Applications to teach: a review of the data

Posted on October 9, 2026 by John Howson

When I started this blog, way back in 2013, universities were out of favour with the government as a route to train teachers. Indeed, Mr Gove once famously used the term ‘blob’ Am I a blob? | John Howson Now, he was referring to local government, but he might just as well have been fingering university departments of education, such was his dislike of their approach to preparing teachers. He much preferred schools as the location for those learning to become a teacher.

Some years later, this blog reviewed the balance between applications to different routes into teaching. I expressed my views in a post in . A thank you to Schools of Education | John Howson

In that post, I reviewed the percentages for applications in May over four years, as derived from the then UCAS monthly data reports. This was before the DfE took over recruitment through their portal

So here are the percentages for applications in May over the four years reported in that post and as derived from the then UCAS monthly data reports.

Primary	2015	2016	2017	2018
HE	51	45	48	47
SCITT	8	9	9	10
SDFEE	24	27	25	25
SDSAL	17	19	18	18

Secondary	2015	2016	2017	2018
HE	51	47	50	52
SCITT	8	10	11	12
SDFEE	29	31	29	28
SDSAL	12	12	9	7

I thought it might be interesting to see what has happened since the years of the covid pandemic. (I don’t have 2018-2020 data easily to hand). The monthly data for applications is no longer split between primary and secondary, one of a few unhelpful changes to the data presentation. But, at least, there is still monthly data available, and that data has provided fertile grounds for this blog over the years.

The first point to note, when comparing the two tables, is the change in categories, with the ‘Fee’ route disappearing and the ‘Lead Provider’ route replacing it. The ‘teaching degree apprenticeship’ has also appeared, and is now in its second year of applications. Will its significance grow over the next few years?

ALL	2022	2023	2024	2025	2026
HE	48	41	38	40	42
SCITT	14	18	16	20	17
Fee Route	28
SALARIED	6	7	11	9	8
LEAD PROV	0	30	28	21	19
PG T APP	4	5	7	8	12
T DeGRE APP	0	0	0	1	2

It is also worth noting that these are percentages. As a result, they hide the fact that in the period covered by the earlier table, pupil rolls were on the increase, and thus more teachers needed to be trained. Will falling rolls, fewer teachers need to be trained currently. Whether that has affected the view of teaching as a career, is of no immediate concern in this post, as the basis is the percentages applying for each route.

Apprenticeship have now secured a strong foothold in the minds of would-be teachers, accounting for 14% or nearly one in seven applications by the end of May 2026. School Centred Courses (SCITTs) have been around for more than 30 years now. In May 2025 they accounted for 25% of applications, but have fallen back in 2026 to 17% this May.

The various salaried routes saw an increase in applications after covid, but, possibly because of the graduate apprenticeship route, their percentage seems to be in decline from the 11% of applications reached in May 2024 to eight per cent in 2026.

Seemingly, higher education is the main loser; down from 48% in 2022 to 42% in May 2026. This is nine percentage points below its position in May 2015, when higher education accounted for 52% of applications. I suspect that a significant percentage of the decline is down to fewer primary places being on offer in the past few years. As those courses normally ‘fill’ with offers early in the cycle, fewer places will have generated fewer applications. The four-percentage point gain over the past two years, may be down to an increase in ‘rest of the world’ applicants who may know more about universities than the other routes on offer. The DfE no doubt has that data, but it is not shared in the monthly statistics.

Where to place the Provider Led courses? Are they a direct transfer from the former School Direct Fee route, or something different. Either way, either their popularity or their availability to applicants, has seen their percentage decline quite steeply in recent years.

The data in this post is based upon trends in applications. At some point in the future, I will look at trends in ‘offer’ and actual attendance, as measured by the ITT Census, produced each December by the DfE. The post also uses the month of May data, not the endo f the round .This is because by May some subjects and the primary sector are often not accepting any more applications, so May is a good time to review the application round when the majority of courses have been accepting applications.

For now, the universities are still the leading route into teaching, but will vice chancellors still want to play in this game as they consider their financial futures, especially if targets, and thus income will be reducing because of falling rolls? Smaller groups are often uneconomic, and subsidy is not the name of the game in higher education at present. Interesting times.

Selective schools and falling rolls – Part 2 Do we need a national policy?

Posted on October 7, 2026 by John Howson

Do we need a national policy on how local areas deal with falling school rolls? If so, who should decide? Local authorities – democratically elected, but with little power over academies and voluntary schools? Regional Directors – covering wide areas, and with no democratic accountability? CEOs advising the Board of Governance of MATs – unelected in both cases? Mayors, where they exist, but what about where they don’t?

