A tale of two markets

Posted on August 2, 2023 by John Howson

The Labour Market for Teachers in England – January to July 2023 (part one) overview

The months between January and July each year witness the majority of the advertisements for teachers each year. This is because the labour market is skewed towards appointments for the start of the school-year in September.

In a normal year, not affected by factors such as a pandemic, around three quarters to 80% of vacancies are advertised during the first seven months of the year, with the largest number of advertisements being placed during the three months between March and May; with the peak usually occurring some weeks after the Easter holidays.

TeachVac has been recording vacancies advertised by schools through their websites since 2014. The decade can be separated out into three phases; from 2014 to 2019; 2020 and 2021, the covid years, and 2022 and 2023. The last two years have seen a significant change in the volume of vacancies advertised. This trend will be discussed in more detail later.

The demand for teachers depends upon a number of different factors, and that demand can be satisfied in a number of different ways. The most important factor is the school population. Increasing pupil numbers require more teachers, unless teaching groups are to increase in size. Obviously, falling rolls mean less demand, and in extreme cases can even lead to teacher redundancies.

The level of funding of schools also plays a part. Increased resources for schools can result in an increased demand for teaching staff; restrictions on funding can reduce demand for replacements when staff leave. Within the funding envelope, the cost of the salary bill can have a significant bearing on staffing levels. For instance, an under-funded pay settlement can reduce demand for staff as more funds are spent on paying the existing staffing complement. For the private school sector, the demand for places and the payment of fees has the same effect. More demand for places means there is likely to be a demand for more teachers

The third key factor affecting the level of advertisements is the state of the market. A good supply of teachers means most vacancies will be filled at first advertisement or event these days without an advertisement at all. However, if there is a challenging labour market, perhaps because of a shortage of either new entrants or returners, or an increase in departures from teaching in schools in England, then these factors can result in an increase in advertisements, as vacancies not filled are re-advertised. This may be one the factors behind the increase in vacancies recorded in 2022, because in many secondary subjects the numbers entering the profession from training were less than required by the DfE’s Teacher Supply Model.

So, what of the first seven months of 2023? The tables below show the record of vacancies as measured by advertisements for schools in England

2022
	Primary			Secondary			Overall
	Indep	State	Total	Indep	State	Total	Total
Classroom	1191	17449	18640	5056	34901	39957	58597
Promoted post	198	1664	1862	1655	11921	13576	15438
Assistant Head	27	776	803	82	1368	1450	2253
Deputy head	48	891	939	123	762	885	1824
Head teacher	15	1469	1484	32	365	397	1881
Grand Total	1479	22249	23728	6948	49317	56265	79993

2023	Primary			Secondary			Overall
	Indep	State	Total	Indep	State	Total	Total
Classroom	796	15409	16205	4410	38432	42842	59047
Promoted post	123	1357	1480	1266	13634	14900	16380
Assistant Head	13	586	599	67	1346	1413	2012
Deputy head	37	723	760	95	767	862	1622
Head teacher	19	1259	1278	29	358	387	1665
Grand Total	988	19334	20322	5867	54537	60404	80726
	Primary			Secondary			Overall
	Indep	State	Total	Indep	State	Total	Total
Change 2023 on 2022	-491	-2915	-3406	-1081	5220	4139	733
% change	-33%	-13%	-14%	-16%	11%	7%	1%

Source: TeachVac

The key feature to note is that there was little change between 2022 and 2023. Overall, the number of vacancies, as measured by advertisements, increased by one per cent in 2023 when compared with 2022. This was an overall increase of 733 advertisements from 79,993 to 80726.

However, the overall total hides two very different picture for the different sectors. Advertisements for teachers and school leaders in the primary sector fell from 23,728 in the first seven months of 2022 to20,322 in the same period of 2023: a fall of 14%.

The fall in the primary sector affected vacancies at all levels except for headteachers in the independent sector, where a small increase in advertisements was recorded in 2023 when compared with 2022.

Advertised vacancies for classroom teachers declined from 18,640 in 2022 to 16,205 in 2023, with both the state and independent school sectors recording a fall in advertisements.

In the secondary sector, the position was very different. Overall, the recorded number of advertisements increased from 56,265 in 2022 to 60,404 in the first seven months of 2023. Within the secondary sector, the increase was not universal. The independent school sector recorded a fall in advertisements for most posts, whereas state sector secondary schools recorded an increase for classroom teachers and promoted posts, but little change in the number of vacancies for leadership posts.

