This is going to be one of my ‘nerdier’ posts. Children missing education are a small but important group of young people. In the autumn term of 2025/26, the DfE estimated that there were around 34,700 such pupils in England – down for 39,200 in the previous autumn term of 2024/25. Across the whole year 2024/25, some 143,000 children were estimated by the DfE as missing education at some point in the year. Children missing education: methodology – Explore education statistics – GOV.UK
The DfE relies upon local authorities for the collection of the data. The re-organisation of the shire counties over the next few years may well affect data quality, where new ‘unitary authorities’ are created and new teams will need to be assembled. So, how are ‘missing children’ defined?
Definition of children missing education
CME does include children of compulsory school age who are not registered at a school and are not receiving suitable education elsewhere, even if these children:
• Are in the process of applying for a school place, even children within the first 15 days of the application process
• Have been offered a school place for a future date but have not yet started
• Are receiving EHE, if this education is unsuitable
• Have been recorded as CME for an extended period: for example, where their whereabouts is unclear or unknown4 When EHE should be deemed CME An EHE child whose education is deemed unsuitable should no longer be classified as an EHE child and should be classified as CME.
Section 436A of the Education Act 1996, is a duty on local authorities to make arrangements to try and identify children of compulsory school age who are not registered pupils at schools and are not receiving suitable education otherwise than at a school. Although there is no legal obligation on local authorities to classify a child as CME at a particular stage of the statutory process under sections 436A and 437 of the Act, we would expect a local authority classify a child as CME once they have deemed that the child is not receiving suitable education (which would include having insufficient information to reach such a conclusion). If local authorities have not had an opportunity to assess whether a child is receiving suitable education, that does not mean that the child should automatically be classified as not receiving suitable education. Not knowing does not mean the child is not being suitably educated, though the local authority may ultimately reach this conclusion if they have asked for information and not received satisfactory responses. Elective Home Education and Children Missing Education
How assiduous are local authorities at collecting this information? Difficult to say, but it is interesting that 11 of the 33 London boroughs have a rate of 0.1%, the best possible. This is along with six local authorities in the North East, and five counties. However, no local authority in the East of England features in those LAs with a 0.1% return, the best being 0.3 and the worst 1.0%.
Overall, the average autumn term rate fell from 0.5% in 2023/24 – the first year of collection to 0.4% in 2025/26.
Why does the issue of children missing education concern me. My posts on Jacob’s Law shows why I thinking understanding the problem is important Time for Jacob’s Law | John Howson
My suggestion last summer was for a virtual school for all such children otherwise classified as missing education A Virtual School for those missing school? | John Howson This could be especially important for young people with SEND awaiting a school place as well as those that move into an area mid-year when all school places in their year group are full.
I would encourage local politicians to check their percentage of missing children, and how well officers track such children. It was an Ombudsman’s report that originally sparked my interest in this issue. Education is a fundamental Human Right | John Howson
The original paper to Oxfordshire’s Scrutiny Committee in 2019 highlighted 9,600 records that were incomplete at that time and the exercise Oxfordshire officers took to update their records! aebhdfh I wonder how many local authorities have conducted such a thorough examination of their records.
Hopefully, now the DfE is collecting data, more attention is being paid to children that might slip though the net.
One should never look a gift horse in the mouth, and today’s DfE announcement of CPD worth £200 million for:
“new courses available to all teaching staff will deepen knowledge of how to adapt their teaching to meet a wide range of needs in the classroom, including visual impairments and speech and language needs.
Teachers will learn about the things we know can transform how children access education, such as using assistive technology like speech to text dictation tools and building awareness of additional needs amongst all pupils, so every child can go on to succeed. “ £200 million landmark SEND teacher training programme – GOV.UK
Is clearly to be welcomed.
If the aim by the DfE is to reach half the teaching force, plus a percentage of non-teaching staff, such as teaching assistants, the figure of £200 million might work out at around £1,000 per person per course.
Now, I guess you can get a lot of on-line self-assessed delivery for that price, but add in face-to-face tuition, with travel and ‘cover’ costs to be taken into consideration, and £1,000 per person doesn’t seem as useful a sum. So, perhaps the government only want to reach say, a quarter of the profession? The news release is silent on such matters.
I am always sceptical when a news item is released on a Friday; a good day for burying news with awkward questions attached. Unless, the White Paper on SEND, when it appears, mandates a qualification necessary to work with SEND, and an advance qualification to work in a special school or unit, these schools may still have a disproportional number of under-qualified teachers.
Is it better either to create a programme to upgrade all teachers (as in this announcement) or to focus on the training needs of those teaching children and young people in special settings, along with upgrading the diagnostic tools to identify as early as possible children that will need additional support.
As with all policies, it is a judgement call. This government has opted for the ‘spread it thin’ approach, with an eye-catching headline amount. Incidentally, is the £200mn for one year or spread over several years? I am sure a journalist will ask.
So, thanks for something, but where is the cash coming from? Will other CPD be cut, or is this new money from HM Treasury: an unlikely proposition in the current cash-strapped climate faced by government.
The other question still to be addressed is around who will deliver the programme, and how will procurement ensure that the DfE obtains best value for the money?
The 2024-25 accounts for academy trusts, covering the year up to the 31st August 2025, are now being posted at Companies House, for anyone to view. Not all Trusts have yet published their accounts. Some Trusts are large and complex, and others may not want to be in the first groups that might draw attention to their results.
This analysis is for 86 schools in one geographical area, and where the school has been in the Trust for at least two reporting periods. Two indicators are considered: the pay of the highest-ranking employee – often the Chief Executive, but in single academy trusts, normally it is the headteacher, and changes in declared reserves held by the school. This latter indicator is complicated, as some MATs pool reserves, while all others hold both reserves at the school level and for central services.
Salary Trends
So far, of the 13 Trusts reporting, there have been no really significant changes. The highest salary band reported band was £200,000-210,000, up by £10,000, the same increase of £10,000 as seen in 5 other trusts; one trust saw a £10,000 decrease; two trusts no change, and four increases in the £20,000 range. The lowest salary for the year was £100,000, for a trust with four schools.
