An increase in teacher training applications combined with a placement shortage sparked by the Covid-19 crisis created a “bottleneck” in the recruitment system, new research shows.

Postgraduate teacher training has seen a “surge” in interest in the wake of the lockdown - with a 35 per cent year-on-year increase in applications in England and Wales between March and August, according to a report published today by the National Foundation For Educational Research (NFER).

This spike in applicants meant that initial teacher training (ITT) providers needed to arrange more school placements for their trainees, but “due to Covid-19, schools were reducing the number of placements they were willing to offer”, according to the NFER.

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“This created a bottleneck in the system, squeezing ITT providers’ ability to make offers to all the additional suitable applicants that they received,” the report says.

Coronavirus: Schools cut teacher training placements

Based on a representative survey of senior leaders carried out in July, the NFER found that, overall, the number of primary placements dropped by 20 per cent due to Covid-19, while the capacity in secondary schools was 7 per cent lower after the pandemic hit.

Senior leaders were asked how many placements they were planning to offer in 2020-21 before Covid-19, compared with when the survey was conducted in July 2020.

The survey also revealed that:

• 11 per cent of primary schools and 6 per cent of secondary schools planned to withdraw from offering placements due to the pandemic.
• 7 per cent of primary schools and 11 per cent of secondary schools planned to reduce placements.
• Schools with the most disadvantaged pupils reported the largest average reductions in placement capacity due to the outbreak.

The NFER found that the cuts in placements were partly down to schools’ concerns surrounding their ability to manage the Department for Education’s reopening guidance.

“A key factor associated with schools reducing placements was schools reporting that, when surveyed in July, opening in September under the DfE guidance would be ‘not at all manageable’ or ‘somewhat manageable’,” the report says.

“However, even school leaders who regarded reopening in September as ‘completely manageable’ were, on average, planning to reduce their schools’ placement offers by 14 per cent for primaries and 2 per cent for secondaries.

“This suggests that even if schools considered reopening to be manageable, staff capacity was still being drawn away from hosting trainee placements, just to a lesser degree.

“One senior leader we surveyed said that ‘no students are being taken on to allow staff to manage what will already be an increased workload’.”

However, the DfE’s relaxation of requirements that trainees spend 120 days in schools, train in at least two schools and cover the full age and ability range of training allowed providers “additional flexibility” to make capacity, the report says.

This means “the system looks likely to be able to train the increased number of trainees in 2020-21”, it adds.

“While risks remain that schools may withdraw from placement offers they have made, there was also optimism expressed by some senior leaders we surveyed that they would consider offering placements later in the school year if they could successfully navigate the autumn term,” the report says.

A Department for Education spokesperson said: “There has been national recognition of the incredible work of teachers during this pandemic. Teaching has always been an attractive career but it’s good to see a continued surge in the number of people looking to enter the classroom.

“To further attract the most talented to the profession, we’re introducing the biggest pay rise the since 2005, with above-inflation rises to the pay ranges for every single teacher in the country, bringing us one step closer to a £30,000 starting salary by 2022. We are also continuing to work with schools and ITT providers to address the challenges they are facing as a result of Covid-19, including working with the sector to support schools to host trainees.”