More on the ITT census

Posted on December 1, 2022 by John Howson

It is a fair comment to say that comparing this year’s data on trainees with last year doesn’t take into account the covid pandemic effect. Because it could well be so, I have looked back at trainee numbers reported in autumn 2019, before we had ever heard of the term covid, and compared those trainee numbers with the current ITT census

	2019/20	2022/23	22/23 compared with 19/20
Subject	Postgraduate total new entrants to ITT	Postgraduate total new entrants to ITT
Biology	1,937	664	-1273
English	2,907	1,762	-1145
Geography	1,317	656	-661
Modern Foreign Languages	1,387	726	-661
History	1,460	1,134	-326
Mathematics	2,159	1,844	-315
Religious Education	494	341	-153
Computing	472	348	-124
Physics	527	444	-83
Classics	71	58	-13
Chemistry	770	758	-12
Music	312	301	-11
Design & Technology	433	450	17
Drama	294	329	35
Business Studies	185	232	47
Art & Design	413	478	65
Physical Education	1,281	1,405	124
Other	282	426	144
STEM Subjects	5,865	4,058	-1807
EBacc Subjects	13,007	8,394	-4613
Non-EBacc Secondary Subjects	3,694	3,962	268
Primary	12,216	10,868	-1348
Secondary	16,701	12,356	-4345
Total	28,917	23,224	-5693

Source DfE ITT census

The good news is that six subjects recruited more trainees this year than in 2019/2020, providing a total of 432 additional trainees in secondary subjects to offset against the more than 4,500 fewer trainees in other key subjects. Now, some of the reductions may be due to changes in targets in popular subjects, but with over recruitment still possible it is difficult to see why providers would take that approach.

The chaos that is science recruitment continues, with biology providing nearly 1,300 fewer teachers this year. Do we need a ‘general science’ category, and for all science trainees to receive similar bursaries if that is still the favoured route to attract new teachers?

The decline in trainees in English, so that there are this year fewer trainees this year than in mathematics and more than 1,000 fewer than in 2019/20, must be of concern as must be the collapse in Modern Foreign Languages trainees, especially if we are to remain a trading nation, not only with the EU, but across the world. Whatever happened to Mr Gove’s 5,000 Mandarin teachers?

Is it good news that the decline in design and technology and business studies has stopped or should we still be worried that the decline has been arrested at such low levels?

The decline in primary trainee numbers must partly reflect the decline in the birth rate and the expected continued decline in the primary school population. Nevertheless, this sort of overall number may cause some local staffing issues for the sector unless the trainee numbers are well spread across England to meet the needs of all primary schools.

There may be a glimmer of good news in the fact that non-Ebacc subjects fared better than Ebacc subjects over the period. Might this be providing a portent of a change in the overall labour market that with the coming recession might meant that this years’ numbers really were the bottom of the cycle? The first set of applications data should provide clues for the 2024 recruitment round when the DfE issues them; hopefully next week.

ITT disaster

Posted on December 1, 2022 by John Howson

Congratulations to the DfE. The ITT Census of trainees published this morning Initial teacher training: trainee number census 2022 to 2023 – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) shows a lower percentages of trainees this year compared with last year in every secondary subject except design and technology. In that subject there was an increase from 23% of target to 25% this year.

These trainee numbers are grim news for secondary schools that will be looking to recruit teachers for September 2023, and January 2024. Retention of existing staff must be high on the agenda for school leaders.

Even if all trainees were to complete their courses, and want to work in state schools, there would only be 444 physics teachers entering the market. Allow for in-course wastage and a proportion working either in private schools or Sixth Form Colleges and there may only be around 300 or so looking to work as physics teachers next September in State Schools.

Even in history and physical education, where over-recruitment to target continued again this year, actual trainee numbers appear to be down on last year, with a combined loss of around 600 potential teachers.

Overall, just 59% of secondary target places have been filled this year, even after taking the over-recruitment into account. Physics, as predicted by Jack Worth at NfER and suggested by this both reached only 17% of target.

Modern Foreign Languages slumped from 71% 0f target last year to just 34% of target this year. Even biology, usual a banker for good recruitment in the sciences only managed 85% of total this year.

What should the DfE do now? The bursary scheme isn’t working, and is inefficient and difficult to market. Perhaps it is time to revert to offering a salary during training to all trainees allowing them to build-up pension credits and making career switching more attractive. Some decisions must be taken, otherwise the levelling up agenda is dead in the water as far as schools are concerned.

