Views on behaviour in schools worsened in latest survey

Posted on August 31, 2025 by John Howson

It is rare for the DfE to publish research on a Saturday. This week it did so, presumably to allow the Secretary of State to do the rounds of the Sunday morning political shows. National Behaviour Survey: findings from academic year 2023 to 2024 The focus from Labour with the media seems initially to have been on attendance rather than behaviour, but that has changed with the announcement of behaviour and attendance hubs.

The reason may well be the deterioration in views about behaviour in schools reported in the last survey data collected in May 2024 when compared with the March 2023 data. It is difficult to remember that the data from May 2024 was collected under the previous Conservative government. (Figures in the table are percentages.)

QUESTION	GROUP	Mar-23	Dec-23	Mar-24	May-24
MY SCHOOL CALM & ORDERLY	Leadership	84	93	85	81
	Teachers	57	71	60	53
SAFE PLACE FOR PUPILS	Teachers	95	99	96	96
	Leadership	82	93	88	85
PUPILS RESPECT EACH OTHER	Leadership	88	96	90	88
PUPILS ENJOY SCHOOL	ALL PUPILS	75	81	76	73
FEEL SAFE	ALL PUPILS	57	65	61	57
BELONG	ALL PUPILS	43	45	53	49
PUPIL BEHAVIOUR VG or G	Leadership	82	90	81	72
	Teachers	55	69	55	46
	Pupils	43	43	35	40

In many key questions, such as whether the school is orderly and calm, and whether pupil behaviour is good or very good, the positive percentages have seen significant declines. It is not surpassing that leaders see pupils as better behaved than either their teachers or their pupils. It would be interesting to see how long those school leaders concerned about pupil behaviour had been in post. I doubt many long serving leaders would admit to anything other than schools where pupil behaviour is good.

It would also be interesting to know whether the 12% of pupils that said’ things were thrown in ‘mist lesson’, (albeit not aggressively) were being taught in schools were behaviour was perceived as not ‘good’ or ‘very good’.

Why might views on behaviour have dropped in the last year of the Conservative government? Might the issues with teacher shortages have finally begun to have an effect? Was any effect from teacher shortages compounded by deteriorating staffing levels and greater pupil numbers in secondary schools? Again, it would have been interesting to see some breakdown of the data by school types; free school meal percentages and number of pupils with EHCP. If the behaviour hubs are to have any effects, these are the types of questions that need to be asked.

A question might also be asked about the wisdom of axing Teaching Schools. The current government could do with a comprehensive and cost-effective professional development policy rather than leaving it to individual schools and those MATs that see it as a priority.

Earlier this month I wrote a post about discipline in schools Is discipline worse in schools? | John Howson The evidence for that post came from exclusions. As a result, I wasn’t unduly worried. This new data raises more cause for concern.

12-week Conversion course

Posted on June 16, 2023 by John Howson

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

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

Recruit a returner – possible, but unpredictable.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Worst Secondary PTRs for a decade

Posted on June 8, 2023 by John Howson

Yesterday the DfE published the results of the School Workforce Survey, undertaken in November 2022. School workforce in England, Reporting year 2022 – Explore education statistics – GOV.UK (explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk)

The good news is that there are more teachers; the bad news is that in both the primary and secondary sectors the Pupil Teacher Ratio has worsened. Falling pupil numbers had meant that the PTR in the primary sector had been improving over the past few years from a low of 20.9 in 2018/19 to 20.9 in the 2021 census. However, in 2022 it worsened, to 20.7. Not a big change, but a change in direction nevertheless.

In the secondary sector, the PTR has been worsening for some years now. The PTR peaked at 14.8 pupils per teacher in 2013/14 and has now worsened to 16.8 at the 2022 census; a whole two pupils per teacher worse in a decade, with all the implications for teacher workload that implies. No doubt the worsening PTR and its association with class sizes will be one reason why teaching is less popular as a career.

However, for those that do enter teaching, although fewer are remaining, with the number remaining after one year of service having fallen from its high of 8.3% in 2019, just before the pandemic to 87.2% in 2021, this is still above the 84.9% of 2016. Of even more concern must be the loss of teachers with 4-7 years of service that should be starting to fill key middle leadership positions. That just 64% remain from the 2015 cohort is disturbing. Equally disturbing is the loss of teachers from earlier cohorts. This is an area where research is needed to understand the causes. Is the global nature of teaching attracting mid-career teachers to move overseas.