My preference is for democracy, so, as regular reads might expect, I vote for local authorities, assisted by a committee from the other groups. However, some of those might not want to take challenging decisions, so they might need some guidelines for the DfE and the Labour government for them to work within.

I have looked at the ‘capacity’ and ‘number on roll’ in three councils with selective schools (Slough, Medway and London Borough of Barnet). In all three of these authorities, capacity exceeds rolls. Generally. However, selective schools exceed capacity more than they have spare places. In non-selective schools the picture is more mixed.

In pupil place planning for the future, whoever takes the decisions, there are some questions to answer, based on the evidence of the data about school rolls from schools in these three authorities.

Have all-thorough schools worked?

Has the extension of faith schools beyond a few Christian denominations and Jewish schools after 1997 worked?

What do parents think of single-sex education these days?

Have new forms of academies and free schools flourished?

What part can parental choice play in a falling rolls scenario?

What is both any economic cost, and any educational cost associated with doing nothing?

A final question. Why does the DfE not have admissions policies for three schools across the authorities; two in one authority?

As these are all urban/suburban areas, transport costs don’t matter very much for most families. I will look at selective schools in rural areas later in another post.

It is interesting that the London borough has a smaller capacity gap than either of the other unitary councils. However, the total in all three authorities conceals a wide range of outcomes. I referred to this issue in my post Are dashboards useful? | John Howson where I made clear that just looking at totals is rarely good enough. Measures of central tendency also need to be considered.

The data in this post has used ‘capacity’ and ‘numbers on roll’. Reviewing authorities will also have primary transfer numbers, and group sizes for predictions of future transfer numbers for the next 5-7 years.

If a Scrutiny Committee of an upper tier authority hasn’t considered pupil place planning in the authority recently, then I would suggest they put it on the agenda for a spring meeting, and ask for a detailed paper, even if it means going into confidential session. Not to do so, won’t make the issue go away.

Finally, why did I choose these three authorities? They are in London and South East, where there are a significant number of selective schools, and, the authorities were of a size where I could handle the data. Selective schools and falling rolls | John Howson

I might next look at three more diverse areas (The South West, West Midlands and East of England regions spring to mind).

Falling Rolls: a matter of urgency, but whose?

Posted on October 6, 2026 by John Howson

In 1977, Haringey council’s Chief Education Officer produced a plan to deal with falling school rolls: it was to cost him his job. His mistake was to be too far ahead of public opinion, for in 1980, school closures, and a reorganisation as a result of fewer pupil numbers became inevitable in Haringey. Among the changes was the closure of the secondary school in Tottenham where I had worked from 1971 to 1977.

This example from history is important for two reasons: firstly, we are living through another period of declining pupil numbers, and secondly, the mechanism for system planning is much weaker today than it was in the 1970s.

In the 1970s, education was often described as a ‘national system locally administered’. Boroughs, such as Haringey, had within the past decade received approval from the government at Westminster to introduce a comprehensive form of secondary schooling. Local planning ratified by government could be seen as normal practice, although not all schools were maintained schools and churches, city livery companies such as the Drapers and the Stationers, as well as other charities had a strong interest in the running of schooling in the borough. However, the ability of the local council to determine how schooling was managed across the borough was not really in question.

How different the world is today, a rump of maintained schools sits alongside the remaining voluntary schools and the block of academies, whether stand-alone of gathered together in Trusts or Committees in local authorities many facing an uncertain future.

Local authorities notionally still have responsibility for pupil place planning, but devolved budgets, powerful Schools Forums and the differing policies of academies and their trust leaders mitigate against local authorities being able to successfully plan the local school system, especially when for the past decade the focus has been on opening new schools.

Overlaying the weak position of local government is another difference from that faced by Haringey’s Chief Education Officer in the 1970s: parental choice: first enshrined in Section 6 of the 1980 Education Act, and now taken for granted.

To view the current position, I have taken a random sample of secondary schools that have so far this school-year advertised for either a new headteacher or a teacher of music. In both cases, I have looked at DfE data on the notional roll and the actual roll, as shown on the DfE’s public website on 6^th October 2026.