More later as the whole dataset is reviewed.

New research on teacher supply

Posted on November 22, 2022 by John Howson

The NfER has today published a detailed report on teacher supply and its implications for learning. Teacher supply and shortages: the implications of teacher supply challenges for schools and pupils – NFER Many of the conclusions in their report will not come as any surprise to regular readers of this blog. After all, there have been many posts discussing the issue – even as recently as the post on whether PE is now a shortage subject – during the lifetime of this blog.

Whilst I find most of the conclusions unsurprising, there are some that are interesting. Figure 15 suggests that a higher percentage of responses from schools in the North East than in London fell in the ‘most difficult’ category, although to be fair, schools in the North East also topped the percentage in terms of response of ‘least difficult’. It may be that the starting salary in London is still high enough to attract teachers not yet interested in buying into the housing market and content to share rented properties.

I am surprised at the reported level of recruitment challenge faced by schools in the primary sector, where supply ought to be more than adequate across most of England.

The overall conclusion that schools are only able to provide some teaching by the use of non-specialist teaching must be of concern. The alternative is to stop teaching certain subjects either entirely or to limit the number of groups offered a subject. However, for key subjects, such as mathematics and English not teaching the subject is not possible in most schools.

The authors of the report also concluded that ‘challenges with teacher recruitment may also be having a disproportionate impact on schools with low Ofsted ratings, and school leaders’ efforts to improve outcomes. There is likely to be a complex relationship between a school’s Ofsted rating and recruitment challenges, rather than a simple effect of an Ofsted rating downgrade making it more challenging to recruit.’

However, they further comment that ‘… our survey data suggests there seems to be an association between a low Ofsted rating and increased recruitment challenges. These recruitment challenges may exacerbate the challenges of improving the quality of education in the school, whether through leaders doing more teaching reducing leadership capacity, lower-quality teachers being employed, or other related factors.’ Whether recruitment challenges have resulted in the downgrading of outstanding schools also reported today is an interesting question that merits further study.

In a fortnight’s time the DfE should publish the 2022 ITT Census and that will provide schools with a picture of the recruitment round for September 2023 and January 2024. It seems likely that once again recruitment targets will be missed, thus providing schools with more of a dilemma over staffing.

Perhaps, NfER might next year look in more depth at the actions that the DfE might take to ensure a fair distribution of teachers between schools in what is in some subjects now becoming a scare resource. Should every school have access to at least one specialist in every curriculum area?

The NfER might also investigate the extent to which post-entry subject enhancing CPD makes any difference to the expertise of the teaching force.

Are schools offering permanent posts?

Posted on November 15, 2022 by John Howson

What type of tenure is on offer in teaching vacancies posted during the autumn term? Research by TeachVac www.teachvac.co.uk reveals big differences between the primary and secondary sectors in the type of tenure on offer this autumn.

TeachVac classifies vacancies into one of three groups: Permanent positions; temporary positions or posts arising from maternity leave.

The data is collected from vacancy adverts posted by schools on their web sites.

From the start of September 2022 up to 14^th November: an arbitrary date with no other reason for selection than that I am writing this blog on the 15^th November, the data collected was as follows.

	Classroom Teacher posts
Primary	Maternity	Permanent	Temporary	Total
Sep-22	491	611	326	1428
Oct-22	432	838	427	1697
Nov-22	169	460	376	1005
	1092	1909	1129	4130
Secondary				Total
Sep-22	554	2678	184	3416
Oct-22	553	3035	267	3855
Nov-22	276	1648	178	2102
	1383	7361	629	9373
Grand Total	2475	9270	1758	13503

Source TeachVac

Two facts stand out. The secondary sector advertised more vacancies than the primary sector, and there was a difference in tenure of advertised vacancies between the two sectors. This is obvious if the actual numbers are converted into percentages

	Classroom Teacher posts
Primary	Maternity	Permanent	Temporary
Sep-22	34%	43%	23%	100%
Oct-22	25%	49%	25%	100%
Nov-22	17%	46%	37%	100%
	26%	46%	27%	100%
Secondary
Sep-22	16%	78%	5%	100%
Oct-22	14%	79%	7%	100%
Nov-22	13%	78%	8%	100%
	15%	79%	7%	100%
Grand Total	18%	69%	13%	100%

Source TeachVac

Less than half of the posts advertised in the primary sector have been permanent positions, compared with 79% of vacancies in the secondary sector. Maternity leave vacancies are also much higher in the primary sector than in the secondary sector, accounting for a quarter of all vacancies in the primary sector and a third of the September vacancies.

