Tag Archives: teacher preparation

Not much of a Christmas Present

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There is a need to be cautious about making too much of the latest DfE data on applications to start graduate training as a teacher in Autumn 2022. The newly published data covers the period up to mid-January 2022. However, this included both the Christmas break and the omicron infection surge of covid cases plus the first Christmas break for the new DfE application process.

Any one of these factors might have been a reason for treating comparisons with previous years cautiously. Taken as a whole, there must be a view that it won’t be until the February data – the half-way point in recruitment – that a clear picture will emerge, especially because of the large number of applications awaiting a decision from a provider.

Nevertheless, some comments are possible. In the primary sector, applications are close to the level of January two years ago at 18,300. In reality, this is the lowest January number for many years for applications, but should not be a cause for concern. In the secondary sector, the 20,254 applications are some 2,000 below the 2020 figure for January and 8,000 down on the admittedly high 2021 number. Comparison with 2020 is probably more helpful. In terms of applicants, there were about 750 more than at this point two years ago, but some may be making fewer choices.

Translating the overall number of ‘offers’ into issues for individual subjects produces four different groups. Firstly, those subjects where ‘offers’ – note ‘offers’, not applicants as that data aren’t available – are up and the expected recruitment level should be met. Amongst the subjects tracked, there are no subjects in this grouping. Secondly there are subjects where there are more offers, but the recruitment level won’t be reached on present levels. Physics, design and technology and chemistry fall into this group.

The third group is where there are either similar offer levels to two years ago or fewer offers than at this point in the cycle two years ago, but recruitment targets should be met. History, physical education, biology and art fall into this group.

Finally, there are subjects such as languages, religious education, music, mathematics, geography, English, computing and business studies where ‘offers’ are below the same point two years ago and unless the number of ‘offers’ made picks up, recruitment target may well not be met. As noted earlier, this list should be treated with some caution for the three reasons stated earlier.

Slightly worryingly, the largest increase in applicants seems to be amongst those in the oldest age groupings, with 140 more applicants aged over 55 at the point that they made their application than two years ago. New graduates still form the bulk of the applicants, but the 2,989 age 21 or under compares with 2,830 two years ago from this age grouping: an increase, but not a massive endorsement of teaching as a career. For the 22-year-olds the increase is from 2,080 to 2,098: hardly noticeable. London and The South East account for around a third of applications. This is good news if there are sufficient places on courses and the applications are spread across all subjects, as these are the two regions where demand for teachers is at the highest levels.

In summary, there is a degree of caution about the data in this monthly release, but there is almost certainly work still to be done to avoid another year of under-recruitment and a tight labour market for schools in 2023.

Happy Birthday

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Today is the ninth birthday of this blog! A birthday is a good time to look back at what was written in the past on the blog. One of the interesting posts came early in the life of the blog, in July 2013, when I called for action by the government and suggested that “ministers must take urgent action if we are not to see a re-run of the crisis in teacher recruitment that occurred in the early days of the Blair government.” The full quote is reproduced below and can be seen on the blog by searching the July 2013 posts.

“Coming, as this outcome does, after several years when recruitment to teacher training has largely not been an issue, the present situation is a wake-up call for all concerned, and ministers must take urgent action if we are not to see a re-run of the crisis in teacher recruitment that occurred in the early days of the Blair government.  There are two months left before the training courses start, so all is not yet lost. However, if my predictions prove accurate, some schools are going to struggle to recruit teachers next summer: good news for recruitment agencies, but probably not for some pupils. And, as I have said before, this is no way to create a world-class education system.”

Extract from

Has Michael Gove failed to learn the lessons of history?

Posted on July 2, 2013

There was a fairly swift response from Sanctuary Buildings that sparked something of a spat and the first Statistical Bulletin on the Teacher Supply Model for a while. Regular readers can make their own minds up about the extent to which I was “scaremongering” or a prophet ‘crying in the wilderness’. I wrote in August 2013 the following:

“So now I know I am officially a scaremonger. A DfE spokesperson, helpfully anonymous, is quoted by the Daily Mail today as saying of my delving into the current teacher training position that there was no teacher shortage, adding: ‘This is scaremongering and based on incomplete evidence.’

