Agenda item

2.10

To receive a verbal report from Oxfordshire Teaching Schools Alliance on recruitment onto initial teacher training placements and the capacity of the workforce.

The Education Scrutiny Committee had requested to receive a verbal report from Oxfordshire Teaching Schools Alliance on recruitment onto initial teacher training placements and the capacity of the workforce.  Accordingly, Mr Patrick Garton, SCITT Director of the Teaching School attended the Meeting to update the Committee on the Current situation.

Mr Garton reported that he had talked to colleagues at Brooks University and Oxford University regarding ITT Capacity this year and the general message coming back was that they seemed to be making things work this year.  In May and June this year, following lockdown he had been very worried about how things were going to work.  Some of the trainees last year continued in their placements full time and some continued to contribute significantly with on-line work.

Shifting to the online world mid-way through the year was a bit easier than setting up a whole new year in that context.  By the time they had got to the end of their recruitment cycle in June, they had managed to make things work with around 115 trainees this year on new programmes, and a group of around 20 on part-time programmes who had started in the last academic year, so they found enough places to work.  This had been the same at Oxford Brooks and Oxford University as well.  To an extent they were in competition with the 2 universities for placements as they were the three significant providers of ITT within the County.

He further reported that around 90% of those that had trained with them had stayed in Oxfordshire, which compared to 25 – 30% of the other two providers, so one of the reasons they always tried to get high quality placements was because it translated in 9 out of 10 situations to people joining state schools in Oxfordshire as newly qualified teachers (NQT) and that was the case this year even for those, given the turbulence of the Summer Term.  They had 2 or 3 who had trained with them last year and hadn’t taken teaching jobs yet, but around 85% were NQTs this year.

At the same time last year, they were still in the depths of a recruitment crisis and for many years there had been a crisis in terms of quality, quantity and location, and location as a factor in Oxfordshire was of particular concern.  What they were now beginning to see as they looked ahead, was that capacity would be a major challenge in the system.  At the moment, this year they were just about making things work, although on a daily basis they were hearing of trainees and their mentors and colleagues in schools and year group bubbles who were having to self-isolate, so it was continuing to be a very patchy picture and it was proving difficult to ensure that the best provision was distributed equitably across all the trainees. 

The Department of Education had relaxed some of their ITT criteria and legislation, in an attempt to make things a little bit smoother.  It was too early to know how significant an impact the context of the year was going to have on those who were training, but they were having to be very flexible with their expectations of schools in order to keep things going.

In terms of the recruitment crisis, they were beginning to see a significant increase in applications for ITT programmes, starting from the Summer Term.  Due to the fact that they stopped their recruitment early as they started their programmes before the Summer Holiday, the wave had not landed with them for the current cohort, but given that UCAS had only been open for a matter of weeks, they were already seeing a significant increase in applications for next year’s programme.

There was a National increase, although it was difficult to see at this stage whether that increase in applications would be distributed equally across the Country, at the moment it did not look like it was, this was dependent on the economy and there would also be some local factors.

There was a useful report from the National Foundation of Education Research issued in September which looked at the impact of Covid on ITT, which had identified that schools had withdrawn placements or that capacity had been taken out of the system, slightly bigger numbers withdrawing at Primary level (20%) and Secondary (10%) at National level.  Another concerning thread they identified was that those schools withdrawing the offer of placements were schools with a higher percent of Free Schools Meals, so therefore schools in challenging areas, which was an area they were highly alert to, as they knew that involvement in ITT and supply of high quality recruits into the schools, could boost it in terms of its capacity and staffing structure.

In terms of mentoring Capacity, one of the things that was being rolled out for September 2021, was the Governments early career framework, which was a very welcome initiative, in that it gave an enhanced level of support and training, not just for NQTs but for NQTs 1 (teachers in their first year) and which was aligned to the core content framework which was the new framework ITT providers were working with.  There was some concern that if they were providing Mentors at the moment for NQTs and trainees and then from next September we are also providing mentors for the third year, that would stretch mentoring capacity in Oxfordshire schools further, so it might be that they found more schools saying that if they had to find mentors for NQTs and NQTs 1, then they were not able to support  trainees.

The other part of the increase in applications was that it was a mixed blessing, as although they needed more applicants to apply (last year being the worst in a decade for applications), people applying did not just solve that.  Firstly, it was important to ensure that they had the right kind of people applying, they also had to consider retention of those people over time and whether they had enough capacity in the system to support those people and bring them in and give them the right preparation at the start of their career so that they were more likely to stay.  He was alert to all of the possible challenges coming forward.

Councillor Howson noted that current vacancies in Oxfordshire stood at around 16% down from what they were in 2018, and that by the end of the year that would probably be 10%, mostly in the state secondary sector.

He expressed concern over what the universities were doing in relation to the end of term and queried whether students on teacher placements would get an exemption in the same way as nursing to enable them to complete those, rather than being sent home with all other under graduates, because firstly they were not under graduates in some cases and secondly the number of weeks they were expected to spend in schools.

He asked if Patrick that given that there was quite significant growth in the school growth population, particularly secondary, whether or not he believed there was a sufficient spread across the whole range of the curriculum in terms of our ability to provide teacher preparation and if there was any more that could be done across the universities and SCITT to ensure there would not be a deficit to the detriment of the young people going forward.

Mr Garton reported that the issue was being looked at by the Universities Council for the Education of Teachers were looking at the issue and had lobbied the DfE about the Christmas closures and something was due to be published today. 

Last year there was a very mixed picture across the system, lots of people were very alert to maximising the amount of time people get in schools, and for newly qualified teachers this year, they were running an enhanced scheme for NQT who were training with them and he was aware of other organisations doing the same.  The legacy of that would take some time to come through the system.

In terms of how long the gold rush would last, he commented that in terms of the economic cycle and how quickly they would bounce back, was that they could not ignore that Oxford was one of the most expensive cities to live in and that would always have a bearing on their ability to bring people to Oxford to train and then retain those people further down the line.  

The data from last academic year showed that only about 50% of the national teacher supply model were met in subjects like DT and physics.  He did not know if the current economic crisis would have an impact on areas such as the sciences, maths and computer studies which were already the greatest shortage areas.  They were working on supporting career changes and were always on the lookout for the shortage areas.

Hayley Good forwarded information to the Committee from the DfE regarding holiday arrangements for ITT students.

Donald McEwan commented that union representatives would be very supportive of NQTs colleagues if they were having any difficulty accessing the enhanced training SHITT were providing with the restrictions of lockdown impacting on their school placements.  With 8% of the workforce out due to Covid it was very important to encourage NQTs to access the provision.

Councillor Howson commented that the other area of concern was burnout amongst school leaders and that the Committee would be monitoring the situation, as heads had not had a day off since lockdown one.  Mr Garton commented that he was also aware of that concern.

The Committee thanked Mr Garton for his very informative presentation.