Marking time between PMs

Posted on October 21, 2022 by John Howson

The current political turmoil at Westminster has led commentators and journalists to suggest that the Schools Bill is now effectively dead in the water. The Bill had been struggling ever since it was introduced into the House of Lords and then received a right mauling, such as Upper House can sometimes deliver. Even Tory members of the ‘revising chamber’ seemed unimpressed by their own government’s attempts at reform. The strongest support at that point in time seemed to come from the bench of the Lords Spiritual in the form of the Church of England Bishop with the speaking rights for their schools.

So, while the DfE also waits to see whether kit Malthouse joins the ranks of those passing through Sanctuary buildings or will be allowed to stay on in post as Secretary of State by the next prime minster, what might civil servants do with their time if the Bill has effectively been dropped?

Personally, I would like to see the regulations for in-year admissions updated to provide more power provided for local authorities, especially with regard to children in care and those with an EHCP that move into a new area. These are some of our most vulnerable children, and the present system of opt-out by academies for in-year admissions sometimes doesn’t help their education.

I have called this a need for a Jacob’s Law to change this situation, but in reality, it doesn’t need a law, just a change in regulations and secondary legislation.

For those that want to read the history behind the need for a Jacob’s Law, see Time for Jacob’s Law | John Howson (wordpress.com) It is now 5 years since Jacob returned to Oxfordshire and started his period of 22 months without a school accepting him on roll. We must not let this happen again.

The last two White Papers have both contained references to returning control of in-year admissions to local authorities and the government has confirmed that to do so doesn’t need primary legislation.

The loss of the Schools Bill also puts at risk the idea of a register of young people of school age. Such a list would allow movement of young people to be tracked and make it harder for children to disappear off the radar. Not impossible, because parents can take drastic action such as disappearing overseas, but at least it might help policymaker understand the extent of home schooling and encourage debate about the rights of children and their parents to education and what that term actually means in the modern age?

The 25-49 age group that contains most parents of school-age children was one of the groups least supportive of the Conservatives in the latest polling of the public, even putting the Party behind the Lib Dems nationally among this age-group! PeoplePolling / GB News Survey Results

Dear Prime Minister

Posted on October 4, 2022 by John Howson

Would you like some good news? On your return from Birmingham, you will no doubt be asking Ministers how their departments can save money. Here is one suggestion. I am not unbiased in making this suggestion, as it could benefit TeachVac, the job board that I chair. However, TeachVac was in existence before the DfE started its own version and has consistently shown how to achieve a low-cost approach to vacancy listing as our accounts at Companies House will confirm. Reviewing the DfE site could also save the government money.

We suggested originally that the DfE need only provide a page pointing those seeking teaching posts to available sites in the private sector, and another for schools showing the relative costs of using different sites. However, in response to the Public Accounts Committee, the DfE decided on a more costly intervention and created its own job board.

TeachVac is currently offering secondary schools a deal of 12 months of unlimited matches for just £250 and a mere £50 for primary schools. How much per vacancy does the DfE cost to provide?

Reproduced below is a post from 2020 that further makes the case for saving money on the DfE’s job board. Our monitoring since then suggests that the DfE site has gained little traction in the market and may be losing ground in terms of teaching vacancies uploaded.

DfE and Teacher Vacancies: Part Two

Posted on April 3, 2021

The DfE is spending more money supporting their latest venture into the teacher recruitment market. SchoolsWeek has uncovered the latest moves by the government to challenge existing players in this market https://schoolsweek.co.uk/dfe-leans-on-mats-to-boost-teacher-job-vacancies-website-take-up/ in an exclusive report.

The current DfE foray into the recruitment market follows the failure of the Fast Track Scheme of two decades ago and the Schools Recruitment Service that fizzled out a decade ago. The present attempt also came on the heels of the fiasco around a scheme to offer jobs in challenging schools in the north of England that never progressed beyond the trial phase.

The present DfE site rolled out nationally two years ago this month. How successful it has been was the subject of a SchoolsWeek article earlier this year. https://schoolsweek.co.uk/dfes-teacher-job-website-carries-only-half-of-available-positions/ This blog reviewed the market for vacancy sites for teachers last December, in a post entitled Teacher Vacancy Platforms: Pros and Cons that was posted on December 7, 2020.

