Tag Archives: teacher supply

Select Committee: more questions about teacher supply they might want to ask

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Tomorrow the House of Commons Education Select Committee resumes its hearings into the question of teacher supply. This inquiry started in the autumn, so it is two days short of six months since the last public evidence session. Much has happened in that time, as readers of this blog with know; not least the NAO report and the White Paper, where Chapter 2 concentrates on the question of teachers without really providing much that was new in policy terms.

If, as I expect, the Committee members are on the ball, to use a footballing metaphor ahead of Euro 2016, they will ask the witnesses, some from the subject associations and others from higher education, the school sector and Ofsted, how much of an understanding the DfE really has of the issue of teacher supply?

Some possible questions the might ask could include:

Why are there too many PE teachers and too few business studies teachers being trained if the Teacher Supply Model is doing its job properly?

Given that by the Workforce Census date in November all pupils are being taught for the correct amount of time each week, how do we deal with the consequences of accumulated teacher shortages in a particular subject.

For the representative of DATA, how are possible shortages spread out among the different component parts of the D&T curriculum. Are there greater shortages of say food technology teachers than those with expertise in resistant materials? The same question might be applied to a representative from the languages area, but as there isn’t one it might as well be addressed to the Ofsted witness about the data they collect on subject knowledge and how teachers actually spend their time teaching.

Is the present squeeze on budgets affecting the demand for teachers and who would know if it was? How long would any slowdown in demand take to affect the supply side of the equation and could it leave more trainees with an extra £9,000 of fee debt, but no teaching job in England? If they took a teaching job overseas presumably the Treasury wouldn’t see any repayments during the period of time a teacher was outside the country.

There are lots more questions the Committee could, and no doubt will, ask tomorrow. I hope they do dis cuss the issue of primary teachers and subject knowledge as this is often overlooked. There was a useful APPG report on RE teaching a few years ago now that showed how little time a PGCE student had on developing their subject knowledge. This may also be true in other subjects and is a concern for those teaching at Key Stage 2. Are MATs, with an exchange of teachers between primary and secondary schools, a possible way forward? Will technology help with the brightest pupils or is it off-putting?

The Committee could also ask about part-time working in the secondary sector since that has risen up the agenda recently, but I doubt any of the witnesses will have much evidence on the matter, even if they have an opinion.

Finally, I hope someone will ask about the government’s idea of a national vacancy web site mentioned in the White Paper and whether TeachVac is not already providing such a service to schools, trainees and teachers at no cost as a public service, especially now TeachVac has launched its free job portal for schools.

Teacher Supply, a longer-term issue

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According to a Local Government Information Unit bulletin issued on Saturday, and citing a report in the Birmingham Post that was apparently based upon Office of National Statistics data, the number of people aged 0-14 in England will increase by 951,200 between 2014 and 2039. This will take the number from 9.7 million to 10.6 million. If anywhere near accurate, these figures will mean that there is likely to be no let-up in the demand for more teachers for most of the next quarter century.

The ONS will release some more data at the end of June but, whatever happens, the demand for more teachers is not likely to be spread evenly across the country. At present, ONS projects the following increases for the different regions of England.

Percentage increase in population 2024 on 2014

Region 0 to 15 years old
England 8.7
London 14.9
South East 8.8
East Midlands 7.7
East 10.9
South West 9.2
North East 4.0
Yorkshire and The Humber 4.9
West Midlands 6.9
North West 5.3

This table is very much in line with the findings of our TeachVac www.teachvac.com vacancy tracking. Both in 2015 and so far in 2016, London has had the largest percentage of vacancies per school for classroom teachers of any region, followed by the South East and East of England regions. There have been far fewer vacancies registered in the regions of the north of England.

If the population of London and the Home Counties is going to continue to increase, then governments, whatever their political complexion, will need to solve the staffing crisis in these regions as well as finding sufficient space for the extra pupils. Finding locations for new schools will be a real challenge and it might in extremis require building on existing playgrounds, with new outdoor space being located on the roof. There are precedents for such schools in inner city locations, although they probably aren’t ideal. I recall visiting one such inner city high school in New York located in a former office building that had no windows on several of the upper floors where the classrooms were located.

But, the longer-term strategy for teaching such large numbers of pupils also needs to be addressed by government. The issue is not, will they be taught, because somehow they will be. But, will it be to a standard we require to maintain our position in an evolving world economy? Schools in London have made great strides in achievements this century, it would disappointing to see that progress stall and even worse to see it go into reverse with falling standards just because there were insufficient appropriately trained and qualified teachers.

