Tag Archives: teacher training

Is the lack of a London allowance affecting teacher training numbers in London?

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What is happening in London? The data released by UCAS yesterday on applications and applicants for graduate teacher training courses as at the middle of September – after most courses will have started – shows that the data for applicants with a domicile in London seem way out of line when compared with the data for applicants domiciled in other parts of England.

According to the UCAS data, only 39% of applicants domiciled in London have been placed on a course. This compares with a national average of 51%. By contrast, 16% of applicants with a London domicile were shown in the data as holding a conditional offer, compared with a national percentage of 11%. In the North East, the conditional offers were 8% of those applicants domiciled there; half the percentage in London.

Now it is perfectly possible that providers that recruited applicants domiciled in London were less good at informing UCAS that applicants had been converted from a conditional offer to a confirmed place. Indeed, I hope that is the case. The alternative and more worrying scenario is that the conditionally placed total represents candidates that weren’t going to take up the place offered to them earlier in the year and failed to meet all the conditions such as the pre-entry skills tests without informing the provider that they weren’t going to take up their place.  Were that to be the case, then there might only be around 3,500 trainees in London, outwith Teach First, on courses that started this autumn.

As that’s both primary and secondary trainees, the figure must be of concern. As schools in London have advertised a similar 3,500 vacancies for secondary school classroom teachers so far in the 2015 recruitment round  according to TeachVac (www.teachvac.co.uk), the number of secondary trainees would need to be more than half the trainee total to ensure sufficient entrants to the London labour market in 2016, if vacancies are at a similar level next year. With pupil numbers on the increase, it seems unlikely that vacancies will fall very much unless London schools’ budgets are restricted next year.

As we don’t know the spread of offers between subjects among London providers, it is impossible to tell whether certain subjects might be even more adversely affected by these figures. They certainly need further investigation. Now it may well be that the large-scale operation of Teach First across London is having an effect on the market for training places in the capital. As we know, from TV programmes, such as ‘Tough Young Teachers’, Teach First has its own approach to preparing teachers. However, unless it has the same retention rate as other programmes that presumably aim to train career teachers, any programme seen as a short-service approach to teaching as a career could affect training numbers when pupil numbers are on the increase.

Let’s assume a normal training programme places 75% of its teachers in post: say 75 out of 100. By the end of year 1, 20% leave, taking the number down to 60. If a further 15% leave at the end of year 2, that means 51 are still teaching. However, if the figures were 80% for the entry rate and 10% leaving at the end of each year, there would be 57 still remaining at the start of year 3. How does that compare with Teach First over a similar period from entry to summer school to start of year 3 of teaching?

Fortunately, as a result of a PQ in the House of Lords, we know that the 2014 cohort for Teach First was 1,387 at the start of the Summer Institute. By the end of year 1, some 1,272 gained QTS. However, the government dodged the part of the question from Lord Storey that asked how many entered teaching the following September. As not all of the 1,272 are in London, we cannot really complete the comparison except to say that if all Teach First were in London they would have needed to lose just under 600 trainees between year 1 and entering year 3 of teaching to match the hypothetical figures for other training provision.

The point of this discussion is that any route that retains fewer teachers over the first three to five years of teaching than the norm just adds to the recruitment problems. This is something that should be monitored to allow for the most cost-effective training provision that best meets the recruitment needs of schools in London, especially if there are fewer trainees entering in the first instance than there are places on offer.

Acceptances increase to meet recruitment challenge

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Many years ago I wondered what would happen if women stopped applying to become teachers. The policy aim over the past has witnessed attempts to reverse the decline in applications from men while no doubt hoping that applications from women continue to underpin the total number of applications.

Over the past few years, and especially during the recession, the numbers of both women and men applying for teacher training as graduates increased. Now they are both back on the downward path.

Compare three years – applications from graduates to train as teachers

Men      Women          All applicants

2001                       12,906   27,989             40,895

2005                       18,822   40,321              60,143

2015                       15,170   30,290              45,460 * To 17th August

Now the 2015 number will increase a bit and it doesn’t include applications just for Teach First, but then the earlier numbers didn’t include GTTP, Fast Track and any other schemes that didn’t recruit through the central admissions system, including the Open University.

