Tag Archives: teachers

SEND: we know the issue – but we still won’t say how it will be solved

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Buried in the OBR Review in Chapter 5 is the following CP 1439 – Office for Budget Responsibility – Economic and fiscal outlook – November 2025

Correction to Chapter 5, paragraph 5.19, second bullet Text currently reads: If it were fully funded within the Department for Education’s £69 billion RDEL core schools budget in 2028-29, this would imply a 1.7 per cent real fall in mainstream school spending per pupil rather than the 2.4 per cent increase planned by Government.

Text should read: If it were fully funded within the Department for Education’s £69 billion RDEL core schools budget in 2028-29, this would imply a 4.9 per cent real fall in mainstream school spending per pupil rather than the 0.5 per cent real increase planned by Government.

5.19 Special educational needs and disabilities: As set out in more detail in Box 5.1, the Government has announced that from 2028-29 the cost of SEND provision will be fully absorbed within the existing RDEL envelope. The Government has not set out any specific plans on how this pressure, which we estimate at £6 billion in 2028-29, would be accommodated within the existing RDEL envelope. If it were fully funded within the Department for Education’s £69 billion RDEL core schools budget in 2028-29, this would imply a 4.9 per cent real fall in mainstream school spending per pupil rather than the 0.5 per cent real increase planned by Government. The Government has stated that it will set out proposed reforms to SEND provision early in the new year.

So, another function disappears from local authorities, presumably to the DfE as SEND funding will be handled at a national level. Will it include management of transport as well as granting of EHCPs? Who knows, the OBR don’t, but warn that funding per pupil could fall by 4.9%. For many schools, this will be on top of any loss of income from falling rolls. Start planning now for such an outcome.

More to come when the White Paper finally emerges sometime in 2026

More men looking to teach

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Today, the DfE published their first round of statistics about applications to train as a teacher on courses starting in the autumn of 2026. Generally, one has to be cautious about data from ‘applications’ and ‘offer’ statistics published in November, as this is very early in the application round.

However, with more than 20 years of data underpinning my remarks, I think it possible to say something.

Firstly, applications – and candidates may submit more than one – are up from 13,159 last November to 15,572 this year. Applications from men are up from 5,072 to 6,580, while those from women are up from 7,978 to 9,031. That equates to 1,052 more women applying, or an increase of 13%, but 1,508 more men; an increase of 30%. I cannot recall a time when the rate of increase in applications from men last outpaced those from women.

Part of this increase is probably down to the large increases in applications for mathematics, up from 1,657 last year to 1,929 this year. In computing, the applications are up from 509 to 841, and in physics from 1,694 to a staggering 3,277. All these are subjects that tend to attract more male than female candidates.

Aword of warning, before one becomes too carried away; applications from the Rest of the World are up from 3,540 last November to 5,120 this November. Might this account for part of the increase in male applicant in these subjects? Sadly, that cannot be determined from the published data.

Final year undergraduates are not yet swarming into teaching. No obvious concerns about loss of graduate jobs to AI from the 21 and under age group, where applications are actually down by 34 from 1,276 to 1,242. Presumably, studies still take precedence over job hunting.

However, there is a big increase in the 22-24 age group applying for teaching: up from 3,349 to 3,658 with nearly 200 of this increase from 22 year olds. Maybe summer 2025 graduates that are still job hunting are turning to teaching? There is little difference in interest in teaching from those over 45 years old. However, there has been a big jump (210) in interest from the 40-44 age group.

SCITTs is the only route to have seen fewer applications than in November 2025. This may reflect the fact that the SCITT route maty be less well-known to overseas applicants. Both teacher degree apprenticeships and PG teaching apprenticeships have seen significant increases in applications. It would be interesting to see this table by phase and subject.

On ‘offers’, it much depends upon how providers handle early applications. However, there is a trend with mathematics, computing, chemistry and physics all recording the highest ‘offer’ levels since 2013/14, whereas music has the lowest offer level since 2020/21. Most other subjects are close to where they would be expected to be, although biology, PE and geography are below where they might expect to be. PE probably over-recruited to current courses, and I would expect more caution there this year.

So, overall, a good start that should presage a good recruitment round unless something unforeseen happens.

Skills Issue: right issue, wrong solution?

