Tag Archives: teacher preparation

Small fall in applicant numbers for graduate teacher preparation courses

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Preliminary figures for applicants to postgraduate teacher preparation courses handled through UCAS show a fall in applicants domiciled in England of around 1,000 when compared with September 2015 figures. As a result, the number placed decreased from 21,710 in September 2015 to 21,150 this September. However, the number conditionally placed increased to 4,980 compared with 4,740 in 2015. Overall, this meant the decline was just over 300 in total compared with last year.

As this blog has reported already this year, the main reduction in applicants is among the 22-25 year olds, with part of the decline in applicants from these age groups being masked by an increase in career changers over the age of 30 having applied.

Overall, it looks as if the percentage accepted rose slightly from 62% of applicants to 63% this year. There was a further, albeit small, decline in the number of men applying, from 15,900 in 2015 to 15,570 this year.

London remains the most popular place to become a teacher, despite the additional costs associated with living in the city, with 27,530 applications for courses in London. However, this was down from 29,530 in 2015, whereas applications increased in the North East, East Midlands and in Wales.

Although there were more applicants placed on secondary courses in 2016 compared with 2015, up from 14,600 to 15,750 (including those conditionally placed and holding offers) the number placed on primary courses has fallen by over 1,000 from 12,970 to 11,510. This must be a matter for concern as it may well lead to shortages of new entrants in some areas for primary main scale vacancies in September 2017.

There seems to have been little change in numbers on the the School Direct Salaried route, at around 3,300, possibly because of small fall in applications for this route despite the general increase in applications from older graduates.

As far as individual secondary subjects are concerned, this has been a better year for applications in many subjects than 2015, although the increase has not be universal. The actual outcome won’t be known until the ITT census in November, but on the basis of this UCAS data it appears that the following might be the outcome in relation to the government’s Teacher Supply Model number (minus the Teach First allocation, where applications are not handled by UCAS).

Art & Design – acceptances above 2015, but not likely to be enough to meet the TSM number.

Biology – acceptances above 2015 and should meet TSM number

Business Studies – acceptances above 2015, close to TSM, but the TSM isn’t large enough to meet demand from schools for these teachers.

Chemistry – acceptances above 2015 and should meet TSM number.

IT/computing – acceptances below last year and not enough to meet TSM.

Design & Technology – the position is unclear from the UCAS data but TSM may not be met.

English – acceptances similar to last year and should meet TSM number.

Geography – acceptances above 2015 and should meet TSM number.

History – acceptances above 2015 and should meet TSM number.

Mathematics – acceptances above last year, but probably still not enough to meet the TSM number.

Music – acceptances above 2015 and should meet TSM number.

Physics – acceptances above 2015, but probably still not enough to meet the TSM number.

Physical Education – acceptances below last year due to the effects of the recruitment controls, but should be enough to meet TSM.

Religious Education – acceptances below last year and not enough to meet TSM.

Languages – difficult to determine exact position from the UCAS data, but should easily meet TSM number on the basis of acceptances.

On the basis of the above, we can already express concern about the supply of business studies, design and technology and physics teachers for 2017. Schools needing to look for a teacher of English that aren’t either linked to Teach First or with a School Direct salaried trainee may be potentially facing problems, especially in those areas where there is keen competition for teachers between the private and state sectors.

The government may be able to anticipate the ITT census with a degree of relief this year, assuming that a sufficiently large number of those still shown as conditionally placed actually turned up when courses started. If they didn’t, for whatever reasons, then this relatively optimistic assessment will have proved meaningless.

Preparation for school teachers is good or outstanding

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Ofsted’s latest assessment of the provision of preparation courses for teachers of children of compulsory school age has rated the providers inspected as either ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’. https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/initial-teacher-education-inspections-and-outcomes-as-at-30-june-2016 Only one primary ITT course, in its final stages of operation, was rated less well on an initial inspect, but had improved when re-inspected later in the year.

Of the primary courses inspected, 45% were rated as ‘outstanding’ and 55% as ‘good’. Secondary courses were rated, 33% outstanding and 67% ‘good. Joint primary/secondary courses were 53% ‘outstanding’ and 47% ‘good’. In view of the challenges some secondary courses face with recruiting trainees, and the consequent issues over funding, this must be regarded as a very satisfactory outcome for the sector.