Despite the downturn in the birth-rate nationally, primary school teachers are still it seems taking time out to raise a family. However, the downturn in pupil numbers across the primary sector must be affecting school budgets, because pupil numbers are an important element of school-funding these days. With any teacher leaving at Christmas for maternity leave not likely to return until January 2024, many schools may not be certain of their school rolls, and hence funding, beyond the summer of 2023.

With the Autumn Statement on Thursday, and the data from the recent NAHT Survey of schools, it seems likely that more schools will resort to temporary appointments in the future as they consider their budgets going forward.

Past experience from the time of the Geddes Axe of a hundred years ago and the recession of the late 1970s and early 1980s suggests that class sizes will increase and teacher numbers decline, if funding is again put under pressure, although that outcome needs to be balanced by the number of teachers quitting the state-school sector.

In the past, when there were fewer graduate posts across the economy, a recession meant unemployed teachers. This time the outcome may be different between the primary and secondary sectors, with more unemployed primary school teachers than amongst their secondary sector colleagues unless there is a change in funding arrangements.

Is PE now a shortage subject?

Posted on November 12, 2022 by John Howson

What a silly question. Everyone knows that there is an over-supply of trained PE teachers entering the labour market for teachers each year. This blog has said so often enough in the past. In previous years, the combination of over-recruitment onto training courses and a consistent level of demand has always meant that by the end of a calendar year there were always more PE teachers looking for jobs than posts available.

In 2022, the situation is slightly different. Yes, recruitment in Autumn 2021 onto ITT courses remained healthy, but the surge in vacancies for teachers recorded across the board during 2022 has swept PE along with the tide.

Using the index TeachVac developed in 2015, and has used since, to measure demand against the known level of supply, 2022 has seen the index for PE teachers turn negative for the first time ever this autumn. (The dataset is at the foot of this post). The current index produced a figure of -135 on Friday 11^th November 2022. This compares with a figure of -2273 for design and technology teachers, so it is still of a different order of magnitude but is in negative territory for the first time since I started recording the index.

At this level, the index points to regional shortages rather than a universal issue recruiting PE teacher across the whole of England. There are parts of the country where any late vacancy for a PE teacher for January 2023 can be filled easily. But there are other areas, notably those some distance from providers of training where schools would likely need to rely upon returners or switching their timetable around to cover unexpected vacancies.

Schools with contracts with recruitment agencies might like to check, as I assume they do on a regular basis anyway, how many PE teachers the agency has on its books. Schools should never wait to ask when they need a vacancy filled but should be aware of which agency can supply the best range of teachers to fill unanticipated vacancies. This is, perhaps, an area of recruitment where there is room for some more sophistication on the part of schools and MATs.

So, why the mini recruitment crisis in PE? Perhaps the rising school population plays a part, as does possible departures form the profession as the range of other possible jobs, from personal trainer, to working in leisure centres or teaching overseas has increased. Schools might also have seen PE teachers are useful support for their science and other departments where recruitment has been a challenge for some time now. The use of PE teachers across other curriculum subjects provides a reservoir of talent but can pose an issue for a school with a in-year vacancy if external recruitment does prove challenging.

If this week’s NAHT survey is anything to go by, this will be a short-lived problem as schools see funding decline and staffing number reduced. We shall see what Wednesday’s Autumn Statement brings for schools: good news may be in short supply.

