted to look for them. Music is an interesting subject, since most departments are small and many teachers are forced into leadership roles as middle leaders quite early in their careers, as well as conducting orchestras, managing jazz ensembles and probably handling one or more choirs.

The real turnaround is in the vocational subject areas, such as business studies and design and technology, where recruitment into teaching has really fallen away since the end of the recession and the downward trend in unemployment rates. Whereas just 16% of the 2014 design and technology NQTs might be expected to be a middle leader after five years, this has increased to 75% of the 2018 trainees that are likely to be expected to take on middle leadership roles.

Fortunately, there were a few years of good to adequate recruitment that will allow some slack from which to provide the necessary supply of heads of department. However, the longer the crisis in ITT recruitment continues, the more there will be a crisis in middle leadership at some point in the 2020s.

As the IAC said in 1991, and I quoted in an earlier post, remuneration in teaching does need to keep pace with the rest of the economy if there are to be enough teachers. It is not good enough just for some head teachers and officers in some MATs to pay themselves market competitive salaries and for the government to ignore the pay and conditions of everyone else in teaching and other jobs in schools.

Also, as I warned in an earlier post, if potential applicants expect lower tuition fees, and don’t see that happening in the autumn, will they hold back their application this autumn in an expectation of lower fees at some point in the future?

Retention deserves more attention

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The issue of teacher retention has been steadily climbing up the agenda, so that for many observers it now ranks alongside worries about recruitment into the teaching profession as a major area of concern. Taken together, the two factors are set to leave a lasting legacy in our schools that will have an effect, not only on classroom teaching, but also middle leadership, for many years to come. A shortage of teachers, and especially of middle leaders, also hampers actions towards improving the schools were staff need both stable and high quality teachers to ensure the best outcomes for their pupils.

So, how bad might middle leadership recruitment become over the next few years? In theory, since the required number of middle leaders is a fairly fixed quantity, each school needs roughly similar numbers regardless of size, it is only the creation of new schools that should increase demand for middle leaders. The other reason for increased demand is as a result of greater departure rates than normal. The demographic upturn currently working its way through the secondary sector is creating new schools across many parts of the country: so that is a concern as more posts are being created.

On the demand side, the growing loss of teachers with five to seven years of experience from employment in state schools, as revealed by the School Workforce Census data that will be updated for 2018 later this week, is a major worry, as these are the very teachers the system might expect to be taking on middle leadership positions at that stage of their careers.

Finally, of course, the relationship between the number of new entrants to the profession and the indicative Teacher Supply Model figure for supply requirements is an important predictor of trouble ahead, especially where the ITT census number is substantially below the indicative TSM figure, as it has been for some years now in certain subjects.

Subject ITT census 2018 TLR vacancies 2019 to end June % ITT census 50% remain after 5 years Revised % as HoDs
Business Studies 175 134 77% 87.5 153%
Music 295 186 63% 147.5 126%
Computing 530 237 45% 265 89%
Religious Education 375 160 43% 187.5 85%
Design & Technology 285 107 38% 142.5 75%
Drama 300 108 36% 150 72%
Art & Design 475 135 28% 237.5 57%

Source TeachVac www.teachvac.co.uk

This table takes some subjects where the award of a TLR is likely to mean a substantial degree of middle leadership responsibilities, due to the size of the subject department. Mathematics, English and the Sciences are not included, as they often offer TLR posts below head of department level.  While science departments may struggle to recruit particular types of scientists to offer a broad curriculum, they should be less of an issue finding sufficient candidates to lead science as an overall subject.

Assuming that only 50% of those identified in the ITT census last November are still in teaching in five years, i.e. September 2024, and the TLRs on offer are similar to the situation so far in 2019, up to 21st June, then even in art and design, half of remaining teachers in the cohort entering teaching this year might expect to become middle leaders. For business studies and music, either there will need to be a drop in demand from schools, or teachers are likely to be promoted earlier in their careers to become middle leaders, sometimes before they are ready to do so.

This issue, and the concerns about ensuring middle leaders have the appropriate preparation for the role, deserves more attention than it has received. Indeed, this is one cogent reason why abolishing the National College was a strategic mistake, and detrimental to the progress of school improvement across all schools in England.

 

 

 

Muddled governance doesn’t help teacher development and retention

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The publication of the Education Policy Institute’s (EPI) study on teachers   https://epi.org.uk/publications-and-research/teacher-recruitment-progression-and-retention-in-multi-academy-trusts/ – based mostly around those in MATs – has coincided with the OECD’s TALIS report. I am not sure whether that is coincidence or a deliberate decision by David Laws and his team? Either way, there is some interesting information and some disturbing issues in the EPI document.