So, it seems that this year we are not yet back to the level of 2001, but applications are down by close to a quarter on a decade ago. That means there are 10,000 fewer women applying and three thousand fewer men. In percentage terms applications from men a down by close to a fifth on a decade ago whereas those from women are down by a quarter.

But, someone reading this is bound to ask, didn’t you say there were more acceptances in some subjects this year than last? How can that be?

The answer is, of course, that the offer to application ratio has increased. At the August data point last year, across the system as a whole, some 60% of applicants had received an offer of one kind or another. At the same point this year, the percentage had increased to 64% of applicants being made an offer. Interestingly in London, the area where the labour market is at its most challenging for schools, only 57% of applicants were shown with an offer. However, this increases to 67% for offers made by providers in the South East. In the North East it is 65%.

It would be interesting to know whether the additional costs factors associated with living in London have meant applicants have turned down a chance to train in the capital’s schools or whether it possibly the effect of Teach First taking the best of possible candidates as they can offer a salary? Either way, it is noticeable in a search yesterday on the UCAS system showed that the UCL-Institute of Education still posted vacancies in more secondary subjects than were full. Incidentally, 28 universities were still in Clearing yesterday for undergraduate primary teacher training and 40 of the 149 postgraduate courses training primary school teachers in London still showed vacancies.

Now it is possible that this year will mark the turning point of the economic cycle, with the slowdown in the Chinese economy putting the brake on graduate recruitment in 2016. However, it still leaves schools to weather the 2016 recruitment challenge and, based upon these figures, together with the growing school population, that is not likely to be easy for schools unless an economic collapse brings in a flood of returners.  However, it seems the DfE has a plan – recruit overseas.

Good news or not?

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The latest data on applications through UCAS to train as teachers contains both good and disturbing news. The good news is that around 10% more offers have been made than at this point last year to applicants wishing to train as secondary school teachers. The more disturbing news is that the majority of these offers are in just three subject areas; languages, physical education and history. These are likely, on the basis of the current position, to be the only three subjects that will meet the government Teacher Supply Model figure for estimated recruitment needed into training. All other principle subjects are now likely to fall short of their Teacher Supply Model number, although some subjects will hopefully do better than last year.

Part of the problem is that the required number has increased in some subjects, making the likelihood of it being reached less than if it had remained at the 2014 level.
Perhaps more worrying for the government is that the decline in applications this year covers both School Direct and University courses and is reflected across all geographical regions and among all age-groups, with significant declines among the young age-groups of applicants. There are, for instance, around 1,500 fewer new young graduates applying to become a teacher than at this stage last year. Indeed, although gaps between the total number of applicants this year and last year has been reducing month on month, it still stands at just under 4,000 or a 10% reduction on this point last year.

Perhaps even more alarming than the secondary numbers is the fact that the number of offers for primary training only amount to just over 12,000. This is around 1,000 less than at the same point last year and nearly 2,000 fewer than the 14,000 places allocated. If the allocated number is anything close to the actual requirement for September 2016 then there will need to be a recruitment drive over the new two months to fill the empty places. It is one thing to under-recruit in the secondary subjects but quite another to create a situation where primary courses also don’t meet their targets.

These numbers must give pause for thought over the distribution of places between universities and schools. The fact that probably less than two thirds of the School Direct Salaried places allocated for 2015 may be filled by the end of the cycle across both primary and secondary sectors must be of some concern.

By next month the conditional offers that make up the bulk of the offer totals will largely have been translated into full places as degree results and other issues are resolved and the picture will be clearer, at least in the secondary sector. For primary, there will remain the uncertainty of the undergraduate cycles and the outcome of the ‘A’ level examinations. Whether the clearing system will be able to handle places in ITT with the issues over the pre-entry skills tests required will be worth watching.

This autumn may well be a time to reflect about the balance between the teacher preparation system desired by government and what is achievable on the ground. As regular readers will know, I would start by abolishing the £9,000 tuition fee for graduates. Compared with the complex bursary system a no fee policy is easy to sell and easy for applicants to understand.