Date	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021	2022
07/01/2022	1149	1120	955	981	1164	1219	1498	1455
14/01/2022	1144	1108	943	970	1148	1199	1488	1427
21/01/2022	1144	1100	930	958	1130	1174	1474	1395
28/01/2022	1141	1093	916	945	1107	1148	1458	1360
04/02/2022	1124	1082	904	931	1082	1121	1440	1339
11/02/2022	1118	1071	891	914	1062	1090	1420	1298
18/02/2022	1117	1066	881	902	1040	1049	1407	1267
25/02/2022	1117	1053	867	892	1026	1029	1390	1241
04/03/2022	1105	1034	850	881	1009	1004	1367	1194
11/03/2022	1098	1017	830	851	984	967	1341	1152
18/03/2022	1088	999	810	842	964	917	1322	1102
25/03/2022	1079	978	797	825	927	891	1297	1056
01/04/2022	1071	968	781	802	897	874	1265	1002
08/04/2022	1071	959	768	785	859	850	1251	952
15/04/2022	1057	939	757	772	838	834	1237	926
22/04/2022	1039	914	744	738	822	825	1208	899
29/04/2022	1021	891	713	690	797	800	1161	829
06/05/2022	1004	876	686	651	740	767	1119	737
13/05/2022	993	857	652	608	683	738	1073	633
20/05/2022	986	834	627	561	635	705	1030	553
27/05/2022	979	817	605	528	590	684	998	480
03/06/2022	962	808	590	521	569	677	978	447
10/06/2022	945	790	568	484	532	659	952	374
17/06/2022	938	772	546	469	501	646	930	315
24/06/2022	930	765	537	455	481	637	914	271
01/07/2022	922	761	530	447	466	628	901	232
08/07/2022	917	756	524	435	454	621	893	208
15/07/2022	915	748	519	425	443	616	886	195
22/07/2022	915	745	517	420	440	612	884	183
29/07/2022	915	745	513	418	438	610	882	177
05/08/2022	915	743	510	416	437	609	879	175
12/08/2022	915	741	506	416	436	609	877	171
19/08/2022	915	741	506	415	435	606	875	166
26/08/2022	915	741	503	412	433	605	871	161
02/09/2022	915	738	501	411	432	604	868	152
09/09/2022	913	736	497	406	425	601	857	132
16/09/2022	903	731	489	400	409	592	842	107
23/09/2022	897	727	482	385	395	584	824	79
30/09/2022	890	716	470	374	372	570	805	42
07/10/2022	882	710	461	355	347	557	785	6
14/10/2022	873	704	452	350	325	545	763	-30
21/10/2022	864	699	441	337	304	530	744	-62
28/10/2022	862	692	435	334	291	517	736	-76
04/11/2022	858	683	430	326	284	512	715	-105
11/11/2022	852	674	421	314	267	501	690	-135
18/11/2022	847	662	409	295	252	486	668
25/11/2022	842	652	402	292	239	477	648
02/12/2022	840	647	395	280	222	462	633
09/12/2022	833	642	388	273	207	452	618
16/12/2022	828	632	384	262	196	447	599
23/12/2022	825	626	378	253	183	436
30/12/2022

Middle Leaders: harder to find? Part 2 – geography

Posted on November 6, 2022 by John Howson

In the previous post I considered some of the evidence about the vacancies for promoted posts in geography and whether there were issues that were becoming more challenging. The evidence seems to point to the fact that post-pandemic, and especially in 2022, recruitment has become more of a challenge.

The question discussed in this post s whether the challenge affects schools across England as a whole or is confined to certain regions. Evidence from previous studies of the market as a whole have indicated that schools in an around London fact more significant recruitment challenges that schools located further away from the capital and its large graduate labour market.

The evidence for promoted posts in geography where there the data shows a strong presumption of a re-advertisement is shown in the table.

	Schools with re-advertisements
Regions	Number	All Schools	% with re-adverts
London	49	968	5.1%
South East	29	983	3.0%
East England	20	709	2.8%
West Midlands	9	608	1.5%
Yorkshire & The Humber	6	440	1.4%
East Midlands	5	502	1.0%
North West	4	644	0.6%
North East	1	264	0.4%
South West	2	537	0.4%
Total	125	5655	2.2%

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

The evidence from the table would seem to confirm the presumption that schools in London and the Home counties do indeed find recruiting teachers of geography for positions related to promoted posts with TLRs or other allowances related to the job title than schools elsewhere in England. This holds true even after taking into account the number of secondary schools in the region covered by TeachVac at the present time. However, overall re-advertisement rates are not high even in London, although they may well be on the increase.

The further away from London a school is located, the less likely it has been to need to re-advertise a post in geography with a TLR or other allowance attached. The difference between schools in London and those in either the North East or South West is stark.

The previous posts discussed the issue of the growth of re-advertisements during 2022, and it would seem that schools in and around London have been most affected by the increase.

The next piece of evidence to consider is whether schools with lower-than-average scores in 2022 on either Attainment 8 or Progress 8 are more likely than schools with better scores to re-advertise a promoted post in geography? As an alternative, the percentage of pupils with Free School Meals might also be considered, but the current cost of living crisis may make that indicator less reliable as a proxy for school performance.

