For most of the past 30 years, I have spent the week between Christmas and New Year drafting annual reports on aspects of the labour market for teachers during the previous 12 months for TeachVac’s and its predecessors, and also making a prognosis of what might happen in the labour market during the year to come. The finished reports; one on classroom teachers and promoted posts, and the other on leadership scale vacancies should, this year, be completed by the middle of the month.
Headlines include the steep increase in recorded vacancies across all grades during 2022; and the fact that schools in an around London recorded more vacancies than schools elsewhere in England. The problems, although not confined to the secondary sector are worse in that sector than in the primary school sector, where pupil numbers are now falling across much of England.
Of more interest that what happened in 2022 for most readers of this blog is, no doubt, my predictions for 2023. Based upon the trainee numbers in the DfE’s ITT census as a starting point, and abstracting those trainees already in the classroom and less likely to be job hunting, at least for a teaching post, for September 2023 from the totals, the numbers must be of concern.
After factoring in non-completions; those seeking posts in Sixth Form Colleges or elsewhere in publicly funded education outside of schools; and allowing for the demand form the private school sector, especially in the south of England, where a large number of such schools are concentrated; the final numbers may be the worst this century.
If the London region is taken as an example, using 2022 vacancies as the basis for the calculations, and assuming 40% of classroom teacher vacancies are taken by new entrants to the profession, with the remainder filled by those returning to teaching or switching schools, then some subjects do not have enough trainees to meet the possible demand from London’s schools
Business Studies, religious education and computing might be the most worrying subjects for London schools seeking to fill vacancies. Of course, a school advertising in January will always fare better than one looking for an unexpected appointment for January 2024 late in the autumn, but schools should not need to be worrying about filling vacancies advertised as early as February this year.
TeachVac is increasing its registers of teachers looking to be matched to jobs, and secondary schools wanting their vacancies matched can sign up for £10 a week (£500 per year plus VAT) or miss out on this resource that aims to match 15,000 teachers this year. Sign up at www.teachvac.co.uk
Despite this week being a holiday period for most people, the DfE has published the data about ITT applications up to 19th December 2022. This is the second monthly set of data about applications for 2023 courses. While December is still too early to be certain about the outcome of the recruitment round, it is now possible to see the strength of the interest in teaching as a graduate career at the start of the recruitment round.
The headline is that as far as offers are concerned most subjects have made more offers that at this time last year, but generally fewer than in December 2020. However, some subjects such as religious education, computing, drama, history and physical education have made fewer offers than in December 2021. For history and physical education, the number of offers is probably not of concern since traditionally both these subjects over-recruit against any DfE number supplied for the Teacher Supply Model. For the other subjects, the lack of offers this early must be of some concern since they failed to reach expected levels last year, and the mountain is now looking even steep to climb during 2023.
The total number of applicants by 22nd December was 12,897 compared with 12,310 on the 20th December 2021. This year the applicants generated 33,688 applications compared with 32,016 at December 2021. It is welcome that both these numbers are up this year, but the increase is not enough to suggest that there will not be concern about meeting targets during 2023.
More worryingly, only 196 applicants have been ‘recruited’, although the number of candidates with ‘conditions pending’ is similar to the number in December 2021. Fortunately, the number of candidates that have received and offer and are yet to respond is up by several hundred on the December 2021 figure.
The total number of applications for secondary courses is up on December 2021, by around 2,000 while the number of applications for primary courses is down by nearly a thousand to 14,500. More disturbingly, the number of unsuccessful applications for secondary courses is up from 8,377 in December 2021 to 9,654 this year. Some of these applicants may still find a place though the Apply 2 route later in the recruitment round.
More than 10% of candidates this year are classified as having applied from ‘the rest of the world’. The increase in this group masks the fall in applicants from London; the South East and the East of England regions. As these three regions are the parts of England struggling most to recruit teachers, the loss of potential candidates for 2023 is a matter of concern although applications to these regions are higher than last year, possibly boosted by the increase in overseas applicants.
Applications from candidates age 22, probably recent graduates or those graduating in 2023 are slightly down, applications from most other age groups are at similar levels to last year.
Higher Education courses remain buoyant, with all other types of courses also recording more applications. Of the 196 applicants so far ‘recruited’, 181 have been recruited by higher education providers to their courses.
Two swallows don’t make a summer, and two months data may not represent the rest of the application round, but, unless there is a significant upturn in applicants to secondary courses during the first eight months of 2023, the outlook for courses in autumn 2023 will not be much better than the dismal numbers recorded in the recent DfE ITT Census for courses that started in autumn of 2022. Such an outcome would imply another challenging labour market for secondary schools in 2024 that is unless school funding for future pay awards was such as to drive down demand for teachers to cover the increased pay awards.
Earlier this autumn I was asked to prepare a lecture for Oxford Brookes University. Sadly, it was never presented for a variety of reasons. So, for any reader of this blog that would like a longer than normal post to read over the holiday period, I have published the text of the lecture below.
Best wishes for the holiday season to all my readers and thank you for the continued support of this blog.
Brookes Autumn Talk 2022
Teacher Supply in Oxfordshire – does the market model work?
Thank you for once again inviting me to talk to you about my special subject: the labour market for teachers. Last time, I started with history, this time I thought I might concentrate on geography. More specifically, the geography of Oxfordshire, its schools and their need for teachers and school leaders to staff them and what implications this might have for policy makers, were they willing to listen.
First, a bit of background. As many of you know, the government has always had a key role to play in managing the supply of teachers to schools through its grip on the teacher preparation market.