Well, the first thing to note is that I haven’t said that there is a teacher shortage, just that training places are not being filled: not the same thing. Indeed, I have said a teacher shortage is less likely than in the past in the near future because Mr Gove has mandated that qualified teachers from Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the whole of the USA can teach here as qualified teachers with no need to retrain. With an oversupply of teachers in parts of both Canada and Australia that should prevent any short-term problem developing even though another part of the government isn’t very keen on importing workers from abroad, presumably including from within the Commonwealth and a onetime colony.”

Extract from

Scaremongering!

Posted on August 14, 2013

I suspect anyone interested in the supply of teachers of physics, design and technology and business studies may have a different view about these quotes from those interested in the supply of PE and history teachers.

The DfE now controls the whole teacher supply pipeline from applications to train as a teacher to offering a job board as somewhere for schools in the state sector to place vacancies. To talk or write of a local education service these days would be as much of a misnomer as the write of a local health service rather than of the NHS.

Understanding and controlling teacher supply is important in the national interest and it is worth speculating what the landscape of teacher supply might look like in another nine years if the DfE became seriously involved in the ‘levelling up’ agenda?

Directing new teachers where to work and directing the management of promotions by specifying how MATs ought to deploy their staff might just be two of the ‘innovations’ to look forward to in the next decade if market forces are abandoned in favour of a more interventionist approach.

I am not sure that this blog will be there to chronicle those changes, but I hope to make it to its tenth birthday next year, if that isn’t tempting fate too much.

Start Recruiting now

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This is the stark warning to schools across much of Southern England that may need staff this September and especially to secondary schools. TeachVac www.teachvac.co.uk data has shown that the first three weeks of January have witnessed a continuation of the trend at the end of 2021 with a considerable increase in vacancies recorded.

TeachVac hasn’t changed its vacancy collection methods since 2020 but it has seen vacancies listed in the first 19 days of the month in 2022 increase by 14% over the recorded numbers recorded in early January 2020 pre-pandemic, and by a whopping 135% over the depressed level of last January.

As reported in a previous post, design and technology staff will be especially hard to recruit in 2022. Already in 2022, vacancies recorded are 48% up on the same period in 2020. Vacancies for teachers of music are up by an eyewatering 73% on 2020 vacancies in early January.

All these vacancies mean that the pool of new entrants will be reducing at a faster rate than in previous years. High quality trainees will be offered vacancies by schools that understand these trends and are aware of the state of the pool of trainees, either because they run school-based programmes or because their mentors have told them what higher education providers are saying.

TeachVac’s low-cost service can keep school up to date with trends for as little as £100 and a maximum of £1,000 per year that includes listing and matching all the school’s teaching vacancies with TeachVac’s growing pool of register users.

Registration also provides access to far better data than on the DfE site and also intelligence on the state of the recruitment round for trainees for September 2022 and hence the labour market in 2023.

Signing up today at www.teachvac.co.uk and the tab matching service will also bring a free copy of TeachVac report.  Message me if you want more information or use the comment box.

London attracts would-be teachers

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The DfE has now published the data on both applications and applicants for postgraduate teacher training courses recruited through their portal up to the 20th December 2021. As they helpfully point out, the data are not always directly comparable to that provided in previous rounds by UCAS. However. The general direction of travel is discernible enough to provide a measure comparison with previous UCAS data.

Apart from the data on applicants and applications – applicants may make a number of applications – data on those offered a place and those accepting the offer can be determined from some of the tables. In the case of that data the subjects do not aways align with those previously used by UCAS.

So, what to make of the data? A previous blog looked at the data early in December, the data considered here is for the month as a whole, up to the Christmas holiday break, and are best compared with 2019 data rather than 2020, as 2019 was the last year before the pandemic distorted the data.

