Tag Archives: teacher preparation

Train to be a teacher: worth the risk?

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The DfE today published their annual look at trends in the school population. Release home – National pupil projections – Explore education statistics – GOV.UK The school population is principally affected by changes, either upwards of downwards, in the birth rate. Changes in migration also plays a small part, but can be more important in certain locations. Thus, the reduction of the number of families accompanying students will affect some university towns more than the overall numbers.

As these are projections from the DfE are based on data from The Office for National Statistics (ONS), they are the result of considerations of various factors, of which changes in the birth-rates is the most significant. The gloomiest set of predictions are shown in the table below.

On these assumptions, the primary and secondary school sectors will lose 473,00 and 249,000 pupils respectively between 2026 and 2031. This is a total reduction of more than 700,000 in a school population of 7.8 million at the start of the period. By 2032, the school population may dip below seven million for the first time in a long while.

As the chart shows, the school population is heading for its lowest number this century. The key question is whether or not, by the end of the 2030s, the school population will fall back to a level not seen since the mid-1980s. On current trends that outcome seem very likely.

My guess is that HM Treasury will use the ‘population dividend’ to reduce spending on schooling by clawing back the funding for the missing pupils. Over the period to 2031, this might account for some £5billion available for social services and defence, yet still leave a bit over for improving school funding slightly.

Fewer children mean fewer teachers, and we have already seen the DfE slash targets for ITT. This will likely reduce the number of providers at some point, as some providers will be unable to operate effectively, both financially and in terms of group sizes, and will exit the market.

Falling rolls also mean fewer vacancies, if numbers leaving the profession remain at a constant rate in relation to pupil numbers. Falling rolls also likely mean fewer promotion opportunities, so more teachers may stay put in their current post. With the current age profile for the profession, there is also no sign of a retirement boom to help turnover.

Were the falling pupil numbers to mean a wholesale closure of small primary schools, then that might further reduce the promotion opportunities for teachers in the primary sector.  

If the sector keeps to government ITT targets, then most trainees should find a teaching post – we will know the latest details for employment rates at the end of the month when provider profile data are released – but in the primary sector, where over-recruitment into ITT has been the norm, and in some secondary subjects, too many teachers may be chasing too few vacancies.

So, is it worth the risk of taking on extra student debt to train as a teacher? Certainly not, if you can find a route that offers a salary, and a better chance of a teaching post after training. Otherwise, there is a risk to assess.

I would advise all potential teachers to quiz providers offering them a place on an ITT course about the provider’s track record of employment for their specific course, and not just the overall rate into employment.

Of course, a teaching qualification can lead to a teaching career anywhere in the world, it might just be harder to find a job in England, and certainly in parts of London.

Why aren’t all trainee teachers paid?

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My recent post about tuition fees and student loans Pay tuition fees of trainee teachers | John Howson reminded me that it is some years since I compared how trainee teachers were treated in comparison with another group of public servants undergoing training.

British Army officer training at Sandhurst is a 42-week course, slightly longer than the face-to-face component of a PGCE, but I expect that there are few PGCE students that don’t also work during their ‘holidays’, as, indeed, do most teachers.

The key difference, between a PGCE and Sandhurst, apart for the 24 hour seven days a week residential element to army training, is that all officer cadets receive the equivalent of £35,925 per year. I am not sure if this also contains possible pension contributions as well.

Even those PGCE students with bursaries cannot match that figure. The most generous bursaries according to the government website are £29,000 or £31,000 if a trainee is awarded a scholarship. Teacher training bursaries | Get Into Teaching GOV.UK Of course, unlike a salary, these should be tax free during training.

Bursaries are not available to all trainee teachers, only those that the DfE regards as training to be a teacher in a shortage subject. This blog has regularly commented on the somewhat arbitrary and haphazard nature of such designations, including the removal of a bursary for music in September 2026. By contrast, all officer cadets at Sandhurst are paid, regardless of the corps or arm they will eventually join, and whether there are sufficient trainees to staff all required roles.

By comparison, a graduate joining the civil service ‘Fast Stream’ scheme would earn £31,554 per annum, plus a pension and guarantee of employment, something also offered to successful Sandhurst graduates. Fast Stream | Civil Service Careers

I have to say that I think the civil service salary is not very generous, especially for working in central London, but it can increase substantially by year two, so perhaps, it might be seen as a training salary.