Whether the solution is a longer working life, more late entrants into teaching as career changers living in London already won’t face a problem of where to live or the more advanced use of technology and private study for older students is all open for discussion.

What is not a matter for debate is the need to take action for the longer-term in a strategic fashion. The first step might be identify a regional commissioner group for London and the surrounding areas.

 

 

Recruitment round enters final stage

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The end of May marks the traditional climax of the recruitment round for September appointments in schools. From this point onwards most existing teachers cannot change jobs for September. As a result schools must rely on the remaining trainees, returners and overseas teachers to fill any vacancies still remaining.

At TeachVac, the free recruitment site that is used by an increasing number of schools, teachers and trainees, we have been busy computing the results of the recruitment round so far in 2016 compared with last year.

Secondary schools that post vacancies receive the latest information about the market in that subject every time they post a main scale vacancy. They also receive monthly updates of the overall position in the newsletter posted on the TeachVac website. There is a similar newsletter for teachers.

The more detailed summer review is now being written and will appear by the end of June. It will summarise both our view of the recruitment round to date; prospects for the autumn term and the latest analysis of recruitment into training that will allow early predictions to be made about the recruitment round for September 2018 and January 2018.

TeachVac has always recognised that many primary schools don’t recruit often enough to make it worthwhile having a vacancy page on their website. For that reason TeachVac are launching a vacancy portal that will allow primary schools to use a school specific page within the TeachVac site on which to place their vacancies when they do arise. Simple to use, it will like the other key TeachVac services be free to schools and will provide interested teachers with a link to the school for more information.

At TeachVac we don’t see why anyone should pay for recruitment unless it is absolutely necessary. The basic service should be free. The DfE accepted this view in the recent White Paper, but we still have to see whether they will accept what is already provided in the market or spend public money creating a new system of their own?

Despite the stories of budget cuts and redundancies, TeachVac has recorded more adverts for main scale teachers so far in 2016 than in the first five months of 2015. Some of the vacancies reported early in the year may have been as a result of schools being unable to fill vacancies for January with appropriately qualified teachers. However, it is noticeable that vacancies advertised during May were little changed to the numbers advertised last year, especially the case in subjects where schools might struggle to find a teacher.

Location undoubtedly matters. There are large differences between parts of the north of England and London and the Home Counties in the average number of vacancies advertised per school. These regional differences really do mean that not taking location into account when allocating teacher preparation places can affect some schools’ chances of recruiting appropriately qualified staff with high quality subject knowledge.

 

 

 

Teaching attracts career changers

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The data provided today by UCAS about the state of play with applications to the graduate teacher training programmes administered through them provides mixed messages. On the one hand, applications overall continue their upward trend: good news. On the other hand, young graduates, and especially young men, seem to be avoiding teaching as a career. There is a loss of 320 men under the age of 30 compared with the same point last year. However, that is more than compensated for by 420 more men over the age of thirty than applied last year, including 270 in their 40s or 50s., for a net gain of 150, or about 1.5% more than last year. We don’t know how these extra men are split between those applying for primary and secondary courses as that information isn’t provided.

The pattern for women is very similar to that for men, except that it is only the 22 and 23 year olds that are applying in smaller numbers than last year and then only by 180 overall. However, 770, of the just over 800 more applicants than last year, are in their 30s or 40s. The total increase is in the order of four per cent compared with last year.

With a greater number of older applicants than last year, it might be expected that those unconditionally accepted, or ‘placed’ to use the UCAS terminology, would be higher than last year. However, that isn’t the case. ‘Placed’ applicants are 320 down on the 3,340 recorded at this stage last year. There are also fewer holding interview requests and awaiting a provider offer. The good news is that the number of ‘conditional placed’ applicants is up from 19,420 to 22,590, a net gain of 3,150 applicants. I am sure everyone will hope that these applicants can meet the requirements over the next months and move from the ‘conditional placed’ to the ‘placed’ columns of the spreadsheet.

Although the numbers are small, there are fewer ‘placed’ candidates than last year in London, the South East and the South West regions, although all these regions have more ‘conditional placed’ applicants than last year.

In some subjects it is impossible to tell from the published figures how recruitment is faring compared to last year. However, it looks likely that mathematics won’t meet the required target number again this year unless there is a late surge in applicants. The same is true for computing and business studies. After a bad year last year, geography appears to be doing better this year, as is Religious Education. PE and history will rely upon retaining all their applicants with further recruitment closed.

Older applicants are more likely to be limited in where they will seek a job at the end of their training and once courses start it would be helpful to schools to know the age breakdown of applicants in their region or locality. It is also important to know whether more applicants are not lasting the course since the number of withdrawn applications is also up this year.

