It’s a funny old world

Posted on July 28, 2025 by John Howson

On the day when nurses look as if they will join resident doctors in demanding more pay, figures about applications from graduates to train as a secondary school teacher hit decade high levels, even after removing the degree apprenticeship numbers from the totals. This month, according to DfE data, 58,880 candidates have submitted one or more applications to train as a teacher. This compares with 46,696 list July and 45,000 in 2108, before the pandemic. Initial teacher training application statistics for courses starting in the 2025 to 2026 academic year – Apply for teacher training – GOV.UK

This July, there were 36,283 candidates applying to train as a secondary school teacher, compared with 17,997 wanting to train as a primary school teacher.

By comparison in July 2018, 26,060 women had applied, whereas in July 2025 that had increased to 31,439. However, applications from men had increased from 12,680 in 2018 to 18,904 this July

Traditional higher education and SCITT courses still account for the bulk of the routes into teaching selected by candidates. However, candidate numbers on traditional salaried routes were down this July, from 8,927 to 7,636, but that may be partly the 7,332 candidates that have applied for the Postgraduate teaching apprenticeship route, up from 6,433 last July.

The new Teacher Degree Apprenticeship route that has attracted 1,079 candidates so far this year. This is a new route and, presumably isn’t open to graduates.

Although applicant numbers from the ‘rest of the world’ group are down this July, from 9,586 in July 2024, to 8,563 this July – this number still represents nearly 20% of all candidates.

Some subjects, including art, physical education, physics, mathematics and computing have recorded their highest level of ‘offers’ this year since the 2013/14 recruitment round. How many are multiple offers or from candidate’s not able to fulfil visa requirements won’t be known until the courses start in just over a month’s time. Interestingly, offers for English courses are below the number of offers made in July 2024.

Despite the significant increase in candidate numbers, some subjects will not hit their targets set by the DfE this year. Subjects most likely to miss their targets are business studies, drama, religious education, music and design and technology. In English, it looks touch and go at this moment in time as to whether or not the target will be hit.

In some subjects, such as physical education, where the target is 725, there is a risk of a significant overshoot in offers. Such a situation might leave large numbers of trainees with additional debt and little chance of a teaching post in England next summer. The DfE will need to be alert to this issue, especially if the growth in ‘AI’ changes the labour market for those with degrees in physics and mathematics, so as to make teaching look like an interesting career at current salary levels.

It would be a funny old world if incentives to train as a teacher had to be switched from mathematics and the sciences to English and the arts.

The crisis in physics teaching

Posted on July 23, 2025 by John Howson

NfER has published some interesting research about the distribution of physics teachers A widespread lack of specialist physics teachers persists due to recruitment and retention challenges – NFER The most alarming statistic in the report is that 26% of state-funded secondary schools that responded to the School workforce Census had no qualified physics specialist in their science department.

However, there is a caveat to making too much of the data. This is because it is taken from the School Workforce Census. As this is a self-reporting census, the data must be regarded with a degree of caution, as there could be some under-reporting.

As the School Workforce Survey is conducted by the DfE each autumn term, it should have a degree of reliability. However, the NfER report only contains data from 2,296 of the 3,456 state-funded secondary schools in England.

Even so, assuming all the remaining schools have at least one qualified teacher of physics that would mean at least 12% of schools were without a qualified teacher of physics, and more than a third of schools (36%) has either no teacher or only one teacher.

Now some of these schools are 11-16 schools, and a few the remaining middle schools classified as secondary schools. These schools don’t need a teacher for ‘A’ level courses. But who is teaching the GSCE physics courses, and how many pupils from these schools go on to study physics at ‘A’ level?

For the 11-8 schools with no qualified teacher of physics, what arrangements are being made for pupils that want to study the subject at ‘A’ level. If it is matter of having to change school, then what are the costs to the pupils and their families. This is another example of where transport costs may affect choice of courses post-GCSE.