Further posts will explore the different categories in more detail.

Need for new drive on apprenticeships at 18?

Posted on July 26, 2023 by John Howson

Should Labour be focusing more on the challenges within the state school system rather than trumpeting its desire to remove some benefits from private schools? One such challenge is around the chance of a pupil in a non-selective secondary school in an area identified by the DfE as a ‘highly selective area of or secondary schooling’ progressing to a sustained Level 4 or higher qualification from school or college. Level 4 and above qualifications include, undergraduate degrees (a Level 6 qualification); apprenticeship at level 4 or higher; or any other qualification at Level 4 or 5.

The DfE definition of non-selective schools in highly selective area includes all non-selective schools in local authorities with a high level of selection (where 25% or more of state-funded secondary places are in state-funded selective schools). These local authorities are Bexley, Buckinghamshire, Kent, Lincolnshire, Medway, Poole, Slough, Southend-on-Sea, Sutton, Torbay, Trafford and Wirral.

There are selective schools in other areas, but they don’t past this test, such as parts of Essex, Enfield and Birmingham.

The table below is taken from Progression to higher education or training, Academic year 2020/21 – Explore education statistics – GOV.UK (explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk) has been sorted to rank institutions by their outcomes for the type of institution in terms of a sustained Level 4 or above destination. (6 months in a two year period.) The two year period ended just after the covid pandemic started in the spring of 2020, so that may have had some effect on the outcomes.

However, the FE colleges produce the bulk of young people entering the workforce or becoming a NEET (Not in employment, education or training) at the end of Year 13.

Kenneth Baker’s experiment with 14-18 schools, whether studio schools or University Technical Colleges, as a sector produce slightly better outcomes in terms of destinations, but not by much. Slightly ahead of this group is the non-selective schools in highly selective areas, most of which were once known as secondary modern schools.

Institution type	Sustained a level 4 or higher destination	Progression score *
Other FE sector colleges	47.0	-3.1
Total Mainstream Colleges	54.9	-1.2
Studio Schools	55.6	1.2
University Technical College	59.3	1.6
Non-selective school in highly selective area	62.0	-4.0
Total Schools and colleges	66.0	0.0
Sponsored academy	69.4	1.1
Sixth form colleges	73.1	3.4
Other non-selective school	73.5	1.0
Total academies & free schools	74.6	0.7
Total Schools	74.6	0.9
LA maintained schools	74.9	1.9
Converter academy	75.7	0.4
Free 16-19	77.0	3.7
Free Schools	83.1	7.1
Selective school	88.5	2.4

Source: Progression to higher education or training, Academic year 2020/21

Interestingly, Six Form Colleges, academies and free schools as a sector and other non-selective schools had very similar outcomes. Converter academies and the relatively small Free School sector do better than the average for schools, but, as might be expected, it is selective schools that have the highest ranking. Indeed, one might ask why their score isn’t even higher?

For parents aspiring to see their offspring continue in education after eighteen, there are some clear messages in terms of outcome by institution. For political parties espousing the concept of either levelling up or equality of opportunity the question of the value to society as a whole of selective schools probably ought to be at least as important as concerns about the benefits of private education, since it is state funding that is producing the range of outcomes.

My guess is that because of the current teacher supply crisis the next set of data post-covid will have seen the range become even greater than in this study.

* For an understanding of the progression score please consult the DfE documentation where there is a detailed explanation of how the score is calculated.

More teachers take maternity leave

Posted on June 29, 2022 by John Howson

TeachVac records the reason for vacancies as part of its intelligence gathering about the labour market for teachers in England. Each vacancy is classified and placed into one of three categories: permanent position; temporary post or maternity leave vacancy. Where the school doesn’t provide a reason for their vacancy, the default is that the vacancy is for a permanent position.

Regular readers, and those that study the labour market for teachers in any detail, will know that 2022 has been an exceptional year for vacancies, with record numbers being recorded so far this year and approaching 100,000 vacancies across the whole of the 2021-2022 school year.

The lack of any unique job identification number means that it is impossible to know the percentage of re-advertisements in the overall total of recorded vacancies. However, so great has been the increase, even over pre-covid vacancy levels that it must be inferred that there are more vacancies than normal.