Canards

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In the 1990s when Chris Woodhead became head of Ofsted he mentioned a figure of 15,000 poor quality teachers that needed removing in an early interview. That figure became stuck in the minds of journalists and was trotted out for many years even though it wasn’t often supported by any evidence. We now have a similar situation with the 40% of teachers that allegedly quit the profession in their first year of teaching. This figure goes right back to an interview Mike Tomlinson gave, I think but haven’t checked, to The Guardian when he took over from Mr Woodhead. Recently, it gained a new lease of life when used by ATL’s general secretary at their annual conference this spring. Here’s what I wrote on May 8th

Teacher supply was an area of interest following the teacher associations annual conferences. I was surprised, and not a little disappointed, to see the General Secretary of ATL use data from 2011 – data from during the height of the recession – to discuss recruitment and staying-on rates for teachers in 2015. It may well be that in London and the South East more teachers will leave during their first year, but in 2011 the problem for many teachers was finding a job in the first place. This year the problem for some schools has been finding a teacher at all.

Although Sam Freedman and I don’t share the same political views we do share a regard for the accurate use of data and his comments at http://samfreedman1.blogspot.co.uk/ say what I think, although the statistics he mentions for secondary trainees are in Table 6 with table 5 covering undergraduate courses.

That at least two leading recruitment agencies have used the 40% statistic to support their promotional campaigns is disappointing, as I would have hoped for a little more maturity from them.  Anyhow the figure is now firmly in the public consciousness and will reappear from time to time when thoughtless commentators discuss teacher supply problems. as this is an issue likely to remain in the headlines we can expect to see the figure used regularly.

But, there is no use just moaning. We need an agenda for action on teacher supply. Here are some suggestions;

– Pay the fees of all graduate trainees from 2015 entry onwards – this will be especially helpful to career changers that have paid off previous fees and will need to repay the £9,000 as soon as they start teaching

– Look to how those training to be teachers that have links to communities can be employed in those communities and more mobile students can be encouraged to move to where they are needed.

– Make sure teacher preparation places are more closely linked to where the jobs will be. This means reviewing places in London and the Home counties – not enough – and the north West – probably too many in some subjects and sectors.

– look at trainees that cannot find a job because we trained too many of them and see whether with some minimal re-training they might be useful teachers. This applies especially to PE teachers this year – some might re-train as science teachers or primary PE specialists and art teachers if they can work in design part of D&T.

– ramp up the 2015 autumn advertising campaign spend, including an early TV and social media advertising spend that at least matches that of the MoD.

– split the teacher preparation part of the National College away from the Leadership and professional development elements and put someone in charge that understands the issues- Sir Andrew Carter springs to mind as an obvious choice.

– look at the NQT year support now that local authorities don’t have the cash to help. This may be vital in keeping primary teachers in the profession, especially if anything goes wrong at the school where they are working.

None of these are new idea, and many were in my submission to the Carter Review that can be found in an earlier post. What is clear is that the new government cannot continue with an amateurish approach that marked some of the tactics towards teacher supply during the last few years. With many thousands more pupils entering schools over the next few years we cannot create a world class school system with fewer teachers.

Ship no longer looks as steady

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The publication today by UCAS of the end of cycle report for the 2014 teacher training admissions scheme has produced some interesting new data that raises questions about some of the assumptions in my previous post. You can find the report in full at: https://www.ucas.com/sites/default/files/utt_eoc_2014_eoc_15_03_27.pdf

As this was the first round of the new system it may be dangerous to read too much into the data, and there is no guarantee that this round will be exactly the same as the last one, but if it is then we really do have to start taking the matter of teacher supply seriously.

One key statistic from the UCAS Report was that over the whole cycle 52% of applicants secured a place. As we know, acceptance rates were higher for university courses than for school-based provision. What we didn’t know was that acceptance rates declined the later a person applied in the cycle. Now some of that may be due to courses becoming full between an application and consideration by the course provider. However, I doubt that was responsible for acceptance rates as low as 46% towards the end of the cycle. UCAS note in the report that the former GTTR Scheme had a 43% acceptance rate in 2013, so despite the lower acceptance rate on school-based courses universities do seem to have either had better quality applicants or been willing to take more risks with those that did apply to prevent a greater shortfall in new teacher numbers.

The report also notes that by the end of February, 71% of applications had been received. On that basis the 28,000 or so applicants in the system by mid-March 2015 this year might be joined by another 8,500-9,000 applicants this year during the remainder of the cycle. That would mean more than 4,500 acceptances still to come once all the 28,000 had been processed.

