Tag Archives: technicians

Fewer teachers, classroom assistants and technicians

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Today is the day that the DfE publishes two important datasets: the results of the 2017 School Workforce Census and the data providing the identification of schools and their characteristics. You can find the details at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics?departments%5B%5D=department-for-education

There are a large number of tables to assimilate, but the DfE helpfully publishes what used to be known as a Statistical Bulletin on the School Workforce data at https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/719772/SWFC_MainText.pdf Now it only has a title.

The headline figure is the reduction in staffing levels almost across the board, whether teachers, technicians or classroom assistants. This is the manifestation of the funding issues facing schools that have been well documented both on this blog and elsewhere. As the DfE note states’ ‘The total FTE number of teachers in all schools has fallen by 1.2%’, between November 2016 and November 2017. The note is not totally accurate, because the figure includes centrally employed teachers, but since there are now less than 4,000 of these the latitude in the wording can be overlooked.

There was also a fall in the number of entrants to teaching, meaning that entrants and leavers were both recorded as at 9.9% of the qualified teaching force. This is the first year for some considerable time and probably since the School Workforce Census has been collected at its present November date that entrants into the profession have not exceeded departures as a percentage of the qualified teacher workforce.

As noted in the previous post on this blog, older applicants were taking more training places as younger graduates seem less interested in becoming teachers. The same trend is visible in the workforce data. Table 7b shows a large increase in departures among teachers in the 25-44 age brackets and especially among the key 25-34 age group where just over 14,000 were recorded as leaving compared with just 10,400 of this age group in 2011. Are we losing the leaders of tomorrow and where are they going? Are international schools tempting them overseas with better pay and easier working conditions?

Although much is made of working conditions and workload, teacher absence rates still continue to fall as Table 16 reveals. There was a one per cent rise in the percentage of teachers taking sickness absence, but the total days lost was the lowest for many a year.

After some years when the match between teachers’ qualifications ad subject expertise had been improving, there was something of a setback between 2017 and 2018 in some subjects. This may be due to the increasing challenge in recruitment into training and can be expected to show further declines in key subjects when the next set of data are published next June. In 2017 among EBacc subjects, only German and ‘other’ Modern Languages saw an improvement in the percentage of hours taught by a teacher with a relevant post A level qualification. Spanish and Chemistry recorded no change.

Now that secondary pupil numbers are on the increase and primary numbers are falling among the entry age groups, it is likely that we will see more rebalancing of the teacher workforce over the next few years. Unless funding improves, it also seems likely that more support staff will also lose their jobs as schools strive to protect teaching posts.

Support Staff axed by secondary schools

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In the previous post I discussed the changing level of the pupil teacher ratios in schools, following the publication of the 2016 School Workforce Census, conducted last November. Of course, teachers are not the only staff employed in schools and there are a vast number of other staff either employed by the school or by third party suppliers, but working on school premises.

With the increase in pupil numbers, it is perhaps not surprising that the number of teaching assistants increased in the primary sector to 177,700. The number of administrative assistants also increased in primary schools. However, there was a reduction in the admittedly small number of technicians employed in the primary sector. I assume most of these work on IT systems?

In the secondary sector, the position was almost exactly the opposite. The sector employs less than a third of the number of teaching assistant that are found in the primary sector. However, there was a reduction in their numbers to just over 50,000; down by just over 2,000 in one year and more than 4,000 from the high point reached in 2013. By contrast, the secondary sector employs many more technicians than in the primary sector; somewhere between four and five per schools. Even here, the numbers reduced between 2015 and 2016 as they also did for administrative staff.

Third Party employed support staff increased in number in the primary sector, but fell in the secondary sector. Again, the difference in pupil premium cash per pupil between the two sectors may well account for some of the trends. I think it fair to say that secondary school budgets, even when helped by rising rolls from 2016 onwards, will likely cause pressure in many of these areas in years to come.

How the National Funding Formula is introduced, if indeed it is introduced in its present iteration, will undoubtedly shape the future spending patterns, even if there are floors and ceilings introduced. I suspect that teaching jobs will be protected at the expense of other staff in schools, but that the possible reductions in the number of minority subjects on offer may well affect the employment possibilities of teachers in those subjects.

In a latter post, I will examine the trends in qualified teachers employed in different subjects across the last few years, along with trends in entry and departure rates from the profession. But it is worth noting that the average age of teachers in secondary schools is higher than in primary schools, with 605 of secondary school teachers being in the 30-50 age grouping compared with 55% in the primary sector. Only 22.6% of secondary school teachers are aged under 30 compared with 28.4% in the primary sector. This difference may have an impact on employment patterns.

In terms of gender balance, four out of five employees in the school sector as a whole are now women.  With the largest grouping of men being the 37.5% of teachers employed in the secondary sector. This compares with just 15.4% of male teachers in the primary sector. Over 90% of teaching assistants are women.