ITT outcomes: reflections on employment

Posted on July 27, 2023 by John Howson

The DfE has today published the ITT profiles for 2021/2022 Initial teacher training performance profiles, Academic year 2021/22 – Explore education statistics – GOV.UK (explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk) There has bene a change in methodology this year, and only completing postgraduate trainees are now counted. In addition, the data may have been affected by completers with extension from 2020/21 and had been affected by starting their courses during the height of the covid pandemic.

Even with these caveats, there are some interesting issues for policymakers to ponder

Provisional employment rates were 81% for those on a school-led route compared to 69% for those on a Higher Education Institution (HEI) route, with the highest rates seen for those on the High Potential ITT (90%), School Direct Salaried (84%), and Postgraduate Teaching Apprenticeship (83%) routes These three routes have had the three highest employment rates since the Postgraduate Teaching Apprenticeship was introduced in 2018/19, with High Potential ITT having the highest employment rate every year since 2017/18 (joint highest in 2019/20).

Salaried routes seem to do better in terms of immediate employment in teaching. However, does employment in this context only mean employment in a state-funded schools and not a sixth form college, other further education setting or an independent school?

As elsewhere it states that ‘We provisionally estimate that within sixteen months of the end of the 2021/22 academic year, 22,276 postgraduate trainees awarded QTS in 2021/22 will be employed as a teacher in a state-funded school in England, up from 21,889 in 2020/21. This represents 75% of postgraduate trainees awarded QTS, reversing a downward trend from 80% in 2017/18 to 73% in 2020/21,’ it might be sensible to infer that the data on employment only refers to employment in state-funded schools.

It seems logical that those employed in a state-funded school during training would remain there. However, higher education providers also offer many places in subjects such as physics where competition from the private school sector for teachers might well mean that the percentage entering the state-funded school sector would be lower, even if those working in the further education sector are discounted.

The headline statistics don’t break the data down into trainees on primary and secondary sector courses. As a result, it isn’t possible from the headlines to understand why both the percentage awarded QTS dropped to 93% (methodology changes may have been part of the cause) and ‘of these postgraduate trainees with course outcomes, 29,511 were awarded qualified teacher status (QTS), down from 30,101 in 2020/21. This decrease follows year-on-year increases from 2017/18.’

Trainee qualified teacher status and employment outcomes by subject’

Subject	Total Trainees	Awarded QTS	Working in state sector school
Classics	66	97%	56%
Physical Education	1,670	97%	70%
Business Studies	309	90%	73%
Computing	575	86%	73%
Primary	15,098	94%	73%
Drama	473	95%	74%
Other	528	94%	74%
Physics	561	87%	74%
Total	31,747	93%	75%
Art & Design	809	94%	76%
Modern Foreign Languages	1,101	94%	77%
Secondary	16,649	92%	77%
Chemistry	1,088	90%	78%
History	1,531	93%	78%
Mathematics	2,647	92%	78%
Biology	1,059	88%	79%
Religious Education	476	92%	79%
Music	388	93%	81%
English	2,350	92%	82%
Geography	660	94%	82%
Design & Technology	358	94%	83%

Initial teacher training performance profiles, Academic year 2021/22

Perhaps it is not surprising that only just over half of trainees in classics were working in state-funded schools. For physical education and primary, the low percentages may relate more to a lack of opportunity than to a desire not to work in a state-funded school.

More worrying is the ranking of subjects by the percentage awarded QTS

Subject	Total Trainees	Awarded QTS	Working in state sector school
Physics	561	87%	74%
Biology	1,059	88%	79%
Business Studies	309	90%	73%
Chemistry	1,088	90%	78%
Secondary	16,649	92%	77%
Mathematics	2,647	92%	78%
Religious Education	476	92%	79%
English	2,350	92%	82%
Total	31,747	93%	75%
History	1,531	93%	78%
Music	388	93%	81%
Primary	15,098	94%	73%
Other	528	94%	74%
Art & Design	809	94%	76%
Modern Foreign Languages	1,101	94%	77%
Geography	660	94%	82%
Design & Technology	358	94%	83%
Drama	473	95%	74%
Classics	66	97%	56%
Physical Education	1,670	97%	70%

Initial teacher training performance profiles, Academic year 2021/22

Subjects with significant percentages of trainees in higher education have some of the highest completion rate, so higher education per se cannot be faulted for having an overall lower rate of employment than school-based provision.