The DfE’s Teacher Supply Model tries to predict how many teachers need to be trained each year in order to ensure a sufficient supply of new teachers to provide staffing for schools across England. The Model is a national model, and does not consider regional differences.
Another drawback of the DfE’s Teacher Supply Model is that it doesn’t consider the backgrounds of entrants to ITT. Are they undergraduate; recent graduates; career changers or teachers from overseas requiring QTS to be fully accredited to teach in England?
Some of you may recall the Carter Review and its look at ITT. In my submission to that Group, I made the point that now all those considering teaching were from the same backgrounds or stages in their careers:
So, consider these individuals thinking about teaching as a career: (Blog 23rd June 2014)
Jane is a recent graduate, age 22, with an upper second degree in modern history. Since GCSE she has studied no history pre-1472. She wants to teach history in a secondary school.
Kevin is a 28-year-old policeman who is looking to change careers to work with young people in a positive way. He has a lower second-class degree in forensic science, and wonders what he might teach in the secondary sector
Helen is a 35-yearold mum with two school-age children. She has a degree in physics, and since the birth of her own children she has volunteered a day a week at a local primary school. She is interested in teaching children at Key Stage 1.
Wayne is studying for his ‘A’ levels in media studies, photography and theatre studies. He is 20 and had a chequered history as a teenager, but now wants to become a teacher and put something back into society.
Of the four all have different needs, and some are better served by the present routes than others.
Jane would have the option to select from the two School Direct routes, (assuming that the Salaried route is still operational) a higher education course, a SCITT course or Teach First. As history is a popular subject, attracting more applicants than places, she might be told by some course providers to acquire some experience of schools in a voluntary capacity before being considered. If she applied after Christmas for courses starting in September, she would probably find her options severely limited. In most cases she would find herself having to pay another set of tuition fees to study unless she was lucky enough to be accepted on either the Teach First programme or to find a School Direct salaried place.
Kevin has a degree that doesn’t fit a National Curriculum subject, so would either need to find a means of enhancing his subject knowledge or find a provider that felt he had enough science to be accepted onto a course. However, since the government split the sciences into the separate subjects of Physics, Chemistry, and Biology, the general science courses that might have accepted him have largely disappeared.
His work experience might count in his favour, especially if he had worked with young people, but his chances might depend upon when he applied. If he applied early in a recruitment round, he might fare badly as providers might expect more suitable candidates with better subject knowledge would apply later in the recruitment round.
However, if, later in the round, applications were sluggish, he might fare better, especially if he interviewed well. He would not be eligible for Teach First, but would receive some financial support if he trains to teach a physical science subject. However, he would be looking at a sizeable reduction in pay for at least a year while training even if he found a School Direct salaried place.
Helen wants to teach children at the younger end of the primary school. Although Helen has a Physics degree that isn’t likely by itself to put her near the front of the queue because currently there is no requirement for providers of primary training to consider recruiting a balance of candidates with different subject backgrounds.
Assuming Helen has the basic GCSE qualifications required much may depend upon what point in the recruitment cycle Helen applies and her three choices of provider.
Although she may not have studied any arts or humanities subjects for more than half her lifetime that probably won’t matter. She will receive basic training during her course. The time she has spent as a volunteer may help her be accepted if the head provides a good reference.
Wayne has selected ‘A’ levels that limit his chances of becoming a secondary school teacher because there are few training places to teach drama, media studies or photography, even if he achieves the required degree with a minimum of a lower second.
He could consider becoming a primary school teacher, and either enrols on an undergraduate degree leading to QTS or takes a subject degree and then competes with other graduates for one of the places, perhaps on an Apprenticeship.
He would be well advised to undertake some youth work either as a part of his degree course or as a voluntary activity as this might strengthen his chance of being accepted. It is unlikely that he would have a degree in a subject acceptable to Teach First, and there is a strong chance that he would have to pay fees and take out a loan to support his living costs through his training.
As the range of degrees available at universities becomes ever more diverse, so the link between the higher education experience and the needs of schools in terms of curriculum delivery becomes ever more decoupled. This may not seem to matter for much of the primary sector, where direct curriculum knowledge may not be required, but even at that level a need to understand the fundamentals of a subject may be important in both teaching it well and also in helping other teachers to deliver the subject as well.
Nationally, the recruitment campaigns are generic and don’t focus on any particular groups in society. Should they take these different motivations into account and should the DfE consider these issues when deciding upon the operation of the Teacher Supply Model?
I might add that the DfE has thought about issues around race, gender and disability in terms of teacher recruitment ever since 1997.
Summary of final year postgraduate trainee outcomes for the 2020/21 academic year
Percentage awarded QTS
Percentage of those awarded QTS teaching in a state school
Age
Under 25
90
72
25 and Over
86
73
Disability
Declared
81
68
None declared
88
73
Ethnic group
Asian
81
64
Black
78
65
Mixed ethnicity
86
72
Other
82
66
White
89
74
Gender
Male
84
71
Female
89
73
Source DfE
I find this table deeply disturbing in many ways, but we don’t have time today to do more than note that to belong to a minority group seems to be a challenge when finding a teaching post in a state school.
Anyway, after that digression, back to our main thesis about the labour market for teachers and the working of the Teacher Supply Model.
After taking into account flows out of teaching to other careers; to retirement or other non-work situations, such as a career break; or in a small number of cases death, the Model looks at the number of possible returners and those switching from part-time to full-time or in the other direction.
Trends in pupil numbers also need to be factored into the Model along with any possible policy changes affecting teacher numbers, such as when the Key Stage 1 maximum class size policy was introduced by David Blunkett. These days, such policy changes are rare. More challenging to predict is how schools will use their budgets, and the modelling process largely ignores this variable when considering teacher numbers and how they will change. This is an interesting area for debate, especially at the present time when schools are more financially challenged than for many years.