One implication of this study is that the operation of the housing market in relation to public sector salary scales may be important when teachers can move form high-cost areas to this with lower housing costs, but not in the opposite direction.

Middle Leaders: harder to find?

Posted on November 4, 2022 by John Howson

What is the job market for middle years like? Has the cumulative effect of several years of under-recruitment into initial training finally started to take a toll on the ability of schools to appoint middle leaders?

To answer this question for all subjects and across the whole country would be a mammoth undertaking worthy of a substantial research grant. However, using data from TeachVac http://www.teachvac.co.uk, I was able to undertake a small-scale analysis of the situation regarding promoted post in geography across England.

These are the initial findings dealing with two issues: length of service as a middle leader and frequency of a promoted post reappearing more than once in any recruitment round for September of that year.

I selected geography because it seems likely many schools will not have more than a couple of TLRs in the subject, and the chance of more than one being advertised in any one recruitment round is unlikely to be high. The data were analysed by date, school, Unique Reference Number (URN) and its geographical location to ensure schools with the same name weren’t miscounted.

A sample of 139 schools where there were at least two advertisements for a post in geography with a TLR revealed the following:

Years between adverts	Number of Schools
2	49
3	51
4	21
5	16
6	2

It looks as if a high proportion of schools in the sample saw some considerable degree of turnover in their geography departments.

The second question is whether turnover has increased in recent years?

	Promoted posts – Geography – Schools with probable Re-advertisements
Year	1	2	3	4	5+
2107	7	0	0	0	1
2018	7	2	2	2	0
2019	13	3	4	4	0
2020	5	2	1	0	2
2021	6	6	3	1	2
2022	46	18	6	3	1

The data in the table would seem to suggest that 2022 has seen a large number of schools with re-advertisements for geography posts with a TLR when compared with previous years both during and before the pandemic but that before the pandemic affected the recruitment policies of many schools there was a trend towards the need to re-advertisement more of these posts.

It may be too soon to determine how far 2022 marks a catching up exercise to deal with the consequences of the covid pandemic on staffing in schools rather than a sign of greater pressure on middle leadership posts. Perhaps, these is an element of both outcomes present in the data? Should the high level of re-advertisements continue into 2023 it would be fair to conclude that hiring middle leaders was becoming more of a challenge.

Future work will centre around whether there is a geographical difference in the schools re-advertising and also whether schools with either higher Free School Meals pupil percentages or lower output scores are more likely to re-advertise?

As pointed out previously in this blog, the presence of a unique job reference number for all advertised posts would make this type of analysis much easier to perform.

The time of year that the first advertisement appears may also be relevant since the unique nature of teacher recruitment that is dominated by resignation dates and the rhythm of the school year may also influence patterns of re-advertisements.

Dear Prime Minister

Posted on October 4, 2022 by John Howson

Would you like some good news? On your return from Birmingham, you will no doubt be asking Ministers how their departments can save money. Here is one suggestion. I am not unbiased in making this suggestion, as it could benefit TeachVac, the job board that I chair. However, TeachVac was in existence before the DfE started its own version and has consistently shown how to achieve a low-cost approach to vacancy listing as our accounts at Companies House will confirm. Reviewing the DfE site could also save the government money.

We suggested originally that the DfE need only provide a page pointing those seeking teaching posts to available sites in the private sector, and another for schools showing the relative costs of using different sites. However, in response to the Public Accounts Committee, the DfE decided on a more costly intervention and created its own job board.

TeachVac is currently offering secondary schools a deal of 12 months of unlimited matches for just £250 and a mere £50 for primary schools. How much per vacancy does the DfE cost to provide?

Reproduced below is a post from 2020 that further makes the case for saving money on the DfE’s job board. Our monitoring since then suggests that the DfE site has gained little traction in the market and may be losing ground in terms of teaching vacancies uploaded.

DfE and Teacher Vacancies: Part Two

Posted on April 3, 2021

The DfE is spending more money supporting their latest venture into the teacher recruitment market. SchoolsWeek has uncovered the latest moves by the government to challenge existing players in this market https://schoolsweek.co.uk/dfe-leans-on-mats-to-boost-teacher-job-vacancies-website-take-up/ in an exclusive report.

The current DfE foray into the recruitment market follows the failure of the Fast Track Scheme of two decades ago and the Schools Recruitment Service that fizzled out a decade ago. The present attempt also came on the heels of the fiasco around a scheme to offer jobs in challenging schools in the north of England that never progressed beyond the trial phase.