As a result, the missing 5,000 applicants by mid-March 2015 compared with mid-March 2014 may mean a drop of 2,500 in numbers recruited through the admissions process. That’s a scary number and might possibly take recruitment down to no more than 26,000 Trainees. For those that really want to worry, and feel like sleepless nights, I recommend a look at Figure 39 on page 46 of the UCAS report. This shows that acceptance rates fell away sharply after May last year. Now some of that may be due to courses becoming full, but if so there is a need to devise a trading system of spare places to be able to offer candidates in subjects where the overall total won’t be met a place. Just over allocating, the system used by NCTL at present, doesn’t seem to be working.

Whether some courses would remain viable at current levels is a matter for consideration. I wonder whether the NCSL ITT group that met earlier this week have yet discussed safety measures for ensuring providers can stay in the market or whether they are just prepared to let market forces decide where provision is delivered.

Because the admissions system is new, comparisons with previous years are not really possible except on the overall number of applicants. UCAS recorded 54,015 applicants. That is probably the lowest number of graduates applying for teacher training since 2008 when the number was 51,616 through GTTR. Realistically, the overall number was higher that year because the employment-based routes didn’t recruit through UCAS. The last time the number dropped below 50,000 was probably early this century.

Has the ship steadied?

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Data released from UCAS this morning shows that total applications for postgraduate teacher preparation courses still lags behind the same point in 2014. By mid-March 2014 there had been over 102,000 applications from more than 33,500 applicants. This year at roughly the same mid-moth point in March applications were around 85,500 and applicant numbers were approaching the 28,000 mark. In terms of applicants, the gap has widened by around a further 200 applicants during the mid-February to mid-March period. With around 34,000 places on offer there are still not enough applicants to fill every place, even if all were suitable.

Higher education seems to be bearing the brunt of the reduction, with applications down from more than 53,000 in 2014 to fewer than 40,000 in March 2015. That said, although applications to SCITTs have risen, but there are more of them this year, applications to School Direct are down in both categories. The reduction is not a localised issue, but appears in all age groups and across all regions of England. This will make the downward trend more of a challenge to reverse in the remaining period of the recruitment round as it is difficult to know where to focus advertising to gain the most effect. We must just hope that the TV advertising campaign makes a difference by next month.

Although at this stage of the year interpreting ‘offers’ under the system that allows multiple offers to be made is more difficult than in the past, it does seem that in the primary sector the total number of ‘offers’ currently in the system is down on the same point last year by  possibly as many as 400 candidates.

The situation in the secondary sector is more challenging to unravel because of the manner in which UCAS present the statistics. However, it seems likely that there may be slightly more ‘offers’ in the system than at this point last year. The anxiety is that they may not be in the traditional ‘shortage’ subjects but in languages, where there seems to have been a large increase in applications, and possibly in physical education. Physics and mathematics have probably reached a level that is sustainable with present bursary and scholarship arrangements if applications continue at the current rate, but the numbers won’t be high enough to meet the level of training places allocated. In many other subjects, demand still remains at levels that are worryingly low and will be insufficient to improve on recruitment totals from last year unless the ratio of acceptances to applicants is altered, especially on School Direct where relatively more applicants weren’t offered places than on other types of course in 2014.

Next month the figures will be affected by the Easter break and, although this is less of an issue in these days of electronic applications, it is still a factor to be taken into account. Thus, the next set of data that can form a realistic comparison between 2014 and 2015 will come in May, after the election. The data will no doubt be an early headache for the new Secretary of State, assuming we have one by then.

London needs teachers

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An analysis of the first 5,600 vacancies recorded in TeachVac www.teachvac.co.uk the free service for schools and teachers that allows schools to place job announcements and those vacancies to be matched with trainees, teachers and returners looking for a classroom teaching post in a secondary school, has thrown up some interesting information.

Firstly, it looks likely that any secondary school looking for a teacher in the autumn term will have to rely either upon returners or using the services of agencies of others prepared to search for applicants. The trainee pool in most subjects is likely to be exhausted by the summer if the current level of advertisements continues, especially if April is the peak month for recruitment advertising, as it has been in past years.

Of course, the rumblings from the ASCL conference about schools budgets may mean that schools have fewer vacancies to advertise than they would wish. But that may be counter-acted by above average wastage from the profession if other surveys from the teacher associations are correct.