Of most interest is the number of applications made in secondary subjects. Here the comparison with 2019 reveals a mixed picture. 43% of applications are for three subjects: PE (21%) English (13%) and history (9%). Add in biology (5%), and those four subjects account for almost half the applications for secondary subjects. Of course, as the courses in those subjects fill their places, their percentages will fall and those for other subjects will increase. Indeed, PE now takes a smaller share than in early December, demonstrating the early demand to train as a PE teacher despite the relative lack of teaching posts for those that do train as a PE teacher.

With language teaching in the news this week, it is interesting to see the subject accounts for just five per cent of applications, compared with the 13% each for English and mathematics that may account for a similar amount of curriculum time. Only 146 offers have been made in languages. However, this is one subject where comparison with UCAS isn’t really possible because of the change in method of recording the subject.

Compared with December 2019 data, in terms of offers, mathematics is doing well, as is design and technology, but from a very low base, and not yet offering the prospect of the subject meeting its target.

Applications for primary courses appear much healthier than they were in 2019, and the data would suggest there will be few problems in this sector. London still appears to be a good source of applicants with almost 17% of candidates. However, offer rates are much lower than in the north West. Maybe the timing of applications was later in London, and hasn’t yet allowed enough time for processing. However, this is something to watch as the recruitment round unfolds.

Overall applications are ahead of December 2019, by around some 2,000 with applicants domiciled in England around 500 ahead of December 2019 once applicants from outside England are removed from the total. This data reinforces the importance of the London region as a source of applicants.

Compared with December 2019, there are both more male and female applicants. The increase is spread across most of the age groups, with notable increases from those in the over-40 age-groups, including 29 candidates over the age of 60.

There is a regrettable lack of a breakdown by phase between the different types of courses. However, it is obvious that the School Direct salaried route is still out of favour, no doubt being partially replaced by the apprenticeship route.

With an overall buoyant labour market, and many areas of the public sector running TV advertising campaigns at the present time, teaching as a career for graduates will need to continue to do everything possible to attract applicants, especially in a wide range of secondary school subjects. 2022 may be hard work.

Design and Technology: End of a road?

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The end of the second week in January is usually a bit early to be making predictions about the state of the teacher labour market for September. However, in the case of design and technology, the signs of a really difficult job market for schools have been there for some time, and certainly since the publication of the DfE’s Census of Trainees in December 2021. Those signs are now backed up by early data on jobs being advertised.

Using exclusive data from TeachVac, based upon an analysis of recorded job adverts in the first two weeks of January 2022, there are sign of an early increase in demand for such teachers.

Datejobs 2015jobs 2016jobs 2017jobs 2018jobs 2019jobs 2020jobs 2021jobs 2022
Week 110251916792958
Week 220525047417167164
Week 320877787103156123
Week 440110120105183244183

Source: TeachVac

Now, this may just be prudence on the part of schools in bringing forward vacancies, rather than a growth in real demand for such teachers. We won’t know the answer to that question until at least the end of January, and possibly not until even the end of February.

However, with this level of vacancies it is possible to demonstrate by matching vacancy levels to the potential supply of new entrants into the profession for September 2022 that schools may have to rely upon sources of supply other than new entrants much earlier in the recruitment round for September than they might either expect to or like the idea of doing.

TeachVac’s exclusive formula suggest that the ‘free’ pool of new entrants is already lower than at any point at the end of Week 2 of the year since at least 2015.

Date 20152016 2017 201820192020 2021 2022
Week 1368412.5371217219343580231
Week 2363399356201202312561178
Week 3363381.5342181191270533
Week 4353370321172131226503
Vacancy index – lower the number the more challenging filling vacancies will be

Source: TeachVac

The data also shows that compared with 2020 and 2021 the pool is lower than at the end of January by last Friday and week 2. Should the end of January 2022 number be lower than the end of 2019 number, then the remaining recruitment round may be grim for schools looking to recruit a design and technology teacher of any description.  January 2023 vacancies don’t even bear thinking about.

Schools that have signed up for TeachVac’s new matching service at  TeachVac Reports – The National Vacancy Service for Teachers and Schools can have access to this type of data for a range of subjects.