The present DfE site rolled out nationally two years ago this month. How successful it has been was the subject of a SchoolsWeek article earlier this year. https://schoolsweek.co.uk/dfes-teacher-job-website-carries-only-half-of-available-positions/ This blog reviewed the market for vacancy sites for teachers last December, in a post entitled Teacher Vacancy Platforms: Pros and Cons that was posted on December 7, 2020.

In that December post, I looked at the three key sites for teacher vacancies in England. TeachVac; the DfE Vacancy site and the TES. As I pointed out, this was not an unbiased look, because I am Chair of the company that owns TeachVac. Indeed, I said, it might be regarded as an advertisement, and warned readers to treat it in that way.

There is an issue with how much schools spend on recruitment of teachers. After all, that was why TeachVac was established eight years ago. The DfE put the figure in their evidence to the STRB this year at around £75 million; a not insubstantial figure.

Will TeachVac be squeezed out in a war between the DfE backed by unlimited government funding and the TES with a big American backer? At the rate TeachVac is currently adding new users, I don’t think so. After all, the DfE site doesn’t cover independent schools, and in the present market I believe that most teachers want a site that allows access to all teaching jobs and not just some. That benefits both TeachVac and the TES as well as other players in the market, such as The Guardian and SchoolsWeek, as well as recruitment agencies.

How much the DfE will need to spend on ensuring they cover the whole of the state-funded job market in terms of acquiring vacancies by the ‘school entering vacancies’ method is another interesting question? As is, how much will it also cost to drive teachers to using the DfE site and not TeachVac or the TES?

A view of TeachVac’s account reveals that TeachVac provides access to more jobs for teachers at less than the DfE is going to spend on promoting their site over the next few months. Such spending only makes good commercial sense if you want to remove a player from the market.

So, here’s a solution. Hire TeachVac to promote the DfE site and use the data TeachVac already generates to monitor the working of the labour market. After all, that was also one of the suggestions from the Public Accounts Committee Report that spurred the DfE into action and the creation of their present attempt at running a vacancy site.

Consequences, and a bit of history

Posted on September 30, 2022 by John Howson

Now that the DfE has published the list of accredited ITT providers, I thought it might be interesting to reprise the post below from 2013 that highlights the start of the journey to where the sector is today.

The list of reaccredited providers, published by the DfE, seems to have radically slimmed down the school-based side of ITT at the cost of a few higher education establishments also having accreditation withdrawn. If the list is correct, when some long-established providers of ITT will no longer be involved in teacher preparation as a top tier provider and will need to partner with another accredited provider.

The geographical implications of the loss of some providers will take time to work out, but South East London may we one area affected by the changes. Some long-established SCITTs seem to be no more, but some of the overtly religious SCITTs seem to have survived.

Clarity ahead of Select Committee – but still not good news

Posted on September 9, 2013

What has become clear this afternoon is that the DfE may have faced a dilemma last autumn. With the national roll-out of School Direct being enthusiastically taken up by schools, it could either have effectively wiped-out the university-based PGCE courses by meeting the demands of schools or it could have denied schools the places they were asking for in School Direct. The DfE targets for secondary subjects did not allow the third option of satisfying both schools applying for School Direct places and keeping the PGCE going and still keeping within the targets. The extent of the problem can be seen by comparing Table 2b in the underlying data of Statistical Bulletin 32/2013 issued by the DfE on the 13^th August and Figure 1 of the School Direct management information published this afternoon by the National College for Teaching and Leadership. In practice, the DfE seems to have chosen a third way by creating inflated ‘allocations’ to try to keep higher education going, but still to satisfy the demands from schools for places. This exercise risked substantial over-recruitment against the real targets.

So, what happened? Looking just at the STEM subjects, Chemistry had an allocation of 1,327 in the Statistical Bulletin, but a target of 820 places in Figure 1 of today’s document – a difference of 507. To date, recruitment has been 900 according to Figure 1, so the subject is over-recruited against target, but significantly under-recruited against allocations. School Direct, where bids totalled 422 places last November, and reached around 500 by the time all bids had been collected, apparently recruited just 260 trainees, leaving higher education to recruit the other 640.

Sadly, in Mathematics, Physics, and Biology, despite the target being well below the allocation figure, the target has not been met. In Physics the shortfall is 43% against the target; and in Mathematics, 22%. In Biology it is just 6%. However, these percentages do not reflect the actual numbers who have started courses; that number may be greater or smaller than those released today.

