Tag Archives: think tank

Solutions needed to ITT crisis

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In the early days of the think tank, Policy Exchange, I once wrote a pamphlet for them entitled ‘The labour market for teachers’. This was way back, a decade ago, in 2008 when I was less active for the Liberal Democrats than I am today as a councillor. As a result of this background, I was interested to read the latest piece by John Blake, Policy Exchange’s current head of education and social reform. The piece is entitled ‘The challenges behind the figures on teacher recruitment’. You can read it by following this link https://policyexchange.org.uk/the-challenges-behind-the-figures-on-teacher-recruitment/

Mr Blake doesn’t dispute the figures highlighted in my previous post that emerged from UCAS last Thursday. However, he claims that teaching is still a well-paid profession commenting that ‘given teaching is relatively well-paid on entry and has generous increment increases in the first few years to nearly £40,000 without having to take on any additional management responsibility, it seems unlikely it is the issue for recruitment either. This view stands in stark contrast to the Pay Review Body comments in their 2017 Report that ‘teacher’ earnings have undergone a further deterioration … continue to trail those of other professional occupations in all regions except the North East.’ (STRB, 2017 Report, page 31).

However, Mr Blake isn’t really interested in defending the pay structure, but in raising the oft asked question as to why so many show and interest in teaching, but don’t follow that interest through. For good measure, Mr Blake also attacks the profession for not producing enough teachers from those that do apply. This latter point needs careful attention. But, as to the former, he hasn’t been able to find any numbers and he doesn’t mention whether this is a general trend for other graduate occupations? By focussing on this narrow point, he misses the issues of more concern raised in my last blog that applications are down across the country; across all age groups and from both men and women and even more seriously, by a far larger amount for applicants to train as a primary teachers than as secondary teacher. By all means let us create an index of interest in teaching and see whether it is waxing or waning at the present time. We could also create an expected conversion rate, but that might mean recreating an agency to handle teacher recruitment, something Mr Blake doesn’t even consider.

But, let’s consider the key points Mr Blake makes about not converting applicants into teachers and then not doing enough to help those going through the process. We would benefit from UCAS providing more data on secondary subjects by applicants than just by applications as at present, since applicants can make up to three applications, but we have to manage with what there is available.

In the previous post, I pointed out that ‘So far, ‘placed and applicants holding offers, account for the same percentage of applicants [as in December 2016] at around 58%. Where accepting more than one in two applicants would be acceptable to most Human Resource departments is a matter for conjecture, but it seems a high percentage.’ What percentage does Mr Blake thinks schools and higher education should be aiming for and does he think it wrong for schools to turn down more applicants than higher education?

As to support during their courses, Mr Blake doesn’t offer any evidence either on the scale of loss of trainees in-course or what might be put in place to reduce such wastage? Personally, I would once again pay all tuition fees for all graduates training to be a teacher and pay them all a training grant. If that doesn’t work, then we really will have a problem.

Finally, I would be happy to join Mr Blake in researching just why applications are down for primary school teachers by such a large amount?

 

 

 

More talk about money

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There was an interesting slot on the BBC’s Today Programme just before 0800 this morning. The Presenter plus a head teacher of an Oxfordshire Secondary School and the education researcher from Policy Exchange, the right leaning think tank, exchanged words about the state of school funding. This sort of early morning interview ritual on that programme follows set lines, two interviewees with different perspectives on the same matter and an interviewer introducing the issue and setting a hare running. When verbal exchanges are either too intense or nothing happens, the interviewer will step in and act accordingly, otherwise the two interviewees trade words.

Not surprisingly, this morning, the head teacher was full of woe about the state of funding, especially in Oxfordshire and the researcher thought either everything should be rosy or if that wasn’t the case it was all the fault of schools for employing too many staff; paying them too much or not belonging to a multi-academy trust that could produce economies of scale for back office costs. I am sure this last point had many listeners chucking over their lessons plans or marking that excessive workloads force them to undertake, even at that early hour of a Saturday morning.