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A study also backed by former Tory education secretary Gillian Keegan and Liberal Democrat education spokesman Lord Storey has called for an expansion of University Technical Colleges (UTCs), which are schools where local employers often help deliver lessons to ensure children are trained for available jobs.

They supported a study by Policy Exchange, the think tank, which also called for University Technical College departments to be added to existing secondary schools. The report from Policy Exchange is called From School to the Skilled Workforce. Policy Exchange – From School To The Skilled Workforce

In a joint foreword to the report, the three politicians said: “Businesses consistently report that a lack of access to skilled labour is impeding their growth, with the shortages particularly acute in sectors including construction, technology and healthcare.

Let employers help run schools to end youth unemployment crisis, says David Blunkett

Now I agree with the premiss behind this report: a need for many more technicians to support our industrial and commercial base to the economy. However, I am dubious about the recommended way forward.

Kenneth Baker created City Technology Colleges when he was Secretary of State in the 1980s, and supported the creation of the present University Technology Colleges. These colleges have had a chequered history, not least because they were only open to pupils from Year 10 onwards. All too often that allowed existing schools to move pupils sideways, and schools rarely suggest that pupils doing well change school at the end of Key State 3.

This new report overcomes that difficulty by suggesting ‘sleeve schools’ within existing schools -effectively a technology pathway.  Now, I really don’t believe that a conservative leaning think tank really wants to create 4,000 new headteacher posts to run these sleeve schools – think of the cost and bureaucracy involved – not to mention the need to sack teachers to employ those with the right skills to teach.

Fortunately, the report has a solution to both of these issues. A pilot of 10 sleeve schools, and give QTS to those in senior positions with relevant industrial experience. Not a surprising idea when you notice that the author spent two years in the classroom on the Teach First programme. He should know that teaching is not just about subject knowledge alone.

My advice is readers is to read to page 10 of the report in order to understand the issue that after all isn’t new. After all, as far back as the 1960s, The Dainton Report Dainton Report – Wikipedia worried about encouraging science and engineering as a career for those interested in going to university and both the Crowther and Newsom Reports were concerned about the futures of the upper age groups in education.

My view is that the, much neglected, Further Education sector, removed from local authorities and many links to local labour market needs in the 1990s, should be a more effective route to solving the skills gap. There would also need to be better career advice in schools that encouraged consideration of the value of training for these areas of skill shortages. This is especially the case as the Policy Exchange report has little to say about whether the expansion of the UTC concept should be for pupils across the whole ability range or just not likely to be on pathways leading to higher education.

6500 new teachers: wasn’t that a manifesto pledge?

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The DfE has today published the annual Education and Training Statistics for the whole of the United Kingdom.  Education and training statistics for the UK, Reporting year 2025 – Explore education statistics – GOV.UKAs ever, there is a wealth of material and the devil is in the details.

The full-time equitant number of teachers in England increased between 2023/24 and 2024/25. The data for schools in England isn’t new, as it was first reported in June 2025 School workforce in England, Reporting year 2024 – Explore education statistics – GOV.UK

However, it is worth discussing the data again, as it will provide the basis against which any claims about increased teacher numbers will be judged.

Phase201920202021202122202223202324202425
Non-maintained mainstreamTotal769757731071695732557524074100
NurseryTotal119511601100106510751060
PrimaryTotal219960221365221230220265217460214575
SecondaryTotal204715209835213630216075217565219000
SpecialTotal242802502526005271402824029150
TotalTotal530800538415537285541690543930542355
Total maintainedTotal453820461105465590468435468690468260

The changes over one year and the whole of the time period are shown in this table

Totalchange on 202324change on 201920
Non-maintained mainstreamTotal-1140-2875
NurseryTotal-15-135
PrimaryTotal-2885-5385
SecondaryTotal143514285
SpecialTotal9104870
TotalTotal-157511555
Total maintainedTotal-43014440

It is worth noting that as the school population increased, so did the number of teachers in state-maintained schools. Thus, between 2019/2020 and 2024/2025 teacher numbers increased by 14,440, although the decline in teachers in the nursery and primary schools had already started.

However, by 2024/25 the total teacher workforce was some 14,440 FTEs larger than it had been in 2019/2020 as a result of the increase in the number of secondary and special school teachers.

Between 2023/24 and 2024/25, teacher numbers in England continued to increase across both the secondary and special school sectors, but the decline in the primary sector teacher numbers continued. The nursey sector showed little change, but employs few teachers in state nursery schools as opposed to nursery classes in primary schools.