However, if the government wants to keep trainees in the state-school system, offering salaried courses base din schools seems like a good idea. Wasn’t that what the School Direct salaried route was designed to do? As I pointed out in an earlier blog, the numbers on employment-based routes are now fewer than in the latter years of the last Labour government. Possibly time for a rethink?

Death of the arts

Posted on July 25, 2023 by John Howson

The grim news from the July data on recruitment to ITT postgraduate courses starting this autumn is that most arts subjects are recording offer levels below those of last year. Initial teacher training application statistics for courses starting in the 2023 to 2024 academic year – Apply for teacher training – GOV.UK (apply-for-teacher-training.service.gov.uk)

The 2022 recruitment round was the worst for many years, and while some subjects have recovered from the disastrous offer levels of last year, the arts subjects have continued their downward trend in offers in most cases. This is grim news for schools wanting to recruit for September 2024, as the data in the table below makes clear.

Subjects where offers are below the July 2022 and July 2021 levels

Art

Religious Education

Physical Education

Music

History

Subjects where offers are above the July 2022 abut below July 2021 levels

Languages

Mathematics

Computing

Chemistry

Business Studies

Subjects where offers are above the July 2022 and July 2021 levels

Physics

Geography

English

Design & Technology

Biology

Subjects where offers are below the July 2022 levels

Drama

Classics

‘Other’ subjects

Subjects in italics are those where it seems likely that the 2023 target will not be met even if ‘offers’ are better this year.

Both art and music are subjects where offers are down this year compared with 2022. In the case of art from 910 in July 2021 to just 478 this July. For music, the fall during the same period has been from 410 offers to just 224 offers this July. Drama is down from 364 offers last July to 275 this July. Offers at this level, even if all candidates turn up, will not produce enough trainees to meet the needs of schools next year.

The good news, such as it appears to be, is in subjects such as English, languages (other than classics) and geography. These are subjects where the level of applications has been large enough to allow offer levels to mean that the target should be met for the year.

However, a word of warning. Recruited numbers in four regions, including both London and the South East are below the number recorded in July 2022. Overall ‘recruited’ total is 3,395 down on July 2022, of 3,911. Also, those with ‘conditions pending’ are down by 124 on last year, creating a net loss across these two categories. There must, therefore be some uncertainty about the outcome of the recruitment round in terms of trainee numbers that will turn up in September.

Numbers of applicants in the youngest age categories are still below those for July 2022, whereas applications from candidates in the older age groupings continue to be above the levels seen in 2022.

The number of rejected applications has increased from 31,124 in July 2022 to 52,350 in July 2023. Lat year that represented 31.5% of applications. This July, it represented 40% of applications. Whether or not this increase is related to the origins of the applications is impossible to tell from the data. However, it would not surprise me if many of those rejected were in the ‘rest of the world’ category.

Barring any last-minute change next month, and with many school-based schemes not actively recruiting now, it seems likely that 2024 with be another grim year for schools recruiting teachers, especially, but not exclusively in some of the art subjects that the independent sector values more highly that the government seems to do.

Congratulations to The North East

Posted on July 20, 2023 by John Howson

The DfE has published data around revised numbers on the first cohort and provisional numbers in the second cohorts of Early Career Framework and National Professional Qualifications starting in 2022-23. The data is for both Early Career Framework and National Professional Qualifications (ECF and NPQs). Teacher and Leader development: ECF and NPQs, Academic year 2022/23 – Explore education statistics – GOV.UK (explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk)

In this blog I look at some of the percentages around the National Professional Qualification for Teacher and Leader Development.

As might be expected, starts have increased from 5.5% of the workforce to 6.4% or close to 35,000 teachers.