Trusts with headquarters outside the geographical area tended to have higher salary bands for their highest paid employee than those headquartered in the local area. This might take into account the complexity of London weightings for salaries.
Changes in reserves
Here, two-year’s worth of data is available for 72 of the 86 schools in the area. The other 14 schools changed trusts, so the data for the two years is incomplete. Of the 72 schools with data for both years:
29 ended the 2025 reporting period with a deficit
43 ended with reserves
Of those schools in deficit at the end of the reporting period
14 increased their deficits over the year
5 schools went from surplus to deficit
Of schools with reserves
10 reduced the amounts of their reserves.
The other 33 increased their reserves.
The largest deficit reported in 2025 account, so far is £1,060,000 – an increase of £232,000 in one year, or more than 20%.
The largest reported surplus held by a school was £2,641,000 – up by £290,000 over the year. Another school in a MAT, but located outside the area reviewed, also had a balance of £2,400,000.
Comment
From the data on salaries, it seems that seven MATs had increases to their salary bands for the highest paid employee that were less than 10%; one MAT saw the incoming employee on a lower band than their predecessor. Five had increases in the band of the highest paid employee of more than 10%.
Four of the MATs surveyed paid their highest paid employee in a band above the salary of the local authority’s Director of Children’s Services. This is not surprising, since nationally, the highest starting salary for a headteacher in an advertised vacancy in 2026 has been £123,000.
On the issue of reserves, some schools are facing pressures while others are still adding to their reserves. I have always maintained that revenue funding should be spent in the year in which was provided, including up to 10% for a sensible reserve, based upon the profile of the past five years of expenditure where the reserve is not excessive.
Why do schools hold more than £2 million pounds of public money in their reserves? Schools in deficit, often seem to struggle to clear their deficit, and if they don’t attract pupils, then it is a challenge to ever return to a surplus without damaging the education of their pupils.
I will return to this topic when I have processed the data from the remaining MATs yet to file their accounts.
At the time, I pointed out to the DfE that TeachVac was already doing most of what was required, and for free. As my post above shows, the editor of the TES at the time also had something to say.
Sadly, and probably because of procurement rules – although the DfE could have sanctioned a trial of TeachVac to understand the requirements of any vacancy site – the DfE spent public money procuring a site that wasn’t fit for purpose. At least with the browser I use, the site still has significant shortcomings from the point of view of jobhunters.
Although free to use, it is not mandatory for state schools to use the DfE site, so, some do, and some don’t. This leaves jobseekers with the need to search more than one site to check for all vacancies: not a good idea at the best of times, and certainly not when falling rolls make jobs harder to come by.
The DfE site also has its idiosyncrasies. Although it tells users that jobs appear with the most recent first, that isn’t always the case. Page two of a list may well start with a duplication of some jobs from page one, and new jobs, not recorded earlier may pop up almost anywhere in a listing.
Perhaps.it might be better to lists jobs by closing dates, as that is what matters to many jobseekers: do I have time to apply for this job?
Some vacancies appear with either very short – is there an internal candidate – or very long periods between advert and closing date. The latter schools risk losing candidates to schools that are fleeter of foot in the recruitment process, and being left with only candidates that they wouldn’t want to appoint, except in those areas where there is an over-supply of teachers.
As job hunting is such a key part of their members’ work-life, I have always been surprised that the teacher associations haven’t been more vocal with the DfE in demanding a cheap and purposeful job board, using the best of modern technology at the lowest cost to schools. Perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised, as when I tried to sell the idea of TeachVac in 2013, there was no interest.
Now I am once again researching vacancies, I can cheerfully say, mixing up TLA, technicians and other non-teaching jobs with teaching vacancies, and including random jobs like a drama post or TV and film vacancy in the music vacancy list strikes me as irritating, but perhaps it is good to persuade teachers to look beyond their original search criteria?
I am sure the DfE could make money by inviting private schools to use their site. I have seen a couple of vacancies for such schools on the DfE site, but it is overwhelmingly state schools.
Perhaps it is time for a rethink of the most cost-effective way for schools to recruit teachers and candidates to find the vacancies?
Reading this new report from the Centre for Educational Systems on accountability in systems International Comparative Education Reviews & Resources | CES Centre for Education Systems set me wondering about the accountability of the school system in England at present. To help focus my thinking, I considered one of the key issues facing many policymakers in education at present: declining pupil numbers or ‘falling rolls’ as it is more commonly called.
My starting point was to look at the last time ‘falling rolls’ had a significant effect on the school system in England. The last serious occurrence was at the end of the 1970s, and into the early 1980s. The other periods of declining rolls since then have either been less significant in scale or offset by changes in the learning leaving age, as when it was increased from 16 to 18.
In the late 1970s, as the minority Labour government trundled towards its inevitable fate, education in England was still being described by academics as either ‘a partnership’ or ‘a locally service nationally administered’. In reality, the governance of schooling was on a journey from local decision-making to almost total national policymaking, or more realistically policy interference from the centre in those areas where policymakers at Westminster have an interest. The accountability strand within governance at the ‘macro’ level has been largely overlooked. Accountability of individual institutions, such as ofsted had been the subject of many discussions.
This lack of consideration for accountability relating to policy in the school sector brings me back to ‘falling rolls’ as a case study. At the end of the 1970s, I had just completed almost a decade working in Haringey in North London; from January 1971 to December 1977 as a teacher at Tottenham School (now long disappeared from the scene), and then from September 1977 to August 1980 as deputy warden of the borough’s teachers’ centre – what would now be called a professional development centre, where such establishment still exist- developing courses mainly for secondary school teachers. Between September 1979, and my resignation in August 1980, I was on secondment – on full pay; those were the days – to study for the MSc in Governance of Education at Oxford University.
