Should the DfE be offering £26k bursaries to train as a Classics teacher?

[noblegiraffe]

Given the recruitment and retention crisis and the school funding crisis, is it really the best use of funds to be paying £26k for teachers to train in Classics (and then presumably sod straight off to the private sector)?

Although I doubt they're expecting many takers, it does seem to display completely messed up priorities.

I'm half wondering if Toby Young has said he needs more Latin teachers for his WLFS and the DfE has, as ever, pandered to his whims.

the jobs are there in the state sector if they want them

The TES jobs website says otherwise. Overwhelmingly the adverts are for private schools. A tiny number of jobs in state schools and that’s nationally.

@Piggywaspushed As far as I know, they're mainly (but not exclusively) in London and the South-East, though not all of them grammar schools. Plenty of academies, academy chains etc; and schools with the support of charities like Classics For All and The Latin Programme.

@noblegiraffe I may be out of date, then. But I do know there are a lot of state schools which do not advertise on TES because of the cost, including some I have taught at myself. They rely on word of mouth, and also more state school Classics teacher jobs are posted on a website called The Classics Library. (And to a lesser extent on the Guardian website, I think.) It may well be the case that the demand is not being advertised properly!

A few statistics in case they are of interest.

RE: uptake, in 2015-16 the DfE allocated 49 placements for teacher training in Latin/Classics.

In 2008 it was suggested by a survey carried out by the Cambridge Schools Classics Project that 514 state secondary schools (12.9%) offered Latin; then a Sunday Times 2014 survey suggested 1,228 were offering it, so it has seemed to be rising.

(These stats were collated by Steven Hunt, who is big in the state school Classics world, and runs the Cambridge PGCE as well as doing some School Direct)

I just looked on the Classics Library. Pages of jobs for private school and about 5 state schools. When I got to page 4, I realised I was looking at jobs for 2016. In fact there were only 4 current job adverts, 3 private, one grammar.

Not an overwhelming demand, and more evidence that there are not many jobs in state schools out there.

@noblegiraffe I am probably indeed be out of date, then, and must also have been very fortunate in being able to get state school jobs without issue (one of which was advertised on The Classics Library; nb many ads do get pulled from Classics library after places are filled, hence the relatively low number). I certainly agree there is no overwhelming demand; but perhaps enough demand for the training places advertised. It would be interesting to see where the 49 (if all places were filled) trainees of 2015-16 have ended up.

Can confirm five jobs (2 academies, 1 grammar, 2 private) I know were on Classics Library in the last year are no longer there, so they are still removing ads.

Exam statistics suggest numbers taking classical subjects (including Latin and Greek) have been declining since 2014, although the overall picture is fairly steady since 2003. No evidence of a surge in popularity there.

Well I just looked up the TES job search and there are 30 Classics positions listed (and that doesn't even cover the whole of the UK just within 500 miles). So it does seem to be a position needing more teachers.

Yes Julie now look at how many of those jobs are in private schools.

It is not the job of the DfE to expensively train teachers for the private sector.

Yes it says a few are Independent but no way to know for the rest and I am not googling them all individually.

Thanks for those stats, @noblegiraffe.

One thing is that the "GCSE" exam most state schools have used, WJEC Level 2, has carried the same number of performance points as a GCSE but is not officially a GCSE and does not count for some stats (which may or may not be the case with your link).
Also, there's a push for introducing Classics at KS2/3 so we won't have seen that reflected in GCSE stats.

(I think numbers for GCSE may well go down now though because now that there have been curriculum reforms. From this year the above-mentioned exam will no longer count, and I doubt many state schools will feel confident about getting through the material in the new GCSE in the teaching hours they have. That's another issue.)

Certainly I wouldn't use terms such as "surge" to describe it; just that I do not think demand is outstripped by supply at the moment, and the places are being advertised because they can be filled.

I accept that most are private as their salaries are undisclosed. But if 30 private schools want them I just think its fair to give state schools the chance to offer it.

Yes it says a few are Independent but no way to know for the rest

Actually there is.
29 jobs listed on the TES under Classics

22 are for private schools
2 are for state schools
3 are for piano and singing
1 state school advertising for French and Spanish (school also offers Bengali and Latin)
1 state school advertising for History (with a possibility of ancient history)

So given the absolute lack of any requirement to stay in the state sector, why does anyone think that these trainees won't be looking at the relatively abundant private offering?

Thanks Nobel, am giving your opinion a lot of thought, and have nothing further to add to any comments I have already made.

So given the absolute lack of any requirement to stay in the state sector, why does anyone think that these trainees won't be looking at the relatively abundant private offering?

I just wonder why, if open to teaching in private schools, they would opt for the bursary training in the first place when they would almost always be better off financially going straight into a private school, either remaining an unqualified teacher or with a view to doing the Buckingham PGCE, sponsored by their school on top of their salary.

But I don't know this. Does anyone know if/where we can find statistics about PGCE leavers' next jobs?