Do schools support each other? This was easy when all schools were maintained schools. In the 1960s, the local girls’ school where I lived could not support Chemistry ‘A’ level, and those girls wanting to study the subject joined the ‘A’ level class at the school I attended. This must be more challenging to arrange these days with competing Multi Academy Trusts.

Interestingly, if you add up all the qualified teachers in the table in the NfER survey it amounts to more than 3,500 qualified teachers of physics: enough for one for every school. However, our distribution system for teachers is based upon open market principles, with teachers free to apply for any post, and teach where they like. Is this the best system for the education of all children, if it means that some are deprived the opportunity to study subjects such as physics because there is no qualified teacher?

Hopefully, the present position marks the bottom of the staffing cycle, and improved interest in teaching, as reported in this blog and on my LinkedIn pages, means more trainees with emerge into the labour market over the next few years. The issue then will be how to create teaching posts for them. Wil schools be required to either redeploy an existing member of staff or make them redundant? Those schools with falling rolls and a stable staff might find the former difficult. What is needed is a national plan for physics, and perhaps other subjects where there are teacher shortages. But, sadly, I doubt we will see such a radical idea from this government.

Falling rolls

Posted on July 18, 2025 by John Howson

The projections for pupil numbers up to 2030 were issued by the DfE this week.

At the same time the Office for National Statistics (ONS) looked at the likely size of + the school population aged 5-15 National population projections – Office for National Statistics both have implications for the demand for teachers in England. This data can help determine how many teachers will be needed to staff schools and the attractiveness of teaching as a career.

The DfE concluded the following for the remainder of this decade;

State-funded nursery & primary schools

The overall pupil population in these school types is projected to be 4,205,000 in 2030. This is 300,000 (6.7%) lower than the actual population in 2025 (4,505,000).
The revised projection for 2028 of 4,319,000 pupils represents a 5.4% fall from 2024; this is 38,000 lower than the previous forecast, as last year’s projection showed a 4.5% fall over the same period.
The nursery & primary population is therefore still projected to drop and is doing so at a faster rate than previously projected.

State-funded secondary schools

The secondary school population is projected to be 3,135,000 in 2030. This is 97,000 lower than the actual school population reported in the 2025 school census of 3,232,000.
The revised projection for 2028 of 3,208,000 secondary pupils represents a 0.8% fall from 2024, and is 55,000 (1.7%) lower than last year’s projections which reverses the previously projected 0.9% increase over the same period.
The pattern of change in the secondary school population seems to indicate that it plateaued between 2024 and 2025, will remain at a similar level until 2026, and is then projected to start declining slowly. This suggested plateau is earlier than the peak in 2026 projected last year but will be subject to change if pupil numbers bounce back, fluctuate, or continue to plateau in future years.
The actual number of secondary school pupils in 2025 fell slightly as more pupils moved out of the secondary phase than moved in. Changing historical birth rates and trends in net migration are likely driving factors. National pupil projections, Reporting year 2025 – Explore education statistics – GOV.UK

According to the ONS projections, there are expected to be fewer children in the UK by the middle of both 2032 and 2047, compared with the middle of 2022. The ONS have based this on a view that the assumed fertility rates in the 2020s and 2030s will be even lower than those around 2001, when UK fertility reached a record low.

By mid-2032, the number of children (those aged from 0 to 15 years) is projected by the ONS to have decreased by 797,000 (a fall of 6.4%), from 12.4 million to 11.6 million. By mid-2047, the number of children is projected to remain around the mid-2032 levels. Of course, if the birth rate changes, these numbers could be either too high or an underestimate. Either way planners are no expecting the need for more teachers due to changes in the birth rate.

However, these numbers are just assumptions, and don’t take into account other changes in the numbers in the 0-15 age groups resulting from any net balance once both emigration and immigration have been taken into account.