There is a message here for anyone considering a career as a primary school teacher. Before accepting a place on a teacher peroration course; do some homework on job possibilities in the area of the country where you would like to teach, especially if it is not where you are training.

I doubt that we have yet seen the end of the decline in teacher numbers in the primary sector, and it will be a buyer’s market, even in 2027 when those applying for courses starting next September will enter the labour market in large numbers.

In the past, under such conditions, schools have preferred to employ experienced teachers leaving new entrants to look for posts in schools for which they may not have been trained. Often the jobs will either be in schools with a higher deprivation index score or small schools with mixed age classes. Neither of these teaching situations may have been encountered during a one-year teacher preparation course, and can be challenging for new teachers if not adequately supported.   

Don’t be afraid to ask about job prospects at interview, especially if you are paying your own tuition fees.

How might a school react to falling rolls?

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visit my LinkedIn post for a view of a play about such a school and what happens over the course of one school-year https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7394034424864022528/

Is it credible and believable? Let me know in the comments

Slow progress on ethnic minority headteacher numbers

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Earlier today someone viewed my post from 2021 ‘We need more black headteachers in our schools’ | John Howson so I thought that I would review the data from last November’s Workforce Census to see how the position has changed since then.

My 2021 blog post included White minority groups as well as other ethnic groups, when creating the totals, and ignored the issue of uncollected data, whether because of refusal or the necessary field not being completed in the census to allow for ethnic recognition. This post just considers the five key groupings (Other Ethnic Group, Mixed, Asian/Asian British, Black/Black British and White).

Looking back over the whole period of the School Workforce Survey, from between 2011-12 to 2023-24, the percentage of headteachers recorded as White fell by 2.3% from 20,608 to 19,355 during this time period. During the same period, there were just under a thousand more headteachers across the other four groups.

Across the 15 years data has been Workforce Census data has been collected, the four ethnic groups have increased their headship numbers by an average of 64 additional headteacher per year. The Asian/Asian British group did best, averaging just under 30 additional headteacher per year. The Black/Black British group increased their number of headships by little more than 16 per year on average.

Taking the sex of the respondents into account meant that there were 48 more Black/Black British women heads over the period and 31 more Black/Black British male as headteachers.

Asian/Asian British women increased their numbers from 150 to 298, and Asian/Asian British men, from 56 to 112.

The Other Ethnic Groupa plus the Mixed Group increased by 124 women headteachers and 41 men as headteachers.

How accurate these figures are, of course depends upon how many minority heads either refused to disclose their ethnicity or the information wasn’t collected by the time of the census – presumably because a box was left empty.

Over the time period the number refusing to disclose ethnicity increased from 103 to 235: not a large increase. However, more concerning is the increase from 494 in the first census to 1,911 in the 2023/24 census from those described as ‘information not yet obtained’. Does this group contain a significant number of headteachers from ethic minorities? We just don’t know.

The good news is that all teachers and school leaders from the four minority groups have seen a 10%+ increase in their teacher numbers across all grades over the period between 2011/12 and 2023/24. This during a period where the school population has fluctuated, and by January 2025 was significantly smaller than it was a few years ago.

More classroom teachers will mean more headteachers if these individuals can be persuaded to stay in teaching. Sadly, there is a risk that won’t be the case. The lack of coordinated local governance of schooling across much of England makes the risk of departure greater than if local plans for retention across all groups of teachers were put in place. This is another governance issue the present system has created. Who cases about local policies for retaining teachers?

What is the role of the State in schooling?

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This is an interesting philosophical question for a Sunday morning. It arises out of my post yesterday questioning a decision of the Labour government to allow a state school to open sites overseas, presumably for profit. Has Labour gone mad? | John Howson

The genesis of that blog  post was a tes magazine piece about a grammar school in London teaming up with a global brand to open sites in Dubai and Delhi Queen Elizabeth’s School to open fee-paying school in Dubai | Tes

What is the role of the state in schooling in the second quarter of the 21st century? When the 1870 Education Act was passed, as one of the Gladstone government’s first Bills before the new parliament, it was to ensure all children received at least some education. There was a feeling that a lack of literacy was resulting in British’s industry losing its advantage in the industrial revolution to countries with better educated populations.

