More doctors: fewer teachers?

Posted on August 6, 2021 by John Howson

The news that the government may be raising the cap on places at medical schools for trainee doctors is surely a good outcome for society, but may be a concern for those that are involved with teacher preparation courses.

Both are areas of funding where the government keeps close control over the supply of places. As has been discussed in previous posts on this blog, the recent market review into ITT by the DfE plus a falling birth rate and a reducing school population due to outward migration and an increase in home schooling, has raised the spectre of reductions in the number of primary teacher training places likely to be sanctioned in the short-term by the DfE, and a likely reduction in the number of secondary places once the decade reaches its midway point.

If the DfE has to find more funds for training more doctors, might it be tempted to bring any reduction in teacher preparation numbers forward to start in this autumn’s announcements for 2022 entry? Higher Education might like the reduction to be in postgraduate provision, but the DfE could make more top line savings by reducing undergraduate primary numbers. However, it seems likely that students not offered places on undergraduate course might still decide to attend university and enter teaching through the postgraduate route.

One consideration should be determining which route provides the applicants that best meet the needs of the sector? For instance, how do the ‘A’ level points scores of undergraduates starting primary teacher preparation courses match the scores of their postgraduate colleagues starting such courses.

The regular annual performance profiles might also offer some indications of the type of courses the DfE would possibly favour if there are reductions in places on offer. However, that will also be determined by the DfE’s priorities in terms of quality and other factors, such as employment outcomes and no doubt the contribution to the ‘levelling up’ agenda.

The takeover by the DfE of the postgraduate recruitment process from UCAS adds another uncertainty into the mix. Will the data be available from the DfE, as it has been from UCAS, and before that the GTTR (Graduate Teacher Training Registry), weekly and then monthly data that allowed seasoned ITT watchers to predict the outcome of the recruitment round as early as February or March of each year?

If it isn’t forthcoming, the answer might be regular monthly FOI requests until civil servants understood the message about the need for transparency in data that is best described to the Office for National Statistics as management information rather than statistics.

Teach First trainees have already started their courses, and many other providers will be gearing up for a start early in September. As ever, I wish the staff and the trainees well, and hope that those embarking on a career as a teacher will enjoy the experience of what can be a wonderful, but at times challenging career. Every bit as good as being a doctor, even if not as well paid.

TeachVac updates website with vacancy counter

Posted on August 6, 2021 by John Howson

Teachers can now see at a glance how many vacancies TeachVac has each day. www.teachvac.co.uk The site displays an overall total and the number of vacancies in some key subject areas and the primary sector. Of course, as it is August, vacancy numbers are low, so there is also the total for the year to date.

TeachVac is geared to the needs of teachers. As a result, it only carries teaching jobs. The DfE vacancy site, for instance, has both teaching and non-teaching vacancies. Earlier this week 146 of the 262 vacancies listed on the DfE vacancy site weren’t teaching jobs. Many were for Teaching Assistants, but there were also a plethora of other types of job. There were 110 teaching jobs plus six duplicated jobs. So, less than half the vacancies were for teaching posts. By comparison, TeachVac had 507 live teaching jobs listed by schools across England on the same day

Teachers want a site where they can receive the widest possible range of teaching posts that meet their needs both in terms of location and sills. I am proud of the achievements of TeachVac during the years since it was set up to demonstrate a new way of linking teachers with the jobs they were seeking, whether as a newly qualified teacher; an existing teacher changing schools or seeking promotion of someone wanting to return to teaching.

TeachVac is recording record monthly visits and ‘hits’ on the website as the message spreads among teachers and schools. At this time of year, schools are looking to renew existing deals with other listing services. They should ask whether the price represents good value for money.

TeachVac has also enabled me, as its Chair, to produce blogs using the data, such as the recent posting about whether there are fewer jobs or just fewer re-advertisements? As that post mentioned, a unique job reference number would provide much better data about the functioning of the labour market for teachers. I have campaigned, so far without any success on that issue as with the issue of making the term ‘teacher’ a reserved occupation that can only be used by those with Qualified Teacher Status.

If you haven’t tried TeachVac yet, then please do so. The team on the Isle of Wight would love to have your feedback.