 

26th STRB Report awaited

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You would think that the School Teachers Review Body (STRB) had a relatively easy task this year; set a 1% pay rise and go home. After all, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, he of the ‘all schools will become an academy’ budget, has set 1% as the upper limit on public sector pay deals all the way through to the end of this parliament.

The Secretary of State issued her remit letter to the STRB on the 7th October 2015 with a request in the final paragraph that,’ I should be grateful if the STRB could aim to provide a report on this matter before the end of April 2016. I look forward to receiving your recommendations on the 2016 pay award.’

Clearly that aim was met. I apologise to the STRB for previously suggesting otherwise. According to  an email that their secretariat has sent me,  the 26th Report was sent to government on the 28th April.

The Office of Manpower Economics that services other government pay and conditions bodies produced the armed forces, NHS, doctors and dentists and senior civil servants reviews before the end of April and they were also published by government. It is true that it was only on the 12th May that the National Crime Agency Report appeared. That now leaves the STRB somewhat out on a limb, with a report submitted to government, but not seemingly published yet.

For academies, apart from the absence of useful national guidelines, the absence of an updated national pay and conditions document for September may be little more than an inconvenience as they can set their own terms and conditions and pay levels. For community and voluntary schools in England and almost all schools in Wales, the STRB report sets in chain a sequence of events that lead to the publication of the Pay & Conditions document.

Although former requirements, such as an annual increment, have been abolished, pay rates normally change from September and historically that meant advising on pay for the forthcoming years before schools set their budgets. That hasn’t been possible this year for schools funded via the local authority route with an April to March financial year, although it is still possible for academies where there is a budget cycle that matches the school-year. Nevertheless, even here, time is running out if the STRB were to produce anything innovative in their Report, such as addressing the recruitment and retention crisis in London by upping the pay rates by more than 1% and compensating elsewhere.

Hopefully, the report will appear before there is any chance of it being caught by the purdah rules ahead of the referendum next month, but time seems to be running out. It would be good to at least have an expected date so we can know what the STRB’s view is on the current state of recruitment and the suggested solutions to the problem that they have devised.

 

Do TV adverts work?

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The recent publication of the April admissions figures for ITT courses starting this autumn look like further acceptable news for the government. I hesitate to say ‘good news’ because it is still probable that not all subjects will reach their required levels of admissions to meet the probable demand for new teachers in 2017. That’s a rather convoluted way of saying some Teacher Supply Model numbers will be missed again this summer.

As ever, despite the upturn in university admissions for undergraduate courses in many STEM subjects, it is the mathematics, physics, design and technology and IT areas that are most likely to miss their targets again. Even Teach First, when I looked at their web site https://graduates.teachfirst.org.uk/application-selection/subject-availability on 6th May hadn’t yet closed any of their subjects including some where recruitment controls have been applied to the courses in the UCAS admissions scheme; Teach First don’t, however, offer PE as a subject.

Still, after a couple of frankly dreadful years, applications are generally holding up so far. The real issue is what will happen between now and the end of the recruitment round and then how many applicants turn up when courses start. There may also be regional issues, but they are not apparent from the data publically available. Whether or not training ‘career changers’ in parts of the country where vacancies are relatively rare helps the task of staffing schools is a moot point.

Looking at the UCAS figures in detail, it seems as if the trend to fewer applicants from the 22-24 age-group is continuing. This decline, reported in earlier blog posts on this site, is balanced this year by a slightly greater increase in the number of applicants over the age of 40. Overall, applications with a domicile in England increased by around 1,470 compared with April 2015 numbers. This is an increase of between 4-5%. In view of the recruitment controls, I am sure the percentage would have been higher with unfettered recruitment policies. So, I am sure that the TV advertising does make some difference to recruitment.

The other issue is whether the recruitment controls have allowed the best candidates to be recruited? There is a loss of recruits to choose from in PE, English and History, although the exact change in the number of applicants isn’t disclosed, even though the probable change in the number of applications can be deduced from other data. It would be helpful to know the number of applicants per subject and their age ranges to help inform the debate about what sort of system should be used for the 2017 admissions round?

Regionally, there are more applicants across the country with London and the Home Counties seeing the largest increase in applicant numbers, if not the greatest increase in the percentage of applicants. In terms of applications rather than applicants, the re-balancing of places has resulted in fewer applications to universities and more to SCITTs and the School Direct routes although overall there has been a slight drop in applications, possibly due to the effects of the recruitment controls.

With university finals looming, there will probably be little change in the May data, so it will be late June before it becomes obvious where new graduates are looking to teaching as a late career choice.