Indeed, in no subject was the allocation met, although in business studies it was missed by just one recruit. However, the target in this subject is apparently higher than the allocation in August, although that may have something to do with classification. Less clear is the Religious Education position where the target is shown as 450, but the allocation in August was 434 for postgraduate courses. Somewhere another 16 places have been added since August when they have been subtracted in most other subjects.

I have suspected for some time that the allocations were above the level required by the DfE’s model, and have hinted as much in earlier posts. More than 40,000 trainees did seem an excessive number to train.

School Direct works in subjects where there are lots of high-quality applicants looking to train as a teacher. At the other end of the scale are subjects where either the schools didn’t bid for many places, as in Art & Design or recruitment is a real challenge, as in Physics.

These are the subjects where School Direct faces its greatest challenges for 2014, and where the DfE/NCSL seemingly still cannot do without higher education.

What is also clear is that the DfE cannot repeat this same exercise this autumn for 2014 recruitment. It will have to make it clear how many trainees are needed according to the model. If it does not do so, students will be paying £9,000 in fees without knowing whether they are a target or an allocation, and totally uncertain about their chance of securing a teaching post. That won’t attract many takers in an improving graduate job market as the risks are too high.

Over the next few weeks, it will be interesting to see how the effects of the reaccreditation pan out both for providers and for those seeking to start to train in 2023. In the 1980s, I worked at a college where ITT had been withdrawn. It was not a happy place to be. I, therefore, send my best wishes to all those involved in the outcome of the reaccreditation process.

STEM subjects ‘late recruiters’?

Posted on September 27, 2022 by John Howson

Yesterday’s post about the grim news on recruitment onto teacher preparation courses for 2022/23 didn’t mine all the possible information provided in the DfE data published in the monthly update.

One interesting statistic are how the proportion of applicants for secondary subjects has changed over the course of the year. Last December, I wrote a blog post pointing out that nearly half of early applicants came from just three subjects: English, mathematics and physical education. Half of secondary ITT applicants in just 3 subjects | John Howson (wordpress.com)

As expected, physical education trended lower as the year progressed, and places on courses filled up. The subject ended the year on 19% of total applications – down 5% on December. English also lost ground, down from 13% in December to 8% by September. However, mathematics seemed to be a ‘late attracting subject’, as by September the subject accounted for 18% of applications, up from 12% in December.

Removing these three subjects from the list and comparing the moves among the remaining subjects shows relatively little difference in many subjects in their position in the ranking.

Subject	Total December	Percentage December	Total September	Percentage September	% Difference
Art and design	378	6%	2410	7%	1
Biology	552	9%	3457	10%	1
Business studies	283	5%	1601	4%	1
Chemistry	509	8%	4055	11%	3
Classics	62	1%	261	1%	na
Computing	309	5%	2248	6%	1
Design and technology	243	4%	1638	5%	1
Drama	352	6%	1426	4%	-2
Geography	385	6%	2498	7%	1
History	1057	18%	4531	13%	-5
Modern foreign languages	568	9%	3880	11%	2
Music	191	3%	1160	3%	0
Other	564	9%	2321	6%	-3
Physics	307	5%	2830	8%	3
Religious education	231	4%	1541	4%	0
	5991	100%	35857	100%

When do different subjects recruit?

As might have been predicted, drama and history lost ground once courses filled up. The sciences were the main winners. This suggests that subjects that may have a higher proportion of men may recruit later in the round – we cannot know for certain as the data on gender isn’t published by subject – but it is a plausible hypothesis to discuss in relation to gender and STEM subjects.

The second hypothesis is that subjects where potential teachers know there may be difficulty in securing a place on a teacher preparation course will recruit earlier in the year. These bellwether subjects, such as history, physical education and also the primary sector can provide early warning on what might be to come in the autumn months.

As a piece of history, it was using this second hypothesis in the early 2000s that prompted me to call a recruitment crisis as early as one November and to be warned off by the then Minister’s Private Office in a phone call I took while a passenger in a car travelling down the M5 in Somerset for creating panic. The following March, the training grant was suddenly announced. Perhaps, I have been at this subject for too long.

Knowing this sort of information about recruitment trends can make the use of expensive TV marketing more precise. Is the present TV campaign a good use of money or would it be better aimed at STEM subjects in the spring?

John Howson

Education and the numbers that affect what happens

Tag Archives: teacher supply