To pick up on where these jobs are, only yesterday the news was full of concerns about the North and educational standards. And , yet, £26000 bursaries are being offered for teachers predominantly training in London and the SE. I think all of us agree this is likely to attract a certain calibre or type of graduate - so these potentially highly intelligent (not the same as a brilliant teacher but at least the education is sound) graduates are going to be largely taking up positions in schools in the area which isn't meant to be a government focus!

crickets, I know our school is worried about the consequences of curriculum reform at GCSE. Another reason why they were willing to introduce classics at my school was the appeal of the level 2 qualification. It's such a shame but I really don't think classics, only recently introduced in many state schools, will survive.

Each training provider keep their own statistics of where their trainees end up : I would imagine it is pretty hard to find detailed overall statistics , but certainly any training programme is seen as 'requiring improvement' if the lion's share of its leavers don't pass through to first posts in state schools, which was why some universities got rid of their classics PGCEs.

If you actually explore the Latin for All website, you'll see that there is drive to introduce Latin/Classics to the North and Midlands as well:

classicsforall.org.uk/our-grants/case-studies/

Bradford, Blackpool, Leicester, Coventry etc.

Sidney Stringer Academy in Coventry was awarded a grant worth £6,370 by Classics for All to introduce A-level Latin for seven students and to make Latin GCSE a permanent option in the curriculum. The grant will also go towards introducing Latin literacy for 30 pupils in Year 8; beginners’ ancient Greek to 15 current Year 8 pupils; and a Latin course for 210 students in Key Stage 3. The Sidney Stringer Academy is part of the West Midlands (Coventry) classics hub

The school in Croydon, South London has '44/112 pupils taking Latin in Year 9' after a 25 year gap.

I see that the Royal Geographical Society are offering scholarships for new Geography teachers;

The Society is delighted to be working with the Department for Education to run the RGS-IBG Geography Teacher Training Scholarship programme for trainee geography teachers

These prestigious scholarships will provide outstanding trainees with significant financial and professional support. Our 2018-19 scholarship includes £28,000 tax-free funding and a wider range of additional benefits including: training events, access to materials and resources, Fellowship of the Society and membership of the Geographical Association, networking opportunities and other support to complement teacher training

Obviously Music and the Arts are well supported outside of mainstream state education at specialist centres.

RhymingCrickets Don't forget the bursary is not taxable and they can also get student loan for the £9000 fees plus living expenses, which, if they stay in teaching they'll never repay.
I doubt they would get paid the taxable equivalent of say, £39K in the private sector as starting pay as an unqualified teacher.
My DC is training in the North East. All his fellow secondary trainees have got bursaries and all have got jobs lined up for next year. All that is apart from those who dropped out early on in the training. They were mainly older career changers and mainly primary school trainees.

Clavinova I think those scholarships are government funded but administered by the RGS, just as the Maths scholarships are gov funded but awarded by the IMA. Interestingly the current trainees are the last to receive the amount all in one year. Future recipients will have some held back for up to five years.

Hax Gosh, I did not know that about not needing to pay back the loan if staying in teaching. (Wish I had done as back when I trained I paid my fees out of my bursary, and money was v tight with rent, childcare etc!)

Clavinova that's such good news about the north.

Classics For All is also big on helping nonspecialists be able to teach Latin (because whether or not trainees are staying in state schools after training, there is a shortage of specialist Classics teachers - I truly don't think it's unreasonable for the govt to continue offering this bursary). That is a help but I wonder what will happen with the new GCSE requiring all students to do literature. Tall order for a nonspecialist.

RhymingCrickets Sorry I wasn't clear on that. I meant that because teachers are not high earners the student loan will never be fully repaid and will be wiped after 30 years. (There are a few circumstances where teachers get their student loans paid, such as teaching MFL in a coastal school ).The student loans since 2012 are higher but repayments are lower than the old ones. My DC will both end up with £55k+ in student loans.

OK, I've just found the government figures on the numbers expected to become NQTs in 2019-2020 for each subject and the number of ITT places targeted to achieve that number of NQTs (accepting that some drop out or go into private schools or don't go into teaching so this number is higher than the needed number of NQTs).

In 2019-2020 it is estimated that nineteen Classics NQTs will be needed in the state sector. In order to achieve this number, the number of ITT students needed in 2018-2019 is sixty nine.

They are only expecting 27.5% of Classics ITT students to end up working in the state sector as NQTs.

For comparison, out of all the other subjects, Geography is the next lowest, with 58% of ITT students expected to end up as NQTs in state schools. For Computing, 60%, physics 65%, maths 75%.

FFS, the DfE is throwing cash at Classics students for them to take the money and run. I don't care that it's only 69 students, I do care that it's such a poor return on the investment.

It does really look like they are funding teachers training for the private sector =/

They're actually spending just under 1.8million if there's 69 trainees, which could perhaps be better targeted elsewhere.

Yes, I agree, based on the government figures from @noblegiraffe. Have enough funding to train sufficient numbers for the state sector (allowing for dropouts/career changes etc). Those in the private sector can train through the Buckingham route anyway.

£1.8 million pounds. It’s not an entirely insignificant amount is it? And most of it wasted.