Of course, some trainee teachers can earn a salary. Teach First, with its salary, is similar to the civil service Fast Track in blending training and actual ‘real work’. Fast Track currently pays between £23-31,000 for trainees outside London, and up to 333,500 for trainees in London in their first year. Join our leading two-year, fully-funded teacher Training Programme | Teach First So, similar salary to officer cadets at Sandhurst for London trainees on Fast track, but considerably less for those on the Fast Track route outside of London.

With falling rolls, and better retention rates, the question for the Labour government is whether or not graduate teacher training should be brought into line with other public sector professions, with all trainees receiving a salary plus the guarantee of a teaching post? The latter might be a step too far, but if the government insists on setting training targets trough the Teacher Supply Model, then it should be expected to offer all trainees a teaching post.

Employing trainee teachers, would stop over-recruitment that is costing the government money through paying out student loans, for instance, to the 26% of primary trainees recruited above target last year.

A universal salary scheme for graduate trainee teachers would break the historical bond between trainees and higher education, established when the employer’s training colleges were forced into the higher education sector in the 1970s, following the Robbins Report. Of course, universities could compete to provide the courses for the government alongside other training providers. As they already do for school-based courses.

The present arrangements for graduate teacher training are no longer fit for purpose. The outgoing Prime Minister had little to say about teachers when preparing for government, other than a ‘retention bonus’. Labour’s style over substance | John Howson

I hope that the next Prime Minister, will consider the importance of the teaching workforce in achieving his goals for society. If so, looking at how we train teachers might be a place to start.

Pay tuition fees of trainee teachers

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The House of Commons Treasury (Select) Committee today published its report into university tuition fees. One of its conclusions was that;

2. 3. 4. The student loans system is complex. The terms and conditions of loans must be examined within the context of the entire system. The overall level of subsidy provided by the state to the individual is the defining factor in how the loan then operates. (Conclusion, Paragraph 17) Although the government claimed that its subsidy is in the region of 30% to 40%, we saw evidence indicating that individual contributions from students graduating today could be as high as 95%. That was not what the government or Parliament intended, when Parliament agreed the Plan 2 legislation. Society benefits from individuals going to university. Therefore, society should contribute to the cost of an individual’s higher education. We agree with Sir Philip Augar that the split between state and individual should be around 50:50. Terms and conditions matter. Even a very clever system that strikes a generally acceptable balance between the taxpayer and individual contributions will not be sustainable in the long term, if individual terms and conditions within that system are deemed economically or politically intolerable by stakeholders or loan holders. (Conclusion, Paragraph 18)

Student loans: Broken and unfair? My highlighting in bold

Reading that conclusion made me wonder how much should someone wanting to be a teacher expect to pay in tuition fees and interest on the loan in order to enter the profession?

Does it matter that a twenty two year old will pay far more in tuition fee repayments, due to interest costs, than someone entering teacher training in their thirties from a high paying job in London with their original undergraduate loan paid off? The twenty two year old will likely be paying interest on their combined undergraduate and ITT tuition fees for their whole teaching career.

Does it matter that if you are on Teach First, a graduate teaching apprenticeship, or some other route that pays a salary, you will incur no extra student debt training to become a teacher? Should there be equity between routes into teaching?

Yesterday, in my post about teachers’ pay, I revealed how poorly teachers were paid compared with many other graduate professions. Are teachers paid a fair wage for being a graduate? | John Howson

Now for a bit of history. When the Labour government took power in the summer of 1997, and decided to introduce tuition fees for courses including postgraduate ITT courses, I was still working at the then Teacher Training Agency, as its Chief Professional Adviser on Teacher Supply.

Frank Dobson, as Secretary of State for Health was adamant that trainee nurses should not pay tuition fees, although I need to remind myself whether or not he took the same line about the professions allied to medicine and for trainee doctors.

David Blunkett, as Secretary of State for Education, took the line that undergraduate trainees should pay tuition fees, but that the State would effectively pay the fees of those on approved postgraduate courses leading to QTS. One consequence of this decision, a decision that I recall discussing with a senior civil servant at the Department, was the decline in undergraduate ITT, especially for secondary subjects: it still lingers on for would-be primary school teachers.