My role at the Teachers’ Centre, in an institution at the centre of the borough’s schooling life, allowed me to witness how falling rolls were dealt with from 1977 onwards in Haringey. In passing, it is also worth noting that 1979 was a traumatic year for schooling in Haringey. During the ‘winter of discontent’ the school caretakers went on strike and the schools were closed for a number of weeks. National government showed no interest in how the strike was handled, and ignored trying to enforce the legal requirement that schools remain open for 190 days a year. It was not until a parent, Dr Meade, took Haringey to law that the national government, through the Secretary of State took any interest, and the strike ended.
It is interesting to compare that ‘hands-off’ attitude of the Westminster government in 1979 to what happened in 2020 with the arrival of the covid pandemic, and the actions of the DfE throughout the pandemic in order to see how policymaking has changed. Although, even during covid, the DfE seemed to do little more than set high level policies, and left schools, MATs and local authorities to work out the details on the ground. There seemed to be little consideration of accountability during the pandemic and it will be interesting to see what the Covid Inquiry has to say about how schooling was handled during the pandemic.
But, back to 1977, and ‘falling rolls’ in Haringey. The borough was generally seen as a safe Labour borough at the time, having only run by the Conservatives between 1968 and 1972, following the Labour debacle at the 1968 local elections: a debacle that current followers of political fortunes might want to revisit ahead of the 2026 elections in London, to be fought on many of the same boundaries.
In the late 1970s, officers in Haringey were aware that when projecting school rolls into the 1980s, there would be too many places, especially in the secondary sector, where a new school, Northumberland Park, had been built on the eastern edge of the borough, even though this was where pupil numbers were likely to fall fastest, as the declining birthrate together with the reduction in Commonwealth immigration, especially from the Caribbean islands, was likely to exacerbate the school population decline.
Officers created a taskforce to review rolls. This may have also been stimulated by an internal survey into sixth form teaching in Haringey’s schools, undertaken by the Borough’s advisory service in 1976 that revealed extremely small sixth form teaching groups in many subjects across the borough. If groups were already small, I expect senior officers were interested in what would happen to secondary schools when rolls fell?
Afterall, the secondary schools in Haringey had only just become fully comprehensive in response to the Wilson government’s Circular 10/65 on the phasing out of selective secondary education.
In the spring of 1977, officers produced what was known as a ‘green ‘paper, setting out options for change, including the naming of schools likely to face closure. In view of previous leaks of confidential documents, it was decided to publish the report in full. In a borough with a lively set of pressure groups ranging from teacher unions, represented on the Education Committee, to a branch of CASE (The Campaign for the Advancement of State Education), not surprisingly a row erupted over the plans.
It is worth noting that the DES (as the DfE was then called) knew about ‘falling rolls’ from the early 1970s onwards. As early as 1971, the part of the DES responsible for the school building programme reduced the number of new primary school places being created, although, as with Northumberland Park, new secondary schools were still being authorised. In 1974, cutbacks in teacher training numbers were announced by the Teacher’s Branch at the DES, but it was only in June 1977, a month after Haringey’s paper was published that the DES issued their first circular on the subject to local authorities, Circular 5/77. Governance of the system as a whole seemed non-existent, even where specialist branches within the Des were making appropriate changes to meet the emerging trends.
The merits of the five different schemes in the Haringey paper does not concern us here. What is more interesting is that it took until 1983 for reorganisation to actually take place in Haringey, and then only after the Secretary of State gave his consent in February 1982 to the revised and more draconian re-organisation plans. By then, nearly six years had elapsed, and the Chief Education Officer had moved on from his position.
What was interesting in the 1970s was the fact that there was planning locally, and also open debate in a borough with a strong set of pressure groups willing to discuss policy in a framework of an Education Committee involving many elected councillors and key un-elected members, including figures from the Church of England and Roman Catholic dioceses, but little apparent oversight from the DES. Clearly, not a ‘partnership’, and realistically not ‘a national system locally administered, except in the widest sense of the phrase.
Compare that climate of relatively open debate with a strong local press, and local decision-making, with the current situation, where the local authority cabinet system puts great power in the hands of one local politician, and the officers, and where the historical issue of the voluntary school sector involvement in planning is further complicated these days by the existence of academies and multi academy trusts.
Governance may be easier today, but to what extent has local input from interest groups been removed from the process? To whom are decision-makers accountable in the 2020s, if they make mistakes? Does the DfE show any more interest in accountability over issues affecting the system, such as ‘falling rolls’ than it did in the 1970s?
Locally, perhaps all council Scrutiny Committees should have an annual review of education provision on their workplan that would allow regular discussions on how place planning was being managed across maintained and academy schools in a locality.
But, with the end of the semblance of ‘partnership’, still seemingly in existence in the 1970s, what role should the government at Westminster play today in ensuring a coherent and cost-effective solution to the falling rolls issue? That question sheds a light on the accountability for the schooling system as a whole in England at the present time.
For some, it seems the accountability of the market still dominates thinking in Whitehall, and there is no place for whole-system planning at any level. Government guidance on dealing with falling rolls, even at the level of ministerial statements might show there was some coherent thinking about problem solving nationally by the present government. How schooling is governed and what accountability measures should exist today, is worthy of debate. I don’t think the present Bill before parliament will add much, if anything, to the debate.
A report by Prof. John Howson, Oxford Teacher Services Ltd
Executive Summary
· More than 400 state schools in England advertised a headteacher vacancy between August and Christmas 2025.
· 17% of special school headteacher adverts were not filled at first advert and had been re-advertised by Christmas 2025.
· 16% of Roman Catholic schools have had to re-advertise their head teacher vacancy.
· 26% of schools that advertised a head teacher vacancy in September had re-advertised the post by Christmas 2025.
· 45 of the 91 secondary schools advertising for a new headteacher quoted a starting salary of more than £100,000 – not all schools quoted a starting salary.
· Some schools offered non-pay benefits as well as the cash salary.
· The lowest starting salary quoted for a headteacher vacancy was £53,000.
Introduction
Between 1983 and 2022, I produced an annual report into the turnover of headteachers in state schools in England. The data collection was paused in July 2022, just before I took on the role of Cabinet Member for Children’s Service in Oxfordshire. After ceasing to be a councillor in May 2025, and hence relinquishing my Cabinet role, I once again started reviewing advertisements for headteachers posted by state schools in England.