	Teacher Leader Development
	NPQs
Characteristic	2022-23
Headteacher	8.54%
Deputy Head	10.27%
Assistant Head	10.39%
Classroom	5.61%
Secondary	6.04%
Primary	6.61%
Female	6.26%
Male	6.82%
Black	7.46%
Asian	5.48%
North East	7.46%
Hartlepool	10.16%

DfE csv file all data

In view of some of the recent comments that teachers are not interested in leadership positions, it is interesting to see that over one in ten assistant or deputy heads registered for an NPQ this year. The region with the highest overall percentage registering was the North East at 7.46%, with Hartlepool local authority area topping the list at 10.16% of the workforce. By comparison, Hampshire was recorded at just 3.81%. Hampshire is a part of the country that has had issues recruiting primary school head teachers for some of its schools in recent times.

The percentage from the ‘black’ ethnic group was, at 7.46%, above the national overall average, whereas the percentage for the Asian ethnic group, at 5.48%, was below the overall average.

Despite the greater numbers of deputy and assistant heads in the secondary sector, the primary sector at 6.61% recorded a percentage of the workforce enrolled that was above that for the secondary sector’s 6.04%.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the age grouping with the highest percentage, at 8.13%, was the 30-39 age grouping. This is the grouping where promotion through the grades is most likely for those seeking a career in leadership.

The percentage for Early Career Teachers shows that most started on provider-led courses with less than 5% on school-led provision. My anxiety with the ECT is not the numbers that started but the provision for those, most likely in the primary sector, that might not have started teaching until January 2023. Were they able to access the ECT framework from the start.

As I have pointed out in the past, if the market model of teacher supply works correctly, then the least successful trainees will take the longest to find teaching posts and may constitute a significant proportion of the January entrants into classroom teaching. This group would obviously benefit from access straightaway to the ECF. Indeed, for those searching for teaching post in the autumn, but not yet successful, should there be some means of support and continued development during this extended period of job hunting so that they do not lose the degree of skills developed during their training?

Sobering data on ITT needs

Posted on July 14, 2023 by John Howson

Perhaps the most sobering paragraph from the STRB Report issued yesterday:

“Overall, 76% of those employed were in high skilled employment, which compares to 75% in the previous year. ‘Primary education teaching professionals’ was the fifth most likely professional job and ‘Secondary educational teaching professionals’ the sixth. Of those in employment, 8% were working as education professionals.” My emphasis Source Graduate Outcomes 2019/20: Summary Statistics – Summary | HESA in School Teachers’ Review Body 33rd report: 2023 – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

The other two main sources of teacher supply are career changers and returners

New graduates are a key source of entrants into the profession, and there needs to much more research into trends in graduate behaviour. How are changes in the mix of subjects studied by new undergraduates likely to affect the number of entrants into teaching in three years time? A surge in business studies undergraduates and a decline in those studying English might well have repercussions for teaching.

Similarly, where home graduates’ study can affect entry into teaching. Two decades ago, it was clear that the most common recruitment ground for primary trainees was in the post-1992 university sector and especially in the smaller former colleges of higher education that used to be the main providers of undergraduate ITT. Does this trend still hold true? What percentage of Teach First entrants come from universities without ITT provision? indeed, is there an index of recruitment by university and course over a period of time?

I raise these issues about the somewhat amateurish approach to marketing, an area of recruitment that received some criticism from the second panel that appeared in front of the Education Select Committee earlier this week. Marketing is not just about the obvious front end of adverts, but also about making sure that activities are focused where they can have the most benefit. In that respect, the DfE needs to ensure that all evidence it collects is shared with course providers to help them in their marketing efforts.

Of course, all this may be happening, as I am outside of the loop these days, but if so, then it should be clear to government what is needed to increase recruitment into the profession.

Clearly, what is not needed is late and confused messages about pay. Waiting until mid-July to announce a pay settlement means that while other employers can entice new graduates with starting salaries for September, teaching has been recruiting with that hand tied behind its back. It is also worth remembering that teachers not on salaried training courses start earning a year later than their colleagues that graduate straight into employment: those friends also don’t add to their student debt levels as a result of their job in either the private or public sectors.