Frankly, the level of exchange was disappointing for those that probably know better, but live radio is, and especially on a show such as the Today Programme, where you need to make your point in headline terms if it is to have any impact, a challenging experience, as I know from the couple of times I have taken part in such discussions over the years. On this occasion the head teacher had the better of the exchanges in my view

As I reported in my last post, ‘Thin Gruel’, schools were never likely to do well out of the budget and the two protagonists skirted about the issue of what effect any rise in pay that was not properly funded would have on school budgets by next September and especially in 2019. The strongest point schools have in the funding debate: falling interest in teaching as a career and levels of exit from the profession that are not as low as they were a few years ago should have been centre stage. As it wasn’t the Policy Exchange researcher never really had to address the macroeconomic point about paying more to boost the supply of teachers and what might need to be cut to find the cash? The head was probably too polite to point out the £800 million going to support students in higher education might have been as well used in schools and early years. However, as I pointed out in the previous post, this cash was needed to deal with the political fight between Labour and the conservatives for the undergraduate vote.

What is needed now is some research looking forward at school budgets for the next three to four years and identifying how many schools will be in deficit budgets by then unless action is taken. The government should then be firmly asked for a list of where cuts should be made. The electorate will then decide and schools that followed the government’s advice will know where to send complaining parents.

 

Tear down the ring fence?

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The Think Tank Reform today published a report about spending on schools. http://www.reform.co.uk/resources/0000/0765/Must_do_better_Spending_on_schools.pdf

As a right of centre think tank it might be accused of having arranged some of the data to make the most of its thesis that spending on schooling has increased without an associated rise in outcomes. Taking the period from 1999-2000 as a base for some of the analysis means the analysis started from the end of a period when government spending had been depressed during the Major government and the first two years of the Blair government, so some recovery in spending on schooling as a proportion of GDP might have been expected.

The overall thesis is that the ring fence on school spending should be removed, and the same degree of efficiency imposed on schools as on other public services. Now the issue of funding of schools has featured in several earlier posts on this blog. Interestingly, I cannot find any reference in the Reform pamphlet to the growth in school reserves. This issue, the subject of the first column in this blog, is one that has disturbed me for some time. In an age of austerity why are schools taking cash from taxpayers and putting it in their bank accounts rather than spending it? Why, indeed are some schools sitting on balances of over £1 million pounds: the number of schools with deficit budgets was at an historic low in 2012.

Reform also seem to neglect to note that during the period 1999-2003, before spending on schooling increased significantly, there was a teacher supply crisis. They don’t model anything about labour costs in detail. A failure to staff schools does lead to poor performance, and one reason I expect the next PISA results to be better is because schools have been better staffed during the past decade than at any time during my adult life. My anxiety is that an end is now in sight to that period of full staffing unless the government is very careful.

One issue the Reform report does note in passing is the difference between spending on primary and secondary schooling. According to the figures used by Reform, secondary schools accounted for 46% of spending in 2011-12, whereas primary accounted for only 27%; or 33% if under-fives spending was included. In my own view targeted spending on primary pupils who fail to achieve where they could do so might produce the best return on investment within the school system. The Pupil Premium has the capability to achieve this end, providing schools fully understand its purpose.

Indeed, adopting the suggestions in the Reform Report, and abandoning the ring fence on school spending while still aiming to improve educational outcomes and pupil attainment, might affect more affluent areas more than the less well off parts of England. Reform’s supporters might well reflect that it was David Blunkett as Secretary of State who imposed a maximum class size of 30 at Key Stage One. The major beneficiaries of his policy were mostly schools in Tory authorities where large class of over 30 were more frequently to be found at that time. Removing the funding cap might cause a return to that situation. It might also sound the death knell for small and expensive post-16 provision in some schools that is already under threat from other government actions such as the introduction of studio schools and UTCs. Reform’s authors should be careful about what they wish for.