Other factors, such as the departure rate from teaching, due either to the popularity of teaching or the availability of alternative employment opportunities, as well as the age-profile of the profession and the number of teachers retiring can affect the demand for teachers. Policy changes concerning how children are taught can also affect the demand for teachers. How will AI and attitudes to issues such as home schooling are two imponderables that might affect the demand for teachers.

These days, as well as the traditional modelling, the DfE has access to up to the minute data on vacancy rates for teachers, and how posts are filled. This new data, allied to more traditional methods of estimating the demand for teachers, should help to ensure teacher unemployment can be kept to a minimum. After all, there is little point in spending money training teachers only for them to be both burdened with debt and unable to find a teaching post.

1,500 posts and counting

Posted on July 15, 2025 by John Howson

When I wrote my first post on this blog, on the 25^th of January 2013, I little though that I would reach 1,500 posts. However, despite stopping posting for 18 months, between the autumn of 2023 and May this year, while I was otherwise occupied as a cabinet member on Oxfordshire County Council the blog has now reached the milestone of 1,500 posts, including 40 so far this year since I started the blog up again this May.

Since one of the features of the blog has been commenting on numbers, here is a bit of self-indulgence. The blog has had 175,983 views since its inception, from 93,875 visitors, and has attracted 1,459 comments. The average length of a post has been between 550-670 words, although there have been a few longer posts in response to consultations and Select Committee inquiries.

How much holiday do teacher have? is the post with the most views – more than 6,500 and rising. Some posts have had no views, but are still an important record of my thoughts. The United Kingdom has been responsible for the most visitors: not a surprise, as most posts are about education in England. However, the USA comes second, with more than 15,000 views. Apart from some former French speaking countries in West Africa, Greenland and Paraguay, almost all other countries have had someone that has viewed the blog at least once.

Later this year, I will be publishing a book of the 2013 posts from the blog, and at that point they will disappear from public view. If you want to register for the book, check on Amazon after August 2025 or email dataforeducation@gmail.com for publication information. Alternatively, ask your favourite bookshop or library to order a copy.

I am sometimes asked about my favourite post. With 1,500 to choose from, that’s difficult, as many haven’t seen the light of day for a decade or so. However, Am I a blob? From 2013, was fun to write, and the posts about Jacob’s Law finally brought about a change in the legislation over admissions in the current bill going through parliament.

Most posts have been written, as this one is, in one session from start to finish, with editing just to tidy up my thoughts. Some are more passionate than others, and many are about teacher supply issues, where I am also researching a book on the subject covering the past 60 years of ‘feast and famine’. Much of the recent history has been well chronicled in this blog.

Thanks for reading, and for the comments. Who would have thought that someone that failed ‘O’ level English six times would end up writing a blog! Funny old world.

Where should Teach First recruit its trainees?

Posted on July 15, 2025 by John Howson

There have been some interesting discussions recently on the LinkedIn platform about Teach First, and its possible extension beyond its original scope of recruiting from the Russell Group of universities after SchoolsWeek revealed this condition might be altered when the contract is re-tendered for the scheme. Teach First: Labour plans recruitment scheme revamp

Two points are worth making about the discussion. Firstly, the universities within the Russell Group have not remined the same since Teach First was established more than twenty years ago. Secondly, when faced with challenges in filling its target for recruiting teachers, Teach First does seem to have already extended its reach beyond the Russell group. In it 2024 annual report to the Charity Commission it said that:

‘Increasing the proportion of trainees from Russell Group universities compared to the previous year and sustaining the proportion of trainees with a first-class degree despite a decline in the number of firsts awarded.’ (Page 10, 2024 accounts with Charity Commission)

However, it didn’t provide any details of the number of non-Russell Group trainees recruited, and in which subjects. This is an important issue because of the schools where Teach First place their trainees. Historically, schools within the M25 with high percentages of disadvantaged pupils were the main focus of the programme, although in recent years it has spread more widely across the country while keeping its core mission.