Perhaps the glimmer of hope in another study by ISE quoted in the STRB Report was that “Employers expected that the economic recession into 2023 would lead to a decrease in the number of vacancies in the coming year.” (para 20, 33rd STRB Report). However, so far, there seems little sign of this recession.

The Education Select Committee: reflections on evidence sessions

Posted on July 13, 2023 by John Howson

After two evidence sessions of their inquiry into recruitment and retention by the House of Commons Education Select Committee there are a number of interesting themes that need teasing out in more detail during the summer recess. Teacher recruitment, training and retention – Committees – UK Parliament

On the topic of recruitment, I have thought of these issues, in no particular order:

Linking recruitment to need

There has been talk of ‘cold spots’ and ‘certain schools’ finding recruitment (and retention) more of a challenge in the evidence sessions, but the evidence base has been limited. There is more certainty over the subjects with a lack of recruitment, although the committee has not delved into the cumulative effect of years of under-recruitment in some subjects. How many schools, for instance lack a properly qualified teacher of physics? The DfE can provide that information from the School Workforce Census. Also, the providers could have said how many of the physics ITT graduates start work in the private school sector or the FE sector in sixth form colleges rather than in schools?

Teacher vacancies and Free School Meals | John Howson (wordpress.com)

Leadership turnover and Free School Meals | John Howson (wordpress.com)

The Select Committee should ask Ministers about their policy. Oxfordshire would provide an excellent case study of demand from 80 secondary schools, but limited ITT numbers across all subjects.

I did some analysis last Christmas that could from the basis for a national study A Christmas holiday read about Teacher Supply | John Howson (wordpress.com)

New graduate numbers

New young undergradues still remain the most important source of entrants into ITT. However, this age-group has been experiencing something of a demographic downturn that will, fortunately, reverse in a few years’ time. Higher Education has compensated by enrolling more undergraduates in their 20s.

Over the five-year time series, the proportion of first year students aged 20 and under has decreased by 5 percentage points, from 42% to 37%. Despite this change, this age group continues to be the largest. Higher Education Student Statistics: UK, 2020/21 – Student numbers and characteristics | HESA

The implications for teaching of any change in the profile of new graduates needs to be understood, as does the relationship between the location of undergraduate courses in different subjects and entry into ITT. Again, physics makes an interesting case study. Some of the physics degree courses in London are not linked to a college with an ITT provider. Teach First can link with these colleges, but more could be achieved in the field of linking courses with ITT marketing programmes.

Applications and acceptances

The current DfE application process provides less data than the UCAS system it replaced. There are no monthly numbers around applications and offers by either gender or ethnicity making trends difficult to identify until outcome data are produced. This is an easy win for the committee to recommend a better dashboard on applications and offers. As the second panel identified, there are issues with discrimination in both ITT and teacher recruitment at all levels from classroom to head teacher’s study.

All Lives Matter: But some need to matter more | John Howson (wordpress.com)

‘We need more black headteachers in our schools’ | John Howson (wordpress.com)

Few teachers from ethnic minorities outside London | John Howson (wordpress.com)

Training salary or bursaries?

Regular readers of this blog will know that I favour a training salary for all postgraduate entrants into teaching rather than the present confused, bursary; salary or no support shambles that changes on an annual basis. Could anyone image the Ministry of Defence telling the army to pay cadets at Sandhurst according to how easy it was to recruit to their corps? No support for cavalry regiments, but a big bursary for engineers? I cannot see that happening.

However, partly, I suspect because of the numbers, teaching has a muddled approach across the three routes:

Undergraduate

Postgraduate non-classroom

Postgraduate classroom

A training salary would at least make marketing simpler, and mean career changers would always be sure of an income. When introduced in the early 200s it produced an increase in interest in teaching.

The undergraduate route has been withering on the vine, and before looking at new routes such as undergraduate apprenticeships for graduate professions there should be an understanding as to whether the undergraduate degree has now replaced ‘A’ levels as the last level of pre-career entry qualification. If so, then the new route may not be successful.