Teacher Supply Model more important than ever

Posted on July 31, 2021 by John Howson

Those readers that have browsed my recent posts will know that teacher education is facing one of those turning points in its history. Regardless of the policy approaches towards how teachers are prepared there are going to be implications on the sector from the downturn in pupil numbers.

The decline in the birth rate is already being felt in primary schools, with many admitting fewer pupils this September than for some years. Lucky the schools with a new housing estate being built in the catchment area. The DfE has estimated that by 2026 the overall population in the primary sector is projected to be 4,345,000. This is 302,000 lower than the actual figure in 2020 (4,647,000). Such a rapid reduction has serious implications for those that prepare new teachers for the profession.

Taking a teacher to pupil ratio of 1:30 that would mean there would be a need for 10,000 fewer teachers. Now real pupil teacher ratios are much better than that figure, so perhaps the drop might be 4,000 over the period 2020 to 2026. Assuming teacher departure rates don’t alter significantly, and that newly trained teacher are preferred over returners to the classroom, then a drop of 1,000 in training numbers might be an interesting starting point for any discussion.

Of course, the Teacher Supply Model can much more accurately process these changes and identify what the actual requirement for new teachers is likely to be. However, it seems that there will be a reduction in primary training numbers.

The decision must be where and what type of training; school-based or higher education? Course based or salaried? Across all providers or supporting either large or small providers? These are the policy questions that must rapidly be answered. For the longer the delay in reducing training targets, the worse the cut will be if the Teacher Supply Model has really abandoned any idea of smoothing reductions over a number of years and takes any change in the year that they occur.

The latest three year postgraduate numbers for Primary ITT places from the Teacher Supply Model were 12,975 in 2018/19; 13,003 in 2019/2020 and 11,467 in 20201/21. Now, the TSM only covers postgraduate teacher supply. Some providers with both undergraduate and postgraduate provision have, in the past, when there have been reductions in places, kept their undergraduate numbers and reduced postgraduate numbers. The rational for such a move is less based on relative quality of applicants than the fact that undergraduate courses generate more fee revenue than postgraduate courses and are relatively less expensive to deliver. This will be especially true with the latest set of proposals discussed in previous blogs.

Whether the current government will be willing to tolerate any change in quality of applicants due to how providers react to a fall in places available is an interesting policy question that merits some discussion. From the point of view of The Treasury, one-year courses cost the government less in student loans than undergraduate courses, but if those students displaced from undergraduate teacher training courses take other degrees and then a postgraduate teacher qualification, the overall cost can be higher.

By the middle of the decade, the secondary sector will be facing the dilemmas associated with falling pupil numbers, but since recruitment even in regulated subjects such as physical education has been at record levels, enforcing changes there might be even trickier than in the public sector. That is if the present market review hasn’t fundamentally altered the shape of teacher preparation provision in England.

Does the teacher preparation system work?

Posted on July 29, 2021 by John Howson

Fewer than 350 of the 2019/20 cohort of physics trainees were teaching in state schools according to the latest DfE ITT Performance data https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/initial-teacher-training-performance-profiles-2019-to-2020 Apparently of the 533 physics trainees in that cohort only 83% were granted QTS and of that 83% or around 450 trainees only some 73%, or less than three-quarters, or some 350 new teachers were teaching physics in a state school. Such a number means that many secondary schools seeking to appoint a new teacher of physics would have been disappointed.

QTS levels were generally higher in 2020 in subjects where there were many more applicants than places on offer on preparation courses. Thus, 96% of PE trainees were granted QTS. However, so large was the over-supply of such trainees than only 64% found a teaching post in a state school. This disparity reveals the waste of money that training too many teachers can cause. The situation was little better in history, where only 70% of successful trainees were working in state schools.

Some of the successful trainees not shown as working in state schools will be employed in private schools, in the further education sector, including Sixth Form Colleges, or in international schools around the globe. Others will be undertaking further training or staying in higher education to conduct research. Some may qualify to obtain QTS but decide that teaching really isn’t for them.

However, the labour market for teachers in 2020 was affected by Covid and some may have been caught by the drop in recorded vacancies in the spring of 2020, especially in London, and thus been unable to find a teaching post.