What are the implications for schools unable to recruit qualified design and technology teachers? Staffing the curriculum is the obvious problem. What are the longer-term effects of young people not studying this subject? That’s for others to say, and the DfE to act as it sees fit.

Recruitment 2022: a rough ride to come

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Can you tell anything about the 2022 recruitment round for teachers in England based upon just four days of vacancy data? One of the advantages of a job board such as TeachVac www.teachvac.co.uk is the it has sufficient cumulative data on vacancies that can be allied with data about the numbers of teachers on preparation courses to be able to provide some helpful comments on the labour market, even after just four days of data.

For those that are sceptical of such a claim, consider sampling theory. A simple example is to assume a bowl of soup. A small spoonful will tell you whether or not the bowl if full of hot soup. Now scale up to a vat size container. Will a small sample tell you the same answer for the whole? Now purists might maintain that the bottom of the vat could be hotter than the top; I would agree. Taking that comment to vacancy data means that the comments for England as a whole might well include differences across the regions. Such an objection is true, and that is why each month TeachVac produces regional data for most secondary subjects and the primary sector. But it doesn’t invalidate sampling as a useful tool.

Anyway, back to our sample of 2022, and what I think it tells schools about the recruitment round this year. The first point is that it confirms what was being said at the end of 2021, appointments for September 2022 will be more of a challenge almost across the board as the 2020 bounce in interest in teaching as a career drops out of the supply side.

How bad will 2022 be? Well, nothing of concern in art, PE and history. Indeed, schools might well be starting to consider whether they can make use of an extra history teacher and perhaps an extra PE teacher to make use of the best of the trainees with second subject expertise in the pool of jobseekers.

At the other end of the scale, the usual suspects of design and technology where there will be real issues with recruitment have been joined this year by geography, modern languages and English. In the case of the latter two subjects this is partly because of the number of trainees on courses that will either already have placed them in the classroom or make it likely that they won’t be looking on the open market for a teaching post. Independent schools should take especial note of this fact when considering how easy it will be to recruit a teacher.

Most of the other subjects have seen the size of their ‘free pool’ decline this year compared with 2021, and that will have implications for January 2023 appointments. Such vacancies may be hard to fill in many subjects in those parts of England where recruitment is a challenge; namely London and the Home Counties.

Schools that have signed up to TeachVac’s £1,000 maximum annual recruitment package will receive regular updates on the state of the labour market, including local knowledge. On registration, and at no cost, schools receive a detailed report on the labour market.

Recruiters tell me that TeachVac is ‘too cheap’ to succeed because nothing that cheap could be any good. My principle in founding the job board was to show that recruitment advertising need not cost a lot of money. I still believe that to be true. Do you?

TeachVac welcomes new tes owners

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This is an interesting way to start 2022. Just three years since the tes last changed hands, its ownership looks to be on the move again. This would make the third set of owners of the tes since TeachVac was set up in 2013 to challenge the high cost of teacher recruitment in a changing world, where technology should have been driving down costs and thus reducing prices to schools. www.teachvac.co.uk According to the press release 86c854e3-7a1d-4402-9f20-32868488d2c6 (gcs-web.com) dated the 7th December the new owners should be the current management team at the tes and ONEX, a Canadian Venture Capital Group. My best wishes to them.

When the Providence Group bought the tes in 2018, I expressed surprise at the purchase, so I am not now surprised that after slimming down the business by: exiting the supply teacher market; ending coverage of the further education sector; shifting its office functions out of London and axing the print edition among other changes, Providence finally put the business up for sale.

Based on the cost structure of TeachVac, there is a profitable company lurking inside the tes, but not while it is saddled with a large slug of overhanging debt that needs to be serviced. The terms of the expected change of ownership are not revealed in the press release, but too much debt will cripple the success of the new venture. Still, it is good to see the management team taking a share of the risk, and bringing at least a part of the ownership back into the UK from North America.