In that December post, I looked at the three key sites for teacher vacancies in England. TeachVac; the DfE Vacancy site and the TES. As I pointed out, this was not an unbiased look, because I am Chair of the company that owns TeachVac. Indeed, I said, it might be regarded as an advertisement, and warned readers to treat it in that way.

There is an issue with how much schools spend on recruitment of teachers. After all, that was why TeachVac was established eight years ago. The DfE put the figure in their evidence to the STRB this year at around £75 million; a not insubstantial figure.

Will TeachVac be squeezed out in a war between the DfE backed by unlimited government funding and the TES with a big American backer? At the rate TeachVac is currently adding new users, I don’t think so. After all, the DfE site doesn’t cover independent schools, and in the present market I believe that most teachers want a site that allows access to all teaching jobs and not just some. That benefits both TeachVac and the TES as well as other players in the market, such as The Guardian and SchoolsWeek, as well as recruitment agencies.

How much the DfE will need to spend on ensuring they cover the whole of the state-funded job market in terms of acquiring vacancies by the ‘school entering vacancies’ method is another interesting question? As is, how much will it also cost to drive teachers to using the DfE site and not TeachVac or the TES?

A view of TeachVac’s account reveals that TeachVac provides access to more jobs for teachers at less than the DfE is going to spend on promoting their site over the next few months. Such spending only makes good commercial sense if you want to remove a player from the market.

So, here’s a solution. Hire TeachVac to promote the DfE site and use the data TeachVac already generates to monitor the working of the labour market. After all, that was also one of the suggestions from the Public Accounts Committee Report that spurred the DfE into action and the creation of their present attempt at running a vacancy site.

That was The Week That was…

Posted on July 10, 2022 by John Howson

This was an interesting week to have been away from one’s desk. Three Secretaries of State in a week! That’s one for the record books, along with so much else that has happened in Westminster politics during the past seven days.

How much will education feature in the debate over the selection of the next Prime Minister? Will some education journalist ask the obvious questions such as:

If you are going to cut taxes, what will happen to funding for schools, especially in the period before inflation is brought under control?

What are you going to do about the present teacher shortage?

Will you review the way that the apprenticeship Levy operates so that it isn’t a tax on small primary schools?

How important is helping young people recover from the effects of the covid pandemic and what would you do to help boost their mental health?

Do you believe in local democratic control of schooling?

What are you plans for levelling up as it affects the Roma and Traveller communities across England?

Was the EBacc a mistake?

How important do you see the youth Service and other out of school activities?

Will you offer Free School Meals to all primary school children for free?

I am sure that readers can add to this list with this with their own priorities. I am also pretty certain that most of these questions won’t be asked of the candidates.

Education, and schooling in particular doesn’t often feature in either leadership or general election campaigns. It is possible that there could be a debate about selective education, started by one of the candidates, as it is a topic that appeals to the older generation of Tory voters even if most younger Tories have never experienced it, unless they come from parts of the Home Counties. Faced with rising private school fees, some Tories might also see selective state education as a tax cut for parents no longer needing to pay school fees.

And on fees, where will the candidates stand on higher education, university fees and student numbers? It will be especially interesting to see what the Chancellor says as a former Education Secretary.

Talking of former Education Secretary’s, I wonder whether there was time to take the Ministerial photograph of Michelle Donelan to hang on the wall at Sanctuary Buildings or whether they will use one taken in her previous Ministerial role in the department.

Finally, there is the future of the Schools Bill to consider. This mess of a piece of draft legislation was mauled in the House of Lords and is being reconsidered. The oversight and regulation of academy trusts is an important addition to the legislation on schooling, but I hope that the new team will also listen to their councillors about the importance of both place in the governance of schooling and the need for democratic local accountability. Local Authorities will not accept the need for responsibility without involvement in decision-making and that matters for admissions, pupil place planning and SEND.

To hypothecate or not?