The data only covers HEIs, SCITTS and for the first time, Teach First. This report doesn’t cover trainees not in a partnership. However, the message for Ministers is that courses preparing primary school teachers are performing well and those preparing secondary teachers are god with some outstanding provision. With the low numbers now on so many secondary courses, this finding is not surprising as it is challenging to create an outstanding provision on limited resources. To that extent, a base number of places larger than allocated to many providers would probably push up the number of outstanding outcomes. Nevertheless, five HEIs, 3 SCITTs and 3 Teach First regions inspected did manage to achieve an ‘outstanding’ rating for their secondary provision. The remainder were rates as ‘good’. The overall classification doesn’t identify the classification for individual secondary subjects so, without drilling down into the inspection reports, it is impossible to discover whether certain subjects were more likely to receive ‘outstanding’ ratings than others and, thus, whether the mix of provision affected the outcome for some of the secondary provision.

I am sure that Teach First will be very pleased with the mostly ‘outstanding’ gradings they received this year. However, as a programme it has to demonstrate not only high quality preparation but also rates of retention that do not require additional trainees to be hired to meet a greater than average loss to the profession in the years after obtaining QTS.

The outcomes for the Early Years and FE provision inspected in the past year by Ofsted were more mixed. Apart from one FE provider there was little evidence of ‘outstanding’ provision in these two sectors and some providers were of concern when first inspected, although no inadequate provision was seen in these inspections.

To move any more of the training away from HEIs or SCITTs into other forms of provision really does now need evidence that the provision is not just as good, but is also superior in outcomes to that which it replaces. The limited nature of some HEI and SCITT provision that now remains means that to locate more places away from these providers into schools must only be on the back of evidence that the provision will not be materially affected by any reduction in places available.

Do bursaries work?

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I have been catching up on some of the reading I have missed from earlier in the summer. One document I hadn’t found time for until now was the Initial teacher training performance profiles: 2014 to 2015 published by the DfE in late July. https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/initial-teacher-training-performance-profiles-2014-to-2015 Although the data deals with trainees, excluding Teach First and any remaining EBITT trainees, granted QTS in 2015, there are some important pointers buried within the data. It seems clear that the high levels of bursary haven’t always worked.

 The number of trainees granted QTS having taken a Physics ITT course appears to have peaked in 2011/12 at 629. In 2014/15 the number granted QTS was just 509, some 120 trainees fewer than in 2011/12, or around 20% less. Even more alarming is the fact that total trainee numbers in 2014/15 had been 614, so apparently 105 trainees didn’t receive QTS. That’s a completion rate of just 83% according to the DfE; the lowest amongst the subjects with a completion rate quoted by the DfE (Table 6 in main tables of Statistical Bulletin 31/2016). In mathematics, the completion rate was a much healthier 94%, but this still meant only 2,082 trainees were awarded QTS, some 400 fewer than in 2011/12.

The mathematics figures show that the number in a teaching post rose over the last three years up to 2014/15, to reach 1,847 in all types of school. This suggests that the bursary for mathematics may have made a difference. However, in Physics, the number recorded as in a teaching post was only 443 in 2014/15, down from a high of 535 in 2011/12, albeit a year during the middle of the recession. As the DfE model estimated need at around 1,000 physics trainees in 2014/15, this would suggest only 50% of potential need was met. The worrying factor is that a high proportion of these new Physics teachers may well have ended up in either an independent school or a grammar school as these are types of school most likely to have advertised for a teacher of physics according to TeachVac data. www.teachvac.co.uk

One the face of it, the bursary and associated scholarships offered don’t seem to have attracted enough potential teachers of physics into the profession and of these attracted a higher than expected percentage don’t seem to have made it through to QTS. Whether this is due to them leaving courses early or not being judged to have reached an acceptable standard isn’t possible to tell from the data.

With a growing percentage of Physics trainees located in schools on the Salaried or Fee School Direct routes, it seems likely that the ‘free pool’ of trainees has also diminished over the past few years. In that respect, we need to know more about how many of the 440 or so in a teaching post trained in the school where they are now working and how many were in the independent sector? This would make clear the likely number available for maintained schools not participating in the School Direct programme?

Whatever the numbers, there needs to be more Physics trainees to meet the demands of the growing school population over the next decade.