Today’s Sunday Telegraph business section has an article by Matt Oliver discussing the problems the tes faces when government tries to do the same job through its own free web site for vacancies. This blog discussed such an issue in relation to both TeachVac and the TES in April 2019 DfE backs free vacancy sites | John Howson (wordpress.com) I am sorry that Matt Oliver didn’t either mention TeachVac or try to speak with me about the way the market operates, as other journalists have done on a regular basis.

Perhaps either the Education Select Committee or the Public Accounts Committee at Westminster will use Matt Oliver’s article as a reason to mount an inquiry into the teacher recruitment market. After all, the later, using National Audit Office data, called for the DfE to reduce the cost of teacher recruitment: the very reason that TeachVac was established and has flourished. Does Nationalisation always work? | John Howson (wordpress.com)

This blog has always asserted that schools have been paying too much for recruitment advertising and has been prepared to back that judgement with the development of the successful TeachVac job board. The apparent lack of interest on the part of professional associations and others connected with education to address the means of removing unnecessary expenditure from schools by slashing recruitment advertising costs has been an enduring disappointment to me. Perhaps 2022 with be the year that all this changes?

Half of secondary ITT applicants in just 3 subjects

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The latest data on ITT applications, published by the DfE before the holiday break, revealed that just three subjects accounted for 49% of applicants to secondary ITT courses. Initial teacher training application statistics for courses starting in the 2022 to 2023 academic year – Apply for teacher training – GOV.UK (apply-for-teacher-training.service.gov.uk) The data are for applicants up to the 3rd December 2021.

SubjectTotalPercentage
Art and design3783%
Biology5525%
Business studies2832%
Chemistry5094%
Classics621%
Computing3093%
Design and technology2432%
Drama3523%
English153713%
Geography3853%
History10579%
Mathematics138512%
Modern foreign languages5685%
Music1912%
Other5645%
Physical education283224%
Physics3073%
Religious education2312%
11745100%

Source: DfE

English (13%); Mathematics (12%) and Physical Education (24%) together accounted for 49% of applicants, with PE accounting for nearly a quarter of the overall total!

So far, the TV advert being aired on one of the Freeview Channels doesn’t seem to be making a big impact in drawing in applicants in many subject areas, with most subjects recording in the region of 1-3% of the total.

The good news is that Physics applicants accounted for three percent of the total, but that is a third of the percentage of applicants for history. So, there is a long way to go to reach the totals needed to fill vacancies in September 2023 and January 2024 when these applicants will be job hunting.

Visit http://www.teachvac.co.uk for teaching posts across England in both State & private schools

In the run up to Christmas, the BBC ran a story about the likelihood of ex-teachers helping out in the classroom if the covid pandemic lays low large numbers of teachers in January. Covid: Doubts that ex-teachers will return by January – BBC News REC The Recruitment and Employment Confederation expressed the view that a backlog of DBS checks might hamper any return to the classroom even if ex-teachers were willing to do so.

The BBC story didn’t consider the many PE and history teachers that graduated from ITT in the summer and are already BDS checked and have not found a teaching job. An emergency scheme to offer them temporary employment ought to have been put in place already to ensure time wasn’t wasted, but the DFE doesn’t seem to be able to manage the market in such a manner. Of course, in former times, local authorities would have taken such action, but they have neither the cash nor the motivation to do so these days.   

More on November 2021 ITT applications

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November is only the start of the cycle of applications for September 2022, so it is important not to read too much into the data published recently by the DfE. However, traditionally heavy recruiting subjects such as history and PE appear to be doing well as usual. English also did well in the first month. There were also good early outcomes in art; music; mathematics; design and technology and business studies. Physics; geography and computing might be seen to be at the number expected, whereas religious education; biology and chemistry had a weak start to the round. Even allowing for the different method of recording the data for applications for modern languages courses, it may well be that these are not as healthy as might be hoped. The loss of data about individual subjects means little can be said about the subject than that bald fact. Drama, a subject not previously covered on this blog, appears to have had a good level of applications and offers.

As to the geographical breakdown of applicants, we now have data for The Channel Islands – 5 applicants-, – the European Economic Zone – 78 applicants, and the Rest of the World – 589 applicants, of whom 92 were already unsuccessful – about 20% of all unsuccessful applicants so far.