Because policy changes often cannot be predicted., especially as with the Key Stage 1 maximum class size rule the policy often comes after a change of government. The Teacher Supply Model must inevitably be forward looking, and even if there is no change of government, Ministers are often unwilling to flag policy changes too far in advance for party political reasons.
The Teacher Supply Model currently being discussed by the DfE will apply to the number of teacher preparation places in 2023/24 and will not impact upon the labour market for teachers until September 2024.
Because the Model is a national Model, and is created by statisticians, its role is to provide overall numbers for the primary sector and numbers by selected subjects for the secondary sector.
Herein lies another issue. What constitutes a subject? For any years, Science was a subject, as Modern Languages still is. The Model created a total for science teachers needed. The science community argued for many years that there was a need for separate totals for Biology, Chemistry and Physics with an apparent lack of concern for any other ‘science’ subject. Eventually, the DfE agreed and total for each science were created.
The unintended consequence of this move was to limit the number of biologists recruited into teaching and thus to reduce the overall number of science teachers in training. We only have to look back at Kevin with his forensic science degree to debate the wisdom of a lack of any ‘general science’ route into teaching. This is one for the science community from the Royal Society outwards to re-visit.
I think that is quite enough background on the Teacher Supply Model. Let’s now move to the real world from the abstract discussions, important though they are, about overall numbers.
Of course, if those numbers, whether called allocations, targets or by some other name, are not met then schools may find recruiting teachers more of a challenge.
Whose responsibility is it to meet that challenge?
The government
Higher education
Schools?
Without a coherent strategy to either avoid or deal with any shortfall of teachers, it will be pupils that eventually feel the consequences though curriculum change, larger groups or being taught by less than adequately equipped teachers in terms of the teacher’s knowledge and backgrounds regardless of whether they teach early years or KS5 physics.
The government can gain relief when pupil numbers reduce, usually following a sustained fall in the birth rate, as we have seen recently after the big increases of more than a decade ago.
Chart of pupil demography
Relief may also come from more returners than normal and fewer departures from the profession whether for career breaks or to other forms of employment.
For the purpose of illustration during the rest of this talk I will be concentrating upon the secondary sector. This is partly because there are fewer issues in the classroom teacher market for the primary sector, although I acknowledge that following the recent re-accreditation exercise the future is opaquer than it has been in the past.
Before looking at the current position in terms of recruitment in Oxfordshire across the secondary sector during 2022 it is worth noting that the national ITT position for this year based upon the comparison of trainee numbers with classroom teacher vacancies for a range of secondary school subjects.
Subject
1/1/22 – 30/9/2022
History
44%
PE
23%
Art
12%
Geography
-157%
Languages
-108%
English
-57%
All Sciences
-84%
RE
-108%
Mathematics
-45%
Music
-96%
Computer Studies + IT
-137%
D&T
-583%
Business Studies
-313%
The chart is created by matching the number of trainees in the DfE ITT census for 2021-22 with the number of vacancies recorded by TeachVac during the 2022 calendar year starting at 1st January. The chart records the position in terms of the remaining ITT pool at Friday 30th September. The remaining pool is arrived at by reducing the ITT number by one trainee for every two vacancies since the DfE data suggests that around a half of classroom teacher vacancies each year are filled from the trainee pool.
Negative numbers indicate more vacancies than there were trainees. There are, of course, issues with the methodology, since vacancies that are re-advertisements may legitimately be included, but repeat advertisement should not be taken into account.
Only in history, PE and art were there still positive numbers at the end of September and art is likely to turn negative before all the January 2023 vacancies are filled.
To put the data into context. Here was the ITT Census data from last December.
2013/14
2019/2020
2020/21
2021/22
Percentage of Target at census date
%
%
%
%
Mathematics
86
65
84
95
English
136
110
127
118
Modern Languages
85
64
74
71
Biology
163
189
117
Physics
42
45
22
Chemistry
67
80
105
Physical Education
138
105
135
164
Other
57
82
25
Design & Technology
45
42
75
23
History
150
115
175
199
Geography
100
118
130
86
Computing
63
75
105
69
Art & Design
136
62
132
140
Religious Education
82
94
128
99
Music
97
80
125
72
Drama
157
Business Studies
88
53
102
45
2021 ITT Census – DfE
Looking at both primary and secondary total the following picture emerges
2013/14
2019/2020
2020/21
2021/22
All Secondary
98
83
106
82
Inc TF
Inc TF
Inc TF
Primary
99
94
130
136
Inc TF
Inc TF
Inc TF
What is noticeable, is the effect of the covid pandemic on recruitment into teaching as a career. There was a significant bounce in interest about teaching as a career after the pandemic struck in March 2020 that saw an increase in applications to train as a teacher. However, it was short-lived and did not continue into the recruitment round for courses that stated in the autumn of 2021 for the secondary sector, although trainee numbers remained above target in the primary sector.
It is worth recalling that there was talk of significant failures in the economy, and teaching always attracts more applicants when the economy and the wider labour market is faring badly.
So, now let’s look at Oxfordshire and the local labour market for teachers before finally considering the relationship between local demand and supply of new teachers into the labour market.
Frist, the primary sector. This table is for vacancies for classroom teachers with No TLR attached. Basically, an entry level grade
Oxfordshire Classroom teacher vacancies January to September 2022
CLASSROOM TEACHER – NO TLR
INDEPENDENT
STATE
TOTAL
% INDEPENDENT SECTOR
PRIMARY
32
348
380
8%
I am surprised how low the percentage is, so, what about the secondary sector? For ease of comparison, TeachVac groups subjects together into a number of larger units. This partly because the range of titles used by schools when recruiting is so vast that it is unhelpful for the purpose of analysis to use the whole range when they can be reduced to a smaller number of composite groupings.