The other straw in the wind from the census that cannot be ignored is the sharp increase in vacancies recorded from 1,564 in 2021 to 2,334 in 2022. On the DfE’s own measure, this means that the vacancy rate for classroom teachers has increased from 0.2% in 2020/21 – no doubt influenced by the covid pandemic to 0.5% in November 2022. By comparison in the teacher shortages at the turn of the century, the vacancy rate in January 2001 (data was collected in January and not November at that time) reached 1.2%, so even allowing for the change in reporting date, the position may not be as bad yet as it was then. But there is little evidence to suggest that it will be better in November 2023, and much to suggest it might well be higher than 0.5%.

The rate of temporary filled posts has also increased sharply from 0.5% to 0.8%, although it remains below the 0.9% recorded as recently as 2016/17.

So, although overall teacher numbers have increased from 465.527 in 2022 to 468,371 in 2022: a new record high in terms of teacher FTEs in recent times, the increase has not been enough to offset increased pupil numbers in the secondary sector and other changes in demand.

Happy New Year: we can but hope

Posted on January 2, 2023 by John Howson

For most of the past 30 years, I have spent the week between Christmas and New Year drafting annual reports on aspects of the labour market for teachers during the previous 12 months for TeachVac’s and its predecessors, and also making a prognosis of what might happen in the labour market during the year to come. The finished reports; one on classroom teachers and promoted posts, and the other on leadership scale vacancies should, this year, be completed by the middle of the month.

Headlines include the steep increase in recorded vacancies across all grades during 2022; and the fact that schools in an around London recorded more vacancies than schools elsewhere in England. The problems, although not confined to the secondary sector are worse in that sector than in the primary school sector, where pupil numbers are now falling across much of England.

Of more interest that what happened in 2022 for most readers of this blog is, no doubt, my predictions for 2023. Based upon the trainee numbers in the DfE’s ITT census as a starting point, and abstracting those trainees already in the classroom and less likely to be job hunting, at least for a teaching post, for September 2023 from the totals, the numbers must be of concern.

After factoring in non-completions; those seeking posts in Sixth Form Colleges or elsewhere in publicly funded education outside of schools; and allowing for the demand form the private school sector, especially in the south of England, where a large number of such schools are concentrated; the final numbers may be the worst this century.

If the London region is taken as an example, using 2022 vacancies as the basis for the calculations, and assuming 40% of classroom teacher vacancies are taken by new entrants to the profession, with the remainder filled by those returning to teaching or switching schools, then some subjects do not have enough trainees to meet the possible demand from London’s schools

	Open Market	London Vacancies in 2022	40% Vacancies from Trainees	Remaining Trainees	% Open Market Remaining
Business Studies	164	837	335	-171	-104%
Religious Education	249	715	286	-37	-15%
Computing	304	818	327	-23	-8%
Music	228	511	204	24	10%
Design & Technology	372	829	332	40	11%
Physics	366	744	298	68	19%
Geography	523	914	366	157	30%
Modern Languages	600	990	396	204	34%
Biology	495	744	298	197	40%
English	1214	1629	652	562	46%
Chemistry	644	744	298	346	54%
Mathematics	1467	1518	607	860	59%
Art & Design	440	435	174	266	60%
History	950	402	161	789	83%
Physical Education	1295	226	90	1205	93%

Source TeachVac http://www.teachvac.co.uk

Business Studies, religious education and computing might be the most worrying subjects for London schools seeking to fill vacancies. Of course, a school advertising in January will always fare better than one looking for an unexpected appointment for January 2024 late in the autumn, but schools should not need to be worrying about filling vacancies advertised as early as February this year.

TeachVac is increasing its registers of teachers looking to be matched to jobs, and secondary schools wanting their vacancies matched can sign up for £10 a week (£500 per year plus VAT) or miss out on this resource that aims to match 15,000 teachers this year. Sign up at www.teachvac.co.uk

New NfER dashboard

Posted on December 7, 2022 by John Howson

It is always interesting when large organisations validate comments made on this blog. The new NfER dashboard of historic data about teacher shortages certainly support the view of this blog that schools with high Free School Meals percentages may have more teacher turnover in recent years. Explore by school type – NFER

Interestingly, they also support the higher teacher turnover in London, noted by this blog from time to time. This dashboard is a useful addition to the data about teacher supply, but it does fall into the category of statistical information and not up to the minute management information. TeachVac, the job board for teacher vacancies that I help found has concentrated on the position here and now and linked it to data such as the ITT census and applications for training.

In the next few weeks, I will be putting together the reports on vacancy trends during 2022 for classroom teachers and school leaders after what has been a record-breaking year for vacancies. These annual reports should be available early in January 2023.