Most headteacher vacancies appear on the DfE’s quirky teacher vacancy platform. However, a small number also appear in the ‘tes’ on-line vacancy portal. When I started collecting headteacher vacancies in the 1980s, the ‘tes’ paper edition was the main vehicle for posting headteacher vacancies.
At that time, it was mandatory for these vacancies to be posted nationally. Although not a requirement today, I suspect that most vacancies for headteachers are still posted nationally on vacancy sites such as the DfE site. Among the vacancies posted there can be wide variations in the length of time between a vacancy appearing on the DfE vacancy website and the closing date for applications.
Presumably, if there is a strong internal candidate, either within the school or the Multi Academy Trust to which the school belongs, there is no incentive to have the standard three weeks to a month period between the vacancy and the closing date.
Looking at the data collected this autumn, it has been possible to identify one school in special measures that advertised a vacancy collected on a Monday, but with a closing date for the Friday of the same week – was there a strong internal candidate? Perhaps an acting interim headteacher, so the advertisement was a mere formality?
My methodology for the survey has been to search both the DfE and ‘tes’ vacancy sites at least every week, and during busy periods more than once a week. This is a more accurate methodology than just counting vacancies using Artificial Intelligence, since the DfE’s website has a habit of regularly posting some vacancies more than once at the same point in time. This quirk has been a part of the DfE’s site since its inception, and can make simple vacancy counting inaccurate.
While some schools have a short space of time between the advert appearing and the closing date, by way of contrast, some other schools advertise well in advance of their closing date. Five schools that advertised in December 2025 had a closing date in February 2026.
Too long a period between advertising a vacancy and the closing date for applications can be a risk for a school. Previous surveys found that candidates often applied for several vacancies, especially for primary headships advertised during busy periods for vacancies. Keeping a vacancy open too long, and then waiting before interviewing can risk losing good candidates to another school where the process is shorter in time.
Faith schools often fall into the latter category of schools with long periods between the vacancy being advertised and the closing date, especially if they are not part of an academy trust.
One key change since the days of paper advertising of vacancies for headships has been the importance of December as a period for advertising such vacancies. In the days of print advertising, few vacancies were advertised in December, and previous reports warned against the risk of such an advertisement, since few likely candidates were reading the job columns in December, and many advertised vacancies were often re-advertised in January.
In the modern ‘on-line’ era, where AI can help do the job search for a candidate, advertising in December, as soon as a governing body or Trust has been informed of a resignation is no longer a handicap. Indeed, in December 2025, there were 133 headteacher vaccines recorded, compared with just 56 in September. 2025
Not surprisingly, primary schools of all descriptions dominated the total vacancies advertised. The primary school sector accounted for 299 or the 436 vacancies recorded between August and Christmas 2025.
By contrast, there were 91 vacancies for secondary schools, including two for all-through schools with a primary section. Such all-through schools were fashionable a decade ago, when schools were converting to become academies. However, I have never been a fan of such schools, preferring the 1944 Education Act requirement of a split between the primary and secondary phases, at whatever age it occurs.
Indeed, there are still some ‘Middle’ schools in existence with a transfer age of either 12 or 13, rather than at age 11, where the vast majority of pupils still transfer from one sector to the other.
Unlike in previous studies of headteacher vacancies since the1980s, this analysis collected state nursery school vacancies and vacancies for special schools as well as the vacancies for primary and secondary school headships. To date, there have been two vacancies for headteachers of state nursery schools, and 44 for headteachers of state special schools. There has also been one vacancy for a Sixth Form College (16-19) run under Schools’ Regulations and managed by a university.
Vacancies recorded by sector
Sector
Readvertised
Vacancy
Percentage Re-advertised
Primary
19
298
6%
Secondary
3
88
3%
Special
9
44
20%
Independent/other
0
1
0%
Nursery
0
2
0%
All Through
0
2
0%
Sixth Form College
0
1
0%
31
436
7%
Vacancies by control of the school
The majority of schools that advertised for a headteacher were not faith schools of any description. These non-faith schools consisted of both ‘maintained’ schools, where the local upper tier authority was the de jure employer of the headteacher, even though decisions on hiring and firing were taken by individual schools, and not the local authority. As a result of this anomaly between the de jure and de facto employment position, however small the school is, it is still subject to the apprenticeship Levy, as a result of the local authority’s position as employer.
Schools that were not ‘maintained’ were academies, either as an increasingly rare ‘standalone’ academy or as part of a Multi Academy Trust overseen by a Chief Executive. In some smaller Trusts, the Chief Executive may also be the headteacher of a school within the Trust. In that case the vacancy was recorded. Where the Chief Executive was not a head of a named school the vacancy was not included in this survey.
The two key Christian denominations of the Church of England, and the Roman Catholic Church, accounted for 126 vacancies between them in this survey (Church of England, 79, and the Roman Catholic Church, 47 vacancies). There were also two joint Church of England and Methodist Church primary schools and one Methodist primary school that advertised for a headteacher during the August to Christmas 2025 period.
In addition, one school of another Christian denomination advertised for a headteacher during the survey period. No schools of a non-Christian religions were recorded as advertising for a headteacher during the period under review.
Of course, such schools could have advertised their headteacher vacancy in locations specific to their religion, and those vacancies would not then be picked up by this survey if the school did not also advertise on the DfE vacancy site.
Vacancies by control of the school – faith groups
Control of School
Readvertised
Vacancy
Percentage Re-advertised
Church of England
3
79
4%
CE/M
0
2
0%
Methodist Church
0
1
0%
Roman Catholic
8
47
17%
Other Denominations
1
1
100%
No Faith
19
306
6%
Total
31
436
7%
Although the survey does not currently record the Trust to which academies belong, it is possible to discern some of the policies adopted by Trusts around advertising. Some Trusts advertise the vacancy with the address of their headquarters, rather than the address of the school. This is obviously necessary for new schools that are not yet open, but can be confusing for vacancies relating to established schools located away from the Trust’s headquarters.