Come clean on teacher recruitment

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The latest data from UCAS on the numbers recruited to most teacher preparation courses starting over the next few weeks show mixed signals. On the first look at the data https://www.ucas.com/corporate/data-and-analysis/ucas-teacher-training-releases there is support for the conclusions this blog has been publishing over the past couple of months: IT, mathematics, music, physics and Religious Education won’t meet their target as set by the Teacher Supply Model, after the removal of Teach First numbers, but other subjects ought to do so. So, there is nothing new or very surprising in these figures.

However, delve a little deeper and the anxiety of the increase in ‘conditional placed’ numbers over ‘placed’ candidates that this blog has been worrying for the about for the past few months may still be a cause for concern. Take English as an example. Last August, there were 990 placed candidates and also 990 conditional placed candidates. In mid-August 2016, there are 860 ‘placed’ and 1,180 ‘conditional placed’ candidates. That represents a loss of 130 or so (due to rounding we cannot know the exact difference from year to year) in placed candidates, but an increase of 190 in conditional placed applicants. This is all well and good if those conditional placed candidates convert to placed candidates and turn up on the first day of the course. But, why are they still listed as conditional placed as late as mid-August? Is the system of reporting a change of status not working properly? There must be similar concerns about the difference between placed and conditional placed applicants in other subjects, including geography and mathematics.

The difference is even more interesting when the numbers on the different routes into teaching are considered. Higher Education, as expected, has seen a decline of 280 in placed applicants for secondary subjects as places have moved to other routes. However, SCITTS have taken up just 100 of these and the School Direct Fee route only 50. There appear to be 90 fewer School Direct Salaried route ‘placed’ candidates than in mid-August last year. As a result, the fate of the ‘conditional placed’ and the conditions they need to meet before starting their courses will be critical in determining the outcome of this recruitment round and the numbers of new teachers available to schools looking for teaching staff for September 2017. The number ‘holding offers’ and awaiting decisions on places across all routes is basically the same as at this point last year and will make no meaningful difference to the eventual outcome.

The number of men ‘placed’ is also down on last August by some 220, with fewer numbers in the youngest age groups not entirely offset by an increase in men over the age of 30 offered a place. There are more ‘conditional placed’ men in most age groups, with 250 more over the age of thirty. However, total applications from men are down by a couple of hundred.

In November, when the DfE publish their ITT census, these figures will be able to be put into perspective and that will help with interpretation of the same data next year, assuming the rules of the game don’t change in the meantime. we will also be monitoring the effect by tacking vacancies thorugh TeachVac http://www.teachvac.co.uk the free recruitment service for schools,teachers and trainees

 

Back to the future?

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According to a report in the Daily Mail, as quoted by the LGiU at the weekend, the Teaching Schools Council wants to see the first teaching apprenticeship scheme for 18-year-olds, which would see these youngsters go straight into the classroom as trainee teachers. Now if you are not familiar with the Teaching Schools Council, a government backed organisation, Schools Week did a good background story on the organisation in June this year that can be found at:  http://schoolsweek.co.uk/a-closer-look-at-the-teaching-schools-council/

The Daily Mail story, coming as it does in August, looks a bit like government kite flying. However, is it worth considering further? Take Physics as a subject where schools struggle to recruit enough teachers. Even though most of the degree courses are no longer concentrated in Russell Group universities, many other courses are four years in length necessitating extra tuition fee debt. There are also a very small number of undergraduate QTS courses in Physics or Physics with mathematics on offer for 2017. All this means that students missing the points score necessary to attend most Russell Group universities do have opportunities to Physics at university. However, whether there are enough places to satisfy demand outside of the teaching profession is something that needs to be considered.

So, does the Teaching School Council’s idea have merit? It certainly seems worth discussing further. However, an apprenticeship not linked to a degree as an outcome isn’t likely to find much favour across a profession that struggled so long and hard to move away from the pupil-teacher apprentice model that operated for so long in the elementary school sector that was the main type of schooling for the masses before the 1944 Education Act created the break at eleven.

The academic content issue of an apprenticeship must be dealt with to satisfy organisations such as the Institute of Physics. If they allowed student membership for these apprentices that might go a long way to guarantee standards and reassure the profession as a whole. However, there may well be other objections. Does the single apprentice model work or are apprenticeships more likely to succeed where there are a group of young people studying together, helping each other and challenging themselves to continue with the programme when they feel down, as inevitably happens from time to time.