SECONDARY SCHOOL CLASSROOM TEACHER VACANCIES NO TLRS
SUBJECT GROUPS OXFORDSHIRE
Independent
State
TOTAL JANUARY TO END SEPTEMBER 2022
% INDEPENDENT SECTOR
BUSINESS STUDIES
42
9
51
82%
SEN
12
8
20
60%
SOCIAL STUDIES
35
35
70
50%
LANGUAGES
23
25
48
48%
ART
9
10
19
47%
ENGLISH
44
56
100
44%
IT/COMPUTING
21
27
48
44%
MATHEMATICS
52
76
128
41%
SCIENCE
79
116
195
41%
DANCE
7
11
18
39%
PE
11
21
32
34%
HISTORY
9
20
29
31%
GEOGRAPHY
10
25
35
29%
HUMANITIES
4
11
15
27%
MUSIC
4
18
22
18%
VOCATIONAL
1
5
6
17%
RE
3
23
26
12%
D&T
4
63
67
6%
Grand Total
370
559
929
40%
On average, across Oxfordshire, the independent sector was responsible for 40% of the vacancies for classroom teachers advertised during the first nine months of 2022. The percentages range from 82% of basic grade vacancies in business studies, to just 6% of vacancies in Design and technology. Interestingly, the independent sector percentage for Business studies reduces to 71% if you add in posts with TLRs.
The list of schools advertising for business studies is interesting
School
Independent
State
Total
Cranford House School Trust Limited
8
8
d’Overbroeck’s
4
4
Faringdon Community College
1
1
Kings Education (Oxford)
7
7
Lord Williams’s School
2
2
Magdalen College School
1
1
Matthew Arnold School
1
1
Oxford International College
3
3
Oxford Sixth Form College
6
6
Shiplake College
7
7
St Clare’s, Oxford
1
1
The Bicester School
2
2
The Oratory School
5
5
The Oxford Academy
1
1
The Warriner School
1
1
Wheatley Park School
1
1
Grand Total
42
9
51
This is for Main Grade posts. Add in TLRs and the picture changes slightly.
School
Independent
State
Total
Aureus School
3
3
Cranford House School Trust Limited
8
8
d’Overbroeck’s
6
6
Faringdon Community College
1
1
King Alfred’s
3
3
Kingham Hill School
2
2
Kings Education (Oxford)
7
7
Lord Williams’s School
2
2
Magdalen College School
1
1
Matthew Arnold School
1
1
Our Lady’s Abingdon
4
4
Oxford International College
3
3
Oxford Sixth Form College
6
6
Oxford Spires Academy
3
3
Shiplake College
7
7
St Clare’s, Oxford
1
1
St Edward’s School
1
1
The Bicester School
2
2
The Cherwell School
1
1
The Oratory School
6
6
The Oxford Academy
1
1
The Warriner School
1
1
UTC Oxfordshire
2
2
Wheatley Park School
1
1
Grand Total
52
21
73
Maybe the State sector is more alive to market conditions in this subject than some independent schools that have placed multiple advertisements to try to appoint a classroom teacher in this subject.
In passing, it is worth noting that the DfE records 41 state secondary schools in Oxfordshire and 47 schools in the independent sector, although that total does contain both special schools and sixth form colleges as well as schools serving the primary age-group of pupils. Nevertheless, the number of secondary schools in the independent sector in Oxfordshire is not far short of the number of state secondary schools, although the number of pupils is many fewer. However, that number is offset by the extra demand for teachers to staff the smaller classes normally found in the private sector schools.
One feature of the private sector schools in Oxfordshire is the number of boarding schools across the county. Boarding schools are as likely to cater for students from outside the United Kingdom and as such form an important part of the education export market by attracting foreign currency earnings. In additional to the ‘normal’ type of school, there are also tutorial colleges offering specific courses often for ‘A’ level or other pre-higher education programme that will be looking to recruit from the same pool of teachers as well as recruiting other non-teachers, such as graduate students to teach some courses.
So, there are more than 80 schools in Oxfordshire educating pupils of secondary school age, and together they have generated 929 advertisements for classroom teachers between January and the end of September. After allowing for re-advertisements and expectations for the coming three months, it seems likely that across the whole of 2022 there will have been a demand for around 1,000 secondary school classroom teachers in Oxfordshire.
As many of you know, the DfE has recently concluded a re-accreditation process for ITT. All three providers in Oxfordshire were listed by the DfE in the approved list.
The University of Oxford cites the number of places for 2023/24 as c184 on the PGCE in the following subjects
English
geography
history
mathematics
modern languages (French, German, Spanish, Mandarin)
religious education
science (biology, chemistry, physics).
The Oxfordshire Teacher Training Programme, based at the River Learning Trust does not provide data on trainee numbers. They state on their website that:
“We don’t advertise a specific number of places available for most subjects.”
The programme does cover a wider range of secondary school subjects than the University
However, I doubt that they would be able to make up the difference between the Oxford University provision and the demand from schools identified in the table I showed earlier as that might require them to train several hundred students a year.
I do not believe that Oxfordshire is unique in facing a significant deficit between the number of ITT trainees and the demand for teachers from secondary schools, but the scale of the problem may be more significant than in many other parts of the country.