Does the sector really wish to reinvent the pupil teacher role? And, will it largely attract those unable to afford the cost of a university degree?

The suggestion that different placements can affect costs for trainees needs to be investigated. In the past, placement costs were borne by providers to ensure a level playing field. The random nature of the travel costs makes them unfair for individual trainees to bear. I researched issue this for the former ATL in the 1990s on two separate occasions.

Employment based routes into teaching

Are we offering fewer employment-based routes into teaching than a decade ago? Teach First is now the dominant salaried route into teaching. School Direct (salaried) has failed as a route into the profession and graduate apprenticeships are in their infancy. Both need closer monitoring to see how they are being used across different sectors and subjects.

In 2009/2010 EBIT (employment-based routes) accounted for 5,800 trainees, according to the DfE census. In the 2022/23 ITT census there were 2,679 trainees on three salaried routes (590 School Direct Salaried; 759 apprenticeships and 1,330 Teach First). This would seem to suggest that either opportunities for career changers needing a salary to train as a teacher have declined by several thousand or the offer is no longer attractive enough to entice career changers into teaching.

Earlier this year, I wrote the following:

“Applications are being sustained by an increase in career changers. Candidate numbers in the age groups below 25 continue to fall, with just 4,027 candidates in the 21 or under age grouping. By contrast, this year there are already 600 candidates in the 50-54 age grouping compared with 449 in March 2022. The number of candidates recorded as over the age of 65 has increased from 12 in March 2022 to 25 this March! The bulk of the career changers seem likely to be men. The number in this group has increased from 6,525 in the March 2022 data to 8,037 this March. However, the number recruited has fallen from 562 to 419, perhaps indicating that many of these older men are in the group applying from overseas?” Teaching not attracting new graduates | John Howson (wordpress.com)

The mention of overseas applicants is important, as the 2023ITT application round has seen most of its growth in applications for ‘rest of the world’ and this has important implications for the outcome of the round if these applicants cannot obtain a visa, even if offered a place.

Some other issues

School there be subject quotas for the primary sector ITT numbers to ensure a spread of expertise?

Does the present application system discriminate against those that apply later in the recruitment round, and does that fact have implications for under-represented groups and their patterns of applications?

Should the DfE consider funding Recruitment Strategy Managers on a regional basis once more?

Do we need a unique job number to be better able to track vacancies?

With a largely female workforce should the level of departures each year for maternity leave be predictable and does the resignations total include those taking maternity leave?

And the big one – does the market model of placing teachers in schools work? Are we returning to an employ-driven model of teacher supply that existed as the dominant model before the Robbins report?

Labour’s style over substance

Posted on July 2, 2023 by John Howson

I woke up this morning to news that the Labour Party had some new proposals to end the teacher supply crisis. Strangely, the press release section of their national website hasn’t posted anything, so I am reliant on what the BBC has said for the following thoughts. Labour plan to give teachers £2,400 to stop them quitting – BBC News

In passing, the Labour Party website generally doesn’t seem to be up with events, something that surprised me for a national Party aiming for government. But there are some issues, such their relationship with other political parties, and stories of suspensions and expulsions of members that I am sure they would want to bury. Still, that is all for another day and another place.

What are Labour suggesting and why do I say that it is style over substance? Firstly, there is nothing to ease the pain of training. No fee payments, as agreed when Tuition Fees were introduced by Tony Blair’s government. This would have been an excellent opportunity for a headline along the lines -well it’s not up to me to do Labour’s work for them.

Instead of targeting trainees and entrants, we get a survivor bonus according to the BBC story

The plans to improve retention rates, announced by Labour’s shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson on Sunday, would see new incentive payments awarded once teachers had completed a training programme known as the Early Career Framework, which covers their first two years in the classroom.

Apparently, the payment would be £2,400 or only between a gross one-off five to ten per cent payment of what a teacher would be earning at that point in time, before tax, national insurance and pension deductions. Less, with a £30,000 starting salary. Paying this to all survivors, regardless of the help or salary they received during training would according to Labour cost £50 million. I wonder what paying fees and a training salary to make all trainees equal, and it easier for career changers to become a teacher, would cost?