To what extent has any growth in teachers taking maternity leave played a part in the increase in vacancies? There has been an increase, as the data in the table below reveals. Between January and June 2021 TeachVac recorded 4,386 vacancies where the cause of the vacancy was as a result of a teacher taking maternity leave. In the same period in 2022, the number had increased to 5,627 by 28^th June. Now, cognisant of my comment above, it is entirely possible that some of the growth in maternity leave vacancies is the result of re-advertisements, but it seems unlikely that re-advertisements account for the whole of the growth in such vacancies.

Maternity leave vacancies recorded by TeachVac

	Primary Sector	Secondary Sector	Total	Date range
Maternity	2564	3063	5627	Jan-June 2022
Maternity	2024	2362	4386	Jan-June 2021
Maternity	3539	4156	7695	All Year 2021

Source TeachVac

Now it is also possible that more schools are citing the fact that their vacancy is due to a teacher taking maternity leave. The alternative might be to advertise for a temporary post not citing the reason why the vacancy was temporary.

	January to June 2022
	Primary Sector	Secondary Sector	Total
Maternity	2564	3063	5627
Permanent	15925	48787	64712
Temporary	4371	2249	6620
Total	22860	54099	76959
Maternity	11%	6%	7%

	January to June 2021
	Primary Sector	Secondary Sector	Total
Maternity	2024	2362	4386
Permanent	10094	24128	34222
Temporary	3787	1838	5625
Total	15905	28328	44233
Maternity	13%	8%	10%

	2021 – All year
	Primary Sector	Secondary Sector	total
Maternity	3539	4156	7695
Permanent	14079	33370	47449
Temporary	5932	3207	9139
Total	23550	40733	64283
Maternity	15%	10%	12%

Source: TeachVac data

However, there has been a significant growth in the number of permanent vacancies recorded this year, up from 34,222 to 64,712 for the January to June period between those months in 2021 and those moths this year in 2022. Again, it isn’t possible to know the extent that re-advertisements are included in the increase. There will almost certainly be more re-advertisement than in a year when the supply of new teachers entering the market was greater than it has been this year, but I doubt re-advertisements are the main cause of the increase.

Keeping in touch with teachers taking maternity leave to encourage them to return, either part-time or to tutoring or in other type of work within the school would be a cost-effective means of not losing touch with a vital resource. The National Audit Office some years ago now commented that retention was much ore cost-effective than recruitment. Perhaps it is time the DfE dusted off a national ‘keep in tough’ scheme?

Buddy, can you spare a dime?

Posted on March 18, 2022 by John Howson

Did schools really save money in the five-year period up to 2019-2020? The DfE has published a study showing the aim of ‘saving’ at least one billion pounds during that period was achieved. Progress in schools savings and resource management – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

The methodology of the study was to measure savings as the difference between actual non-staff expenditure in 2019-20 and what was estimated non-staff expenditure would have been in 2019-20 if schools had not changed their spending behaviour. This is expressed as the difference between the expenditure line and the counterfactual line as to where expenditure without saving would have been.

It is worth noting that the period covered was one where primary school rolls were generally on the increase, and for many secondary school rolls were either constant or falling. Academies and maintained schools also operate on different financial years, so that could be an additional complicating factor.

A significant proportion of the saving came in the final year 2019-2020. I am not sure whether that meant that the final third of that financial year for academies covered the first four months of the pandemic when, for instance, there would have been a significant drop in expenditure on school meals, as most children were forced to stay at home.

The target of £1 Billion pounds was set after the National Audit Office (NAO) report “Financial sustainability of schools” published in 2016 identified that schools would incur cost pressures of £3bn between then and 2019- 20. The DfE then produced analysis which compared schools with different levels of spending but similar pupil characteristics and levels of attainment.

According to the report,

‘the DfE estimated the impact of bringing the spending of the top 25% highest per-pupil non-staff spending schools down to the level of those at the 75th percentile. This analysis indicated that, schools could plausibly save around £1 bn on their non-staff spending and so this became the ambition of the SRM portfolio’ (Page 3)

It is not clear from the report whether that is what happened, or whether the schools better at managing their costs took more out of the system, thus widening the gap between those schools good at achieving savings and the rest of the sector. Since both primary and secondary schools were included, it would have been interesting to know how much of the saving was due to fixed costs that don’t alter with changing pupil numbers – it presumably cost a similar amount to heat and light a school even if pupil numbers fluctuate. The saving would be more impressive and longer-lasting if it was the variable costs that had been reduced. Primary schools often have higher fixed costs as a proportion of income, although many of these are staff costs.