The results are interesting.

region	capacity	roll	difference
SE	1440	759	-681
L	1150	795	-355
WM	785	445	-340
NW	700	364	-336
SW	1050	714	-336
L	1330	1092	-238
NW	1200	1023	-177
SE	1560	1409	-151
NE	1350	1201	-149
L	1260	1115	-145
EM	625	486	-139
YH	1750	1616	-134
EE	1210	1084	-126
NW	750	661	-89
SW	1050	990	-60
L	315	272	-43
L	455	436	-19
WM	1100	1084	-16
EM	860	847	-13
YH	710	699	-11
L	1007	1000	-7
NW	900	894	-6
L	1450	1445	-5
L	1213	1214	1
SE	480	482	2
L	1164	1191	27
WM	604	632	28
L	990	1028	38
WM	1253	1306	53
EM	1383	1454	71
L	1200	1302	102
WM	1414	1524	110
L	1140	1271	131
SE	1219	1354	135
NW	989	1157	168
EM	1332	1809	477

There are some very large differences between the ‘capacity’ as shown on the DfE site and the number on roll shown on the same site. There are 13 schools with more than 100 empty places, only three in London.

On the other hand, there are six schools with more than 100 over capacity, two of which are in London.

This was a random sample, so I wondered what might be the implications in selective systems if selective schools were taking more than their ‘capacity’ on other schools and their budgets. I will do a bit of research to find out and report back.

However, it does seem that there is a serious question around effective pupil place planning and the consequences of not doing anything on some children’s learning in the future, if schools are losing income while others are still over-capacity.

Why the ITT Census should never be a surprise

Posted on October 2, 2026 by John Howson

How early in the annual ITT recruitment cycle can you confidentially predict the outcome? I asked myself this question when, earlier today, someone looked up a post on the blog that I wrote in February 2022. Not much of a Christmas Present | John Howson

Based on the data from the end of January 2022 for courses starting that autumn, I wrote the following

‘In summary, there is a degree of caution about the data in this monthly release, but there is almost certainly work still to be done to avoid another year of under-recruitment and a tight labour market for schools in 2023’

This was my cautious way of saying that a further year of trouble lay ahead. Even I, at that time, could not have predicted how far away from the targets the outcome for that year’s recruitment was to be. Of course, the targets may well have been too high, just as the current year’s targets may well be too low in some subjects. Nevertheless, recruitment outcomes were brutal. See STEM subjects ‘late recruiters’? | John Howson and More on the ITT census | John Howson as well as a number of other posts during December 2022 discussing the ITT census and its findings.

Over the course of more than 25 years studying monthly trends in recruitment, I believe that by the end of February in a normal year – Covid pandemic years being an unforeseen exception – it is possible to predict trends from that month’s data. This is because, by then, applications from final year undergraduates and discontented new graduates are in decline as finalists concentrate on exams and final coursework to be replaced for the next six month much more by career switchers.

Crucially, in Jue and July new graduates that haven’t found a job may swell the number of applicants when there is a tight graduate labour market. If there are plenty of graduate jobs, and the application rate until June has been subdued, a late bounce is unlikely.

In the past three years, application data has been made more challenging to interpret because of the large influx of applicants from ‘the rest of the world’. These applicants may account for as much as 25% of the total number of applicants. Even if they are made ‘offers’ will they obtain the necessary visa to come to England, and then will they be allowed to teacher here? So far, this is an issue in some subjects, but not across the board.

Should the DfE react to poor recruitment data? An interesting question. They did react in 2013 in July when I ventured to suggest some subjects would not hit their targets. You can read what happened in my book ‘teachers, schools and their vies on education’ available either n Amazon or directly from myself via the comments section.

Suffice to say, I think that was a face-saving exercise, but the substantive point remains. Can and should the government intervene in a cycle to help recruitment. Hopefully, with falling rolls and the threat of AI, they won’t need to. However, it is worth remembering that the Training Grant was announced in a March, and had an immediate effect upon recruitment.

Teacher shortages are commonplace across the globe

Posted on September 30, 2026 by John Howson

OECD has today published the 2026 edition of ‘Education Indicators At a glance’. Education at a Glance 2026 | OECD The section on teacher shortages has already received several comments on LinkedIn and elsewhere. I though I might look in some detail about the United Kingdom section in the ’country report’ about teacher shortages.

On the face of it, the UK fares well compared with other countries. Apparently, only 2.9% of teachers in state schools are not fully qualified. I wonder what the percentage would be for Further Education?