One of the more pernicious and short-sighted decisions of the coalition government that emerged after the 2010 general election was to remove the payment of tuition fees by the government for postgraduate ITT courses.

I have always opposed that decision. A better solution would have been to rebate the tuition fee once a teacher started working for the State. To make it fair, it would have been necessary to ensure all those gaining QTS, and having paid tuition fees, were offered a teaching or other government funded post. Those working for private school or outside teaching would still have had to repay their loans.

In the light of today’s Treasury Committee’s conclusion that they, ‘saw evidence indicating that individual contributions from students graduating today could be as high as 95%.’, I believe that the current Secretary of State should either revert to the pre-2010 situation or find some other way of relieving trainee teachers of the burden of tuition fee debt.

Sadly, I think there is little that can be done for previous generations of teachers still weighed down with tuition fee debt, except perhaps a deal with mortgage companies to allow the debt to be transferred to extend a mortgage to repay the capital and allow the remaining debt to be paid at a lower rate of interest than the government charges.

Alternatively, schools, MATs and local authorities might look at ways of taking over the debt at a lower interest rate.

I think it says something about the teaching profession, and its professional associations that the issue of the burden of tuition fees for teachers has not been a higher priority.

Perhaps the present evidence from the STRB and Treasury Reports might persuade the professional assoiations into action on behalf of their members.

Action from the Liberal Democrats, my Party, and a participant in the 2010 decision to make trainee teachers pay fees, would also be welcome; I am not holding my breath.

Dear Secretary of State – updated

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Two years ago, after the general election, I posted this open letter to the new Secretary of State. With the possibility of a cabinet reshuffle following the arrival of a new Prime Minister, I though it was worth taking a second look at my thoughts of two years ago, and what has changed.

Posted on July 6, 2024

At this important time in our history, I thought that I would post my views for the new Secretary of State for Education

An Open Letter to the Secretary of State for Education

Dear Secretary of State,

You have a tough job ahead of you. Firstly, you need to clear up problems resulting from the campaign promise of 6,000 extra teachers. Those of us in the know, are aware that this September, as for the past few years, all the training places for new secondary school teachers are not being filled. Those gaps need to be filled before you can start on adding 6,000 new teachers to the total.

We don’t have 6,000 more teachers, and training targets have been cut in many subjects, so reaching what you and I might have thought of as 6,000 extra teachers seems unlikely, and the pledge will be subject to a sleight of hand to show it has been achieved.

Don’t think of an easy way out, such as upgrading some teaching assistants to teachers, because it is teachers for the secondary schools that we need, not more teachers for primary schools.

And then, there is the state of our school buildings. Even before the concrete crisis, many of our primary schools were time expired, and many are more than 150 years old. There needs to be a programme of replacement and, for those that will remain, a programme to help make them carbon neutral or even sources of renewable energy. After all, school playgrounds are not being used for their key purpose for 95% of the year. How can we make them earn their keep for the rest of the year, by being sources of renewable power?

Some progress on buildings, but not much, and no real policy advocacy around renewables.

Don’t get me started on funding for 16-19 year olds. That’s a battle with the Treasury you must win. At the same time, you could increase the upper age for free transport for young people in rural areas from 16 up to the de facto if not de jure leaving age of 18 from where it now stops at 16. Start by offering it this September to those staying in the same school. This is a levelling up programme for rural areas.

Rural transport, and indeed, 16-18 transport has been ignored. This is despite the fact it may contribute to NEET numbers in rural areas. I have suggested reviewing motor insurance tax for 16-18s where there is no public transport to school or college, and extending free transport to 18 for those that receive it up to age 16. No sign government understands this issue.

AI and technology are important to our country’s future, and we need to work out how they impact on our education system. Are we training new and existing teachers in a curriculum and teaching style for the future, not the past? Do we need a research body for teaching and learning in schools?

Much more to be done here; especially in training new teachers. New teachers entering preparation courses this September at age 22, might not retire until 2063. In the past 40 years we have seen, the microprocessor revolution; the internet and social media sensation, and now AI. How have we responded to this revolution, every bit as significant as the arrival of printing more than 500 years ago: we have banned mobile phones from schools.

I am sure you will have much to say about early years, and perhaps you could reverse the name change Mr Gove announced when he had your job in 2010.  Bring back the Department for Children Education and Families.