Trainees in the Black ethnic group were least likely to obtain QTS, at 86% compared to 92% of the White group. Women were more likely to be awarded QTS than men. Asian teachers awarded QTS were the least likely to be working in a state school. The highest proportion of trainees working in state schools were to be found in London and the Home Counties, despite the drop in demand in this part of the country in 2020.

Training to be a teacher in the North East or North West meant a greater chance of not finding a teaching post in a state school. This is not a new phenomenon, but wastes public money if such teachers are unable to use the skills learnt on their teacher preparation courses. It seems that trainees from higher education establishments were least likely to be teaching in state schools. This could mean either that they failed to secure a teaching post or that that greater numbers from that route were working in the private sector in the international schools.

It is, perhaps, not surprising that teachers trained in school-based settings are more likely to find a teaching post, sometimes in the same school. Indeed, it is somewhat surprising that only 89% of those on apprenticeships and 87% of School Direct salaried trainees were measured as working in state schools. However, the percentage was substantially higher than for higher education where the bulk of trainees in subjects with the lowest rates of employment in state schools are located, and where trainees have no prior loyalty to a particular school or indeed to state schools compared to independent schools.

The present system is not effective at placing trainees where needed using the least amount of public funds.

Urgent action needed to prevent teacher supply disaster

Posted on July 29, 2021 by John Howson

Teacher supply is in a mess. This month has produced the government’s consultation on ITT, the STRB Report and associated pay freeze for all teachers unable to negotiate individual salaries and today the latest UCAS data on applications and offers relating to teacher preparation courses starting this autumn. While applications for primary sector courses remain buoyant, applications for secondary courses have now fallen below the level reached in July 2020.

Secondary
Applications for Secondary Courses	March	April	May	June	July	August
2015	42990	48380	53210	57480	62910	66020
2016	43820	48570	53600	59220	63710	66700
2017	40440	45280	50040	55710	60680	64760
2018	33940	39220	46660	52530	58830	64150
2019	34600	40560	47270	53250	59440	64890
2020	35940	43270	51030	59470	71060	77330
2021	43910	51090	55980	61480	65990

Source TeachVac from UCAS data

The month on month addition to applications is well below last year – applicants may make applications to several courses- and more in line with pre-pandemic levels. This is concerning in view of the evidence from recruiters that graduate jobs are not recovering as fast as other parts of the labour market. Even more alarming is the disparity between subjects. Here is my view of what is happening in key secondary subjects in terms of ‘placed’ applicants and those made or considering ‘offers’.

Modern Languages and geography might be described as disaster areas in terms likely trainee numbers this year. Neither subject will meet predicted levels of demand set out by the DfE.

On the other hand, PE and history are matching last year’s record levels and Chemistry is another bright spot, with more than 200 more applicants placed or with offers than last year.

Physic and design and technology won’t recruit enough trainees, and although physics is still doing better than two years ago, design and technology is another disaster area, with trainee numbers possibly heading for their lowest levels since 2013/14.

Art is fine, with numbers double those of two years ago. The same is true for music, although this year’s numbers are down on last year.

Religious Education has seen numbers return to the level of two years ago.

Business studies has lost ground on last year, but is well above two years ago.

Computing has lost much of last year’s increase, although is still above the level of two years ago.

Mathematics has retained the gains of last year, but English has some 600 fewer applicants placed or with offers, taking the subject back to 2017/18 levels.

Finally, biology is a bit of a puzzle. Last year numbers reached record levels, but this year they are less than half those levels and currently below likely DfE predicted need levels. This may be a reaction to the state of the job market for trainees last year.

The DfE has today also published the ITT profiles https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/initial-teacher-training-performance-profiles-2019-to-2020 This reveals a drop in employment in state schools, so maybe course tutors are being more cautious about offering places to trainees that might not fin a teaching post in 2022?

Whatever the reasoning, this will be another bad year for teacher supply, and with a pay freeze it isn’t likely to improve any time soon. Indeed, this year may be the longer period of under-recruitment to target in some subjects since I first started looking at the data on ITT applications in the early 1990s.

Although ITT numbers will need to reduce in the future, as the effects of the falling birth rate work through the system over the coming decade, on these numbers there will still not be enough trainees to meet the needs of all schools in all subjects.

The DfE’s market review of ITT has already affected market sentiment among providers. Now is not the time to totally de-stabilise the market and hope everything will be alright in the future new world. Maybe it is time for the Education Select Committee to take a look at what is happening.