Teacher shortages

Shortages of skilled workers have affected many sectors across the OECD in recent years, and the teaching profession is no exception. Teacher shortages manifest in different ways across education systems: in some countries, a lack of fully qualified teachers is reflected in a higher share of non-fully qualified staff, while in others a significant number of teaching positions remain unfilled.
Non-fully qualified teachers refer to teachers who do not yet meet all the requirements to be recognised as fully qualified teachers under national regulations. In most countries, they either possess the required academic qualifications but lack mandatory certification or teacher training, have completed the required teacher training but do not hold the required academic qualifications, or lack both. In England, 2.9% of all primary and secondary teachers in public institutions were not fully qualified in 2024/25, below the OECD average of 9.1% (Figure 1).
Countries use two main approaches to measuring teacher shortages. The first approach estimates shortages before or at the start of the school year based on projected recruitment needs. The second approach measures shortages by counting the number of positions that remain vacant at the start of the school year or shortly after it begins. England uses the second approach, and 0.6% of all teaching positions in public secondary education were unfilled at or shortly before the start of the 2024/25 school year (Table 2). Education at a Glance 2026: United Kingdom

However, it is important to delve into what’ ‘Qualified’ actually means.

In England, possession of QTS allows teachers, not, interestingly, a reserved occupation term, to teach anything to anyone at any level. For the past 25 years, I have been asking for QTS to be linked to phase and subject studied in ITT. However, apart from in the Liberal Democrat Manifesto in 20025, there has been no political appetite to limit QTS in any way. I still think that is a mistake. The over-supply of PE and history teachers has helped keep school fully staffed during the recruitment crisis that started way back in 2013, but may now be coming to an end.

It is also worth pointing out that schools can be fully staffed in England by adjusting the curriculum, and dropping subjects they cannot staff. The other alternative, as OECD noted, is using less well-qualified staff. The figures on combined versus separate science at Key Stage 4 between different types of school are stark. The former can be staffed with teachers with less subject knowledge than the latter. If you don’t pass the 11+, you probably won’t study Physics as a subject by KS4 | John Howson

I was surprised that OECD appears to have accepted the DfE data at face value and not to have a definition that would deal with the fact that QTS is so broad as to be meaningless at both primary and secondary school levels.

The ITT Census versus September acceptances

Posted on September 28, 2026 by John Howson

In my previous post, I said at the end of the post that I would look at what any differences between the August ITT acceptance data issued by the DfE earlier today, and the ITT census to be issued in December 2026 might be, by looking at the difference between those accepted in September 2025 and the ITT Census of December 2025.

In reality, this task has proved something more of a challenge that I had expected. This is mostly because of the late announcement of the targets for September 2026. These were not announced until April 2026, by which time many subjects had already made offers in excess of the new, and lower, targets. The fact that the targets for 2026 were in many subjects drastically reduced has made the analysis almost impossible.

Because of the reduction in the targets, it is possible that the outcome of the 2026 ITT Census could be the best year in terms of hitting targets since 2012, especially once Teach First and any other non-DfE portal recruitment is factored into the census.

However, there are a few subjects that rely almost entirely upon the DfE portal for recruitment that we now know are very unlikely to meet even the revised target for September 2026.

These are: Business Studies; Classics, Drama; Religious Education and the catch-all ‘Other’ that includes media and communication studies, social studies, citizenship and psychology.

Although how the ‘other’ subjects grouping reaches a target of 2,035 places remains a bit of a mystery. As I have advocated elsewhere, it is now time to breakdown the ’other category’ into its component subject targets to allow for meaningful discussions about teacher supply. With around one in eight places in the ‘other’ category and the category recruiting very poorly it is time for a more meaningful discussion about the classifications used by the DfE for its IIT targets.

A reminder of how the targets have changed this year when compared to the previous year

		2025/26	2026/27
Total		26,920	20,800
Primary	Total	7,650	5,520
Secondary	Total	19,270	15,280
	Art and Design	680	605
	Biology	985	675
	Business Studies	900	1,200
	Chemistry	730	690
	Classics	60	75
	Computing	895	565
	Design and Technology	965	620
	Drama	620	370
	English	1,950	1,980
	Geography	935	685
	History	790	520
	Mathematics	2,300	2,000
	Modern Foreign Languages	1,460	1,085
	Music	565	260
	Others	2,520	2,035
	Physical Education	725	655
	Physics	1,410	810
	Religious Education	780	450

Some years ago, the total was nearer 40,000 trainees, so this has been a dramatic reduction.

When were secondary trainee targets last as low as 15,280? Not for some time. I will do a search and see if I can find out the last time the targets were this low for both primary and secondary trainees. As these targets now include almost all routes, it will be interesting to see whether when they were last this low were there no ‘off target’ numbers such as the former employment-based routes?