 

 

 

 

Better news on teacher supply

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Whether it is a result of improved marketing; the slowdown in the Chinese economy or the introduction of recruitment controls, offers made this year to graduate applicants for teacher training in England are above the levels seen at this point last year. Total applications – candidates may make up to three applications – are up from 85,500 to just over 88,000; an increase of around three percent. But, this is still well below the 102,000 applications recorded in March 2014.

However, the number of conditional offer for both primary and secondary courses are well up on last March, with only Computing  as a subject having had a poor month. Most of the offers are conditional, only 880 of the 10,800 secondary offer as firm offers; the remainder still require applicants to either pass the skills test; gain a degree or possibly in a few cases do both. As a result, these numbers could alter. What is of more interest is whether the increase in applications will continue or whether it just represents a bringing forward of applications from those that might in the past have been slower in applying but because of the marketing and recruitment controls have been persuaded to apply earlier in the cycle: only time will tell.

What is also interesting is that applications from those aged 23 are still down on last year at the same time, and those from the 24 age group have remained almost static, whereas there are 600 more applicants from among those in the over 40 age group, more than the total increase from the 20-24 old age group combined. This might suggest that the increased fees faced by new graduates are having some effect on turning away younger students from teaching and taking on a greater degree of debt.

While the increase in applications from those in the older age-groups is welcome, it is important to know whether these applicants are more likely to be limited in their choice of location where they will be seeking a teaching job since vacancies are not evenly spread across the country. Fortunately, the increase in applications is spread across the country with London and the South East now accounting for around 29% of applicants compared with 28% this time last year.

If this increase in applications and offer continues, more subjects will meet their Teacher Supply Number including, hopefully, mathematics. However, Physics still seems likely to fall short along with Design & Technology. Such a shortfall will have implications for classroom teacher vacancies in 2017.

Nevertheless, the government will be feeling a lot more cheerful than this time last year which marked the low point in the present cycle. Hopefully, the loss of young graduates can be overcome.

Talk up teaching

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According to the Mail on Sunday, not a newspaper I usually read, but whose reporting of the Secretary of State’s remarks to the ASCL Conference have been brought to my attention, we need to be positive about what a great career teaching is. Apparently, according to the Mail on Sunday, Mrs Morgan told ASCL delegates:

That a number of schools are struggling to recruit good teachers but that talk of a “crisis” in recruitment may deter people from the sector. She said that, “While the headline data shows a sustained low, national vacancy rate, the reality on the ground for many heads is that they are struggling to attract the brightest and the best.” She acknowledged the cost of recruiting can be a burden when schools have “other, better things to be spending money on,” On fears that highlighting recruitment issues may put people off of becoming a teacher, the Education Secretary said: “Let’s focus on commenting to the outside world on what a great profession teaching is, how rewarding it can be and what good teachers have the power to do.”

In questions there was apparently talk of the need for a national database of vacancies: TeachVac your time has surely come.

In case the Secretary of State has been shielded from TeachVac by her officials I am sending her a letter outlining the advantages of the free service we have been providing for more than a year now. I agree with the heads asking why spend millions of pounds on advertising when it can be done for free?

Heads, teachers, local politicians, governors and others responsible for recruitment might ask why they haven’t tried TeachVac if it is free. Wasting money through inertia is not acceptable when everyone is complaining about the effects of austerity.

Let me re-iterate, TeachVac is free for everyone, to schools to post vacancies and to teachers, trainees and returners to post requests to be told when a vacancy meeting requirements is posted.

If you know someone involved in recruiting teachers and leadership staff in schools, do please tell them to visit www.teachvac.co.uk and watch the demonstration videos. Signing up takes no time at all, but a school does need to know its URN – available via Edubase – as a security check.

As to the Secretary of State’s thesis about talking up teaching, I agree it is a great job, but surely she could have offered something on the workload front that would have allowed an even more positive message to have emerged from her speech. I hope by Easter, she will have something more eye catching to say to the other teacher conferences. She could even announce that the DfE is investigating free initiatives on recruitment advertising and job matching such as TeachVac. Such a move wouldn’t cost a penny, but would show the government is keen that the cash she has for schools isn’t being spend on private sector profits.

If anyone wants to know more about TeachVac, please do contact me and I will be happy to answer your queries.

 

 

Time to move on?