And, as the DfE note in the definitions on page 5 of the report.

‘“Saving” in this context does not mean a cash saving. We measure savings by comparing actual non-staff spend to where we expected non-staff spending to be had schools not changed spending behaviour – the counterfactual. We would calculate cash savings by taking away actual non-staff spend in 2019-20 from actual non-staff spending in 2015-16.’

And finally, it looks as if the special school sector was excluded if the study was only on primary and secondary schools. It would be interesting to know about cost pressures in that sector and whether similar saving was possible?

Good News for All?

Posted on November 25, 2021 by John Howson

The latest Education and Training Statistics issued today by the DfE offers both government and opposition something to shout about Education and training statistics for the UK, Reporting Year 2021 – Explore education statistics – GOV.UK (explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk)

For the government, the news that Pupil Teacher Ratios (PTRs) have improved in the primary sector and not worsened in the secondary sector can be seen as good news even though the improvement in PTRS in the primary sector probably has as much to do with the decline in the birth rate as it does to direct government actions. With pupil numbers still on the increase in the secondary sector, it is not surprising to see no improvement in PTRS in that sector.

	Primary	Secondary
2016/17	20.5	15.5
2017/18	20.9	15.9
2018/19	20.9	16.3
2019/2020	20.9	16.6
2020/21	20.6	16.6

Source: DfE Statistics of Education 2021

PTRS in the secondary sector remain at historically high levels for the country as a whole, and there will be areas of the country where the ratio in the secondary sector is even higher than the national average. Too often high PTRs have been associated with areas of deprivation and there are challenges here for the levelling up agenda if that remains the case. The Conservative Government invented the idea of Opportunity Areas to seek to address this issue: have they worked?

Opposition parties will no doubt seize upon the fact that education expenditure in real terms declined by 0.4% comparing the most recent year with the previous year. However, expenditure in the primary sector increased by two per cent and by seven per cent in the secondary sector in cash terms, presumably as a result of the weight on pupil numbers in the funding formula.

One outcome of the covid pandemic is that education’s share of GDP increased between 2019/2020 and 2020/2021 from 4.0% to 4.5%. No doubt it will fall back next years as the wider economy will have recovered from lockdowns and the other disruptions economy brought about by the covid pandemic.

The government can also point to improving percentages in the number of young people classified as NEETs (Not in Education, Employment or Training). In the quarter April to June 2021 the overall figure for the 16-24 age-group was 9.3% as NEETs, down from 11.3% in the same quarter in 2029/2020. Only 3.7% of 16–17-year-olds were classified as NEETS in the April to June 2021 Quarter. However, the largest fall in the percentage of NEETS over the past year was in the 18–24-year-old age-group.

There is a wealth of other statistics in the release, but many have been so badly affected by the consequences of the pandemic that there is little to say except that 2020/2021 was a highly unusual year and the data will remain as an anomaly in longer-term trend lines of statistics. What will be interesting will be to see how long the recovery period is, and whether if different groups respond in different ways to the outcomes of the pandemic, plus any steps that the government will take to ensure that some groups are not left behind.

Pupil Teacher Ratios (PTRs): An update

Posted on June 22, 2021 by John Howson

The publication last week by the DfE of the school census discussed in the previous post on this blog means that a time series analysis of changes in PTRs can be undertaken using the DfE’s new ‘construct your own table’ tool.

PTRs are useful as a guide because they can provide evidence of changes in the trends of school funding, especially when most of that funding comes from pupil numbers. The measure is not perfect. Older teachers cost more than younger one, so schools where staff stay put after being employed at NQTs cost schools more each year until they reach the top of their scale. This extra cost isn’t recognised in the funding formula.

When schools are gaining pupils, you might expect PTRs to improve, and when rolls start falling then PTRs might worsen, although there is likely to be a time lag to that effect as schools come to terms with lower numbers of pupils going forward. After all, no school likes to make staff redundant.

Incidentally, the fall in the birth rate and the exodus of overseas citizens will mean some tough decisions on ITT numbers may need to be made, possibly as early as this autumn for 2022 entry.