I hope as NfER update their dashboard that they will take into account the effects of the covid pandemic on the labour market for teachers.

If I have a quibble, the recent NfER document that cited the North East as an area of teacher shortage doesn’t seem to be borne out by the maps at district level. Only a handful of North East authorities recorded over 10% turnover of secondary teachers where as most inner London authorities breached that level. That outcome is what I would have expected from the TeachVac data on vacancies.

The only authorities where primary sector turnover exceeded 10% in 2020 were in Yorkshire and the Humber region, and not in the North East. Still, perhaps the survey returns for the earlier study could not be compared with this dashboard.

The subjects with the lowest leaving rates according to the dashboard as physical education and history: no surprises there. However, among early career teachers, physics was the subject with the third lowest departure rate after those two subjects. Perhaps when numbers entering ITT are low, those that do enter are the most committed to teaching as a career?

The presence of modern languages teachers and IT teachers at the top of the table is also probably not much of a surprise given their opportunities to use their skills elsewhere.

Those interested in the topic can thank NfER for producing data that the DfE really should provide as part of open government. Hopefully, this week the DfE will provide the data about applications to ITT in November. Last year, the data appeared on the 8^th December.

Bring Back Circular 1 each year?

Posted on August 25, 2022 by John Howson

Recently, I wrote a post about a Schoolsweek’s story about the DfE and the need to manage ‘sufficiency’ ITT review: DfE forms ‘sufficiency’ group amid places fears (schoolsweek.co.uk) by creating a new group than most people either didn’t seem to be aware of or didn’t know who comprised the membership. ITT places need a review: but not behind closed doors | John Howson (wordpress.com)

Anyway, I was thinking about what the Group might consider if its aim is to ensure that as many schools as possible are able to recruit the most appropriately qualified teachers to fill their vacancies.

Of course, apart from cutting the numbers of trainees to keep them in line with the predictions from the Teacher Supply Model, the Group could decide to do nothing, and just let the current market-based system continue with vacancies advertised, and teachers applying and the private sector making £40,000,000 or more per year from recruitment. (n.b. I am Chair at TeachVac, the job board).

At the other end of the intervention spectrum, the DfE could follow the actions of their predecessors in the Ministry of Education and return to publishing circular 1. This told local authorities each year how many new entrants from training they could employ. If they wanted more teachers, then there were either returners or teachers moving schools or unqualified staff that could be employed. This draconian approach no doubt worked well in the total planning economy of the immediate post-World War Two years, but probably wouldn’t work now, especially with the disparate system of school governance and the lack of a coherent middle tier in schooling that currently exists across England.

However, a variation on that theme would be to create all teachers as government employees and assign them to schools, as happens in some other countries. My guess is that model won’t work with a government pledged to reduce the civil service by some 90,000 employees. Creating teachers as civil servants might seem to send out the wrong message about the power of the state.

So how else might the government manage the distribution of the ‘sufficient’ new teachers they are aiming to train to help reduce the inequalities currently in the system? Two possible solutions are, either tighten up on QTS by first making it a requirement for academies to ‘normally’ only hire teachers with QTS, and then segment QTS so it is aligned with the preparation course a person undertakes. This would mean those on primary sector courses would not have QTS to teach in the secondary sector, and visa versa. At present, any teacher with QTS can teach anything to any child at any level. In the secondary sector, QTS might become subject specific.

To deal with ‘shortages’ emergency certification could be provided for a limited period, with CPD to allow for full certification if the teachers was going to be employed teaching in that area permanently. This would also show where shortages were affecting schools and make effective use of the CPD budget.

The other alternative is to expand the Opportunity Area scheme by providing certain schools with additional cash to compete in the market to hire teachers in shortage subjects. However, without caping the spending of other schools, this approach just risks developing a race to see who can pay the most for their teachers. Good news for teachers, especially in shortage subjects, but possibly not the best use of resources.

With a significant number of career changers thinking of teaching as a career, a training salary might be a useful tool ensure these would-be teachers can make the switch into teaching. At the same time, ensuring a job for every successful trainee in the September after their course ends is worth considering. At present, those teachers needed to fill January appointment can find themselves without a job during the autumn term; a waste of talent and a loss of skills. Taking such teachers on as supernumeraries, paid from central funds, on the understanding that they are applying for posts would be worth considering.

Of course, none of these initiatives may be necessary if the recession throws up lots more returners to teaching that are the right mix of skills and in the right locations.