Posted on March 13, 2022 by John Howson

Civil Servants don’t seem to be very good at procurement if you read the latest report from the Education Select Committee at Westminster into the National Tutoring Programme. Disadvantaged pupils facing ‘epidemic’ of educational inequality – Committees – UK Parliament this has not been a success. The Secretary of State recognised this in his speech to the ASCL Conference.

The issue of procurement and value for money is something that I have written about before on this blog. Bulk buying back in vogue | John Howson (wordpress.com) With the present pressure on prices due to the world situation, schools and the whole education sector are going to need to review their spending. If we were to take 100,000 extra children from Ukraine, as announced by the Secretary of State Education Secretary addresses Association of School and College Leaders conference – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

‘And we have a team that’s already making plans for a capacity of 100,000 Ukrainian children that will come in and take their places in our schools.’

This will impact on funding unless the government is prepared to fully fund the extra places. Wil the funding by hypothecated, as will be the £350 per month householder grant for refugees or just added to the normal school funding round?

At least teachers from Ukraine will be able to work in England as the Secretary of State also said in his speech:

“And because teaching is an increasingly global profession, I want to attract the very best teachers from across the world.

That is why we will also introduce a new relocation premium to help with visas and other expenses for teachers and trainees moving here from abroad.

But even this is not enough: I want our country to be known around the world as the place to train and practise teaching, rivalling the likes of Shanghai, Canada and of course Finland.”

I assume that these changes will be introduced in time to help Ukrainian teachers fleeing the war with their families, as well as any Russian citizens unhappy with their government and fleeing a prison sentence for protesting against the war that might be teachers.

As my recent post on the dilemmas of teaching discussed, hypothecating finance isn’t just a national matter. Schools have to decide how to use their budgets between the needs of different pupils. In this respect, the announcements about SEND will be eagerly awaited, as funding for that sector is in woefully short supply.

Finally, local authorities especially in the shires, will be facing rising transport bills for school transport and social services visits along with other cost increases. For the past eight years, I have demonstrated how recruitment advertising can be much cheaper than it has been. Perhaps, it is now time for the DfE to get together with professional associations and other interested parties to work out how real saving can be made without reducing services. The past few years have seen an explosion of talent in education entrepreneurship. BETT would be a good place for the Secretary of State to announce new initiatives to help avoid wasting cash as has happened in the past.

Wish list for the new Secretary of State

Posted on September 16, 2021 by John Howson

The replacement of Mr Williamson as Secretary of State probably wasn’t much of a surprise. There isn’t a manual on how to handle a pandemic, but some issue were pretty obvious from really early on. Strategic thinking isn’t easy, and UK corporate management has not always managed it, so we shouldn’t be surprised that some Ministers don’t find it a real challenge.

Anyway, we have a new Secretary of State, and here are some of my top issues for him to consider.

Consider raising the free transport age for students from 16 to 18. The leaving learning age has now encouraged staying-on, and it is time to help the levelling up agenda by ensuring 16-18 year olds receive the same treatment in terms of transport as when they were at school. There would be a cost, not least because some 16-18 year olds attend further education colleges some distance from their homes, but the present arrangement affects the choice some 16 year olds make about what to study.

Finally remove the ability of schools to handle their own in-year admissions and create a common local scheme, as for September admissions. This would help both parents and local authorities ensure a place for children forced to move during a school year. Schools might also review their induction arrangements for such children to ensure they aren’t overlooked and set up to fail.

Take a long hard look at the teaching profession in the light of the market review. Make objectives clear. Can we construct a system than ensures enough teachers in the right places for all schools using a preparation route appropriate to the individual, whether they be a school leaver; a new graduate or a career changer. Encourage more under-represented groups into teaching and ensure the preparation course is financially fair to all and not a burden to some while others receive a salary.

Make the term teacher a reserved occupation term so that those banned from teaching cannot still use the term. teacher

Make a teaching qualification less generic. For a start, make it the right to teach either primary up to eleven or secondary not below eleven, and abolish the ‘middle’ level route. In the longer term make it more specific in relation to subjects and specialisms within the primary sector. And do something about qualifications and staffing for the growing SEND sector where there are often more unqualified teachers than in other sectors. At the same time review training numbers for educational psychologists and other allied professions that support our children and their schools.