An analysis of changes in PTRs between 2016/17 and 2020/21 for the secondary sector shows only seven authorities, including the Isles of Scilly, where PTRs improved. In 13 local authorities the secondary PTR for schools across the Authority worsened by at least two pupils per teacher, with Slough unitary authority and the City of Nottingham having the largest changes in PTRS for the worse in the secondary sector. Most local authorities witnessed overall secondary PTRS deteriorate by between one and two teachers per pupil during this five year period. Historically that is quite a significant level of change for so many authorities. Now, some of that deterioration might have been due to keeping option groups going in the sixth form as pupil numbers in that age-group continued to fall but some could well be down to funding pressures across the sector.

In the primary sector, the position is more complex. Schools tend to be smaller and areas with new housing may be gaining pupils, even as other areas are being affected by the fall in the birth rate. Changes in PTRS have generally been in the range of plus one to minus one across most authorities, although during the five year period there are some outliers, notably, the City of Derby, where it is possible that the 2016/17 data point in the DfE database is a mistake. Such mistakes do happen from time to time.

It may also be a coincidence that both North Yorkshire and York unitary authority have recorded significant improvements during the five year period. A number of London boroughs south of the Thames also appear to have done relatively well during this five year period.

The longer that the National Funding Formula is in existence, it will be interesting to see what, if any effect it has on PTRs across the different authorities. Of course, if boundaries continue to be redrawn it will be impossible to tell. Happily, Outer London boroughs have had the same boundaries for more than half a century now.

Secondary Sector PTRs worsen

Posted on November 21, 2019 by John Howson

Government statistics whose dates have already been announced before an election is called generally escape being caught up in Purdah during the run-in to the general election. Thus, it was that the DfE announced its Education and Training Statistics for 2018/19 earlier today, along with some revisions and updates to the 2017/18 data.

Much of the data on education and training are uncontroversial, but there are some tables that may cause ripples. The most notable is the table on Pupil Teacher Ratios and Pupil Adult Ratios.

In the primary sector, there was no change in PTRs nationally at 22.9 pupils per teacher. However, this is still way worse than the 15.7 pupils per teacher of 2000/01. In the secondary sector, ratios worsened over the last year from 16.0 in 2017/18 to 16.3 in 2018/19. Again these ratios were well adrift of the 14.0:1 of the millennium.

The secondary school ratio almost certainly reflects the fact that sixth form numbers are either static or still falling, while the number of pupils at Key Stage 3 is on the increase. The latter are, of course, taught in larger class for the most part. The fact that the adult to pupil ratio also worsened in the secondary sector is a testimony to the financial pressure schools have found themselves under and why, in the new post-austerity world, political parties of all colours, including my own (the Liberal Democrats) are announcing more cash for schools.

The pressure on education spending is best illustrated in the table that shows education spending as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product. This equates to a spending of some £88.6 billion in 2018/19.

Education Expenditure as % of GDP
2012/13	4.90%
2013/14	4.70%
2014/15	4.50%
2015/16	4.40%
2016/17	4.20%
2017/18	4.20%
2018/19	4.10%

There is a long way to go just to return to the levels under the Coalition. Much of the increase, when it finally appears in schools’ bank accounts, is likely to be absorbed in higher staffing costs.

This is especially likely to be the case in those parts of England where house prices are high and private sector graduate wages for many professionals have risen to recognise the competitive state of the labour market. Teachers’ wages will have to increase to allow teaching to remain competitive. How far and how fast may become obvious next week, when the ITT Census for 2019 is slated for publication.

More pupils means a demand for more teachers, and anything less than an improvement on the figures for trainee numbers in 2018 will make uncomfortable reading for Ministers, especially if mathematics and physics were to record reductions on the 2018 numbers.

Further improvements in workload will also come at a price, but may be necessary to retain teachers overloaded with unnecessary busy work driven by a culture based around quality control rather than one of quality assurance and professional development.

Ministers might also reflect that improving the morale of the school workforce is probably the least expensive route to greater satisfaction, and should be used alongside improvements to pay and conditions.

Worsening PTRs herald a sign for the future?

Posted on June 27, 2019 by John Howson

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.

Mixed messages on ITT

Posted on May 30, 2019 by John Howson

The data on those placed either firmly or conditionally together with those holding offers for post-graduate teacher preparation courses starting this autumn was published earlier today by UCAS.

Overall, the level of applications is down again at 83,560 on 20^th May compared with 85,370 on 21^st May last year. However, that overall total marks a downward shift in applications for primary, by just over 2,000 and an upward move in applications for secondary subjects, by about 600 applications. This is where the picture starts to become more complicated

Record levels of applications in biology; English; RE and history have more than offset declines in PE – by a substantial number to only 6,000 – mathematics – some 300 fewer applications – and Art – 200 fewer applications. In each case, divide by three to estimate the change in applicants, as UCAS don’t provide that data in the monthly numbers.