To make decisions about any such scheme to consider needs high quality up to the minute knowledge of the labour market for teachers and school leaders, as well as the ability to understand the data and its implications. Fortunately, in NfER and our higher education sector, the government has the skills available to it to help answer these questions.

But it could abandon levelling up and just leave it to the market for teachers that is now not local, nor national, but global, in its reach for the high-quality teachers produced through the current teacher preparation system in England.

London schools still teacher hunting

Posted on August 1, 2022 by John Howson

49% of the vacancies for secondary school teachers advertised during July 2022 were placed by schools in London and the South East. The percentage increases to 60% if the East of England region is added-in.

The percentage across these three regions increases to 60% of languages vacancies; 66% of geography teacher vacancies and 71%, or not far short of three quarters, of music teacher vacances.

This means that while most schools in the north of England are probably enjoying a relatively less stressful summer period in terms of ensuring their school is full staffed for September, some schools in London and the Home Counties are still working hard at making sure that there will be a teacher for every class of pupils, come the start of term.

TeachVac has today published a detailed report on the extraordinary recruitment round between January and July 2022. For a free copy go to Labour Market Report – January to July 2022 (teachvac.co.uk) Specific tailored reports are available on request for a small fee. These can be useful to Teaching School Hubs; ITT providers and any other group interested in the operation of the teacher labour market.

TeachVac is also currently offering schools a special deal on its teacher to job matching service of £250 for an annual subscription that unlocks priority matching for schools with its ever-growing database of teachers that are job hunting. The regular service with no upfront payment is also still available, and will cost a school no more than £1,000 for an annual subscription.

The £250 offer during August can save schools as much as £750 per year.

All the evidence is that classroom teacher vacancies for January 2023 are going to be very challenging to fill in many secondary school subjects, according to TeachVac’s analysis of labour market trends.

Middle leadership posts in some subject where there has been several years of reduced training numbers will also pose problems for some schools.

Regular readers ill know that I am chair of TeachVac and founded it as a low cost matching service in 2014.

Are you overpaying to advertise your teaching posts?

Posted on November 26, 2021 by John Howson

New service for schools from TeachVac

Does your school pay an annual subscription to post your teaching vacancies, but then have to pay extra for leadership posts?

Does your supplier tell you how many matches there were for each vacancy you advertised?

Do you know the size of the market in your area, as well as the likely annual demand for teachers?

TeachVac can answer your questions

After seven years of successful matching and designing a system specifically for schools in England, TeachVac is now asking schools to pre-register for free for its new enhanced service and in return receive a report on the labour market for teachers. Pre-registration now costs nothing, but allows for faster delivery of matches to pre-registered schools. When live in the New year, here’s how the new system will work.

Register your school now for just £100 plus VAT and receive 200 free matches. That means the first 200 matches made with your vacancies will be free on all leadership, promoted posts and classroom teacher vacancies advertised in 2022.

Matches are then £1 each up to a maximum of £1,000 per school each year. All further matches are free for the rest of that year.

You fee will make our teacher pool even larger than at present. We aim for the largest pool of teachers that are job hunting to match with your vacancies at the lowest price to schools. TeachVac can do this with its own sophisticated technology written with schools in mind.

TeachVac can save you money

No matches: no cost. No subscription to pay after the registration fee of £100 plus VAT and that is covered by your first 200 matches.

Additionally, we tell you information about the likely pool of teachers and how fast it is being depleted as the recruitment round unfolds between January and September.

TeachVac has been matching teachers to jobs for seven years and its low-cost British designed technology has made more than 1.5 million matches in 2021 for schools across the country.

And receive our latest report on the Labour Market for teachers. Schools that don’t register will no longer be matched with our increasing pool of candidates. TeachVac listed 60,000+ vacancies in 2021 and made more than 1.5 million matches. https://teachvac.co.uk/school_doc.php

Teacher Shortages in 2022?

Posted on April 29, 2021 by John Howson

The present satisfactory state of recruitment into teacher training looks likely to be short-lived if the messages from this month’s UCAS data are interpreted in a particular way. After almost 30 years of looking at either weekly or monthly data on applications and acceptances, one can start to discern trends and patterns. Covid threw a spanner in the works of what was an emerging teacher supply crisis. Has that spanner now been retrieved?

One the one hand, applicant numbers are still up on last year. The increase is just over 5,000 for those with a domicile in England, from 26,280 in April 2020 to 31,460 this April. Interestingly, there has been virtually no increase in applicants from the North East, but a large increase in applicants domiciled in the London region. This should be good news, as it is in London that there is a strong demand for teachers.