Mixed results across the ITT targets this September

Posted on September 28, 2026 by John Howson

Earlier this year, (in April) the DfE slashed the targets for new trainee teachers, citing falling rolls. In some case, this won’t have made a difference because either the new target was still unattainable or those in ITT had already exceeded the new target, and presumably couldn’t or wouldn’t withdraw offers already made.

So, what does the landscape look like this September, now that the DfE has released the data that will be close to the final outcomes for courses, at least those recruiting through the DfE portal. The Teach First, and other such programmes must be added to the data. However, before the ITT census there will undoubtedly be some dropouts or no-shows to courses. As a result, the September numbers accepted should provide a good idea of the basis for calculating the number of new teachers emerging onto the state school labour market for September 2027. (Take of 6% for in-course-wastage, and then 15-20% of the remainder for those not wanting to teaching state schools – these are conservative percentages). This means there may well be shortages in some subjects, especially the arts that Labour seemed to want to espouse, as the table shows.

The final percentages for mathematics and physics may well depend upon how many overseas students can obtain a visa, firstly to study and then to work in England?

It really is time to open up what the DfE means by ‘others’, and include some more actual subjects in the list. Computing may be the first subject to be benefitting from concern over the loss of jobs to AI.

I very much doubt whether the total for music, biology, religious education, design and technology, geography and English will be enough to meet the needs of schools in 2027. Rolls across the country just are not falling that fast, whatever is happening in London.

I am not sure what the DfE has calculated for the effects oof VAT on the private school sector, but if numbers fell in that sector, the sector would need to recruit fewer teachers. This would only have an impact if it was a reduction in overseas student numbers, as, presumably, home students would transfer into the state system, requiring more teachers, even at the worse pupil-teacher ratio of the state sector.

Where are acceptances down on last year?

Applications submitted were 62,633 this year, compared with 55,637 last year. However, accepted numbers were down from 26,714 to 24,850 meaning an increase of more than 4,000 applicants rejected.

The number of acceptances fell across all age groups, larger falls were in the age-groups normally associated with career switchers, and there were relatively small falls for new graduates. This is encouraging news for the long-term health of the profession, as younger trainees that stay the course should provide for the cadre of future leaders.

Most of the fall in acceptances were of females: down from 17,918 to 16,189, with males just declining from 8,516 to 8,382. This may reflect the greater number of females that apply for primary sector courses.

More worrying is the fact that while acceptances from ‘rest of the world’ applicants remained steady at 1,440 this year compared with 1,428 last year, most UK regions witnessed a decline in acceptances. There were 9,661 acceptances for primary phase courses compared with 9,887 last year, while secondary phase acceptances declined from 16,829 to 15,190.

Apprenticeships bucked the trend, witnessing more acceptances (1,453 against 1,310 for PG and 261 against 198 for degree apprenticeships). Salaried route acceptances slumped from 618 to just 304, presumably as a result of the apprenticeship route, which may be cheaper for schools.

Finally, all training provider regions witnessed a decline in acceptances, with fewer than 1,000 trainees across the North East region being accepted ( 911 compared with 1,078 last year).

If I have time, I will compare the 2026 September acceptances with census to measure whether there is any significant amount of change between the two datasets.

Vocational education: Closing doors or widening opportunities?

Posted on September 25, 2026 by John Howson

The education of young people has had quite an airing over the past week. At the Liberal Democrats conference, Munira Wilson MP, the Party’s Education spokesperson at Westminster, gave a platform speech that foreshadowed the announcement by Lucy Powell, the Secretary of State, about post-14 vocational education.

You can see Munira’s speech on YouTube. I suggest starting at 1 hour 38 minutes into the video lib dem conference 2026 autumn saturday afternoon session – Search

In her speech, Munira raised one of the key dilemmas of education. How to promote ambition without encouraging many young people to leave their communities to seek to achieve their ambitions? Many that leave our rural and coastal communities (the source of another debate at the conference) to fulfil an educational ambition, often at university, never return.

I believe that governments should be encouraging these young people to return and set up businesses in rural and coastal communities as part of regeneration schemes.