Anyway, what is clear from TeachVac is that around half the vacancies in many subjects recorded so far this year are in just three regions of England; London; the South East; the East of England. This is despite the over-representation of Teach First in London compared with the rest of the country even though it now has a role across the country.

The presence of above average numbers of private schools in and around London may account for the higher levels of posts in the separate sciences and in many vacancies for teachers of specific languages in this part of the country. Elsewhere, the tendency is still to advertise ‘science’ vacancies and for ‘language’ teachers. Although numbers are small, London and the South East account for two thirds of recorded vacancies for teachers of classics.

Unless they are just advertising locally, and not using their own web sites, schools in the North West of England have advertised around 25% fewer vacancies than schools in London so far during 2015. It may be that the large number of trainees in that part of the country means that more schools can offer more posts directly to trainees without needing to advertise a vacancy. Before the advent of academies such behaviour might have been regarded askance in some quarters.

Teachers of PE may struggle the most to find a new job for September unless vacancies increase sharply in the remainder of the year, as may teachers of RE looking for a teaching post in the south West.

Next week will see the publication of the March data on applications through the UCAS unified admissions system for teacher preparation courses starting this autumn. These courses will provide the bulk of new entrants to fill secondary classroom teacher vacancies in 2016. Hopefully, the new TV campaign will have boosted applications, although it may be April before any effect can really be noticed. Without more applicants 2016 looks likely to be an even more challenging recruitment round than this year, especially if dropout rates from preparation courses are also on the increase, as has been suggested to me.

Another manifesto for teacher education

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Yesterday the Million+ group of universities launched their Manifesto for Teacher Education in a dining room at the House of Commons. The Chair, the VC of Staffordshire University was flanked by two leading teacher association officials and Labour and Tory party speakers, albeit the Labour member of their education team was Welsh and the ATL speaker was bilingual and had taught in Wales: the debate was wide ranging.

The manifesto itself highlights the need for teachers to have an academic and professional qualification and seeks to restore the pre-eminence of universities in both the preparation of new teachers and in their professional development throughout their career. The manifesto view that Osfted should inspect all providers is sensible, as it the promotion of a workforce that represents society as a whole. Adding a point about the Teacher Supply Model and a need for regional variations in demand to be taken into account is an interesting development and reflects a wider concern about allocations. Especially where targets aren’t being met.

There was a point when the Tory speaker challenged the need for a teaching qualification albeit starting his remarks by saying that there were fewer unqualified teachers now than there were a few years ago. A bit like a position of ‘wanting to have your cake and eat it.’ This led to a debate about whether HE lecturers should also be trained and, at least from me, a question about whether that applied to FE teaching staff as well?  Most seemed in favour of preparation for all that teach at whatever level.

The elephant in the room that nobody addressed, despite a direct question from me, was about whether graduates training as teachers should be expected to pay fees? This isn’t mentioned in the manifesto either. Despite their recent announcement, the Labour speaker didn’t mention anything about whether trainees would be expected to pay fees. As regular reads know, my position is clear, there should be no fees for graduate trainees preparing to be a teacher by whatever route they choose and the present position is discriminatory. However, I have yet to win Lib Dem support for this position.

On the teacher supply position it was humbling to be referred to by two of the speakers as a leading authority. However, I had many years of following the trends and TeachVac www.teachvac.co.uk was set up to collect data about the interface between training and employment and thus help improve the modelling of where teachers need to be trained.

The fact that it also offers a free service bring together vacancies and trainees looking for jobs is a bonus that will shortly be extended to all classroom teachers in secondary schools and if discussions underway are successful eventually to the primary sector and to include all promoted and leadership vacancies as well. Next month we hope to publish data on where trainees are looking for vacancies; and just as importantly, where they aren’t. This could provide a lively debate about the very regional needs Million+ highlighted. At present, secondary schools in Yorkshire and the Humber have posted around a third fewer vacancies per school than schools in the South East of England. Despite the presence of TeachFirst, London schools aren’t far behind their neighbours in the South East in seeking new teachers. This is something Million+ will need to bear in mind.