Fewer pupils creates problems

Posted on July 22, 2021 by John Howson

The DfE has released its annual update to pupil projections. This is of immediate interest both to ITT providers and those responsible for planning school finances going forward into the medium term. The publication and associated tables can be accessed at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/national-pupil-projections-july-2021

Actual (2020) and projected pupil numbers by school type, England
		2020	2021	2022	2023	2024	2025	2026
State-funded nursery & primary schools	4,647	4,635	4,597	4,531	4,454	4,395	4,345
	year on year change		-12	-38	-66	-77	-59	-50
State-funded secondary schools	3,003	3,072	3,133	3,193	3,231	3,228	3,216
	year on year change		69	61	60	38	-3	-12
State-funded special schools	113	117	119	120	121	120	119
	year on year change		4	2	1	1	-1	-1
Alternative provision settings	15	16	17	17	18	18	18
	year on year change		1	1	0	1	0	0
Total state-funded schools	7,778	7,839	7,865	7,862	7,824	7,761	7,699
	year on year change		61	26	-3	-38	-63	-62

Projections on pupil numbers

The DfE make the following important point about the numbers:

This year only a simple update to the 2020 model has been created with the addition of newly available 2019 national population estimates and births from the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

The reasons for this are:

There are no new ONS national projections giving new estimates of the future overall population
The 2021 school census data shows notable decreases in enrolment in nursery and primary schools and alternative provision compared to previous years. These are expected to be temporary, as a result of the pandemic, rather than long-term changes. However, using this data results in decreases across future years which are not considered to be realistic estimates of the pupil population over the next ten years.

The new 2019 ONS data provides additional information on factors such as whether birth figures have continued the drop seen since late 2016. Therefore feeding this data into the existing model provides a useful update on expected future pupil numbers.

The various views on whether or not the fall is temporary must be of great importance. A loss of 300,000 primary school pupils in six years with the current funding formula for schools in place will have significant implications.

For those preparing primary schools teachers for entry into teaching the implications could come as soon as this autumn if entry targets for 2022 announced by the DfE using the Teacher Supply Model take account of the start of the reduction in pupil numbers.

For the secondary sector, there are probably a couple more years at present levels for teacher preparation courses before reductions in popular and fully subscribed subjects along with recruitment controls come into force once again.

Of course, with the DfE controlling the application process it will be interesting to see how the different parts of the DfE interact with each other, especially in view of the recent ITT Market Review.

The years of relative planet are going to be followed by some years of belt tightening across the education sector. The announcement on pay may not be unrelated to these figures on pupil numbers.

QTS for life?

Posted on July 7, 2021 by John Howson

Re-reading my submission to the Carter Review https://johnohowson.wordpress.com/2014/06/23/a-submission-to-the-carter-review/ from way back in 2014, made me think that the recent Market Review of ITT discussed in the previous two posts on this blog missed another important point. Because it was focused on the delivery mechanism and content of ITT and not the candidates undergoing the training in deciding how to create world class teachers it missed discussing some important issues, such as should QTS last for life and can a world-class profession continue with a QTS award that allows any teacher to teach anything to any pupil with no check. What is the point of a subject knowledge requirement if at the end of a course a PE teacher can be employed to teach science on the basis that they have a sports science degree?

Changing the rules on preparation courses without looking at the ‘downstream’ consequences is a bit like closing the stable door before you have even put the horse inside. What’s the appropriate preparation to teach humanities if it contains elements of history; geography and even religious education? Do you need post ‘A’ level qualifications in each subject area to be able to teach it? As far as I can tell, the Market Review is silent on this type of discussion. Then there are the subjects taught at Key Stages 4 & 5 that are barely recognised in the Teacher Supply Model but where schools actively recruit each year. These subjects include, economics, psychology, sociology and law. Most of these subjects have more posts advertised each year by schools than does Latin, a subject recognised by the DfE in the Teacher Supply Model.