Hopefully, early years will be a success story, but outcomes need monitoring especially for those children that fall behind when they reach school. Do you favour schools having an on-site nursery? What about a qualified workforce?

There are other issues, such as higher education, private schools and the consequences of VAT on fees, and the relationship between local authorities and the academies sector, not least for children in care that you will have to deal with, but solving the teacher supply crisis is the number one priority.

Well, we have VAT on school fees and it has shaken the tree for some of the weaker schools that were also suffering from falling rolls. However, there are still not enough teachers for state schools, and private schools can attract teachers where there are shortages leaving more challenging schools with less well qualified staff. What’s the policy to deal with this problem?

The dual regime of democratically controlled local authorities nominally responsible for maintained schools and the academy sector responsible to Whitehall and with no local democratic accountability is a blot on your copybook. Following the Blair/Brow government’s line on ducking the issue of selective schools for some and comprehensive schools for others is a waste of a big majority, especially as most Labour MPs represent areas with comprehensive schools.

You could take a leaf out of David Blunkett’s approach in 1997, and pay the fees of all trainee teachers studying as postgraduates to enter the profession. Paying them all a training salary, as his successor introduced, and the coalition removed, would be another step forward. This year, it should be possible to pay the bills from the unfilled training places where the money has already been allocated by H M Treasury plus the VAT receipts from private school fees.

Training to be a teacher is still expensive in debt terms for many. Working abroad after qualification can bring higher income, and no fee repayments while abroad.

If the government is serious about education, then now is the time for action. Good luck in your first 100 days in the job.

However, will you still be in post after the arrival of the new Prime Minister? Of will we have to start all over again?

Demand for music teachers: where were the jobs in early 2026?

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This post follows on from my previous post, written yesterday, and looks in more detail at the vacancies for music teachers tracked since January 1st 2026. Music teachers: labour market update | John Howson

Due to further data cleansing, the numbers may slightly differ from yesterday in some respects after mis-allocations in certain fields have been corrected.

Vacancies are generally either for a main scale/Upper Pay Spine post or for a promoted post.

In terms of the ratio of promoted posts with a TLR, or in a few cases a Leadership Scale offer, to posts without any additional allowance, the East Midlands region tops the list at 37% of advertised posts with a TLR.  At the other end of the scale, no promoted posts have been recorded for the North East. It may be that schools in the North East use regional job boards for promoted posts. Those boards are currently out of scope of my survey.

The East of England region also had a lower-than-average percentage of promoted posts in the total of advertised vacancies. However, this may be partly due to the larger than average number of posts advertised without any additional pay supplement dragging down the percentage of promoted posts.

Most promoted post are TLRs advertised as a 2b.

In terms of the need to re-advertise vacancies for teachers of music, there are three clear regional groups: the East Midland and East of England with well above average levels of schools re-advertising; Yorkshire and The Humber region where, to date, no re-advertisements have been recorded, along with the West Midlands, North East and South West, regions with well below average levels of re-advertisements.

The remaining regions have re-advertisement rates broadly in line with the national average. Of course, there is still time for other schools to re-advertise before the end of the summer term. However, as they would only be attracting ITT completers or returners, this might be something of a futile exercise, only worthwhile if at no cost, such as using the DfE vacancy website.

Interesting questions that arise from the data are: how well does ITT provision map with demand and are there any characteristics of schools that re-advertise vacancies – high free school meal percentages; excellent music departments; high-cost housing areas; long distance from ITT provision no recent history of schools being used by trainees?

Other interesting questions to research include: the balance of full-time versus part-time vacancies and between permanent and temporary vacancies; and how many of the latter are as a result of a teacher taking maternity leave? Fortunately this data has been collected along with whether or not the school is an academy and if the post is eligible for visa sponsorship: most are not.

If I have the time, I will try and address some of these questions in the round-up after the end of the summer term in August. Meantime, any views would be welcome in the comments section.

UCET’s changing of leadership: a rare event

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I have been rather tardy in posting my appreciation of the work of James Noble-Rogers, as executive director of UCET (The Universities Council for the Education of Teachers). James was only the second Executive Director the organisation has had so far, taking over from Mary Russell, its first director, after she had presided over the coming together of UCET and PCET, the universities high education teacher training organisation that merged with the polytechnics and colleges organisation, after those institutions became universities in the 1990s to form UCET as it is currently constructed.