More worrying is the relative lack of interest from new graduates in teaching as a career. There are only around 700 more new young graduates 21 or under this year compared with the same time in 2020, whereas there are 1,300 more in the 25-29 age group. Career changers, perhaps furloughed or made redundant by the pandemic, seem more interested in teaching than young new graduates. Indeed, there are only 60 more male applicants in the youngest new graduate age group than this time last year. A trickle rather than a flood.

The most worrying number is the drop in applications for design and technology, from 970 in April last year to 880 this April. In April 2019 it was 950, so the decline must be of concern. Applications to train as a languages teachers are also weak when compared with previous years. However, the increase in applications to train as a mathematics teachers from 5,390 last April to 7,450 this year is good news, as ARK noted in their recent ITT bulletin.

The bizarre over-recruitment of both history and PE teachers continues, with 1,500 offers in PE and 1,230 in history. This compares with 380 offers in physics, 230 in design and technology and 330 in computing.

School Direct Salaried as a route continues to decline, whereas School Direct non-salaried continues to grow, if not to thrive. Higher Education has done well in attracting applications for primary courses, up from less than 14,000 to over 18,000 this year. The increase is slightly less for secondary phase courses. Apprenticeships have taken up some of the slack from the School Direct Salaried route, but offers in the secondary sector remain derisory at this point in the cycle.

So, there will be problems in 2022 recruiting design and technology teachers, physics teachers and probably business studies teachers as well, but a glut of history and PE teachers in most parts of England. This blog will look at the likely outcomes in other subjects once the trends of the next couple of months become apparent. We don’t expect a big rush into teaching unless new graduates suddenly discover there are no jobs elsewhere and turn to teaching once their courses have finished and they finally have a degree.

No Tsunami of Applications

Posted on November 26, 2020 by John Howson

Earlier today UCAS released the first data on the 2021 recruitment round for postgraduate teacher preparation courses. The data are for applications up to the 16^th November. Last year the data were for Monday 18^th November 2019. In addition, there are applications through the DfE’s new service for which no data are yet available.

Now, it is always dangerous to read too much into the first month’s figures, but thirty years of looking at the numbers does allow me to make some observations.

Firstly, the increase in applicants domiciled in England, from 6,290 in 2019 to 7,420 in 2020, does not include large increases in applicants from the younger age groups, and is skewed towards applicants domiciled in the London Areas.

Change in applicant numbers by age of applicant

Age 2020 round 2021 round change

21 and

Under 1510 1550 40

22 970 1040 70

23 630 730 100

24 420 570 150

25-29 1200 1490 290

30-39 940 1160 220

40+ 620 890 270

All 6290 7420 1130

Source UCAS Reports A 2019 and 2020 November data

For example, in the North East, applicants in November 2019 totalled 380. This November, the number is 390. In London the total was 890 in 2019, and is 1,300 this November. Similarly, in the South East Region, the increase is from 910 to 1,150. So, over half of the increase in applicants is accounted for by just two regions in England.

Although early days, should we be concerned that the number of male applicants aged 21 or under, final year undergraduates, has dropped from 360 last November to 300 this year? One to watch as the number of men over 40 applying has increased from 160 to 250. Overall, there are just fewer than 200 more male applicants this year compared to last year at this point in time.

More applicants means more applications, and the total increased from 17,840 in November 2019 to 21,710 this November. Again, as expected, London has done well, with an increase from 2,740 applications by last November to 4,120 this November. In the North East applications only rose from 1,090 to 1,110.

Both primary and secondary sectors have benefitted from the increase in applicants. Applications for primary sector courses are up from 7,980 to 9,890, and for secondary courses, from 9,860 to 11,790.

All types of provider have seen increases, but one of the smallest increases is in secondary SCITT applications, up from 1,320 to 1,360.

Almost all subjects have seen an increase in applications – data on applicants by subject isn’t published in the main reports.

Arts and humanities subjects has seen some of the largest increases in applications. Even Physics has 240 applications this year, compared with 180 at this point in 2019. Art has seen applications double from 240 to 540, and even Design and Technology has 190 applications this year compared with 140 in November 2019. But, this might mean an increase an applicants from 50 last year to no more than 70 this year. Still, an increase is to be welcomed.

How long will this increase in interest in teaching last? There has been an article in SchoolsWeek recently suggesting it might be short-lived. After the start of the financial crisis it took just three years before teaching was starting to struggle to attract applicants to the profession. This time, with the pay freeze, who knows? More thought when the next set of data are published.

John Howson

Education and the numbers that affect what happens

Tag Archives: teacher shortages