Look at what funding might do to small primary schools now the birthrate is falling. Decide whether keeping schools in rural communities is a sensible idea or whether government is prepared to see many closures as school become financially non-viable due to restrains on per pupil funding.

There are no doubt many other issues, not least the future of expensive public examinations at age 16 and the content of a curriculum for the 21^st century in a multicultural society, along with issues about school meals, uniforms and the developing gender agenda.

Baroness Williams of Crosby

Posted on April 12, 2021 by John Howson

I am saddened to hear of the death earlier today of Shirley Williams, Baroness Williams of Crosby.

Baroness Williams was one of the founders of the SDP and had previously been an education secretary during the Labour government of the late 1970s. Created a Life peer in 1993, Baroness Williams played an important background role in education for the Party in her role as a senior politician of wide experience. Her great speaking ability motivated many audiences in both the conference hall and at fringe meetings during many Liberal Democrat conferences over the years. She finally retired from the House of Lords in 2016, but remained an inspiring figure for many in the Liberal Democrats.

In a blog post when another Liberal Democrats stalwart of the House of Lords, Baroness Sharp of Guildford retired, I paid tribute to these two Peers along with Annette Brooke the former MP. All were important for the Liberal Democrats in the field of education, from early years to higher education.

I first encountered Shirley Williams when she was Secretary of State for Education. She initiated The Great Debate in Education on the back of the Prime minister’s famous Ruskin College speech. This was the start of the shift from a national service locally administered to a nationally driven education service that we now have in England. I had achieved some notoriety after appearing in the national press and was invited to several media events where Shirley Williams was the speaker. I especially recall one such event in the Royal Institution where she was opposed Norman St John Stevas, possibly one of the best Secretaries of State we never had.

It was Shirley William’s misfortune to be secretary of State when the government of Jim Callaghan was teetering on the edge of collapse. She had to endure the ‘winter of discontent’ and during that period she failed to stop the caretaker’s strike in Haringey that lead to several weeks of school closures.

Although successful in taking North Yorkshire County Council to court over the need to create non-selective education in Ripon, it was too late in the parliament and the life of the Labour government for any action to be taken on the result that backed the government’s view of the 1976 Education Act, and so, along with the other selective schools that she tried to convert to comprehensive education, selective education still remains in that part of Yorkshire, helped by Mrs thatcher’s prompt repealing of the 1976 Act as one of her first actions as Prime Minister.

Shirley Williams was an inspiring orator and a joy to listen to when speaking at Liberal Democrat events, either extempore or from a prepared speech. She was not a good timekeeper and was often late, but nobody ever seemed to mind. She was also a great European and had the courage to from a new political party. Along with many other, I will miss her.

Growing pains, but not for TeachVac

Posted on March 29, 2019 by John Howson

Should the latest American owners of the TES be worried by the DfE’s vacancy site? Probably not in the short-term, but looking on a longer perspective there must be some anxiety. TeachVac, the other free service offering teacher vacancies to trainees, teachers and returners, where I am the chair of the board, monitors how the DfE site is doing compared with TeachVac www.teachvac.co.uk on a weekly basis.

Below are our figures for 2019, up to this morning, with one day to go before the end of the first quarter of 2019

04/01/2019	11.26
11/01/2019	13.22
18/01/2019	17.57
25/01/2019	17.69
01/02/2019	21.44
08/02/2019	22.72
15/02/2019	24.46
22/02/2019	11.71
01/03/2019	31.25
08/03/2019	25.11
15/03/2019	25.20
22/03/2019	25.10
29/03/2019	28.20

Source: Oxford Teacher Services Ltd

Apart from the February half-term period, this week is the first time that the DfE site has broken through the 25% barrier in relation to TeachVac. Of course, the two sites aren’t directly comparable, since the DfE site carries non-teaching vacancies, but not vacancies from independent schools, and TeachVac carries the latter, but not the former.

Still, the DfE clearly won’t have a full analysis of the 2019 recruitment round as they will be missing so many vacancies in the first quarter of the year. The interesting time will come in the summer, when schools paying a subscription to advertise their vacancies on paid-for platforms will need to decide whether or not to renew their subscriptions or switch back to using them only when the free site such as TeachVac or the DfE fail to provide enough applicants to make an appointment.