Labour’s, Lucy Powell’s, focus was one the perennial issue within the British education system: how to resolve classroom and practical subjects at examination level in terms of parity of esteem? Labour answer is to recreate courses for 14-16 year olds in practical subjects, such as construction, care and business. New Vocational GCSEs unveiled in major shake-up to hands-on learning for teens – GOV.UK

In 2003, I wrote a paper for the Liberal Democrats entitled ‘No child left behind’ – a phrase borrowed from US President Bush – in which I advocated a 14-18 sector. I recognised that many young people at 14 were disillusioned with school, but might be brought back into education if they were offered courses more aligned with their career ambitions. Now, I understand Munira’s point that at 14 she wanted to be a teacher, but as a graduate went into a different career. Munira no doubt already wanted to go to university at 14.

But, what of those, the Newsom 50%, Half Our Future: A tribute to Sir John Newsom’s Report | John Howson that don’t aspire to stay in education. At what age should we help them on the path to a working life? In 2003, I suggested links with further education, and its more grown- up approach and better facilities than many schools can provide for practical courses.

Labour’s announcement this week, ahead of their conference, seemed a bit rushed. Nothing about where to find the staff to teach these new vocational subjects in schools? Nothing about the issue of ‘norm’ referencing in examinations. How do you ‘norm reference’ the building of a wall in a construction class or the creation of a meal in a hospitality course? Trying to create national standards will be a real challenge.

Both Munira, and then Lucy Powell, did speak about the need for more work experience in schools. Again, this is something that I support wholeheartedly, but again how do we deal with the limited opportunities in our rural and coastal communities? As so often in education, it will come down to who will pay for the transport?

However, NEETs are not just an education issue. Any government that is responsible for an economy that is not producing jobs for either young people of those made redundant in their 40s and 50s, has two choices, either benefits or some form of education and training provision, if it wants to keep down the numbers unemployed. With AI likely to recreate the job scene in a new format, the issue of the relationship between education and employment isn’t going to go away anytime soon.

Is the Teachers’ Pay Award fully funded or not?

Posted on September 18, 2026 by John Howson

Earlier this week, the Secretary of State wrote to the National Education Union(NEU) about funding for the Teachers Pay Settlement. I cannot find the text of the letter on the DfE’s website, but the NEU helpfully stated that:

The NEU has secured through negotiations with the Secretary of State for Education a fully funded pay increase for all teachers throughout England. This is a significant step. In a letter to the General Secretary of the NEU Lucy Powell outlined her proposals for funding alongside a willingness to address issues around accountability, workload, and well-being. NEU secures from Government full funding for teacher pay offer | National Education Union

Since then, doubts have been cast upon whether there is enough money for a ‘fully funded’ pay rise for all teachers. Given that the NEU was considering industrial action over pay, this statement looked like a real win for the Union.

However, this announcement was never likely to create produce a ‘fully funded’ pay increase because of the manner in which the National Funding Formula for schools operates. Schools have different mixes of staff salaries, some have many inexperienced teachers near the bottom of the main scale, whereas other schools have many long-serving teachers at the top of the Upper Pay Spine. Schools also differ in how they reward additional activities with Teaching and Learning responsibility points (TLRs). The Formula cannot take these differences into account.

Asa result, some schools would be more than fully funded and other left still needing to find the rest of the pay award.

Subsequently, it seems that the DfE assumed that the funding for the pay award will come for the saving schools experience as a result of the reduction in the employer’s contribution to the non-teaching staff pension scheme: the LGPS. That seems like wishful thinking to many commentators, including myself.

First there are a number of LGPS Pools, with different outcomes, and hence different rates of employer contribution. As a result, a school with a high percentage of staff at the top of the Upper Pay Spine, few support staff and located in an LGPS fund with one of the higher contribution rates will fare far less well from this announcement than a school with the opposite profile.

Also, making an announcement in September mean that every school budget is already set, and the only spare cash is in any ‘contingency’ line on the budget. The DfE should know that fact. As a result, this announcement looks like either something of a face-saving act or another of the Labour government’s gross miscalculations. Either way, it seems likely many schools, if not most, will have given only a faint cheer on hearing the announcement, if they managed to raise a cheer at all.

I am told that the DfE clawed back the savings from reductions in employers’ contributions to the Teachers Pension Scheme. Unlike LGPS, where there are real schemes, with investments than can go up and down, the TPS, like the Civil Service Pension Fund, doesn’t actually exist as a fund, but is held by The Treasury as a notional fund.

Music Teachers: demand and supply

Posted on September 11, 2026 by John Howson

As part of its monthly review of applications by graduates to train as a teacher, this blog has often commented upon the issue of whether there will be sufficient new teachers of music. This blog has also condemned the withdrawal of the bursary for music by the Labour government.

John Howson

Education and the numbers that affect what happens

Tag Archives: teaching