If you start putting groups of these apprentices together in a teaching school, does that start to look like the old monotechnic training colleges that the Robbins Report was so concerned about in the 1960s and that led to the policy of moving employer-controlled training into higher education and away from the local authorities and the churches? The roots of that system can still be seen in the heritage of universities such as Worcester and Lincoln’s Bishop Grosseteste university.

So, is it ‘back to the future’ as with grammar schools? It is worth noting that Sir Andrew Carter is, according to the Schools Week article, on the Council of the Teaching Schools Council. He is certainly an advocate of the ‘grow you own style’ of teacher preparation, so the suggestion needs to be taken seriously. Perhaps it marks a new direction for School Direct and a new role for Teaching Schools?

Hopefully not a fool’s paradise

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At this time of year we start to expect to see the conditional offers for the various ITT places made by providers turned into firm ‘placed’ students. After all, degree results should have been confirmed by now and the bulk of those offered places should have taken and passed the pre-entry skills tests, so there ought to be nothing to stop candidates confirming that they will be taking up their place. As a result, it is a little worrying to see in the UCAS data published yesterday that the percentage of those with offers regarded as ‘placed’ is in some secondary subjects is below where it was at this point last year. There are also more than 100 fewer candidates holding offers than at this point last year. Now that shouldn’t matter in subjects where recruitment controls mean few applicants have been offered places in recent months, but lower numbers holding offers in physics and IT might mean these subjects will struggle to fill all their available places.

After analysing the available data, it seems to me, barring any last minute hiccups, that languages, PE, history, geography, English, biology and art should meet their targets for recruitment. On the other hand, RE, physics, music, mathematics and IT look as if they are unlikely to do so. The jury is out on chemistry and business studies. The latter may well meet the government target, but that target is woefully short of the demand for these teachers in the real world.  It is difficult to know what is happening in design and technology because UCAS have reported the data in a different way this year to previous years, so we have no real comparison to judge application by.

There is a serious question to be asked by the new ministerial team about how well the present arrangements are delivering sufficient trainees on the different routes into teaching. The following data looks only at the secondary sector. The diversion of places away from universities means 200 few placed candidates, but 700 more conditional placed applications compared with this point last year among He providers. Fortunately, there are 250 more applications in the holding offer status. SCITTs have more placed and conditionally placed than at this point last year, but fewer holding offers than this point last year.

Among School Direct, the fee route has 30 fewer placed trainees, but 750 more conditionally placed and about the same number holding offers. For the School Direct salaried route, there are 100 fewer placed, but 210 more conditionally placed and 30 fewer holding an offer.

What happens to the ‘conditionally placed’ applications over the next month will determine the shape of the 2017 recruitment round for schools, since these are the new teachers entering the labour market next year. Overall, there are 270 fewer applicants across all countries than at this point last year, with the majority of the reduction being in England. The good news, well relative good news, is that the gender balance has remained the same as last year at about one third men to two thirds women. UCAS don’t provide data on ethnicity of applicants.

Some light on entry to the teaching profession

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The NCTL issued an interesting set of reports yesterday. At present they aren’t on their main web site, or at least I couldn’t find them, but they are available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications?keywords=&publication_filter_option=all&topics%5B%5D=all&departments%5B%5D=national-college-for-teaching-and-leadership&official_document_status=all&world_locations%5B%5D=all&from_date=&to_date=

Regular readers of this blog may find some of the Report linking ITT and workforce data somewhat familiar, but none the worse for that.

Here are the key findings that the authors believe stand up even though they have issues with the quality of the data.

  • Three regions of England – North East, North West and South West – appear to have large numbers of new qualified teachers who do not join a state-sector school immediately after achieving QTS.
  • Those studying on undergraduate with QTS courses have low initial retention rates in the profession, though we cannot know whether this results from subsequent choices made by the individual or recruitment decisions made by schools.
  • Teach First has very high two year retention rates, but thereafter their retention is poorer than other graduate routes.
  • Ethnic minority teacher trainees have very low retention rates.
  • Individuals who train part-time or who are older have much poorer retention rates, which may simply reflect other family commitments that interfere with continuous employment records.

The first point is no surprise given the official policy of allocating places by quality of provider rather than by labour market need. As the Report uses School Workforce data it largely predates the big shift into School Direct.