This assumes that the DfE site is still in operation by the summer. With the start of the new government financial year next week, it must be expected that funding has been agreed to operate the DfE’s site for the whole of the financial year. From a point of view of schools, it is to be hoped it doesn’t follow the private sector approach of taking booking, or in this case vacancy adverts, right up to the point where the plug is pulled.

I think that schools have a right to expect a statement from the government that either the DfE site will continue for another year or that if it doesn’t it will be replaced by links to other sites providing details of vacancies, such as TeachVac. The latter would, of course, be a much cheaper option for the DfE, but I assume having spent money on the software for their site they will want to see a return on their expenditure.

TeachVac is breaking new records this year, both on the number of vacancies listed, and on the rate of applicants signing up to receive job matches. This on minimal marketing and in the teeth of indifference from all the teacher associations. Teachers, however, know a good thing when they see it and the fact that a job posted this morning can be matched to a teacher that has requested it by late afternoon shows what can be achieved.

‘intervene fast… take the serious action necessary’. Promises

Posted on June 12, 2018 by John Howson

Why has the Regional School Commissioner for North West London and the South Central Region not issued any warning notices to any school about poor performance since the end of 2016? The updated DfE list of such notice published earlier this week https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/list-of-letters-to-academy-trusts-about-poor-performance reveals that the last notice issued was in December 2016 and that was to a school issued a pre-warning notice at the start of that year. Indeed, all the schools issued with notices in 2016/17 had previously received an earlier letter, meaning no new school in the region has been added to the list since early 2016.

Is the Office of the RSC not communicating to the DfE or has the RSC decided that the Secretary of State’s words in his speech to the NGA that ‘on those rare occasions when a school is failing – be in no doubt – we will intervene fast and we will take the serious action necessary’ doesn’t apply in the North West London and the South Central Region?

It cannot be that there are no Inadequate schools within the region, although there may not be many. The RSC appears also never to have issued any sort of notice to a school run by any of the faith groups in his region. This may explain why the school I highlighted in my previous blog post hasn’t received any overt indication of concern about performance, except from Ofsted when it declared it Inadequate in the spring of 2017 and received expressions of further concerns in the two follow-up s8 monitoring reports.

Is the RSC for the North West London and the South Central Region trying a new policy, at variance with the words of the Secretary of State, by seeking to improve schools beyond the glare of publicity? Interestingly, the figures for number of notices issued by the North West London and the South Central Region are also matched by some other regions that have also not published any notices in 2017/18, whereas the RSC for the South West has issued five of the 12 notices in 2017/18.

There are clearly Inadequate academies, as rated by Ofsted, in the regions where no notices have been published in 2017/18 as well as previously rated Inadequate schools where progress to return to an effective standard of education has been unsatisfactory. How are RSCs handling these schools now the notices seem to have fallen out of fashion? How will the Secretary of State’s promise to intervene fast be acted upon if the general public do not know what action is being taken by an RSC?

The Secretary of State has also promised more openness from Headteacher Boards and their minutes, so that is one possible way forward. Local politicians might also like to call RSCs before their Education Scrutiny Committee to given an account of how the RSC’s Office is raising standards in their local area among the academies and their Trusts. Oxfordshire’s Education Scrutiny Committee has been holding such meetings for the past three years with the RSC or their Office. Sadly, the ESFC have yet to agree to such a meeting despite two academies being in financial special measures for more than two years.

Tackling Academies and Trusts

Posted on June 11, 2018 by John Howson

Dear Secretary of State,

When addressing the NGA recently, you said;

On those rare occasions when a school is failing – be in no doubt – we will intervene fast and we will take the serious action necessary.

In relation to maintained schools you also said that ‘an Ofsted Inadequate judgement alone would lead to hard action to convert a Local Authority maintained school to an academy.’ However, you didn’t say what intervention would mean for an existing academy declared Inadequate by Ofsted?

Can you explain what action will be taken where the school declared Inadequate is already part of a multi-academy trust?

Where the school is also under financial special measures, one might expect some form of obvious action, such as a published notice of intent to close by the Regional School Commissioner. Where the school has well above average absence rates one might expect action to intervene fast, if you mean what you said.