An analysis of, for instance, the percentage of new physics teachers recruited through Teach First and the schools they were placed in, and subsequently went on to work in, would be interesting, especially if compared with the distribution of new teachers of physics across all schools with similar levels of deprivation in the parts of the country not covered by Teach First.

Another interesting issue with regard to Teach First is the cost of recruiting their teachers. I saw a comment that surprised me about ‘needing to interview applicants because of AI generated applications’. I thought that all qualified applicants would have been interviewed as a matter of course.

This caused me to look at the cost of recruitment to the Teach First programme. Their accounts with the Charity Commission suggest that in 2023 the charity spent just over £7 million on recruitment and then £6,587,000 in 2024. Now, in 2023, it recruited 1,417 trainees, including to the pilot SCITT programme. In 2024, with the development of the SCITT programme, some 1,419 trainees were recruited. If the financial data is correct, then that would mean more than £4,000 to recruit a trainee in 2023, falling to £3,800 in 2024. I wonder whether other ITT courses spend anything like this amount on recruitment?

Of course, some of the expenditure is offset by donations to the charity, and during a period when recruiting new entrants to teaching is a challenge, recruitment costs would be expected to be high. Although when recruitment to teaching is buoyant, as it may well be over the next few years, the overall cost may be higher because there are more applicants to process, especially if Teach First is opened up to a wider range of graduates seeking to become a teacher and interviews more applicants. How much should we spend on recruiting trainees teachers and how good are we at obtaining value for money on recruitment overall, including the national TV advertising campaigns?

Will the 6,500 new teachers be heading for schools in disadvantaged areas?

Posted on July 9, 2025 by John Howson

Increasing teacher numbers in disadvantaged areas and core subjects. I was very happy when I read this heading in today’s Public Account’s Committee report on ‘Increasing Teacher Numbers’. Increasing teacher numbers: Secondary and further education (HC 825)

However, when I turned to paragraphs 25-29, this section just seemed like an afterthought. How depressing was it to read that

‘Schools and further education colleges are responsible for deciding the staff they need and recruiting their own workforces. Local authorities employ teachers in maintained schools.’ Para 25

There is nothing factually incorrect in the statement, but although local authorities are the de jure employers of teachers in maintained schools, ever since the devolution of budgets in the 1990s, local authorities have had little to do with the hiring policies for teachers in these schools, and nothing to do with the academy sector.

The Committee did acknowledge that

‘Those schools with higher proportions of disadvantaged pupils tend to have higher turnover rates and less experienced teachers. This impacts the government’s mission of breaking down the barriers to opportunity and means disadvantaged children are at risk of being locked out from particular careers.’

Teachers in schools with higher proportions of disadvantaged pupils are also less experienced

‘In 2023–24, 34% of teachers in the most disadvantaged schools had up to five years’ experience (20% in the least disadvantaged schools).’

They cited the examples of computer science and physics

‘In the most disadvantaged areas, 31% of schools do not offer Computer Science A-level, compared to 11% of schools in the least disadvantaged areas, due to a lack of trained teachers. For Physics A-level, this is 9% compared to 1%.’

This will come as no surprise to regular readers of this blog. Here is the link to a post from the 21^st July 2023, almost two years ago.

Free School Meals and teacher vacancies | John Howson

Thos who know my background will know that I started teaching in a school in a disadvantaged part of Tottenham in 1971, and this issue has been one that has concerned me throughout my career in education. I was, therefore, disappointed to read that

‘We asked the Department when we could expect there to be less variation between schools in the most and least disadvantaged areas, but it did not commit to a timeframe. Instead, it noted that its retention initiatives providing financial incentives were targeting schools and colleges with the highest proportion of disadvantaged students.’