As noted, some Trusts also advertise for ‘Executive headteachers. These have only been included when it is clear that they are also the headteacher of a specific school within the Trust, and not just responsible for a group of schools.
In 2026, the survey’s methodology will consider trying to capture more information about the Trust a school belongs to at the time the vacancy is recorded.
Re-advertisements
As has been shown in the previous tables in this report, some schools do not manage to make an appointment after advertising a headteacher vacancy.
This survey records a re-advertisement as a repeat vacancy for the same headteacher post with a new closing date at least two weeks after the first recorded closing date. This methodology had been in use since the inception of my headteacher vacancy surveying in the 1980s.
At that time, in the 1980s, it allowed for errors in the original print advertisement to be corrected or the same original vacancy to be advertised for several weeks without counting as a re-advertisement.
With the advent of on-line vacancy advertising, the ‘closing’ date for applications is clear, and it is obvious if it has been altered. These days ‘closing dates’ for vacancies on the DfE vacancy site also specify the latest time that applications can be received.
As a result of some vacancies appearing on the DfE vacancy site with a very short period between the vacancy being captured and the closing date, it has been deemed prudent to retain the clear two-week period before a vacancy can be described as a re-advertisement.
Even though the data on headteachers has only been collected over a five-month period, some clear trends around re-advertising stand out. Two types of schools dominate the schools that decided to re-advertise, presumably because of an inadequate number of applicants suitable for appointment to their headship.
Of the 31 re-advertisements, (including three schools that re-advertised twice during the period after the original vacancy was recorded, nine were special schools, and 19 were primary schools: just three were secondary schools.
The other group with seemingly significant challenges recruiting a new headteacher were the eight were Roman Catholic schools. These schools represent 17% of all Roman Catholic schools that advertised during the period, (eight schools out of 47). One Roman Catholic school re-advertised twice during the period under review.
It is possible that these percentages for re-advertisements are an under-estimate because of the fact that data collection only started in August 2025. Thus, some re-advertisement may have been recorded as first advertisement because their original vacancy was advertised before August 2025. In the 2026 survey, data for a complete year will overcome this issue. In the 2026 survey, any gap of more than twelve months between an advertisement will create a new vacancy, not a further re-advertisement. However, that is for the future, and not this report.
School types with significant re-advertisements for headteacher vacancies
Type of School
Re-advertised vacancies
Original recorded vacancies for the type
Percentage Re-advertised
Special Schools
9
44
20%
Roman Catholic Schools
8
47
17%
Primary Schools
19
297
6%
At present, it is not possible to determine whether the number of pupils on rolls also affects the likelihood of a school readvertising a post. However, further research will investigate this point. One proxy for the number of pupils on roll is the starting salary offered for a headteacher vacancy.
The significant percentage of Roman Catholic schools re-advertising their headteacher vacancy is not a surprise. Previous surveys, from the 1980s onwards, have often shown such schools with a greater propensity to re-advertise a headteacher vacancy than other non-faith or Church of England schools, especially in the primary school sector.
As this is the first time that special school headteacher vacancies have been collected on a systematic basis by this survey, it would be unfair to do more than just record the high percentage of vacancies re-advertised for the headships of such schools (20% of schools have re-advertised). With SEND such a key policy topic, this level of re-advertisement is, however, a matter for concern.
Regional variations
The nine previous government office regions have been used in the past in this survey as a means of determining any regional trends. Even though such regions no longer exist they do still offer a useful basis for comparison, especially during the current chaos of local government reorganisation outside of the conurbations of England. It seems illogical that some local authorities responsible for schools in historic Berkshire County may have been re-organised three times since 1970: in 1974, in the 1990s, and currently awaiting the results of the present round of re-organisation. However, since the 1963 reorganisation in London, the outer London borough responsible for schooling have remained on largely unchanged boundaries, even though some have been reclassified as inner London boroughs at some point in time by the DfE.
Regional vacancy rate for headteachers
Region
Number of schools with re-advertisements
Number of vacancies
Percentage of re-advertisements
East of England
8
62
13%
East Midlands
1
40
3%
London
3
44
7%
North East
2
10
20%
North West
6
73
8%
South East
2
42
5%
South West
1
48
2%
West Midlands
4
58
7%
Yorkshire & The Humber
3
63
5%
TOTAL
30
436
7%
Little should be made of this data, as it only covers a five-month period. The high percentage for the North East is as a result of two special schools in the region needing to re-advertise their vacancy for a headteacher. Apart from that anomaly, there is no evidence of re-advertising by schools in the north East.
There is no evidence of high price housing areas such as London and the South East affecting the need to re-advertise from this limited dataset. However, the East of England that includes local authorities to the north and east of London does have an above average rate of re-advertisements. This will be an area to watch in 2026 to see if this trend continues.
Starting salary of vacancies advertised
One way that schools can prevent the need to re-advertise in high price areas is to offer competitive salaries. Historically, a school’s salary for the headteacher was decided by the number and age range of pupils, with a supplement for special schools because of their nature.
Around a quarter of a century ago, with schools being handed freedom over their budgets, this rule broke down. For a period of time, schools advertised headteacher vacancies with phrases such as ‘a competitive salary’, but no cash amount or a range of spine points in their advertisement. Some schools still eschew advertising a cash salary or a range of points on the Leadership Scale in their advertisement, but may add incentives by way of non-pay inducements in their details of their headteacher vacancy.
In this survey, 12 secondary schools, four primary schools and three special schools of the 436 schools surveyed contained either no cash value or no indication of points on the Leadership Scale for a starting salary. In their advertisement
Some 256 schools included a cash value, either as a range or a fixed point as the starting salary. Of course, a person appointed might start above the bottom of the advertised range, but without the knowledge of actual starting salaries, those bottom points of any range indicated in the advertisement has been used as a sensible point to take for survey purposes.