One solution is the growing number of training providers that claim in their publicity, and their titles, to be ‘National’ in their training coverage. One such is the new National Institute of teaching formed, with government approval by a small number of MATs. They say in their publicity that
‘The NIoT is working with a network of Associate Colleges across the country. These successful groups of schools work with a wide variety of communities across the country’
I note that they have no presence in this part of England. However, this ‘nationalisation’ of training into fewer larger providers is a trend that will need watching.
Of course, both the independent sector and state secondary schools in Oxfordshire have the option to employ staff without Qualified Teacher Status. The term ‘teacher’ is not a reserved occupation term like ‘engineer’, ‘solicitor’ or ‘accountant’, so anyone may be called a teacher regardless of their background and qualifications.
Excess demand over supply causes other problems including a high level of spending on recruitment. There is also the issue of whether some schools either because of location or the characteristics of the school find recruitment more challenging than other schools?
There isn’t time today to delved deeply into that question, although I have written on my blog at www.johnohowson.wordpress.com about the issue of the percentage of free school meals pupils in a school and teacher recruitment.
There is no doubt that the high cost of accommodation in Oxfordshire has an effect of recruitment of teaching staff.
Can anything more be achieved to ensure schools, and especially state schools in Oxfordshire are able to recruit sufficient teachers in all subjects?
I doubt we will ever see the days again when local authorities and the Christian churches provided most of the training places for teachers and the then Ministry of Education issued an annual Circular on the number of new teachers each local authority could employ to ensure some degree of fairness at least at that level.
Indeed, it is not clear which organisation can speak on behalf of the needs of schools across the county for a dialogue about the need for sufficient teacher preparation places in Oxfordshire to meet the needs of local schools. Perhaps, the Schools Forum might take on the responsibility? I am also gratified to hear that the DfE Steering group might have a look at ‘cold spots’ in ITT. However, that raises another issue about the availability of school placements and whether those that train as teachers should be expected to work in state-funded schools? The answer to this was clear-cut when trainee’s fees were paid and there was a training grant for all. It is, perhaps, more complex now trainees bear a greater or lesser degree of the costs depending upon their subject or sector.
In conclusion, the failure to train sufficient teachers puts the system under strain. Oxfordshire, with a growing number of secondary schools and nearly as many private schools and tutorial colleges as state-funded secondary schools faces an interesting set of issues in terms of ensuring sufficient appropriately qualified teachers for all its schools.
The modified market model where places are allocated by central government, but schools and trainees compete for vacancies works better for some than others. To return to our four potential teachers, two, Jane and Wayne, can train and teach anywhere, but Kevin and Helen are more closely tied to their local area both for training and for employment. The system hasn’t taken their needs into account and I worry that following the re-accreditation process the needs of candidates have once again not been taken into account.
This lack of an overall policy towards the staffing of our schools as opposed to just predicting training numbers might matter less if sufficient trainees were recruited to fill the places on preparation courses. The fact that there has not been enough to satisfy the predictions of the Teacher Supply Model for several years, across many secondary sector subjects just make smatters worse.
I am conscious that in a university like Brookes, known for training teachers for the primary sector, I have spent most of my talk discussing the secondary school sector. That doesn’t mean that the primary sector isn’t important and monitoring its health is equally as important. However, demand for primary teaching posts at the classroom teachers level remains generally healthy, and the current tissues are mainly in the secondary sector.
I also haven’t had time today to reflect on either middle or senior leadership issues or on the issue of SEND and special school staffing. Perhaps, those could be the topic for another day.
Indeed, there are nuggets of good news buried within the tables that regular watchers will discern. The sciences are doing better than last autumn, in terms of applications, as are shortage subjects such as design and technology and business studies. However, all this are relative, and the ‘better’ isn’t on a trajectory to make much of a dent in the shortfalls recorded in the recent ITT census of current trainee numbers; commented upon in three posts on this blog.
Overall, candidate numbers at the November count, are up from 8,831 in November 2021, to 9,557 this year. But, in the vital London and Home Counties regions of the East of England and the South East, candidate numbers are down slightly. This will be set of data to watch. Perhaps, more interesting is the contribution from candidates apply and classified as ‘Rest of the world’. Here candidate numbers are up from 589 to 1,209: more than double last November’s number.
The increase in candidate numbers is stronger among the older age groups and weakest among those of age 23; the only grouping to record a decline from last year’s number for November. As young graduates are the backbone of new entrants, the age profile of candidates will need watching carefully and, if necessary, the marketing mix adjusting to encourage more new graduates from the London area to consider teaching as a career.
Interestingly, applications from men to train as a teacher increased faster than those from women when compared with November 2021 data. Largely gone are the days of providers receiving a wall of applications for primary courses as soon as the recruitment cycle opens. Happy those still favoured with being able to make all their offers for these courses before the festive season and winter break.
Higher educations institutions seem to have borne the brunt of increase in applications. Perhaps affected by the increase in applications for those labelled as ‘Rest of the world’ candidates? Changes in applications for the other routes are too small to make any judgement, but will need watching carefully.
The government is unlikely to be too perturbed by the small decline in applications for primary phase courses, balanced as it is by the increase in applications for secondary courses. Offers in both mathematics and physics are at their highest November levels since recent records began to be collected for that month in the 20106/17 recruitment cycle.
One swallow does not a summer make, as the saying goes, but these numbers can allow the government to produce some positive headlines. Whether they will be justified in view of the big increase in candidates with the designation as from ‘Rest of the world’ is something that will need careful watching. However, it could have been worse; but not much.
At these levels there is a lot of work to do to make the 2024 labour market anything like a comfortable proposition. 2023 will, of course, be a real challenge for school needing to recruit teachers in many different curriculum areas.