Election manifestos are starting to appear

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Right of centre think tank Policy Exchange this week published its education manifesto. Not quite in the league of Kenneth Baker’s call for a coalition with Labour in terms of headline grabbing policies it did however have some surprises. I am delighted that they recognise that charging fees for trainee teachers is wrong. Their solution is slightly more nuanced than mine which regular readers will know is to make training free at delivery. Policy Exchange only want fees paid off for those working in state schools. This presumably means that the private sector will have to pay extra to attract teachers as such teachers would still be required to repay their fees. That’s an interesting idea, but it leaves a third group, including possibly many PE teachers where government training numbers are too high, in limbo. What of the trainee that wants to work as a teacher but cannot find a job: should they be penalised for training if they have to take a job outside of teaching because the government mis-calculated training numbers? For those reasons I am still personally in favour of remitting fees for all trainees.
Policy Exchange also wants to allow city regions to create incentives for teachers to work across the country. This seems like a thinly disguised version of regional pay and I wonder whether it is based on serious research since most of the teacher shortages that don’t affect the sector as a whole are likely to be in and around London where teacher turnover is at its highest. A more radical move would have been to hand the training to regions or even local authorities to administer.
The think tank’s idea that all 16-18 year olds should study maths, but not seemingly English, is a sensible proposal that most would now agree is worth implementing once an acceptable curriculum can be devised.
Earlier this week I attended the launch of the DataLab project funded by the Fischer Family Trust. This initiative should be a useful source of independent research into education using the large databases on pupils and teachers that are now available. Their first projects showing that learning isn’t a linear process but has its ups and downs and their work on pupils that just gain a place at a selective schools and those that just miss out is well worth reading. The fact that those that just miss out on a grammar school place often outperform those who just gain a place must give pause for thought to the lobby wanting to expand selective schools on academic grounds.
Next week is national apprentice week and it is really good to see the focus on those young people not going to university. One of the great failings of the Blair Labour government was to cast aside the Tomlinson Report without really understanding what it was trying to do. Perhaps if there were a Labour/Tory coalition we might see some more progress. But, we might also see a Liberal Democrat as leader of the opposition facing the PM every Wednesday: now there’s a thought to cheer me up.

Divide by three

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The government’s new TV advertising campaign to attract entrants into the teaching profession cannot come soon enough. Data released today by UCAS shows that at the halfway point in the recruitment cycle the grim picture I highlighted when the January data emerged has not improved; in some cases it has even become worse.

Normally, in past years most primary PGCE places have been taken up by now. This year, applicants are holding 7,610 offers compared with 8,540 at the same date in 2014. Now, because of the new, expensive and unhelpful admissions arrangements, candidates may hold a number of offers for a period of time. Thus, real acceptances this year could be less than 3,000, including candidates required to meet conditions such as passing the skills tests. In 2012, there were 18,700 applicants for primary courses at this point in time, whereas if we assume the current 37,000 applicants have all made their possible three applications then there may be fewer than 12,500 applicants for primary courses are in the system. That’s a big drop in four years.

The picture is little better in secondary where many of the subjects that under-recruited last year aren’t doing much better this year. The total of offers are higher than at this point last year in languages; PE; art; and probably in IT and Chemistry. They are basically the same as at this point last year in Physics; mathematics; history; English; business studies; and biology. Most worrying is the fact that current offers are probably below last year in RE; music; geography and probably design and technology. The concerns over the future of the arts in schools are probably not mis-placed and no doubt potential teachers in these subjects are picking up on the messages.

With School Direct closing down applications in many cases during July, there are less than 20 weeks to turn around the current situation. A TV advertising campaign may not be enough: Fees should be either abolished for all trainees or guaranteed by the government. Increasing bursaries that are tax free risks trainees being paid more after tax and NI than the mentors helping train them in the schools. It also risks trainees having to take a pay cut on entry into the profession, especially if the £25,000 bursary is grossed up from the time spent in training to an annual salary.

There is a rumour that the NCTL is handing out more places to providers willing to take them. That is not a sensible move at this stage as it risks destabilising the sector. Providers that cannot fill enough places to make ends meet and cover their costs might just pull out. This is especially true of small primary school providers put in jeopardy by the current drop in applications. The government should look at possible safety net arrangements for providers faced with a shortage of applicants but serving parts of the country where their disappearance would cause real supply problems.

Unless teaching can attract career changers, and so far only 10,000 of the 24,600 applicants are over 25, then there will be few new applicants from now until after final exams finish in May or June. That will be too late to redeem recruitment failures earlier in the cycle.