Now, either your words were empty rhetoric in relation to academies or you really do want all schools to be good schools and will take steps to improve inadequate schools. Can you please reassure me that no school in Oxfordshire would be allowed to drift for more than a year after being declared an Inadequate Academy by Ofsted and with a recent monitoring inspection that concluded that ‘Leaders and managers are not taking effective action towards the removal of special measures.’

If this is not a case for the use of your policy of fast intervention, perhaps you can explain why it doesn’t meet your criteria.

You are also going to take action about the transparency of multi academy trusts and the pay of those that work in central offices administering the Trust. This can only be a good thing. In Oxfordshire several of the Trusts with headquarters outside the County pay their CEOs more than the £150,000 level you recently wrote to Trusts about, whereas according to their published accounts, none of the Trusts with its headquarters in Oxfordshire has come close to this limit.

Many primary schools are not now willing to join a Trust or even become an academy because once the decision has been made it is irrevocable. However, a Trust may either broker a school to another trust or in extreme circumstances give up the school altogether, but a school may not leave a Trust, even if the terms on which it agreed to join change dramatically. Such a risk doesn’t seem worth leaving the certainty of their present governance arrangements in the eyes of many governors, especially where the central charge may be little different to that offered for the purchase of traded services by their local authority.

Your speech did little to dispel the fog of uncertainty about how the system of schooling across England works for the benefit of all pupils. Please consider how all schools can work together and where there are many MATs in an area who has the ability to coordinate both their actions, those of academies not in Trusts and the remaining maintained schools whether they are voluntary or community in nature.

Not very ambitious

Posted on May 4, 2018 by John Howson

I understand that the Secretary of State is going to tell the NAHT Conference of another plan for sabbaticals for teachers as part of a retention drive to keep teachers from leaving. Dangling the odd carrot here and there isn’t the same as having a comprehensive policy for the training and development of the teaching profession.

I looked back through this blog and saw what I wrote in a post on the 17^th April 2013 – it is still there and readable https://johnohowson.wordpress.com/2013/04/17/mrs-thatcher-as-education-secretary/ The post was written following the death of Mrs Thatcher. Her time as Education Secretary, best known for ending school milk also contained the excellent 1972 White Paper from which the following extract is taken:

Teacher Training and Professional Development

The Government propose to work towards the achievement of a graduate teaching profession. During probation teachers should receive the kind of help and support needed to make the induction process both more effective and less daunting than it has been in the past. Also they should be released for not less than one-fifth of their time for in-service training. For the remainder of their time probationer teachers would be serving in schools, but with a somewhat lightened timetable, so that altogether they might be expected to undertake three-quarters of a full teaching load. The Government propose to give effect to the James Committee’s recommendation that teachers should be released for in-service training for periods equivalent to one term in every 7 years of service. It is their aim that a substantial expansion of such training should begin in the school year 1974–75 and should continue progressively so that by 1981 3 per cent of teachers could be released on secondment at any one time. This involves a four-fold increase in present opportunity.

(my emphasis in bold)

Of course apart from the first point it didn’t happen as planned, because the Oil Crisis at the end of 1972 plunged the country into recession and the hamstrung Labour government of 1974-79 wasn’t able to move the ideas forward. But, there were ambitious targets for the whole profession. For much of this century, successive governments have neglected the professional development of the teaching force and much more is need that is currently on offer from Mr Hinds.

I gather that Bath Spa University has also decided to pay a scholarship of £500 to all its students joining teacher preparation courses next September in recognition of the costs of such courses. I applaud this action, but would rather the government returned to a training grant for all postgraduates in training as a teacher. Stand up to the Treasury Mr Hinds and point out that we need teachers and present policies aren’t working. A thriving modern economy depends upon a successful education service and you cannot achieve that end if you fail to recruit enough teachers.

Scap the work on a new vacancy service for teachers and use the cash saved for more support for trainee teachers. Then use the power of the profession and the many organisations within it to create the free service TeachVac has pioneered at no cost to the DfE. That way ‘all could be winners’.

John Howson

Education and the numbers that affect what happens

Tag Archives: Secretary of State