Labour’s other key promise is welcome, but even more hollow when you burrow down into what it means in reality.

The [Labour} party says it would also make it compulsory for new teachers to have a formal teaching qualification or be working towards one – a requirement scrapped by the coalition in 2012.

Sure, Gove made a headline announcement that academies did not need to employ qualified teachers: and most academies ignored this freedom, as they often did with the freedom to pay classroom teachers different salaries. However, it hasn’t stopped all schools employing unqualified teachers when they cannot find a qualified one to fill a post. After all, it was the Labour government that changed the name of these staff from ‘instructors’ that clearly demonstrated that they were not qualified teachers, to the more positive term ‘unqualified teachers’, and also created a pay scale for them.

Curiously, there were fewer unqualified teachers by headcount working in schools last Novermber (2022) than in November 2010, the first census after the end of the last Labour government – 14,389 in 2022 compared with 15,892 in November 2010 according to the DfE’s Workforce Census.

Ensuring all teachers are qualified, and qualified in teaching their subject or phase, something the Labour announcement doesn’t offer, must be a requirement. However, Labour doesn’t say what schools, faced with a vacancy, should do if a qualified teacher isn’t available: send children home? The lack of a credible answer to this question makes the policy no more than idle rhetoric about trainee teachers not about solving the teacher supply crisis.

I would offer emergency certification with a required training programme from day one for unqualified teachers, including those not qualified in the subject that they are teaching.

Labour final policy on staff development is again good in principle; this area has been neglected by the present government, despite the limited experience of much of the teaching force. However, the policy lacks detail, and detailing who will be responsible for implementing and paying for it?

Taking tax breaks away from private schools would probably affect the special school sector, where local authorities mostly pay the fees, more than schools where parents are responsible for the fees. Such saving would also probably be stretched thinly to pay for all the mooted changes.

Retention can be cheaper than recruitment, but by making training more attractive for all, there is more chance that schools currently unable to recruit teachers would fill their vacancies. All too often these schools are situated in the more deprived areas. These are the schools any policy should be tested against: does it improve the education of children in these schools?

For those that don’t know, I am a Liberal Democrat County Councillor in Oxfordshire

Reduced ITT numbers; who wins?

Posted on June 28, 2023 by John Howson

A review of the detail behind last December’s DfE ITT Census can shine some interesting light on how the current recruitment crisis can affect different schools.

Broadly speaking, trainees can be classified into three groups: those in school and the classroom and receiving a salary; those on school centred courses, but not salaried and finally, those in higher education or other associated courses. The first group are most likely to be employed in the schools where they are training, and so are not considered part of the pool of job seekers for September vacancies.

The second group may be employed by the schools where they are based, and such schools are wise to consider this option.

The third group are likely to be on the free market as job seekers for September vacancies. How have the numbers differed between 2019 and 2022? I looked at the data from the DfE’s ITT Census for three regions: London; the South East and the North East regions.

London	2019	2022
High Achievers	641	1393
Apprenticeships	65	368
School Direct Salaried Route	1044	285
sub total	1750	2046
SCITT	253	457
School Direct Fee Route	810	496
sub total	1063	953
Higher Education	837	656
total	3650	3655
Adjust for HA		2900

South East	2019	2022
High Achievers	220	0
Apprenticeships	33	97
School Direct Salaried Route	577	175
sub total	830	272
SCITT	488	687
School Direct Fee Route	1137	828
sub total	1625	1515
Higher Education	1566	1252
total	3768	2942
Adjust for HA		3150

North East	2019	2022
High Achievers	87	0
Apprenticeships	10	19
School Direct Salaried Route	15	7
sub total	112	26
SCITT	340	207
School Direct Fee Route	413	327
sub total	753	534
Higher Education	618	375
total	1483	935
Adjust for HA		1,000

Source DfE ITT Census as accessed by TeachVac

The first issue is that the High Achiever numbers were all allocated to the London region in the 2022 census, whereas, in 2019, they were allocated according to the region where they were located. This has the effect of inflating trainee numbers in London in 2022, and reducing them in some other regions. I have used the 2019 numbers to compensate, but it is obviously an estimate. I am not sure why the DfE has made this change, but it is unhelpful.