London appears to have fared better than the rest of England in terms of the percentage decline in trainee numbers. That said, there isn’t yet time to investigate any a regional breakdown by subject.
Postgraduate new entrants by region
2021/22
2022/23
Decrease in trainee numbers
% Decline
South East
4,429
3,039
-1,390
-31%
Yorkshire and The Humber
3,224
2,368
-856
-27%
West Midlands
3,251
2,417
-834
-26%
South West
2,177
1,679
-498
-23%
East of England
2,499
1,932
-567
-23%
North East
1,178
935
-243
-21%
East Midlands
2,095
1,666
-429
-20%
North West
4,345
3,473
-872
-20%
London
6,895
5,715
-1,180
-17%
England
30,093
23,224
-6,869
-23%
Source ITT Census
Since some parts of the South East region already have limited access to trainees in some subjects, the overall decline in trainee number sin that region must be of concern.
Of more interest to schools is the likely open market numbers after removing those on the high Achievers (Teach First) programme and on apprenticeships or the salaried route where the trainees may be committed to a particular school. Assuming that 5% of the remainder don’t end up in state schools for any one of a number of reasons; this may be an underestimate in some parts of the country, the ‘free market’ pool of trainees likely to be looking for a September 2023 teaching post looks something like the following table
Subject
Open Market
Mathematics
1467
English
1214
Modern Languages
600
Biology
495
Physics
366
Chemistry
644
Physical Education
1295
Other
387
Design & Technology
372
History
950
Geography
523
Computing
304
Art & Design
440
Religious Education
249
Music
228
Drama
304
Business Studies
164
Classics
52
Source TeachVac analysis
Should this table be anywhere near correct, then there will be shortages in many subjects from quite early in 2023. As mentioned in the first of this series of posts, schools might do well to ensure that they can retain staff. Paying large sums to try to recruit teachers may just be a wate of money.
Although all ethnic groups have seen a decline in trainee numbers since 2019, the decline has been most obvious in the ‘White’ group where there are around 5,000 fewer trainees this year compared with 219/20. Most other ethnic groups have seen only a small decline in trainee numbers since 2019.
Ethnic Group
2019/20
2020/21
2021/22
2022/23
Asian
2,840
3,378
2,862
2,752
Black
1,054
1,427
1,159
1,027
Mixed
856
1,060
900
820
Other
346
495
447
406
White
22,210
26,324
21,563
17,394
Source ITT Census
Part of the reason for the decline in ‘White’ trainees may be the reduction in the number of trainees needed for the primary sector where this group has dominated in certain parts of the country.
More worrying is the loss of young graduates coming into teaching. These are the potential leaders of tomorrow. Although undergraduate numbers are up; postgraduate numbers are nearly 800 below their pre-pandemic level
Aged under 25
2019/20
2020/21
2021/22
2022/23
Postgraduate Total
14,564
17,455
15,736
12,281
Higher Education Institution
7,561
9,252
7,909
6,351
School Centred ITT
1,693
2,209
2,198
2,012
School Direct (fee-funded)
3,591
4,304
4,209
2,709
School Direct (salaried)
578
540
255
205
Postgraduate Teaching Apprenticeship
37
76
225
193
High Potential ITT
1,104
1,074
940
811
Undergraduate
4,417
5,448
5,511
5,350
Total
18,981
22,903
21,247
17,631
Source ITT Census
Higher education seems to have bene most affected by this decline in interest in teaching among new graduates and those in the early years of their careers. This year, the number of men entering teaching as graduates fell to 7,155 well below the 9,229 of 2019/20.
As I commented in the two previous posts today about the ITT census, these are challenging numbers for the government and very worrying for schools.
It is a fair comment to say that comparing this year’s data on trainees with last year doesn’t take into account the covid pandemic effect. Because it could well be so, I have looked back at trainee numbers reported in autumn 2019, before we had ever heard of the term covid, and compared those trainee numbers with the current ITT census
2019/20
2022/23
22/23 compared with 19/20
Subject
Postgraduate total new entrants to ITT
Postgraduate total new entrants to ITT
Biology
1,937
664
-1273
English
2,907
1,762
-1145
Geography
1,317
656
-661
Modern Foreign Languages
1,387
726
-661
History
1,460
1,134
-326
Mathematics
2,159
1,844
-315
Religious Education
494
341
-153
Computing
472
348
-124
Physics
527
444
-83
Classics
71
58
-13
Chemistry
770
758
-12
Music
312
301
-11
Design & Technology
433
450
17
Drama
294
329
35
Business Studies
185
232
47
Art & Design
413
478
65
Physical Education
1,281
1,405
124
Other
282
426
144
STEM Subjects
5,865
4,058
-1807
EBacc Subjects
13,007
8,394
-4613
Non-EBacc Secondary Subjects
3,694
3,962
268
Primary
12,216
10,868
-1348
Secondary
16,701
12,356
-4345
Total
28,917
23,224
-5693
Source DfE ITT census
The good news is that six subjects recruited more trainees this year than in 2019/2020, providing a total of 432 additional trainees in secondary subjects to offset against the more than 4,500 fewer trainees in other key subjects. Now, some of the reductions may be due to changes in targets in popular subjects, but with over recruitment still possible it is difficult to see why providers would take that approach.
The chaos that is science recruitment continues, with biology providing nearly 1,300 fewer teachers this year. Do we need a ‘general science’ category, and for all science trainees to receive similar bursaries if that is still the favoured route to attract new teachers?
The decline in trainees in English, so that there are this year fewer trainees this year than in mathematics and more than 1,000 fewer than in 2019/20, must be of concern as must be the collapse in Modern Foreign Languages trainees, especially if we are to remain a trading nation, not only with the EU, but across the world. Whatever happened to Mr Gove’s 5,000 Mandarin teachers?