After 1870, the State increasingly became the default position for schooling. Parents didn’t have to use it, but if they didn’t choose an alternative, basically the private sector or home schooling, then attending the local school from five to early teens was required of children. State paternalism or practical politics to allow the economy to continue to be successful?

155 years later, and we have the State, now run by a Labour government, sanctioning a state-funded school partnering with a global company to create school sites overseas selling its brand of education.

Why not allow this? After all, as someone pointed out on LinkedIn, the State too often rescues loss-making industries, why then shouldn’t it make money out of education?

Of course, the State already helps British Industry and commerce make money from exporting aspects of our successful education enterprise, from textbooks to teachers and private schools with sites overseas, as well as private schools bring in overseas students and their fees the government offers help and advice.

So, should State capitalism in this country support state schools opening branches overseas, and those schools making a profit on that work, to be ploughed back into their school in England, thus potentially earning it more cash than the State provides?

Firstly, profit is not a given. Secondly, how will the countries where such schools are located react. Happy not to worry about attracting expatriate workers because there will be high quality education for their children. And, also happy for its own citizens to attend such schools, with a different curriculum to what State schools in that country might teach?

The issue of state schools topping up their funding, whether from parents, donors or now profits, has worried me ever since I taught in Tottenham in the 1970s. School fetes, a feature of those days, run by primary schools in Highgate made thousands of pounds, those run by schools in Tottenham couldn’t match such income. Was this acceptable? At that time, local authorities ran schools and could compensate for this discrepancy. Now, the National Funding Formula make such compensation more challenging, except through the Pupil Premium.

The entrepreneur in me applauds the school making money overseas; the politician takes the opposite view. In this case, I think the politician wins. We need to debate afresh the role of the State in schooling in England, and both its purpose and its limits.

Has Labour gone mad?

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Queen Elizabeth’s School, a selective grammar school in North London, is to open an affiliate fee-paying branch school in Dubai – becoming the first state school to open overseas. Queen Elizabeth’s School to open fee-paying school in Dubai | Tes

I am going to state my opposition to this proposal outright. If we had a sufficiency of high-quality teachers for all our schools, then I might, just might, look on this as part of the export drive using resources not currently needed for the home market.

But the blunt truth is that we don’t have enough qualified teachers for our secondary schools. It is bad enough private schools offering UK teachers jobs overseas, but most of them probably weren’t in the state system anyway.

Here we seem to have a state funded school spending leadership time becoming part of a global brand, and at the very least risking taking a couple of hundred teachers out of the UK system to teach middle class children in the UAE and India.

 Even if the investment is funded by Global Education, a company with a strong base working with universities and higher level vocational providers, I am not sure why a Labour government has allowed the DfE to approve this move?

I do think there should be a policy designed to maximise UK revenue from our strong background in education across the board, but a government’s first duty is to its own citizens, and this move by a state school, along with the growth of our private school’s overseas campuses, risks the education of our own citizens by sucking teachers overseas, and away from schools that badly need them, not only in some of our most deprived communities.

The DfE must make clear both why it approved this venture, and what happens if lots more state schools want to go down this road as a means of earning income to support the homebase.

As regular readers know, I am a strong support of democratic accountability for our schooling, and the academy system doesn’t provide that support to our system. Rather it provides fragmentation and encourages this sort of move all the while costing the system millions of pounds in unnecessary CEO’s salaries and other overheads.

This move reminds me of the Attlee government struggling with the aftermath of the Second World War and restricting sales of cars and other items in the home market to boost exports. Here we have a Labour government opening the doors to sending UK teachers to educate children of parent s that can afford their fees, and to directly set up in competition with private schools.

I might have understood a Conservative government sanctioning this move, but not a Labour government.

Please tell me I have missed some important value here.

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Fine words butter no parsnips

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What is one to make of a government that announces an expansion of the place of the creative arts in the National Curriculum review literally weeks after cutting the bursary for trainee teachers of music? Labour’s determination to recruit new teachers doesn’t include music | John Howson 8th October 2026

If I am being kind, it would be that one part of the DfE doesn’t know what the other is doing. Recruiting trainee music teachers has been a challenge over the past few years, and with universities eyeing the future of music degree courses, recruitment probably won’t get any easier.

Did a Minister, when sanctioning the bursary withdrawal, ask what the forthcoming Curriculum Review might have to say about the subject?  If so, why was the bursary withdrawn if the creative arts re to play a larger part in the new curriculum?