I am not sure whether the authors qualify the second point in relation to the first; too many primary trainees in the big four providers might have made a difference especially as the difference between HEI-led FT (I assume the graduate routes) and Undergraduate with QTS that is largely primary courses is only around three percentage points by Year 3 and in for the 2010 entry undergraduate routes were higher in terms of retention after three years than HEI-led. (Table 1).

EBITT did very well on retention and the early years of School Direct were above university courses rates, but below the former EBIT retention rates that they largely replaced. Teach First had the worst retention rates after three years. This isn’t surprising since its original raison d’etre was as a short-service type programme with the hope some would become career teachers: disappointingly less than half, even of those that entered during the years of recession, chose to do so. The exit of this group pushes up demand for replacements especially as Teach First expands.

The news about ethnic minority teachers isn’t surprising and reflect the study I did for NCTL a couple of years ago. While the last bullet point may be true, it could also reflect their location and job opportunities and the decisions schools make about the cost of teachers and the age profiles of their staff. Without more geographical information linked to TeachVac data on where the jobs are we can only speculate.

Finally, it would have been interesting to have had some contextual information such as the state of the economy and of the teacher labour market and whether the TSM numbers were over or under-recruited to for each cohort. Too many trainees against predicted demand can lead to wastage at the point of entry.

Changing the Guard

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One of the last vestiges of the coalition government is disappearing from the DfE. Sir Paul Marshall, the recently knighted Lib Dem donor and chairman of ARK, has announced his resignation from the DfE Board. Should you wish to apply for the £20,000 a year post – 24 days of work officially required, but probably more expected – you have until the 4th July. The advert is on the Cabinet office website at https://publicappointments.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/appointment/lead-non-executive-director-department-for-education/ I am sure you will need experience at a high level and need to be in sympathy with government proposals for education.

With a new Permanent Secretary, a new Chief Inspector and relatively new Head of OfQual, the Secretary of State will have a relatively new team around her. Of course, after Thursday and the resulting fallout, whatever the outcome of the referendum, there might also be a new ministerial team as well.

All these changes can mean the start of a new era for education in England, especially if they are accompanied by changes in personnel in the leadership of some of the associations representing staff working in the sector. Or, they could mean a period of uncertainty as the new team takes up the reins.

Nowhere may change be needed more than in the supply and training of teachers. The fig leaf of the NCTL, with its chairman without a Board; the recent unfavourable reports from the NAO and Public Accounts Committee about the training and recruitment of teachers; not mention a White Paper with lots of ideas, but short on detail, means this is an area that needs urgent attention.

The creation of the long-awaited National Teaching Service and a decision on what to do about a national recruitment site as well as a consideration of the future shape of the teacher preparation market all require urgent attention in Whitehall. It is interesting to note that in asking for bids from providers for the 2017 teacher trainee cohort the NCTL has required bidders, whether schools, higher education or private providers, to include evidence of local demand in support of their bids. TeachVac is offering a service to providers to help with the evidence they need. (Interested organisations should email data@teachvac.com).

An announcement on the next stage of the National Teaching Service must surely follow quickly after the ending of purdah if timescales for the service to be any use in 2017 are to be met. Of course, the cutting of funds for schools through increased NI and pension costs may reduce the need for teachers, as many any slowdown in the economy, should it arise for any reason, with the possible effect of making recruitment less of an issue than it has been over the past two years.

However, the fact that Ofsted are now apparently looking at recruitment issues in their inspections http://schoolsweek.co.uk/ofsted-judging-schools-negatively-for-teacher-shortages/ suggests action is being taken to consider what schools and MATs are doing about recruitment. As a result, schools being inspected will be in need of comparative data for their area and they should contact data@teachvac.com about what is on offer.

Needless to say, one defence must be: we could have recruited if the government had met its target in Design & Technology (or insert appropriate subject or phase), so it is not entirely our fault. But it will help to have the evidence.

 

Computing in schools

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Did you know that computing was part of the EBacc? I am sure you did. However, not all MPs appear to as clued up, as the evidence published last week as part of the House of Commons Science Select Committee report on the ‘Digital Skills Crisis’ revealed. http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201617/cmselect/cmsctech/270/270.pdf

Since the MP unaware that you could study computing as part of the EBacc is a member of the Scottish Nationalist Party, she can perhaps be forgiven for not knowing the intricacies of the education system in England.