In terms of placed applicants and those holding offer, Computer Studies; mathematics; physics and art are all at record lows for the recruitment rounds since 2013/14 for this month of the cycle.

Next month’s figures should start to record how new graduates feel about teaching; especially those that have so far done nothing about finding a career. The good news is that applicant numbers in the youngest age group; these will be new graduates, are holding up at similar levels to last year.

However, those in their Twenties are still not looking to teaching as either a first or second career choice. Numbers aged 22-29 are seemingly down in all age groupings. However, those, mainly career switches over 30 are still showing an increasing interest in teaching.

Applicant numbers are down from applicants domiciled in most regions of England. Those domiciled in London, where pupil numbers are growing fast in the secondary sector, number only just over 5,000, with around 300 fewer placed or conditionally placed applicants this year. Staffing the capital’s state schools should really be an issue for the STRB when considering teachers’ pay and conditions.

In the secondary sector, School Direct is still losing ground to higher education and SCITTs in terms of its share of applications. How the Augar Report, published today, plays out for postgraduate teacher preparation courses may well affect these figures in the next few years.

A languages teacher with five years of fees (four year degree plus one year teacher preparation course) could be faced with debts of £117,000 according to a chart in the Augar Report. With no difference in repayments between those earning Inner London salary and those in high cost areas on the national salary scale this is an issue the STRB needs to confront in their discussions on teacher supply.

Applications from m n are declining at a faster rate than form women, with around 240 fewer applications from men compared with only a decline of 170 in applications from women. UCAS only report gender as a binary choice. In England, the decline is from 8,910 male applicants in May 2018 to just 8,650 this year, of whom there has been a welcome increase in the number of those 21 and under conditionally placed, from 680 to 750.

What’s the collective noun for a group of schools?

Posted on November 17, 2018 by John Howson

How many angels can you gather on the head of a pin? How many words can you inscribe on the back of a postage stamp? Along with raffle prizes about either how many sweets there are in the bottle or undergraduates in a phone box – note for younger readers, phone boxes were largely red sites for fixed landline telephones. Unlike police boxes they have yet to be immortalised in a hit TV series, but appear regularly in period dramas and old films. The K1 design is an ionic British deign classic of the 1930s.

Anyway, enough of nostalgia and factoids, the purpose of this introduction is to lead into a consideration of how many secondary schools will be located in my County Council division in North Oxford by September 2019? This week, the temporary home for Oxford’s new secondary free school, the Swan School, was announced as being on the south side of the Marston Ferry Road, just inside my division and almost next door to the excising Cherwell School. In 2020, or more likely 2021, the Swan School will move eastwards to it permanent home at the other end of the road, assuming pupil number post-Brexit require an extra school in Oxford.

However, the potential arrival of the Swan School to join the Cherwell School, both part of the River Learning Trust MAT, even on a temporary basis, set me thinking about how many schools with pupils of secondary school age were congregated in the small patch of north Oxford that I represent on the County Council? At the last count, the total for September 2019 will be eight schools, with an ninth just outside the boundary of the division.

In total, according to DfE figures and including the 120 new Swan School pupils, this will mean about 4,000 pupils are educated at schools containing secondary age pupils and located in my Division. Add in the school just outside the boundary and the total is heading towards the 4,500 figure.

Of course, since two are preparatory schools and others of the six private schools have pupils younger than eleven on roll, so the actual number of secondary age pupils is lower than the overall total for pupil numbers on roll. At least four of the schools also have boarders, so the number arriving and leaving each day is also somewhat less than the overall total. Still it does create pressure on the road system. This is despite fact that some of the private schools arrange for coaches to pick up some pupils and The Cherwell School is feted as having the largest proportion of pupils of any secondary school that cycle to school each day.

Does eight secondary schools, all located in one county division, count as some sort of record? Would it justify an entry into the record books? I would be interested to hear of anyone that has more secondary schools in one electoral division for a Councillor. Some MPs will have more such schools, but few many have such a diverse range.

Finally, there are also two state primary schools within my division, and also nurseries, childminders and other provision for the under-fives, plus a couple of Oxford Universities colleges. Perhaps it is a good thing that I have such an interest in education.

John Howson

Education and the numbers that affect what happens

Tag Archives: secondary