Starting Salaries
Type of School
Highest cash starting point
Age range and number of pupils on roll for this school
Highest Leadership Starting point
Age range and number of pupils on roll for this school
Primary
£93,424
836
L28
871
Secondary
£120,000
1418
L37
1817
Special
£115,380
137
L25
166
Not the same school for cash and Leadership starting point
There were 44 secondary schools, and five special schools with a starting salary of more than six figures (over £100,000). Of course, some of these starting salaries are increased because the school is in the London weighting or fringe areas for salary purposes.
Interestingly, the school with the highest salary on offer recorded in this survey was in the national salary part of England. The highest recorded starting salary for a primary school headteacher in an advertisement was £93,424 in cash terms, or Leadership point 28 in scale point terms. The lowest salary on offer for a headteacher vacancy in the primary sector was £53,000 in cash terms or Point 1 on the Leadership Scale.
Non-cash benefits
Perhaps the most inclusive set of non-cash benefits offered in an advertisement for a headteacher can be found in a headteacher vacancy advertised by the Co-op Academy chain of schools. Their advertisement offered the following,’ Our employee benefits package includes:’
You’ll get being a Co-op member, you’ll get a Co-op colleague discount card. This gives you a 10% discount in our Co-op Food stores.
Co-operative flexible benefits (discounted line rental and broadband package, family care advice and cycle to work scheme)
Discounted gym membership and leisure activities which includes discounts on Merlin Entertainments (Sea Life, Legoland etc), Virgin Experience Days, SuperBreak and many more!
Co-operative Credit Union: save directly from your salary and receive a competitive dividend. Borrowers can benefit from very competitive interest rates & terms (in comparison with other high street lenders)
Co-op Funeralcare benefit
Season ticket and rental deposit loans
Hopefully, at least one of those benefits will be of no interest to candidates.
Another school offered the following non-cash benefits
access to a private health insurance scheme
a relocation package (subject to eligibility)
a daily lunch allowance for use in the school restaurant
access to our exclusive Benefits Hub.
a cycle to work scheme
a confidential employee assistance service
use of on-site fitness suite
an eye care voucher scheme
flu vaccination vouchers (subject to eligibility)
While a special school offered a mixture of expected benefits, plus a few others:
Competitive salary
Fully funded CPD, mentoring & coaching
A trust-wide commitment to wellbeing, including paid wellbeing days, and free on-site parking
Flexible working options
Access to an employee assistance programme
Teachers’ Pension Scheme
Employee referral scheme (earn up to £500 for successful referrals)
Highly resourced classrooms, small class sizes and access to multidisciplinary teams
A strong safeguarding and therapeutic culture
A London primary school offered the following as benefits
A commitment to supporting a healthy work/life balance
A happy, supportive and friendly environment where we work effectively as a team
Children who are eager to learn, committed staff, governors, parents and carers
Inspiring curriculum enrichment opportunities because of our exciting location close to central London and Spitalfields City Farm
Surprisingly, there were not as many references to tax free relocation allowances in the advertisements as I might have expected.
Conclusion
This survey of headteacher vacancies recorded between August 2025 and Christmas 2025 follows in the tradition of such surveys first started by the author over 40 years ago, in the mid-1980s, and continued until July 2022.
Data has been recorded for more than 400 headteacher vacancies advertised between August 2025 and Christmas 2025. The vacancies were advertised on either the DfE vacancy site or in some cases the ‘tes’ website.
While most schools appear to be successful in recruiting a new headteacher, those that advertised their vacancy in September may have had less success than those schools advertising during the rest of the autumn. However, final re-advertisement rates for vacancies across the autumn won’t be clear until early in 2026, so this point cannot yet be confirmed.
Nevertheless, as in past surveys, it is clear that some schools are finding recruiting a new headteacher more of a challenge than other schools. Two types of school: special schools and schools operated by the Roman Catholic church, both had above average levels of re-advertisements in this survey. I
In the case of two special schools, these schools have been recorded as having placed two re-advertisements for their vacancy, in addition to their first advertisement. Hopefully, these schools will be successful with their third advertisement.
The problems recruiting staff for special schools is often overlooked when the SEND crisis is discussed, and deserves more attention from policymakers.
A significant number of secondary schools now offer starting salaries for their headteacher vacancy of more than £100,000. Starting salaries for some large primary schools are less than £10,000 away from a six-figure starting salary.
Schools now regularly offer a range of non-cash benefits in their advertisements, but one that might have best left out of their advertisement by the Co-op multi academy trust is that of ‘a Co-op Funeral care benefit’. Hopefully, it is not one the incoming headteacher would be expected to need.
December used to be a quiet month for headteacher recruitment when advertisements appear in the press. Nowadays, with on-line advertising, it has become a much busier month for new vacancies to be advertised.
Presumably, schools hope candidates interested in a headship will surf the net between Christmas and the New Year for a new job. However, some schools still have hedged their bets with closing dates not until February 2026. Such late closing dates risk those schools’ losing candidates to schools that are fleeter of foot in their recruitment process.
On the other hand, some schools advertise for no more than a week between vacancy posted and the closing date. Does this suggest an internal candidate being favoured?
In a normal year, about 2,000 headteacher vacancies and re-advertisements might be recorded, so it will be interesting to see how 2026 pans out and the total number of vacancies advertised for the 2025-26 school year.
I look forward to writing the report on 2026 next December
How have my blog posts fared since I restarted this blog in May of 2025? Some new posts were well received, some old favourites from previous years continued to attract readers, and some of this year’s posts languished unread, according to WordPress’s dashboard.
So, as of today, 29th December 2025, what have been the most read posts for 2025 and when were they written?
How much holiday do teachers have?
645
150-year-old Committee system to be abolished
75
Too many teachers?
73
Headteacher vacancies: even in August
68
Windfall profits and SEND
58
‘Stuck’ schools – who teaches in these schools?
55
Less than 400 teachers of physics entered service in 2023/24
54
DfE wasting money on ITT
51
Labour’s determination to recruit new teachers doesn’t include music
53
The governance of our schools – does pay matter?