EPI divide the world into two, local authorities and MATs. The MAT group is then further sub-divided and, I assume, includes stand-alone academies? Both groups are considered by primary and secondary phase.

Given that academies were created to bring the free market into education, the notion of a governance system that requires such schools and groups to collaborate for the good of all is an interesting development.

At present, there are three parallel governance system with little overlap, maintained schools; stand-alone academies and MATs. This can produce either diverse policies in a local area or no policy at all. Indeed, it is significant that EPI avoided discussing the special school sector; as do so many commentators and think tanks. Planning for that system is shambolic at present and our most vulnerable learners are losing out, as the BBC revealed earlier today. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-48663873 Local Authorities need to either be allowed to plan places properly for this sector or the DfE should take over the responsibility. The lack of geographical proximity may be one of the reasons for this MAT highlighted by the BBC is having problems in the SEN sector https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-berkshire-48691736

As the period that EPI reviewed was one when many schools transferred to academy status, the findings on turnover and promotion might not be the same once the system has settled down. However, the ages of appointment to senior leadership don’t look very different to the longitudinal study of leadership appointments I conducted for the NAHT during the first decade of this century. These figures are still bad news for late entrants to teaching seeking a career beyond middle leadership.

On the issue of central recruitment by MATs, TeachVac has seen evidence of a return to individual school recruitment sites; presumably candidates don’t identify with MATs as a source of vacancies and, apart from TeachVac, many recruitment sites might not pick up these vacancies if candidates aren’t looking for them.

EPI ducks the central question of geography in its recommendations, focusing instead on what MATs might do, perfectly sensible as suggestions go, but not addressing the key issue. If there is a shortage of cash for education, why are we wasting it creating lots of min-school system without democratic accountability: has nothing be learnt from the NHS that has operated on such a model for all the time it has been in existence.

Even more than the NHS schools, and especially primary schools, are rooted in their communities. As Oxfordshire’s Education Scrutiny Committee members discussed with the RSC officials earlier this week the issue of who takes the lead if rural primary schools are financially nonviable. If the consequence of school closures is higher transport bills, paid for by council tax payers, can a policy that keeps the schools open for less overall cost be agreed between local authorities, MATs, diocese and the DfE. If not, not only is government inefficient, but also lacking in coherent strategic planning.

OECD’s Bill of health on teachers

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Today the OECD publishes their latest TALIS report. (Teaching and Learning International Study) This report is about teachers and school leaders as lifelong learners. In addition to the full report, there are digests of the evidence from particular countries produced as separate country reports. It is important to note that the country report is headed England (UK). I assume that it is just schools in England included. This is important since education is a devolved activity.

When reading the report it is also of importance to start from the end and to note that the response rate from teachers and school leaders in England was generally only regarded as ‘fair’. Indeed, in some aspects the response wasn’t very far above the level regarded as too low to use in the survey. The other caveat, as far as I am concerned, is around the term ‘lower secondary’. This is not a discrete phase in England except in Central Bedfordshire, Northumberland and a few other towns around the country where 9-13 middle schools still exist, and, of course, in the independent sector where many ‘prep’ schools can be regarded as partly covering the lower secondary age range.  This may especially affect views on the nature of principals as, presumably most replying from the state sector in England were head teachers of secondary schools.

Almost all secondary teachers are trained through the post-degree professional training route, whether that training is in universities, SCITTs or schools. That is not the model throughout much of the OECD, where teacher preparation often still occurs alongside the acquisition of subject knowledge.

What is interesting is the relatively small degree of change recorded on a number of the items between the 2013 and 2018 TALIS studies, at least as far as England is concerned.

As the retirement boom of the first decade of this century fades into history, it is clear that the teaching force in England is generally younger than in many OECD countries. There is a slightly higher proportion of men in the workforce than across the OECD at 36% compared to 34% as the OECD average, but fewer women are principals – 41% against the OECD average of 47%. As a result of the age profile, the average length of service of a teacher in England is 13 years, compared to the OECD average of 17 years and more than 20 years in the small Baltic States.

Length of service is important in how it can affect attitudes to professional development. Older more experienced teachers may take a different attitude to professional development than that of teachers in the first few years of their careers; I dislike the TALIS term of ‘novice teacher’.

The BBC have chosen to highlight the issue of cyber-bullying and the fact that head teachers in England are more likely to face problems with pupils bullying online and misusing social media than in any other developed country. However, there seems to have been little change in classroom behaviour faced by teachers in England between the 2013 and 2018 studies.

Finally, although teachers saw the need for more funding and resources, the response of teachers to increasing their salaries was below the OECD average. This is despite teachers in England not being as well paid as those in many other OECD countries.