Is it good news that the decline in design and technology and business studies has stopped or should we still be worried that the decline has been arrested at such low levels?
The decline in primary trainee numbers must partly reflect the decline in the birth rate and the expected continued decline in the primary school population. Nevertheless, this sort of overall number may cause some local staffing issues for the sector unless the trainee numbers are well spread across England to meet the needs of all primary schools.
There may be a glimmer of good news in the fact that non-Ebacc subjects fared better than Ebacc subjects over the period. Might this be providing a portent of a change in the overall labour market that with the coming recession might meant that this years’ numbers really were the bottom of the cycle? The first set of applications data should provide clues for the 2024 recruitment round when the DfE issues them; hopefully next week.
Congratulations to the DfE. The ITT Census of trainees published this morning Initial teacher training: trainee number census 2022 to 2023 – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) shows a lower percentages of trainees this year compared with last year in every secondary subject except design and technology. In that subject there was an increase from 23% of target to 25% this year.
These trainee numbers are grim news for secondary schools that will be looking to recruit teachers for September 2023, and January 2024. Retention of existing staff must be high on the agenda for school leaders.
Even if all trainees were to complete their courses, and want to work in state schools, there would only be 444 physics teachers entering the market. Allow for in-course wastage and a proportion working either in private schools or Sixth Form Colleges and there may only be around 300 or so looking to work as physics teachers next September in State Schools.
Even in history and physical education, where over-recruitment to target continued again this year, actual trainee numbers appear to be down on last year, with a combined loss of around 600 potential teachers.
Overall, just 59% of secondary target places have been filled this year, even after taking the over-recruitment into account. Physics, as predicted by Jack Worth at NfER and suggested by this both reached only 17% of target.
Modern Foreign Languages slumped from 71% 0f target last year to just 34% of target this year. Even biology, usual a banker for good recruitment in the sciences only managed 85% of total this year.
What should the DfE do now? The bursary scheme isn’t working, and is inefficient and difficult to market. Perhaps it is time to revert to offering a salary during training to all trainees allowing them to build-up pension credits and making career switching more attractive. Some decisions must be taken, otherwise the levelling up agenda is dead in the water as far as schools are concerned.
The NfER has today published a detailed report on teacher supply and its implications for learning. Teacher supply and shortages: the implications of teacher supply challenges for schools and pupils – NFER Many of the conclusions in their report will not come as any surprise to regular readers of this blog. After all, there have been many posts discussing the issue – even as recently as the post on whether PE is now a shortage subject – during the lifetime of this blog.
Whilst I find most of the conclusions unsurprising, there are some that are interesting. Figure 15 suggests that a higher percentage of responses from schools in the North East than in London fell in the ‘most difficult’ category, although to be fair, schools in the North East also topped the percentage in terms of response of ‘least difficult’. It may be that the starting salary in London is still high enough to attract teachers not yet interested in buying into the housing market and content to share rented properties.
I am surprised at the reported level of recruitment challenge faced by schools in the primary sector, where supply ought to be more than adequate across most of England.
The overall conclusion that schools are only able to provide some teaching by the use of non-specialist teaching must be of concern. The alternative is to stop teaching certain subjects either entirely or to limit the number of groups offered a subject. However, for key subjects, such as mathematics and English not teaching the subject is not possible in most schools.
The authors of the report also concluded that ‘challenges with teacher recruitment may also be having a disproportionate impact on schools with low Ofsted ratings, and school leaders’ efforts to improve outcomes. There is likely to be a complex relationship between a school’s Ofsted rating and recruitment challenges, rather than a simple effect of an Ofsted rating downgrade making it more challenging to recruit.’
However, they further comment that ‘… our survey data suggests there seems to be an association between a low Ofsted rating and increased recruitment challenges. These recruitment challenges may exacerbate the challenges of improving the quality of education in the school, whether through leaders doing more teaching reducing leadership capacity, lower-quality teachers being employed, or other related factors.’ Whether recruitment challenges have resulted in the downgrading of outstanding schools also reported today is an interesting question that merits further study.
In a fortnight’s time the DfE should publish the 2022 ITT Census and that will provide schools with a picture of the recruitment round for September 2023 and January 2024. It seems likely that once again recruitment targets will be missed, thus providing schools with more of a dilemma over staffing.
Perhaps, NfER might next year look in more depth at the actions that the DfE might take to ensure a fair distribution of teachers between schools in what is in some subjects now becoming a scare resource. Should every school have access to at least one specialist in every curriculum area?
The NfER might also investigate the extent to which post-entry subject enhancing CPD makes any difference to the expertise of the teaching force.
Now that the DfE has published the list of accredited ITT providers, I thought it might be interesting to reprise the post below from 2013 that highlights the start of the journey to where the sector is today.
The list of reaccredited providers, published by the DfE, seems to have radically slimmed down the school-based side of ITT at the cost of a few higher education establishments also having accreditation withdrawn. If the list is correct, when some long-established providers of ITT will no longer be involved in teacher preparation as a top tier provider and will need to partner with another accredited provider.
The geographical implications of the loss of some providers will take time to work out, but South East London may we one area affected by the changes. Some long-established SCITTs seem to be no more, but some of the overtly religious SCITTs seem to have survived.