51
most viewed posts in 2025
By far and away the most read post was the one originally posted on the 20th May 2022 about how much holiday teachers in England have and how their relative position compared to other graduate occupations has been eroded since I started teaching in 1971. I expect changes over the next few years, not least because AI has the potential to seriously disrupt the way schooling is organised.
At present termtime recorded working hours are no longer compensated for by the employer-driven flexitime of ‘school holidays’: an oxymoron of a term for most teachers if ever there was one.
All the other posts in the 2025 top 10 viewed posts were written this year. They can be read either by using the search facility or by clicking on the different months since May 2025.
As might be expected, workforce issues dominate the most frequently viewed posts of 2025., although second place was achieved by a comment about the abolition of what was once a cornerstone of local democracy – the committee system – before Tony Blair’s Labour government encouraged local authorities to move to cabinet government and oversight of schooling through a scrutiny function, thus leaving most councillors out in the cold over local education, even before the advent of academies.
On the down side, many posts have been viewed by fewer than ten people since they were written. This is partly a function of the decline in viewing of blogs, as communication has switched to more modern methods, such as podcasts. Perhaps, I might start a podcast or even a YouTube video recording in 2026; comment welcome on either possibility.
Readership from around the world has once again started to pick up, but has a long way to go to the halcyon days of 2015, and the 22,000 views that year. In 2025, allowing for the fact that the blog only restarted in May, perhaps 6,500 views will be a credible outcome.
So, how many posts have there been in 2025? Including this one, there have been 122 posts, and some 69,000 words.
For those that want to read my 2013 posts, these have now been published on Amazon as an e-book or a paperback.
In January 2025, I penned a list of suggested amendments to the Schools Bill going through parliament. Well, the Bill is still going, and we still don’t know the outcome for SEND. But what of my other suggestions – listed below? Some, such as reducing the number of MATs has recently gained credibility on platforms such as LinkedIn. The idea of on-line schools has also gained attention as their use by ‘home schoolers’ increases.
The other suggestions have not yet been taken u, although a Select Committee at Westminster did discuss home to school transport in their session yesterday.
I still stand by all these suggestions made in this press release.
Time for radical action
Long-time education campaigner and recruitment authority, John Howson, calls upon the government to be more radical in its approach to education and schools.
My suggestions included
Academies
Some serious amalgamations might reduce overhead costs. Could each LA area have no more than 5 MATs (1 each for CoE; RC, special schools and 2 for all other primary and secondary schools).
How much would that save in salary costs of senior staff? Would this release cash for teaching and learning?
I also suggested a new on-line school for all children missing education because they don’t have a school place along with some other important changes.
All pupils on a school roll
(i) All young people not in school, and between the ages of 5 and 16, and not registered either as home educated young people or with a registered private provider on the list of DfE approved schools, must be registered with a maintained on-line school,
Notes
As the DfE accredits on-line private provision it should be able to create a category of on-line maintained school. This would allow the education of all state-funded young people to be regulated and inspected. It would end the practice of EOTAS (education other than at school) prescribed by s61 of the 2014 Education Act.
It would also allow for children moving into an area mid-year to immediately be placed on the roll of this school pending placement in a mainstream or special school. Many pupils with EHCPs transferring mid-year cannot be allocated a place in a special school because there are insufficient places. This would allow for oversight of their education by the local authority pending a placement. In a local authority such as Oxfordshire, there may be as many as 200+ pupils waiting for a school place as the school-year progresses.
This would also assist those children forced to free home at short notice due to domestic abuse. At present, they leave everything behind and it cannot be forwarded in case it reveals the location of the refuge or other accommodation. This on-line school would provide registration without revealing a location where pupil’s work could be forwarded and education continued until the situation was resolved.
Those children in years 10 and 11 offered a part-time place at an FE college where the school doesn’t consent that are currently transferred to elective home education to allow funding to be agreed could also be transferred to the roll of this school.
Free school transport extended to 18 to match ‘learning leaving age’.
(i) In Schedule 35B of the 1996 education Act replace ‘of compulsory school age’ with ‘Eighteen’.
(ii) The provision free transport for pupils beyond of compulsory school age and up to the end of the school year in which the child attains 18 will only apply where the child received free travel before the of the compulsory school age and remains at the same school.
(iii) Where the school a child attended up to the end of the compulsory school age does not provide post-16 education, transport will be provided free to the nearest post-16 education provision operating under schools’ regulation or the nearest Sixth Form College operating under Further Education regulations.
(iv) Where a child transfers to a college or other setting operating under Further Education regulations that is not a Sixth Form College, the college will have a duty to provide, either free transport or make other suitable arrangements in a situation where the young person would have met the conditions for free transport had they remained in the school they attended until the end of their compulsory school age, up to the end of the academic year where the child reaches the age of 18.
(v) Within the boundary of the London boroughs, school transport will be the responsibility of Transport or London. In combined Authorities with a mayor, the provision of school transport may be either a local authority ort a mayoral function by agreement. Where there is no agreement, the local authority will be responsible for any transport.
(vi) The responsible body, either a local authority or the mayor, must produce an annual home to school transport authority for the guidance of parents and other interested in the provision of home to school transport.
Note
This clause is to bring the transport arrangements into line with the learning leaving age of 18
Ending of selective education being treated as parental choice for transport decisions
(i) Where a local authority or other body responsibly for state funded secondary school education between the ages of 11 and 18 requires the passing of some form of selection for admittance to a school, regardless of whether the section process is administered by the school, a local authority or any other body, then a child admitted to their nearest selective school, or the nearest school with an available place, will be eligible for free transport up to age 18 while they remain on roll of the school, if they are an eligible child within Schedule 35B of the 1996 education Act.
Note
This clause prevents Kent and other LA with selective schools from regarding selective schools as a parental choice and, as a consequence, not providing free transport to children living more than 3 miles from the selective school.
Provision of sufficient teacher numbers in all subjects and all areas.
(i) Local authorities are encouraged to work with multi-academy trusts, dioceses and other promoters of schools to ensure a sufficient supply of suitable qualified teachers to ensure the delivery of the curriculum in such schools.