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As the ASCL members meet for their annual conference, the topic of teacher supply is likely to be raised frequently by delegates, both in formal sessions and in more informal discussions around the conference bars and restaurants. Indeed, Policy Exchange, the Tory think tank Mr Gove had a hand in establishing and various key players in education have worked for in the past, published a pamphlet today of a conference organised in the autumn by both Policy Exchange and  ASCL on the topic of teachers and their recruitment entitled; “The importance of teachers”. http://www.policyexchange.org.uk/publications/category/item/the-importance-of-teachers-a-collection-of-essays-on-teacher-recruitment-and-retention

Now, I don’t often give Tory Think Tanks much of an airing on this blog, but as I was asked to contribute to the conference and my paper appears in the collection of published essays, I will make an exception this time. Two ideas that have been gaining in credibility, are the possibility of secondary schools offering more part-time jobs in recognition of the changing composition of the teaching workforce in terms of both age and gender. Compared with the primary sector, there is much less part-time working in secondary schools at present. This idea also received a mention yesterday at a seminar organised by the Guardian to promote its research into the views of teachers about their work and work-life balance.

Policy Exchange also mentions a revival of the Keep in Touch schemes run by some local authorities, most notably Buckinghamshire, in the 1980s as a means of not losing touch with those that take career breaks. Once senses that even the idea of sabbaticals would be attractive, but have been ruled out on the grounds of cost. Interestingly, as I pointed out in my blog about Margaret Thatcher, she was the Secretary of State for Education that proposed teacher sabbaticals in a White Paper, only to see the idea scuppered by the oil price hikes after 1972: could the fall in oil prices bring the dead back? It seems unlikely since falling oil prices these days also mean lost government revenue.

Anyway, all this is a long way from the title of this piece. But, in reality, there now seems to be an acceptance that there is an issue with teacher supply whether it is couched in recruitment terms or absolute numbers. The discussion is now moving on to how to either solve or at least alleviate the issue? KIT and more offers of part-time working; forgiveness of loans; a review of QTS to ensure subject knowledge is sufficient and if not to develop SKE post-entry – similar to Chris Waterman’s Teach Next idea – and making sure location specific trainees don’t lose out in the job market are all ideas that have been floated recently, along with Sir Andrew Carter grow your own from TAs to teachers concept of QTS -2 and QTS -1.  Although I don’t think that idea will work well in the secondary sector. Addressing the housing issue and workload also seem to be high on the agenda, so it will be interesting to see what emerges as the recruitment round grinds on towards its grim conclusion in January 2017.

Ebacc takes hold

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TeachVac www.teachvac.co.uk the free recruitment site for schools, teachers and trainees has recorded more than 5,000 main scale vacancies in secondary schools since the start of this calendar year. In some parts of the country, a very high percentage of these vacancies have been in English, mathematics and the sciences – three key EBacc subjects.

Now, it may be that some of the vacancies are a hangover from last year when schools may have appointed a less that appropriately qualified teacher to fill a January vacancy and are already seeking a better qualified replacement for September. Alternatively, some schools may be advertising early, gambling that they will have a vacancy in these three large departments so they might as well get on with the recruitment process. Either way, there has been a significant level of recruitment activity in these subjects.

At the other end of the scale, PE and art continue to produce few vacancies in proportion to the number of trainees: the decision to increase trainee numbers in art now looks a bit odd unless vacancies pick up as the recruitment round gathers pace.

Schools placing vacancies with TeachVac are told our estimate of the remaining size of the trainee pool at the day before they place their vacancy. This allows them to judge how challenging recruitment might be. At TeachVac we are still waiting for the NCTL to provide us with regional recruitment data into ITT that would make this service even more useful to schools than having to use the national data that is all that is currently available to us.

We assume the DfE and NCTL receive vacancy data from another source as they haven’t asked TeachVac for information. With daily data updates from more than 3,600 schools and other sources we think TeachVac is the most comprehensive vacancy platform, certainly for main scale secondary vacancies and increasingly for other teaching and leadership posts as well. And, it’s free for everyone to use. As budgets get tighter we think that a very valuable services.

So, if your school, MAT, diocese or local authority isn’t using TeachVac to advertise their teaching and school leadership vacancies, you might ask them why not? The advantage of TeachVac’s daily matching service is that if there are no downloads of the job after say, forty-eight hours, a school can then decide whether to try another tack, but it hasn’t cost anything.

Registered users also receive access to the monthly school and teacher newsletter, also free, with more information on the state of the job market. TeachVac staff also address conferences and seminars about the state of the job market using the most up to date data available. I shall be speaking to academy heads tomorrow at an event organised by the Guardian Newspaper.

As the demand for teachers grows, TeachVac is also providing data to a growing list of organisations interested in understanding what is happening in the labour market for teachers. As TeachVac covers both state funded and private schools we can compare trends across the two sectors.

At present, we don’t cover international schools at TeachVac, but it is something we are looking into for the future, along with the FE sector.