The second issue is that the postgraduate numbers used in the table do not distinguish between primary and secondary courses. Part of the reduction in numbers may be down to a fall in primary course targets and allocations.

However, In the London region, the change, after adjusting for the High Achiever over-counting, resulted in a small switch in percentage terms from trainees in the first group of school-based trainees to those in the second group, with the third group of higher education classified trainees remaining at 23% of the graduate total (Not all this group are universities and some may be counted in the region where a national provider has its headquarters). However, this meant a loss of nearly 200 trainees from the free market total between 2019 and 2022. This goes some way to explain the challenges schools in London dependent upon the free market for new teachers have faced this year.

In the South East region, using the adjusted figures, the free pool percentage of trainees fell from 42% to 40% in 2022. With the reduction in recruitment, this meant a loss to the free pool of some 300 trainees, about eight per cent less than the 2019 total.

In the North East, the decline in the free pool was only around 4%, from 42% to 38%, but the decline in the actual number was nearly 500 trainees. This explains why some schools in the North East are experiencing recruitment difficulties in 2023.

As I wrote, way back in 1995, in Managing Partnerships in Teacher Training and Development by Bines and Welton (Routledge, page 213) schools that become involved the teacher preparation process can be winners in times of teacher shortages. The same is as true today as it was when I first wrote those words.

ITT: Mixed news

Posted on June 26, 2023 by John Howson

The data provided by the DfE today on ITT applications and offers for postgraduate courses contained some very mixed messages. I am not sure whether the current pay dispute within the universities sector is affecting the data or whether there are genuine differences between subjects, with larger movements between May and June in offers this year than might normally be expected.

Regardless of any data collection issues, the message is the same as ever: offer levels will not be sufficient to meet targets in the majority of subjects, and the reduction in offers in physical education and history will remove the safety valve over-recruitment to high targets in these subjects have offered schools in previous years. Barring any last-minute change in July or August, it is now safe to say that the recruitment round for schools seeking to fill September vacancies next year in 2024 will be challenging unless there is an influx of returners or a reduction in leavers and better levels of retention. Of course, the whole country won’t be affected in the same way, but schools across the South East and parts of London might expect to face similar challenges to this year. You have been warned.

Religious Education and music are two subjects struggling with offers this year, even more than other subjects. Most other subjects are doing better than last year’s dreadful position, but often the offers are little different to the year before the pandemic. However, physics appears to have recovered from last year’s historic low. Whether that is reflected by the numbers arriving at the start of the course, only time will tell.

The 38,795 applicants by mid-June 2023 compared well with the 32,609 in June 2022 and looks like a healthy increase, but numbers recruited or recruited with conditions pending, a group that will include degree classifications from many universities this year, are down on last June’s number, albeit only slightly. Nearly 2,000 more applicants are awaiting a provider’s decision, and it would be helpful to know whether the majority of those are applicants that have applied to higher education providers?

The total number of young applicants, aged under 25, is similar this year to last, so the increase is in older career switchers rather than new graduates. The number of 30–34 year-olds applying has increased from 3,545 last year to 5,088 this year. As reported previously, the big increase is in candidates for ‘the rest of the world’ – up from 2,657 last June to 7,105 applicants this June. The overall total increase masks little change in the number of applicants from most of the regions of England. However, it is worth noting that 54% of London applicants have received an offer, compared with only 15% of those in the ‘rest of the world’ group. For this reason alone, it is important not to read too much into the headline increase in the number of applicants.

The number of offers made in the primary sector is down by 1,585 on the June 2022 figure, to just 9,182. Whether that will be enough to satisfy demand for teachers depends partly upon whether the secondary sector decides to recruit and retrain primary qualified teachers to fill their vacancies left by the reduction in history and PE teachers exiting training in 2024.

Over the summer, the DfE might like to reflect with the sector how these monthly statistics can be improved to make them more useful. We know nothing about ethnicity and little about regional breakdown of offer by subjects in the secondary sector. Both would be useful additions to the debate about whether the recruitment crisis is continuing or abating.