Whether the chair of the Committee should have allowed the evidence from the Royal Society of Scotland to appear in the Report as if it was from The Royal Society may be a less forgivable oversight (paragraph 59). I also am slightly perplexed about the reference in the Report to the fact that, ‘The Government has set targets for recruiting teachers in Maths and Physics’ and the requirement from the Committee that ‘They should also make a similar pledge for Computer Science.’ To the best of my knowledge, Computer Science has been treated in the same way as other Ebacc subjects in the 2016 allocation of training places. But, perhaps the Committee knows something the rest of us don’t.

The Committee held an oral evidence session with some witnesses from the school sector. The report notes that, ‘Not only do just 35% of ICT teachers have a relevant qualification but the British Educational Suppliers Association (BESA) calculated that 22% of IT equipment in schools is ineffective.’ They also noted that ‘Ofsted has concluded that the impact of digital technology on education standards has been varied, reflecting different levels of investment, access to high quality broadband and teacher support.’ They also interviewed the Schools Minister, Mr Gibb.

However, they didn’t seem to notice that computer science and its predecessor IT has failed to meet the Teacher Supply Model number set in each of the last three years and seems set to do so again this year. Perhaps the Science Committee might like to go on and hold a joint inquiry with the Education Select Committee so that can consider the evidence about IT and computing in schools in more detail. They might like to ask how schools are coping with the digital divide? I am sure a lack of access to IT resources whether because of poverty or through being located in a rural area without fast broadband speeds must hold back social mobility.

I agree with the Committee that the digital economy is of great importance to the future prosperity of the country. After all, TeachVac, our free recruitment site, depends upon high quality programming skills for its success. Hopefully, we can increase the number and quality of those teaching the subject to ensure every child is both taught the subject effectively and motivated to see its wider place in future society.

Finally,a little grumble, the fact that the Committee held its last evidence session in the spring, but it has taken three months for the Report to appear is slightly depressing. I do hope it doesn’t mark a trend among Select Committees to sit on evidence for long periods before producing their reports.

Teacher Supply: a national issue

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The publication today of the Report into teacher training from the Public Accounts Committee that arose out of their consideration of the National Audit Office Report published in February finally brings to an end a period of mounting concern over teacher supply, with the recognition that there is an issue to be resolved. Regular readers of this blog will recall that in a seminal post on the 14th August 2013, I wrote that ‘It is time for a radical overhaul of teacher preparation to really meet the needs of a 21st century education system.’ The post had been headed ‘scaremongering’ after the government had said there wasn’t a problem.

Even today, in their response to the PAC, the DfE spokesperson has rightly alluded to the fact that the government has upped its game; with better marketing, more bursaries and improved levels of recruitment: all true, but if these measures still have not solved the basic problem of not hitting correctly determined training targets, then what are the consequences for pupils in our schools? Asking that question has always been at the forefront of my attempts, now successful, to ensure teacher supply matters didn’t slip below the radar. The issue is now regularly discussed, but has still to be resolved.

At the heart of the matter was the long-standing debate about quality training versus training where it was needed most to address teacher supply concerns. Ideally, the answer was to create sufficient high quality places where they were most needed, but that just didn’t seem to happen, as the NAO’s Report showed in its table of training places per 100,000 pupils in each government region. The East of England, an area with a fast growing population, had barley half the number of training places as there were in London, this despite both regions have significant demands for new teachers.

Readers will know that although Ofsted can conduct surveys, as it has recently, my view is that nationally we need regular on-going management information on the labour market in schools whether for classroom teachers, middle leadership or for senior leadership posts. That’s why TeachVac www.teachvac.com was created.

Over the next few weeks the TeachVac team will analyse the results of the 2016 recruitment round for September and compare it with the 2015 round. The outcome should be reported by early July at the latest. By the next recruitment round we hope to be able to look at the labour market more widely as TeachVac collects data on posts at all levels and in all types of school.

The DfE now has a large team working on the teacher supply issue, but it probably needs some more senior staff at the policy level to become more involved with the issue. I don’t know who has responsibility at the DfE Board level, but if it isn’t an explicit responsibility then perhaps it ought to be.

As the Chief Inspector said, those that suffer most when there is a teacher supply problem aren’t those that can help themselves, but those without the least social or actual capital to remedy the situation. These pupils can be found in almost every school. As a result, teacher supply is a national problem that needs a national solution.