(ii) Where no other provision exists, local authorities may establish and operate initial teacher training provision, as an approved provider by the Department for Education.
(iii) Local authorities will produce an annual report to Council on the adequacy of staffing of schools within the authority.
(iv) It shall be the duty of schools to cooperate with the local authority in providing such information as required by the local authority for the production of an annual report on the staffing of schools within the authority.
Note
With increasing teacher shortages, it is necessary to ensure a sufficient number of teachers at a local level. This clause provides for local authorities to offer initial teacher education where insufficient places are available locally in some or all phases and subjects taught by schools.
Removal of right for MATs to ‘pool’ balances of schools within the MAT in annual accounts
(i) When presenting their annual accounts, a mutli-academy trust must show the balances for each individual school in the account and must not ‘pool’ reserves into a single figure for the trust.
(ii) The DfE shall publish each year a list of the salaries of all staff in academies and academy trusts earning more than £100,000 alongside the salary of the DCS for the same area where the academy or MAT are located.
Note
This clause seeks to ensure that funds allocated to schools are spent at that school and not transferred to another school, and especially not to be used by schools in different local authority areas. The second part requires the DfE to collate information that is in MAT or academy annual accounts. but DfE should provide the data as part of their statistical information to the sector.
Schools Forum
(i) The Cabinet Member or Committee Chair in a Committee system of local government responsible for supporting schools with the DSG and for the central block shall be a voting member of the Schools Forum. No substitute shall be allowed.
Note
This put the LA representative with control of EYFS and HNB funding on the same level of engagements as schools and others in respect of membership of a schools forum and end the anomaly of being permitted to be a member, but not to vote.
1n the autumn of 1997, Baroness Estelle Morris, at that time a junior minister in the DfE, in the new Labour government of Tony Blair, opened a conference about recruiting more ethnic minority students to become a teacher. The conference was organised by the then Teacher Training Agency. That conference was held in East London, and was followed by two more in Leeds and Birmingham.
Fast forward to the ITT census produced by the DfE today, and ask the question: how successful has the campaign to recruit certain ethnic groups into teaching been since that first conference nearly 30 years ago? Initial teacher training: trainee number census 2025 to 2026 – GOV.UK
Looking at the group that has found most difficultly in becoming a teacher over the years – Black African/Black Caribbean – there still seem to be big challenges looking at today’s data. Whether these are because students from this ethnic grouping aren’t attracted to parts of the country where there are few of their compatriots or whether there are other reasons cannot be determined just from the numbers.
However, over 500 courses have no candidates recorded from this group in the data published in Table 12 today. Just over 900 courses have between one and four candidates from the ethnic group. A further 83 courses have the number suppressed as being too low, as it might allow an individual to be identified.
A quick review of courses with the highest percentage (over 50% of each course code) shows that 24 are courses run by providers in London; just three are from outside London, and for three the name does not provide a clue to the location.
Looking at the courses with more than 100 candidates from the Black ethnic group: four are located in London – two each from UCL and Teach First – and the fifth is a national SCITT.
As might be expected, the University of East London, and several other London post 1992 universities, feature in the list of providers with between 25% and 50% of course numbers from the Black group, each with several courses in this percentage range. Most other pre-1992 universities and other post-1992 universities and the SCITTs in London have many of their courses in the 15%-25% group of providers. Few, if any, London providers feature in the list with zero percentage from the black group.
While it is good that courses in London do seem to be attracting applications from the Black ethnic group, there are still many courses in large parts of the country where that seems not to be the case. Does this matter? Would a ‘token’ representative on a single course in an institution be anything more than a token. Should we encourage such students to be trailblazers r should we accept that outside of the conurbations and a few university towns, graduates from the black ethnic group are still relatively rare.
I went to school in the 1960s with one of the few Black pupils in the school. He went on to become a teacher when Black teachers were even thinner on the ground than now, even in London.
The percentage of accepted ITT candidates within each nationality group for selected subjects for 2024/25 and 2025/26
Percentage of accepted candidates
UK and Irish national
EEA national
Other nationality
2024/25
2025/26
2024/25
2025/26
2024/25
2025/26
Total
88%
86%
5%
5%
8%
9%
Primary
94%
94%
2%
3%
4%
3%
Secondary
84%
82%
6%
6%
10%
13%
STEM Subjects
76%
74%
5%
5%
19%
22%
Physics
43%
32%
3%
2%
54%
66%
English
93%
93%
3%
2%
4%
5%
Mathematics
81%
81%
5%
5%
13%
14%
High Potential ITT (HPITT) route and undergraduate routes are not included in this data.
Subject-level candidate totals will not sum to the total candidate number due to duplication caused by candidates applying for multiple subjects.
The footnote about undergraduate routes should not be of concern as there are relatively few such courses for secondary subjects, and the numbers on primary undergraduate courses have been declining over the longer-term.
Of much more concern is the decline in percentage of accepted candidates for physics from the UK and Ireland, down from 43% last year to 32% this year. This has been balanced by and increase from 54% to 66% for candidates from outside the UK and EEA areas.
As there has bene a dramatic increase in the numbers of trainees in physics, does this matter?
On these percentages, the increase in UK and Irish trainees has been from only around 185 last year to 220 this year. That seems like a very small number and worth investigating to see if I am correct?
If I am correct, then the key issue is, where will the trainees from the rest of the world be able to teach? Will the present government’s stricter policies on immigration mean that they won’t be able to teach in England, or as graduates earning a good salary will they be given visas?
Of course, they may choose to teach in the new British state sponsored selective school being established in both India and the UAE that was recently approved by the Labour government.
British Education is a global export, regardless of the PISA scores of home students, and the destination of trainees, both within the state and private systems, as well as overseas, is an important piece of information Minister should pay more attention to than they do at present.
The number of Uk trainees is likely to be boosted in physics by those training through the High Potential route (Formerly known as Teach First), However, the data for those candidates is not included in the census this year.
No doubt there is room for some interesting parliamentary questions about trainee teachers and where they come from and where they go on to teach, especially for those that receive bursaries and other financial support from the State.
John Howson 