I am increasingly aware of how lucky we’ve been in terms of recruitment. I’ve always said that “it” (I’m talking UK-wide here!) isn’t just about recruiting new people to the profession – we need to look at retention too. It’s a false economy to just keep throwing time and effort into feeding the funnel without stopping people dropping out of the other end. However, this is proving a double edged sword as there are more and more, HODs moving into SLT positions – increasingly I am being told of how (after the congratulations are over!) they are also retaining responsibility for their subject and the teaching load that comes with it – unlike some of their fellow SLT members.
I genuinely believe that teaching is an amazing job – those “I’ve got this nailed” moments are beyond doubt, the best thing ever! Whenever the opportunity arises to work with the NCTL, acting as a case study, whether that’s radio interviews, newspaper articles or basically anything! I will do so. It could be said that, recruitment is somewhat, a fascination to me – last year I did some “back of a fag packet” calculations about ITT trainees and I’m revisiting it – I’m also using it as an opportunity to highlight how big a challenge the PM has in delivering on his promise to deliver 2500 MORE maths teachers.
In the initial teacher training census for 2014-15 i.e. this current year (so Septembers NQTs) it showed that there were 2186 entrants – 88% of the target figures that the government set.
Being the cynic I am, this got me thinking about my own PGCE course where, for whatever reason, about 25% didn’t finish the course and of course these actual figures aren’t published …. but …. Looking at the ITT performance profiles for 2012-2013 (the latest figures that were published in Oct 14) it shows that for that specific year 15% of trainees didn’t achieve QTS. So it would appear that our dropout rate was quite high (!?!). I then delved further and you can see that 93% of those awarded QTS (again for 2012-2013) then went onto being “in a teaching post”. HOWEVER … when you look at what percentage this is of the number of initial trainees this equates to 76% as the 93% is the % of those awarded QTS (and in a teaching post) and that wasn’t really what I was looking for. For the sake of my figures, I have excluded those for whom, their status is not known – as we can’t be sure that they are teaching/looking for a teaching job!
**assumption alert**
I know I am making some massive assumptions by overlaying a single years outcomes on this year’s cohort but it’s all I’ve got to go on … so let’s assume that 15% of this year’s trainees (2186) don’t achieve QTS that will take the number of potential candidates to 1858. Now let’s take it a stage further and say that 76% of the trainees will be in teaching or seeking a job from September this year that equates to 1667. Note: I haven’t used the 93% of those awarded QTS I want to look at the % of those that were classed as trainees but taking this figure would have given a number of teachers available from September at about 1730
Given that there is a commitment to deliver 2500 extra teachers I wonder where they’re coming from. I know that the landscape for teacher training has changed and continues to do so, for the better in lots of cases – note the above figures don’t include Teach First (but given that they have recruited 7000 teachers over 11 years across all subjects it may not be the panacea – I do know they have big plans, so it will definitely help! For example they announced a partnership with Barclays looking to recruit an extra 533 teachers which is fab!) but I ask if the landscape will change enough to make the serious dent in the number of teachers that are required. I hope so. I really do … so many people are missing out on the best job in the world (ok … most of the time!!)
