This topic covers workforce statistics relating to staff in schools in England; including teaching staff, teaching assistants and support staff. Measures include head counts, full-time equivalents (FTEs), characteristics and salary data, and are available at national and sub-national levels.
Publications
Provides information about students on courses of Initial Teacher Training (ITT) leading to Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) provided through higher education institutions in Wales.
Pupil to Teacher Ratios in grant-aided schools, including breakdown by management type and ELB.
This report covers full time equivalent regular teachers, support staff and teaching assistants, vacancy numbers and rates, sickness absence, ethnicity and pupil: teacher ratios.
This Statistical Release provides information on the number of staff directly employed by Further Education institutions at any time during the academic year.
Results of the annual survey of teacher and educational pyschologist vacancies.
The purpose of this statistical release is to provide analysis in relation to teacher numbers, teacher vacancies and pupil: teacher ratios in grant-aided schools. This information is analysed by Education and Library Board, school type and teacher characteristics. Additional data on teacher sickness absence (excluding voluntary grammars) and teacher substitution (excluding voluntary grammars) is also included in this statistical release.
Results of annual teacher census. Wide range of data on teaching and other education staff, ethnicity, subjects taught, class contact time and trends.
Provides statistics on teachers in service, vacancies and sickness absence for Wales.
Overview
Workforce statistics are currently collected through a variety of surveys and local authority level collections including:
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Annual Survey of Teachers in Service and Teacher Vacancies (Form 618G); a local authority level picture of teacher numbers and characteristics
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Database of Teacher Records (DTR); individual level characteristics data for teachers on the pension scheme
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Secondary School Curriculum and Staffing Survey (SSCSS); a survey of approximately 600 schools carried out every four to six years
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Annual School Census (ASC); provides a school-level aggregate headcount of teachers and support staff
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General Teaching Council for England (GTCE); for teacher qualification data
Both teaching staff and non-teaching (support) staff are reported on.
Recently, ministers have approved a revised School Workforce Census (SWF) pilot programme with key pilots in January 2008 and January 2009. If the pilots are successful, national rollout will take place in January 2010, and workforce statistics will therefore be improved to reflect this new census collection.
Technical Data
The Workforce Statistical First Releases (SFRs) are currently based on statistics from the Annual Survey of Teachers in Service and Teacher Vacancies (Form 618G) and the School Census (SC). Both surveys take place on the third Thursday of January each year.
The data on local authority maintained teacher numbers, teacher vacancies, teacher ethnicity and teacher sickness are from the Form 618G survey. The survey includes the following teachers: regular teachers; occasional teachers; centrally employed teachers; teachers on employment based routes to QTS, overseas trained teachers and instructors without QTS; teachers on paid absence and any teachers brought in to cover for them. Academies and City Technology Colleges (CTCs) are not covered by Form 618G as these are not local authority controlled.
Support staff numbers; teacher numbers for Academies and CTCs; and pupil, teacher and support staff numbers used to calculate the within-school Pupil Teacher Ratios (PTRs) and Pupil Adult Ratios (PARs) are taken from SC data.
Sixth Form College staff are not included in the School Workforce SFRs.
Pupil Teacher Ratios (PTRs) and Pupil Adult Ratios (PARs)
The overall PTR for the local authority-maintained nursery, primary and secondary schools sector relates full-time equivalent (FTE) pupil numbers from the SC to FTE numbers for all teachers from the 618G survey.
The within-school PTRs for each of local authority-maintained nursery, primary and secondary schools relate FTE pupil numbers in these schools to FTE qualified teacher numbers in these schools, from the SC. The SC includes teachers normally employed, within schools, in the survey week. Teachers absent for long periods or seconded to other duties are excluded; their replacements, provided they are qualified teachers, are included.
The PAR relates FTE pupil numbers in maintained nursery, primary and secondary schools to the FTEs of all teachers and support staff employed within schools, from the SC. Teachers absent for long periods or seconded to other duties are excluded, their replacements are included. Teachers without qualified teacher status, teaching assistants, librarians, technicians, minority ethnic pupil support staff, special needs support staff and other support staff are included. Administrative staff are excluded.
Neither PTRs nor PARs reflect the deployment of teachers or class sizes within schools, although larger class sizes will tend to be associated with higher PTRs.
Teacher vacancy rates and sickness absence
The teacher vacancy rate is the number of vacancies expressed as a percentage of qualified teachers in post, such as full (or head count number of part-time) regular teachers in (or on secondment from) the relevant sector plus the proportion of divided service, peripatetic, advisory and miscellaneous teachers relevant to that sector (from Form 618G).
The sickness absence figures relate to working days during the calendar year in the local authority maintained sector. The count of the number of teachers taking sick leave includes an individual teacher only once, however many periods of sickness they may have had. The number of days taken as sickness absence includes all periods of sickness absence.
Teacher status
For the purpose of the Workforce SFRs, teachers are comprised of the following:
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teachers with qualified teacher status (QTS) or with the equivalent gained elsewhere in the EEA
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teachers without QTS, but with a professional qualification gained outside the EEA
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instructors without QTS, but with special qualifications in or experience of a particular subject
Glossary
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AST
Advanced Skills Teacher.
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Centrally Employed Staff
Employed by the local authority, including peripatetic and advisory teachers.
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DTR
Database of Teacher Records.
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ET
Excellent Teachers.
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Form 618G
Annual Survey of Teachers in Service and Teachers vacancies.
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FTE
Full-Time Equivalents.
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Full-time teachers
Teachers employed for five full days a week that have either a permanent contract or a temporary contract for one month or more.
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GTCE
General Teaching Council for England.
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ITT
Initial Teacher Training.
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Occasional Teachers
Have a contract of less than one month and are employed for the whole day on the survey date.
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Overall PTR
Full-time equivalent pupil numbers from the School Census to full-time equivalent teacher numbers for all teachers from the 618G survey.
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PAR
Pupil: Adult Ratio.
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Part-time teachers
Teachers employed for less than five days each week that have a permanent contract or a temporary contract for one month or more.
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Peripatetic Teachers
Teachers who teach in a number of schools for example some music teachers.
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PRUs
Pupil Referral Units, which provide education for pupils described in Section 19 of the Education Act 1996.
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PTR
Pupil: Teacher ratio.
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QTS
Qualified teacher status.
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Qualified Teachers
Those who have been awarded qualified teacher status (QTS) either by successfully completing a course of initial teacher training (ITT) or through other approved routes.
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Regular Teachers
Classroom teachers.
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SC
School Census.
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SSCSS
Secondary School Curriculum and Staffing Survey.
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Support Staff
Non-classroom teaching staff, comprising teaching assistants, administrative staff, technicians and other support staff.
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Teacher Vacancy
Refers to a full-time or part-time appointment of at least one term's duration that, on the survey date, had been advertised but not filled.
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Within-school PTR
Full-time equivalent pupil numbers in a school to full-time equivalent qualified teacher numbers in that school, from the School Census.
Contact Details
For statistical enquiries about this topic, please contact:
Alicia Childs
Email: mailbox.dataoutputsunit@dcsf.gsi.gov.uk
Telephone: +44 (0) 1325 392029
Department for Education Data Outputs Unit 1F Area C, Mowden Hall Staindrop Road Darlington DL3 9BG