12-week Conversion course

Posted on June 16, 2023 by John Howson

Finding teachers to fill January 2024 vacancies where they arise in many secondary schools will be a real challenge. Assuming that internal adjustments cannot be made to timetables, then schools will need to recruit replacement staff: what alternatives face them when seeking a teacher?

Recruit a remaining 2023 ITT graduate – few of these will be available, except perhaps in PE or history, and even in these subjects, numbers will be less than in past years, so this might not be an option for schools in some parts of England. In most subjects, schools are already experiencing challenges filling their remaining September vacancies.

Recruit a returner – possible, but unpredictable.

Entice a teacher from another school – not feasible for vacancies after the end of October and it just shifts the problem to another school.

Redeploy a teacher – an option for some larger academy trusts with the right type of contractual arrangements with their teachers, but not for stand-alone academies and other schools.

Hire a teacher from overseas – probably best done through an agency. There is the issue of visas to consider as well as their need to understand the system of education in England.

Look to hire a primary trained teacher – there have been fewer vacancies in the primary sector this year than in recent years, so some trainees are still likely to be job hunting and returners may find jobs difficult to secure.

However, to make better use of those trained as primary school class teachers in the job market to work as a teacher, the DfE should consider reintroducing a short-term conversion course.

The course could balance enhancing subject knowledge and application with the differences between class and subject teaching, and issues such as approaches to likely challenges. Primary trained teachers have ‘A’ levels, and a focus on subjects where there are shortages would release secondary trained teachers to focus on KS4 & 5 while these teachers worked primarily in Key Stage 3.

Assuming that the most able ITT graduates have already secured teaching posts for September, this type of course would also provide an extra 12 weeks of support for these new teachers, rather than leaving them to their own devices before they secured a teaching post.

Such courses could be organised by national bodies, such as Teach First or the National Institute of Teaching, but might be better arranged locally for a discrete geographical area facing recruitment challenges by a consortium of schools and trusts working with an ITT provider and a local authority.

Funding from the DfE for such a course could be at a third of an ITT course, plus a weekly salary for participants based upon the bottom point of the qualified Teacher Salary scale as they would be qualified teachers. The DfE could fund a trial course using unspent ITT funds resulting from the unfilled places on courses during 2022-23.

With a will, there is surely still time to set up a course for this September to evaluate the usefulness of the idea.

Evidence to Select Committee

Posted on June 13, 2023 by John Howson

The House of Commons Education Select Committee today published 28 pieces of evidence submitted to their inquiry into teacher recruitment and retention. My evidence was one of the pieces published. You can access it at: https://committees.parliament.uk/work/7357/teacher-recruitment-training-and-retention/publications/

The first oral evidence session with the teacher associations will be held next week.

This is the sixth inquiry into the topic by the Select Committee that I have submitted evidence to since penning my first piece to the inquiry in the 1980s about the number of inactive teachers in what was then known as the PIT (Pool of Inactive Teachers).

The current inquiry is quite wide in scope and the world has moved on since the call for evidence was launched in March. I hope that the SEND sector is not overlooked during the inquiry.

I have updated the index chart in the evidence to reflet the present position.

Group	ITT	Number left	% left
Art	440	-107	-24.43
Science	1505	-1749	-116.25
English	1214	-1281	-105.52
Mathematics	1467	-1145	-78.08
Languages	652	-866	-132.82
IT	304	-672	-221.05
Design & Technology	372	-1063	-285.89
Business	164	-569	-347.26
RE	249	-384	-154.42
PE	1295	388	30.00
Primary	12000	6226	51.88
Music	228	-306	-134.21
Geography	523	-531	-101.53
History	950	304	32.00

Source: TeachVac

The position is now much worse than in March, but regular readers of this blog would know that fact already. Schools looking for January appointments will really struggle in many subjects. The situation has moved beyond challenging into a crisis. TeachVac http://www.teachvac.co.uk may be able to help.

John Howson

Education and the numbers that affect what happens

Tag Archives: teacher education