Clarity ahead of Select Committee – but still not good news
What has become clear this afternoon is that the DfE may have faced a dilemma last autumn. With the national roll-out of School Direct being enthusiastically taken up by schools, it could either have effectively wiped-out the university-based PGCE courses by meeting the demands of schools or it could have denied schools the places they were asking for in School Direct. The DfE targets for secondary subjects did not allow the third option of satisfying both schools applying for School Direct places and keeping the PGCE going and still keeping within the targets. The extent of the problem can be seen by comparing Table 2b in the underlying data of Statistical Bulletin 32/2013 issued by the DfE on the 13th August and Figure 1 of the School Direct management information published this afternoon by the National College for Teaching and Leadership. In practice, the DfE seems to have chosen a third way by creating inflated ‘allocations’ to try to keep higher education going, but still to satisfy the demands from schools for places. This exercise risked substantial over-recruitment against the real targets.
So, what happened? Looking just at the STEM subjects, Chemistry had an allocation of 1,327 in the Statistical Bulletin, but a target of 820 places in Figure 1 of today’s document – a difference of 507. To date, recruitment has been 900 according to Figure 1, so the subject is over-recruited against target, but significantly under-recruited against allocations. School Direct, where bids totalled 422 places last November, and reached around 500 by the time all bids had been collected, apparently recruited just 260 trainees, leaving higher education to recruit the other 640.
Sadly, in Mathematics, Physics, and Biology, despite the target being well below the allocation figure, the target has not been met. In Physics the shortfall is 43% against the target; and in Mathematics, 22%. In Biology it is just 6%. However, these percentages do not reflect the actual numbers who have started courses; that number may be greater or smaller than those released today.
Indeed, in no subject was the allocation met, although in business studies it was missed by just one recruit. However, the target in this subject is apparently higher than the allocation in August, although that may have something to do with classification. Less clear is the Religious Education position where the target is shown as 450, but the allocation in August was 434 for postgraduate courses. Somewhere another 16 places have been added since August when they have been subtracted in most other subjects.
I have suspected for some time that the allocations were above the level required by the DfE’s model, and have hinted as much in earlier posts. More than 40,000 trainees did seem an excessive number to train.
School Direct works in subjects where there are lots of high-quality applicants looking to train as a teacher. At the other end of the scale are subjects where either the schools didn’t bid for many places, as in Art & Design or recruitment is a real challenge, as in Physics.
These are the subjects where School Direct faces its greatest challenges for 2014, and where the DfE/NCSL seemingly still cannot do without higher education.
What is also clear is that the DfE cannot repeat this same exercise this autumn for 2014 recruitment. It will have to make it clear how many trainees are needed according to the model. If it does not do so, students will be paying £9,000 in fees without knowing whether they are a target or an allocation, and totally uncertain about their chance of securing a teaching post. That won’t attract many takers in an improving graduate job market as the risks are too high.
Over the next few weeks, it will be interesting to see how the effects of the reaccreditation pan out both for providers and for those seeking to start to train in 2023. In the 1980s, I worked at a college where ITT had been withdrawn. It was not a happy place to be. I, therefore, send my best wishes to all those involved in the outcome of the reaccreditation process.
Yesterday’s post about the grim news on recruitment onto teacher preparation courses for 2022/23 didn’t mine all the possible information provided in the DfE data published in the monthly update.
One interesting statistic are how the proportion of applicants for secondary subjects has changed over the course of the year. Last December, I wrote a blog post pointing out that nearly half of early applicants came from just three subjects: English, mathematics and physical education. Half of secondary ITT applicants in just 3 subjects | John Howson (wordpress.com)
As expected, physical education trended lower as the year progressed, and places on courses filled up. The subject ended the year on 19% of total applications – down 5% on December. English also lost ground, down from 13% in December to 8% by September. However, mathematics seemed to be a ‘late attracting subject’, as by September the subject accounted for 18% of applications, up from 12% in December.
Removing these three subjects from the list and comparing the moves among the remaining subjects shows relatively little difference in many subjects in their position in the ranking.
Subject
Total December
Percentage December
Total September
Percentage September
% Difference
Art and design
378
6%
2410
7%
1
Biology
552
9%
3457
10%
1
Business studies
283
5%
1601
4%
1
Chemistry
509
8%
4055
11%
3
Classics
62
1%
261
1%
na
Computing
309
5%
2248
6%
1
Design and technology
243
4%
1638
5%
1
Drama
352
6%
1426
4%
-2
Geography
385
6%
2498
7%
1
History
1057
18%
4531
13%
-5
Modern foreign languages
568
9%
3880
11%
2
Music
191
3%
1160
3%
0
Other
564
9%
2321
6%
-3
Physics
307
5%
2830
8%
3
Religious education
231
4%
1541
4%
0
5991
100%
35857
100%
When do different subjects recruit?
As might have been predicted, drama and history lost ground once courses filled up. The sciences were the main winners. This suggests that subjects that may have a higher proportion of men may recruit later in the round – we cannot know for certain as the data on gender isn’t published by subject – but it is a plausible hypothesis to discuss in relation to gender and STEM subjects.
The second hypothesis is that subjects where potential teachers know there may be difficulty in securing a place on a teacher preparation course will recruit earlier in the year. These bellwether subjects, such as history, physical education and also the primary sector can provide early warning on what might be to come in the autumn months.
As a piece of history, it was using this second hypothesis in the early 2000s that prompted me to call a recruitment crisis as early as one November and to be warned off by the then Minister’s Private Office in a phone call I took while a passenger in a car travelling down the M5 in Somerset for creating panic. The following March, the training grant was suddenly announced. Perhaps, I have been at this subject for too long.
Knowing this sort of information about recruitment trends can make the use of expensive TV marketing more precise. Is the present TV campaign a good use of money or would it be better aimed at STEM subjects in the spring?
John Howson 