As already alluded to, the issue of moving from training to employment is a discussion that merits more attention that was paid to it in the Review. It is appropriate to assume that the best quality trainees are the first to secure teaching posts: a sensible assumption if the market works properly. Such an outcome would leave the weakest students sometimes without a teaching post for September, but available to fill the vacancies that arise for the following January, often due to maternity leave arrangements. How should the system deal with these teachers-in-waiting? Ignore them as at present? Hope that they will pick up supply work? Ensure every teacher passing the training component is offered a teaching post for September of at least one year in duration?

A Review that talks about world class teachers and deals with initial training and professional development, but ignores the realities of life, won’t easily achieve its aims for the system as a whole. The issue of the length of time a teacher could spend working as a supply teachers was tackled some time ago, but the issue of a gap between completing training and starting teaching in the subject and phase of your training has not really been addressed. I think such an omission is a mistake.

I am sure that the All Party Parliamentary Group on the Teaching Profession and its associated Special Interest Group or SIG will be taking a look at the Review before the summer.

ITT Market Review: more thoughts

Posted on July 6, 2021 by John Howson

Following on from yesterday’s post on this blog. I have been sent NASBTT’s press release about the Market Review. A key paragraph in their response states that:

‘However, we simply cannot support the recommendation that a reaccreditation process is necessary to achieve the recommended adaptations to curriculum design and provision. The report presents no evidence to suggest that existing providers of ITT would be unable to deliver the new curriculum requirements in full. A wide-scale, expensive and disruptive reaccreditation process poses a huge risk to teacher supply. Introducing an unnecessary administrative burden to the sector, which, in turn, presents such clear risks to our teacher supply chain, with no clear rationale for the benefits it will bring, is simply indefensible.’ National Association of School-Based Teacher Trainers

I have some sympathy with their view, but I wonder whether academies could just ignore the whole process suggested in the Review document. After all, Michael Gove, when Secretary of State for Education, allowed academies to employ anyone as a teacher regardless of their training.

Of course, for them to do so would relieve the DfE of the cost of any training, because such people employed by schools would not count against the DfE Teacher Supply Model Allocations. However, a wholesale move to school employed trainees would, as NASBTT suggest, bring risks to the supply chain. It might also soak up a lot of the Apprenticeship cash currently being recycled back to HMTreasury by schools that cannot spend the present levy. Such a move would also allow schools to ignore the new 20 days intensive period in schools that seems likely to be very expensive to implement. This is another area where the Review is long on ideas but short on implementation and especially costing.

When the TTA was established in the 1990s, Coopers and Lybrand, as they then were, produced a document about the Funding of Teacher Education. Some years later, I undertook a research project for the Higher Education Funding Council in Wales on the funding of Teacher Education.

Both studies recognised that teaching salaries are often higher than those for university lecturers and thus the use of higher education funding models doesn’t fully deal with the real cost of preparing a teacher. My study in Wales showed that postgraduate courses could rarely cover their costs, but that undergraduate courses might be able to do so with sufficient numbers and with lower transfer payments to primary schools than was expected by secondary schools that tended to be more savvy at that time about the costs of mentors and working with trainees than their primary colleagues.

The Review also seems to pay little attention to the fact that some trainees need more help than others. I provided some case studies in the piece on this blog that I wrote for the Carter Review: another look at teacher education, some seven years ago. https://johnohowson.wordpress.com/2014/06/23/a-submission-to-the-carter-review/ is worth a re-read.

I hope someone is undertaking a costing exercise on the Review’s proposals as it will help identify the extent to which they might to use NASBTT’s words about the Review

Be ‘A potentially catastrophic risk to de-stabilising the market.’

ITT Review: prelude to a cull?

Posted on July 5, 2021 by John Howson

The DfE today published the long awaited ITT Market Review Final Report on Initial Teacher Training. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/initial-teacher-training-itt-market-review-report and the associated consultation. https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/initial-teacher-training-itt-market-review

This type of exercise comes along about once in every generation. Thirty years ago it was the establishment of the Teacher Training Agency and fifteen years ago, the desire to move towards a Masters Degree profession by the Labour government.

This Review that is unsigned and totally anonymous, is strong in certain areas, but lamentably weak in others. The outstanding changes that may cause issues in my view are not the content of training per se, as governments have taken an active interest in that before, although the section on synthetic phonics only being permitted as the way to teach reading does read a tad dictatorial. To me the fun will be around the Intensive Teaching 20 days, and the lengthening of courses to 38 weeks, especially f this is expected to take place within a funding envelope designed for higher education classroom courses of 30 weeks. Reaction to these changes will be worth watching closely.