This seems to me to be as close to a non-answer as one can expect. Indeed, looking in detail at the oral evidence session, this is an area where answers from the senior civil servants in my opinion suggested little hope, and not as much concern for the values implied in the questions that I would have liked to have heard. In reality, past experience tells me that it is falling rolls and fewer job opportunities that will propel teachers towards schools where they would otherwise not take a teaching post. Iti s the economy, not the DfE that will improve the life chances of children in those schools with a high proportion of disadvantaged children. This is at the same time as the lives of their parents may be worsened by unemployment and welfare cuts. It’s a funny old world.

6,500 extra teachers; myth or realistic aim?

Posted on July 9, 2025 by John Howson

Hurrah for the Public Accounts Committee at Westminster (PAC). Today the Committee published a report into the government’s plans – or lack of them – to meet their target of 6,500 extra teachers – and lecturers. Increasing teacher numbers: Secondary and further education (HC 825)

The Committee is as sceptical as this bog has been about how the government intends to meet this target that was to be paid for by the addition of VAT on private school fees from January 2025.

One recommendation that the PAC doesn’t make is the creation of a Chief Professional Adviser on Teacher Supply. I held such a post between 1996 and 1997, but was never relaced when I left the then Teacher Training Agency. Such a designated post would draw together the work of civil servants who may change roles almost as frequently as ministers- What odds would one give on the present Secretary of State surviving a cabinet reshuffle before the party conference season? A central role with professional oversight might help the government achieve its aim.

Anyway, the PAC Recommendations included

The Department should set out how it plans to deliver the pledge for 6,500 additional teachers to provide assurance that this will f ill the most critical teacher gaps. This should set out: • how the pledge will be split across schools and colleges; • the baseline and milestones so Parliament can track progress; and • how it will stay focused on teacher retention alongside recruitment.
The Department should develop a whole-system strategy to help frame how it will recruit and retain school and college teachers. This should be based on a fuller evidence base, establish the preferred balance between recruitment and retention initiatives; set appropriate targets for those joining teaching through different routes; and include value for money analysis of different initiatives.
The Department should work with schools and colleges to understand the reasons behind variations [in recruitment and retention], particularly within deprived areas and core subjects, setting this out in published information to help identify and share good practice and ideas on what works best.
The Department should work to better understand why teachers leave and then better support schools and colleges in addressing these factors. This includes looking at changes to contractual and working conditions, such as flexible working, and at how teacher workload can be reduced. It should also collect data on the effectiveness of the newly-announced behaviour hubs, rolling them out further if they prove to be successful.
The Department should assess the effectiveness and relative value-for-money of pay against other recruitment and retention initiatives, to make an explicit decision on whether it needs to do more to ensure teachers are paid the right amount.

The final recommendation will not be welcomed in HM Treasury if it means finding more cash for teachers’ pay, especially coming the day after resident hospital doctors threatened strike action over pay benchmarking. In paragraph 22 the Committee stated that

‘However, teacher pay has lagged behind others – in 2024, those working in the education sector were paid around 10% less in real terms than in 2010, with the wider public sector being paid on average 2.6% less than in 2010.’

Will a return to the 2010 benchmark now be the goal of the teacher professional associations?

In the next blog, I will discuss the committee’s idea for dealing with the thorny issue of providing teachers for deprived areas.

Ministers; music matters

Posted on June 24, 2025 by John Howson

Yesterday, in this blog, I wrote that music courses preparing new teachers for our schools had the highest conversion rate of applicants to offers for any subject. By June this year, some 63% of candidates have been offered places. This compares with just 27% of candidates applying to become a business studies teacher. This data comes from the DfE’s monthly updates on recruitment into these courses.

I also pointed out that the 325 candidates offered places by June this year, of the 565 that have applied, meant that the DfE’s target for new entrants of 565 was unlikely to be met ,making 10 missed targets in the last 11 years.