James was recruited to his post at UCET from the civil service. I first knew him when I served at the then Teacher Training Agency between 1996 and 1997, in the role of advisor on teacher supply, an interest I retain until this day. James was working on ITT numbers in the DfE, and was a natural fit to take over from Mayr on her retirement. However, I suspect that many were surprised to see a civil servant, and not an academic, appointed to the role. Appointing James was an inspired move.

Afte leaving the TTA in 1997, I worked closely with UCET, and James, for about a decade while he steered UCET through the problems of firstly, falling interest in teaching as a career, and then the boom after the 2008 economic crisis that lead to, in my view, the mis-guided decision by Ministers to axe the training grant and require the payment of tuition fees for graduates when Michael Gove became Secretary of State. These moves contributed to the teacher supply crisis that I foreshadowed on this blog in my 2013 posts (see Howson: Teachers, Schools and views on Education – available from Amazon as an eBook).

The early years of the coalition were a challenging time for colleagues working higher education preparing new teachers and providing INSET. Some will recall the ‘blob’; others, the issue of recruitment controls that nearly caused several universities to consider pulling out of ITT/ITE.

James remained resolute in supporting the higher education community’s central involvement in teacher preparation and development, the position it still holds today, while recognising the emerging partnership with schools that through SCITTS were providing their own version of teacher preparation. At the same time, Teach First was creating another route into teaching.

The last decade after 2016, brought new changes, the effect of the covid pandemic, plunging interest in teaching from home students and the growth, in recent years, of applicants from around the world.

As I became more involved in local government politics after 2013, I lost regular contact with UCET, and stooped attending their annual conference.

Even to, I am delighted to be able to recall my association with James, and the long service he rendered to UCT over more than a quarter of a century. I hope that as with his predecessor, his work will be acknowledged formally by the State.

I enjoyed the time when I worked with James, and wish him well in the next stage of his life. I am delighted to see that he is still offering his support, advice and knowledge that few others can rival.

David Attenborough at 100

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This week the BBC has being paying tribute to Sir David Attenborough, ahead of his 100th birthday later this month. There is no doubting that Sir David has had a great deal of influence on many people through his television documentaries, at first in shades of grey, and then in colours that have improved as television screens have become ever more sophisticated in replicating the colours of the real world.

But who influenced Sir David Attenborough in his choice of career? Way back in 1997, the then Teacher Training Agency decided to commission two cinema advertisements. One, that received all the attention was called ‘talking heads’, and featured head and shoulder shots of a range of celebrities just saying a name to the camera. The trap line at the end was ‘no one forgets a good teacher’.

The other, far less well-known advertisement commissioned by the Teacher Training Agency in 1997 featured a teacher called Horace Lacey and a pupil called David Attenborough. You can see it here. Teacher Training Commercial: Horace Lacey | Catalogue | History of Advertising Trust My thanks to the History of Advertising Trust.

Both adverts were placed in cinemas, and because it was before the general use of websites and urls, postcards were placed in cinema foyers to provide the contact details for anyone interested in teaching. After all, it was impossible to write down a phone number in the dark of a cinema at the time when the advert was actually being played.

At the same time, the agency produced a famous poster with the stap line ‘the dog ate my homework.’ a phrase that passed into common parlance for a period of time.

After a few years, advertisements for teaching as a career started to reappear on TV screens, albeit at the wrong time of year to make any significant short-term difference to recruitment. I made an oblique comment about the effects of TV advertising in this post Do TV adverts work? | John Howson However, I am afraid the title is a bit of a misnomer.

So, my very best wishes to Sir David Attenborough. I hope that all the publicity surrounding his 100th birthday will help inspire the next generation of young people, and the present generation of undergraduates, to take up teaching as a career.  I also hope that the attention to Sir David’s birthday also encourages us to honour the memory of Horace Lacy, and countless hundreds of thousands of other teachers like him that have inspired their pupils down the generations.

Thank a teacher, it is an inspiring job that is like no other. And, although I may not have inspired many of my pupils, I did recognise those around me, both in school and higher education that changed lives and careers. My personal thanks to them.

Labour market for music teachers: update to end of April 2026

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Regular readers will know that I am tracking two parts of the labour market for teachers in state schools across England during the 2025-26 school-year: vacancies for headteachers and vacancies for teachers and middle leaders of music.