Hopefully, someone at Westminster will ask this question over the next few days. Perhaps media arts programmes might also like to interrogate a Minister about this curious state of affairs.

Of course, it is possible that the talk of expanding provision is just that, and the government has no real intention of putting funds behind any expansion in order to make it happen. Blame can then be laid at the door of schools for not switching resources into the creative subjects.

After all the government just said that

‘A new core enrichment entitlement for every pupil – covering civic engagement; arts and culture; nature, outdoor and adventure; sport and physical activities; and developing wider life skills.’ New curriculum to give young people the skills for life and work – GOV.UK

Not much meat on the bone there. Delving into the detailed response from the government we find that

“We recognise the Review’s concerns around access to music and that some schools require support to deliver music well, including from specialist teachers, particularly to help pupils to develop their knowledge and skills in learning to read music and play instruments. We continue to invest in instrument stocks through the music hubs. Our £25 million investment will provide over 130,000 additional instruments, equipment and other music technology by the end of 2026, with around 40,000 already in the hands of teachers and pupils. We will consider how we maximise the impact of this investment to ensure the opportunity of and access to a reformed music curriculum is fully realised.”  Government response to the Curriculum and Assessment Review page 34.

Not much joined up thinking there. Encouraging singing has a much lower capital cost than instruments, and can capture more pupils – see the great scheme at Debry Cathedral that has over 900 possible singers.

The first sentence of the paragraph bears no relation to the rest of the paragraph, so don’t hold out hopes that music will achieve more than lots of instruments sitting on shelves or being played by children whose parents can afford the lessons.  

I am very disappointed in the music section of the government’s response, especially that now I chair the Oxfordshire Music Board and so music is a particular interest of mine.

Not more B…..y Vikings

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During her interview on the Today Programme, just before 8am this morning, I heard the Secretary of State talking about the need to review how to remove duplication in the teaching of the National Curriculum. That very sentiment was in part the Reason Kenneth Baker introduced a National Curriculum in the 1988 Education Reform Act.

 In the 1980s, discussion was about the repetition of the same topic, with little additional learning taking place when it was taught in both the primary and secondary sectors, so that an eight-year-old was drawing the same Viking boat as a thirteen-year-old – we didn’t have ‘year with numbers’ back then. There was both duplication and a lack of progression.

This morning, the Secretary of State cited the lack of coordination over languages between what is taught in primary schools and the secondary schools they feed into as an issue.

Now, during the past forty years since the idea of a National Curriculum became common currency in education, progress has been made in codifying what is taught, and England’s PISA scores have increased. Both no doubt great achievements.

However, many of my maths friends tell me there has been a price to pay in their subject. I think the idea of a new diagnostic test in Year 8 for English and mathematics highlights the dilemma facing secondary schools. How do you staff a school to both develop pupils’ knowledge and experience when they are on track, but also work to try to build on the knowledge and skills of those that have fallen behind where they are expected to be at that age?

Will the test be used to see the difference a school achieves in Progress 8 between the end of Year 8 and GSCE? More importantly, what will be the consequences of under-achievement? If there are no consequences, then why would schools do more than pay lip service to these new tests?

 In the original National Curriculum, there were 10 levels, and every child had another level to aspire to reach. That was about motivation, not checking for failure. After all, as Phil Willis sometime Lib Dem spokesperson on education used to say, ‘you don’t make pigs fatter by just weighting them.’

But, back to the issue of continuity across all subjects. This requires mandated programmes of work about what is taught and when to be fully achievable across all schools. Such rigidity risks undermining teacher flexibility and professionalism as it has been recognised in the past.

However, in a more mobile society, some continuity of delivery across the country must be a price schools have to pay to support change. Hopefully, technology is the friend of teachers in that respect. The digitising of the curriculum is a useful suggestion, and one Oxford Brookes University’s School of Education first undertook in the early 1990s, when increased computer power made it possible.

Elsewhere, in the announcement, I applaud the extension of the National Curriculum to all schools, but am horrified that support for the IB has been withdrawn from the small number of schools teaching that curriculum. Here is another example of national direction versus local flexibility.

In Oxfordshire, with many parents from across Europe working in the science and technology industries, this rigidity of approach might be counterproductive if the Europa School cannot continue teaching a language-based curriculum.  Westminster may not always know best.