Music ITT recruitment

Recruiting year	June	September	difference	ITT census	Target	% filled
2014/15	310	360	50	353	481	73%
2015/16	340	370	30	357	399	89%
2016/17	290	310	20	295	393	75%
2017/18	250	310	60	300	409	73%
2018/19	240	320	80	312	392	80%
2019/20	360	480	120	469	385	122%
2020/21	390	420	30	386	540	71%
2021/22	228	287	59	292	470	62%
2022/23	201	230	29	216	790	27%
2023/24	288	378	90	331	820	40%
2024/25	326				565

The table shows that the only time the DfE target for music was met was during the initial covid year, when there was a surge of applications for teacher preparation courses. Even in that year, the 469 trainees recorded at the time if the ITT census in the autumn would not have been enough to meet the target for this year of 565.

Between June and September new offers made have ranged from 120 in the covid year to as low as 20 in 216/17. Based upon last year’s figure of 90 new offers, and assuming this year is a little better and that 100 new offers are made, would mean a figure of around 426 offers by September, still more than 100 adrift of the target for this year that has been set at a more sensible level of 565 compared with the targets for the previous two years.

In passing, it is worth recording that adding shortfalls into future targets is not a helpful exercise, especially as all schools start the year fully staffed. Doing so also makes the percentage of target filled number misleadingly low, as with the 27% of the 2022/23 recruitment round.

Collecting this data together isn’t just of interest to data watchers. There is a serious issue here that is also linked to the cutbacks in university courses currently underway.

Imagine a scenario where the civil servant in charge of teacher supply and training meets his opposite number in charge of universities over coffee one lunchtime this summer. ‘I have just seen the data on ITT music offers and we risk not hitting our target again this year’. ‘Bad luck’, the other replies, ‘but if universities cut music courses, won’t that make it even more difficult for you in future years?’ ‘You cannot let that happen, as we need graduates for teaching’. ‘Sorry, universities are free agents, and music courses are not in fashion right now.’ ‘What shall we do?’ ‘Perhaps we can write a joint paper for the PS mentioning apprenticeships’ ‘Good idea, job done.’ ‘After all music is an important export industry, and we mustn’t let it go the way of design and technology in our schools.’

Last week I attended a concert in Dorchester Abbey where in the course of a week pupils from 41 primary schools came together to sing their hearts out. We must ensure that music is available to all of them when they transfer to secondary schools.

Big range in candidate’s chance of becoming a teacher

Posted on June 23, 2025 by John Howson

The latest ITT data for applications and offers for course starting this autumn was published by the DfE this morning. Initial teacher training application statistics for courses starting in the 2025 to 2026 academic year – Apply for teacher training – GOV.UK Normally, the data appears on the last Monday of the month, so this moth’s data is a week early. However, at this stage of the year the early publication probably doesn’t make much of a difference to any analysis of the data.

The good news is that the DfE allocations or targets, call them what you will, have already been exceeded in some subjects; even before any Teach First data has been added to these numbers. However, what matters is how many of the ‘offers’ turn into trainees on the ground when courses start. Based on previous years, it seems likely that this will turn out to a good year for the government and schools, but challenges still exist in some subjects.

At least four subjects, business studies; design and technology, music, and religious education won’t meet their targets this year. This is despite music having the highest conversion rate of applicants to offers of some 63%. By comparison, business studies has the lowest conversion rate of just 27%. It is possible that both classics and drama might also fall short of their targets this year, but the jury is still out.