If the numbers from the regions not included in the UCAS count are removed, the total looks very similar to the November 2020 total, after allowing for the extra time period this year. Applications are significantly up from the Eastern Region and The South West, but little different after allowing for the longer time period in the other regions of England.

Applications for primary courses are above the figure for November 2020, but applications overall for secondary courses are the same as last year (UCAS Table B8). In effect, with the extra few days included this year compared with 2020, this might be a real decline, but it is very early days.

School Direct salaried courses continue to attract fewer applications. These may have switched to Apprenticeships, where significant growth over 2020 has been recorded.  Higher Education has recorded virtually the same number of applications as last year, and there were modest increases in School Direct Fees route applications and good growth in SCITT applications. However, all these are not measured against any changes in places on offer. There is also no breakdown by sector: an unhelpful omission.

Overall, there seems little difference from the same point last year. It is to be hoped that the remainder of the recruitment round does not progress as last year, since the 2021 ITT census has some alarmingly low numbers of trainees currently on course to enter the labour market in September 2022. There is now nowhere for the DfE to hide. As they control the application process, they cannot be unaware of progress towards the number of places they want filled, both regionally and in the different phases and subjects. They can also put pressure on providers to work faster in dealing with applications.

Approaching 40% of candidate by provider region are in London, the south East or Eastern Regions. This is in line with where demand is in the labour market for teachers. However, a portion of that demand each year is from the private schools.

It will be February before a real picture emerges for September 2022, but I would already be worried about the outcome for some subjects.

Applicants for ITT in 2022: A first look at the DfE data

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My thanks to NASBTT for pointing me in the direction of the first DfE statistics for Teacher Training applications. This is for those wanting to train in 2022/23; courses mostly starting next September. These graduates will enter the teaching labour market in September 2023.

This is the first year that the DfE are running the application process instead of UCAS. The statistics cover only applications to courses in England. Teach First applications and any application made directly to a provider are excluded. The DfE totals include deferred applications for 2022/23. The data in this report is applications from the opening of the application round on the 12th October to the 22nd November 2021. The last round of UCAS data in November 2020 was for applications up to 16th November. The DfE data are up to a slightly later date than the UCAS data for last year.

Data are reviewed by this blog either as overall totals or, in the case of subjects, for those recruited, those with an offer with conditions and thus pending and those applicants that have received an offer. Next month deferrals will also be included in the totals for subjects in this blog. Applicants awaiting provider decisions and those unsuccessful are not included in the subject data. It is not clear whether applicants that have withdrawn are excluded or counted as unsuccessful by the DfEl.

The DfE makes the point that direct comparison to previous UCAS data is not directly possible because UCAS would double count where an applicants applied for a course with multiple subjects such as French and German. Languages have always had this issue, as has science where there was a science category as well as categories for the separate subjects in the UCAS data. However, for the majority of subjects there should be a close read across between the UCAS data and the new DfE data.

Looking at the data at the headline levels, the DfE has managed a good start to the process. Applications overall are 8,831 compared with 7,420 for England in last year’s Table A4 from UCAS. Applications total 22,946 this November, compared with 21,710 last year – Table B4: a slightly smaller difference. However, allowing for the extra time this year compared with last year for the data point, there would seem to be little difference in either table compared with last year.

The DfE has helpfully included new categories for the overall picture, including the number of withdrawals and the number of offers declined. How that works for the Table 2.1 isn’t clear. Does the ‘declined an offer’ mean that the candidate declined all offers or could they decline an offer and accept another and would they then be double counted in the total of candidates.

Looking at candidates – a much better term than applicants that could always be confused with applications – where the DfE are using more categories than UCAS used to do, it isn’t clear whether withdrawals or rejections are included or not in the total? However, as the totals for Tables 2.1 ad 4.1 are the same, they must be included somewhere?

The breakdown of candidates by age and sex has been dropped but the totals retained. Allowing for the extra time period, the balance seems similar to previous years. The next post on this blog will consider the geographical picture and the state of play by subject.