Regular readers of this blog will also know that one of the reasons that I selected music as my subject to track was the government’s removal of the training bursary for those applying for postgraduate teacher preparation courses starting in the autumn of 2026.

By tracking vacancies this year, I have a baseline for next year, if, as seems likely, the removal of the bursary reduces interest in teaching music. However, the government has also slashed its published number of trainees needed – see ITT Offers – public money being wasted? | John Howson and my more recent post on the situation after the report on April offers was published.

Anyway, back to the update on published vacancies for teachers of music, and how these vacancies compare with the expected output from this year’s preparation courses.

By the end of April, I had recorded some 389 vacancies for teachers of music. 86 of these were for promoted posts, with an allowance attached. It could be assumed that these vacancies were not intended for teachers straight out of their preparation courses. However, in some smaller secondary schools, this might be the only full—time post and include responsibility for choirs, orchestras and ensembles. However, for the purpose of this exercise, such posts have been eliminated.

After removing the promoted posts, this leaves some 303 vacancies suitable for new entrants into the teaching profession advertised between January and the end of April 2026.

The DfE’s ITT census recorded some 367 trainees on preparation courses in December 2025; mostly for entry into the labour market in September 2026. Assuming all 367 entered the labour market for teachers in state schools, there are still sufficient to fill another 64 vacancies.

However, we know that not all trainees last the courses, and of those that complete the course, not all start teaching in state schools. Some entre the private sector; some further education; some music services and some don’t enter teaching at all.

As a result, the chart shows the remaining trainees available if 10% and 20% of trainees aren’t available to state schools. This approach reduces the remaining number of trainees to little more than 50 trainees. With around 75 vacancies a month so far in 2026, if May’s vacancies follow the pattern of the first four months of 2026, then the remaining total of trainees will be exhausted before the end of May, and resignation deadline day.

Of course, not all basic vacancies are filled by new entrants from teacher preparation courses: some are filled by returners – we can ignore school switchers as we can assume that leaving one school to fill a similar vacancy at another school is neutral in terms of jobs. However, if the move is for promotion, the there is a new vacancy.

Returners would need to fill around 30% of vacancies across the whole year – they are generally the only source of teachers for January appointments, so for September it looks as if schools will struggle to fill any late appointment resulting from resignations close to the 31st May deadline.  However, the picture will be clearer at the time of next month’s update.

Finally, although I do not track vacancies posted by private schools, both in England and abroad, I do survey the market. Generally, this market has twice as many vacancies as posted in any one month by schools in England.

One wonders whether the current cohort of new graduates might have missed out on gap year travelling because of the after-shocks from the covid pandemic and might, therefore be more willing to teach overseas? This has the advantage of not losing income to student loan repayment, and the bursary isn’t repayable.

On the negative side, the conflict in the Middle East may well be deterring some teachers from working in that part of the world, and may have increased the number of returners once more seeking a teaching post in England. We shall see.

Religious Education – the need for qualified teachers

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In a recent post on this blog about the DfE’s modelling of trainee teacher needs, I wrote that

‘However, has this re-assessment of need gone too far? Based on … my own current research into vacancies for teachers of music, I think the DfE has been realistic in its approach. ‘

While, I stand by that judgement, I have also been reminded by Deborah Weston, championing on behalf of those concerned with the teaching of religious education in schools that the cutback in trainee numbers probably allows little room for the replacement of the ‘under’ or even ‘un-qualified’ teachers currently teaching religious education in our schools.

Prompted by Deborah, I looked at the trends from the Teacher Workforce surveys concerning the use of those with ‘no qualification in the subject’ teaching religious education over the period between the end of the Blair/Brown Labour government and the end of the Conservative period of government. Of course, recent years have been impacted by the covid pandemic, and its consequences, but there is a clear trend that is observable.

The chart shows the four key types of secondary schools, of which the 11-18 school line is probably the most significant.

At the end of the Labour government, partly I expect as a result of the economic crisis of 2008, the percentage of teachers of religious education with ‘no qualification in the subject’ was reducing. However, the percentage levelled out as school rolls began to increase again, and teacher supply entered into an extended period of years when teacher preparation programmes missed their targets.

There was a brief respite as a result of covid, but in the most recent years, as trainee numbers have fallen, so the percentage of teachers with ‘no qualification in the subject’ has reached levels not seen since well before 2010.