Subject	Target 2025/26	June offers	June applications	offer to candidates’ ratio
Business Studies	900	255	934	27%
Chemistry	730	730	2432	30%
Physics	1,410	1431	4763	30%
Others	2,520	399	1179	34%
Mathematics	2,300	2321	6216	37%
Religious Education	780	397	1029	39%
Biology	985	1275	3303	39%
Total Secondary	19,270	16100	38481	42%
English	1,950	1648	3937	42%
Classics	60	41	95	43%
Computing	895	895	2015	44%
Art & Design	680	817	1650	50%
Geography	935	854	1712	50%
Design & Technology	965	587	1174	50%
Modern Languages	1,460	1418	2723	52%
Drama	620	269	501	54%
History	790	924	1663	56%
Physical Education	725	1514	2639	57%
Primary	7,650	8790	15273	58%
Music	565	325	516	63%

For some subjects the ‘offers’ are well in excess of the targets/allocations, with physical education have offers double the requirement, and a high ratio for offers to candidates. The cash this will bring to universities through fees will no doubt be welcome, but is it a good use of taxpayers’ money? If the Teacher Supply modelling is correct, many of these trainees might struggle to find a teaching post in 2026: not a phrase I have written recently.

I am curious as to where the more than 4,700 physics candidates have come from? If those with offers turn up, then that will be really good news, but I think we need clarity about the numbers and their reliability in predicting trainee starters this autumn.

Although all regions have seen an increase in candidate numbers, the Midlands have seen a fall in candidate numbers as measured by the region of the training provider. There is an imbalance between provider regions with just three regions; London, the North West and the South East accounting for the bulk of ‘offers’. As some providers are located in one region but provide wider, and even national coverage, this should not be an issue, but is worth monitoring, especially in the subject that won’t reach their targets, for any regional shortages.

Still, for many admissions tutors in ITT this will be their easiest summer for more than a decade. 2026 might be even better.

Mixed messages on teacher retention in latest data

Posted on June 10, 2025 by John Howson

How long do teachers stay in service? The DfE comment in their analysis of the latest data that Retention rates for teachers increased for both the newest teacher cohort who qualified in 2023 and for second year retention for those who qualified in 2022, while decreasing for most earlier cohorts compared to the equivalent measure last year.

Now after a period where retention rates have been declining that’s good news, and with the worsening general labour market and an older teacher workforce than in recent years, I expect retention rates to continue to improve over the next few years.

However, the improvement is something of a mixed blessing. Teachers with longer service tend to cost more, and if schools are funded for average salary costs, more schools will find the pay bill higher than the funding, especially as pupil numbers drop.

At the same time, higher retention rates mean fewer vacancies as rolls fall unless schools receive real increases in their funding that allows additional teachers to be recruited (the Spending Review will answer that question).

If past history is anything to go by, then different regions of the country will be affected differently. My guess is that retention rates will be lower in London and the Home Counties, and higher the further north and west you travel across England. This improvement in retention rates is bad news for job hunters, and also bad news for recruitment agencies that make their profits from schools advertising vacancies unless schools’ resort to only offering one-year contracts that are not then renewed.

Any reduction in job opportunities may also be bad news for teachers trying to return to work in the United Kingdom from abroad. Add in the decline in the number of pupils in private schools, some 11,000 in the latest data, when compared with the previous year’s data, and that might be somewhere around 750 less jobs in that sector in one year.

Although retention is better for the first two years of service in the latest data from the DfE, rates still have some way to go to return to levels of twenty years ago.

% in service after each year of service	2003 entrants	Latest	Difference
1	91	89.7	-1.3
2	85	80.5	-4.5
3	81	73.2	-7.8
4	78	70.2	-7.8
5	76	67.6	-8.4
6	75	64.6	-10.4
7	73	62.5	-10.5
8	70	60.6	-9.4
9	68	59.2	-8.8
10	66	57	-9

The table compares the latest data with the 2003 entry cohort survival rates for their first ten years of service. So, 66% of the 2003 cohort were still in teaching after ten years, but only 57% of the 2014 cohort were still in teaching after ten years.

The table shows an alarming difference for teachers with six to seven years of service, the group that might be expected to be taking on middle leadership positions. Hopefully, the new pay rise will be a further incentive to persuade teachers to to quit. Knowing why they do quit, and where they go, is some other data the DfE might wish to share with everyone.

John Howson

Education and the numbers that affect what happens

Tag Archives: teacher supply