Change there has to be. The primary teacher market is facing a period of over-supply resulting from the fall in the birth rate and possible loss of young families back to other EU countries as well as the age profile of the teaching force. A rationale for keeping the good providers allows for reductions in provision on a basis less open to challenge than one with no rationale behind the cuts when they come.

Such a reduction in places is still a couple of years away for secondary teacher providers, but this Review won’t have much effect before the 2024 labour market, by which time secondary schools in some areas will be seeing reductions in their intakes with a knock-on effect on the demand for teachers.

Who will be the winners form this review? It is difficult to assess at this stage, as the age-old question of rewarding good providers versus a sensible national distribution of training places didn’t really receive an airing in the Review except around Teaching School hubs.

Will schools want to take on the burden of longer courses with more intensive mentoring and an associated bureaucracy that will inevitable accompany the required control of content and progress. If not, will MATs see it as their function. Clearly local authorities and diocese aren’t in the running for lead providers as they don’t rate a mention. Curiously, since it has operated a model possibly not a million miles away from what is being advocated, Teach First as a programme is seemingly ignored in the section on employment-based entry routes into teaching.

Overall, the approach seems to me to be a blend of a more centralised curriculum around a delivery structure reminiscent of the Area Training Organisations set up after World War Two.

The good news is that with a rethink about professional development that has withered on the vine for much of this century, other than for government led priorities, there might be a revival of the concept of professional development centres where teacher can come together to learn. Alongside this there ought to be an evaluation of a career structure of the type once provided by local advisory and support services.

In the end, deciding what to do and how to do it that is the meat of this Review is the easy part. Solving the crisis of teacher supply so that every child has a great teacher is a much greater challenge, and one that this Review largely ducked despite its title.

Covid bounce ending for ITT?

Posted on July 1, 2021 by John Howson

The June data from UCAS for ITT applications and outcomes were released earlier today. Applications are still on the increase, but there are definite signs that the bounce in applications teaching courses received after covid first hit in the spring of 2020 may be tailing off.

Primary applications are almost back to the level last seen in 2016/17, and might have exceeded that number had more courses still been looking for the final few applicants to fill their places. In the secondary sector, as this blog has hinted over recent months, the picture is more nuanced. There are plenty of applications for history and physical education and sufficient offers of all types in these subjects to ensure the training places will be easily filled again this year. At the other end of the scale, design and technology has made fewer offers than at any time in the past decade for June. How much longer can this subject survive without an influx of new staff able to teach the range of topics within this portmanteau subject?

Art and design numbers will undoubtedly help out in providing design and technology teachers, and it is hoped that some applicants can be diverted between the two subjects. English, mathematics, religious education and music should provide sufficient trainees to fill the available places unless there is any surge of late dropouts. Chemistry and biology should also be in a satisfactory position for trainees. However, computing, geography and modern foreign languages continue to experience issues with the number of offers they seem to be able to make this year. Finally, business studies, although experiencing a better than average year, may not attract enough trainees to provide the teachers schools will be seeking in the subject next year.

As reported last month, applications for teaching are weak in the North East and relatively buoyant tin London and the South East, where demand for teachers is strongest. Applications from men have just topped the 12,000 mark, but are only about 1,300 more than in 2019 across both the primary and secondary sectors. School Direct salaried numbers continue to be low. No doubt some of these possible places have been replaced by the slowly growing apprenticeship numbers.

Some 80% of applicants from the youngest age group of 21 and under have been offer a place of one type or another. Although the percentage is slightly down on this point last year, it is still a significant figure. This year, there are still fewer applicants in the 40+ age category than in June last year, down by just fewer than 200 applicants, but worthy of note if this is a trend.

With courses starting to announce closure dates for the summer, it seems likely that there will be little change in the outcomes between now and when courses commence in September. On the evidence of these figures, and those of last month, I am concerned about the possible picture for 2022 applications and thus the problems schools will face recruiting for 2023. We may well again experience a teacher shortage in some secondary subjects, if not across the board in the secondary sector. I have few concerns for the primary sector.

John Howson

Education and the numbers that affect what happens

Tag Archives: teacher preparation