As a result, the question now is, was the DfE right to cut trainee targets for religious education from 780 last year to 450 this year? On the basis that including unfilled places from previous recruitment rounds was a mistake, as I have always maintained, then the answer is clearly, yes, the DfE have taken the correct decision.

However, in subjects such as religious education, where most pupils only study the subject for a limited period of time each week, managing recruitment is easier for schools, if qualified staff are available.

I would add that in my opinion, religious education when taught by well-prepared and knowledgeable teachers can be a really valuable subject, especially at this time in the history of our multi-cultural society, where both many different faiths are practiced, and a growing minority profess to having no faith in religion at all.

If the government cannot see their way to increase the stated need for trainee religious education teachers, providers can always over-recruit, at least to higher education courses, where government funding isn’t an issue.

In addition to pre-entry training, the DfE might also like to consider another approach to the issue of shortage of religious education teachers: upskilling those presently teaching the subject, but without an appropriate qualification.  If it is important that a subject be offered on the curriculum, it beholds government to ensure it is taught properly.  

Spending cash on upskilling will no doubt help retention, and thus save on recruitment and training costs. However, apart from in mathematics and the sciences, it hasn’t really featured as a policy objective for many years: surely that’s a mistake.

I hope that the religious affairs lobby is able to persuade the government that significantly reducing the percentage of inappropriately qualified teachers of religious education should be a key policy objective.

ITT Offers – public money being wasted?

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The DfE has today published the April data on postgraduate ITT courses, as at 20th April 2026. Initial teacher training application statistics for courses starting in the 2026 to 2027 academic year – Apply for teacher training – GOV.UK

This is the first month where offers can be compared with the DfE’s required need for each subject for September 2026 courses. I have previously posted about the draconian changes to the demand in many subjects as required by the DfE that have resulted from a different approach to unfilled vacancies. ITT Numbers for 2026 – brutal realism from DfE or big risk? | John Howson

Here is my assessment of possible outcomes for September, when courses commence, based upon current offers and past trends. It will be interesting to see how my view compares with that of Jack Worth at NfER.

SubjectTarget 2026/27offer April 2026DfE identified needFILL?
Chemistry690829-139YES
Biology675398277YES
Mathematics20001752248YES
Design & Technology620382238POSSIBLY
Art & Design605449156YES
Geography685353332POSSIBLY
Classics753639NO
English19801176804PROBABLY
Drama370207163PROBABLY
Business Studies1200224976NO
Music26016199POSSIBLY
Religious Education450339111POSSIBLY
Others20353721663NO
History520736-216YES
Modern Languages1085946139YES
Physics8101140-330YES
Physical Education6551175-520YES
Computing56553926YES

In some subjects, such as history, physics!, physical education and chemistry, providers have already made more offers than required ‘need’.  This demonstrates the danger of leaving it so late in the recruitment cycle to announce estimated demand.

In the past, these numbers used to appear before Christmas. With a rolling offer system in place, rather than a defined closing date, leaving the announcement of ‘need’ until April is likely to cost someone money. Will the DfE pay bursaries to all students offered a place, even if recruitment is above the stated ‘need’? If so, that could be seen as a waste of money.

However, of more concern are the subjects where, even with the new numbers for ‘need’, there are unlikely to be enough applicants to fill all the places. Based on previous trends, classics, business studies and the ’others’ grouping will not meet their ‘need’ number. I think it is time that the ‘other’ category, with 2,035 places is disaggregated into different subjects, after all, it is now by far the largest group in the subject’s table.

I have some concern about where design and technology, geography, music and religious education will produce enough offers to meet the revised ‘need’. However, I can now see why the bursary was removed from music. I still think that was a serious error of judgement, as this is a subject where only those with appropriate subject knowledge are accepted onto courses. Music has one of the highest applications to offer ratios of any subject. Current offers are the second lowest April ‘offer’ number since 2018.

What happens in the wider economy, and graduate job market, will determine the outcome of this recruitment round. I suspect there will be a summer surge in applications, as new graduates discover how tough the job market has become. This should mean a good year for teaching course. However, many applicants may now have found they have left it too late to secure a place for this autumn. This year will really be a case of ‘the early bird that catches the worm’.

I will now delve deeper into the data for another post about the nature of applicants and applications as revealed in this month’s data.