NEW FIGURES SHOW GROWTH IN SCHOOL WORKFORCE
| Published: 27th April 2007 09:17 |
Minister for Schools Jim Knight has welcomed new statistics which show that the local authority maintained school workforce has grown by 17,300 over the past 12 months, saying that the increases will help schools deliver personalised learning and higher standards.
The new figures on school workforce and class sizes in England from the Department for Education and Skills reveal that the number of infant classes with more than 30 pupils has dropped by 17% over the last 12 months.
The data also shows that the pupil-teacher ratio has fallen within both primary and secondary schools. The number of teacher vacancies in nursery, primary, secondary and special schools has dropped 9% since 2006, and vacancy rates remain stable. Head teacher vacancies have also fallen across all maintained schools.
While there has been a marginal dip in the overall number of teachers (down 600, or by 0.1%, to 434,900) in local authority maintained schools, this does not include the near doubling of the number of teachers in academies, which has risen from 1,700 in 2006 to 3,200 in 2007.
There has also been a large rise in the number of support staff (an increase of 6.2% to 305,500 on last year), meaning that the total number of teachers, teaching assistants and other support staff has risen by 39% in the past decade.
Jim Knight, Minister for Schools, said:
"Today's figures show sustained growth in the school workforce after a decade of investment to raise teacher numbers. There are now more than 35,000 additional teachers in our schools compared to a decade ago.
"The priority now is to ensure that these teachers have the support and resources to deliver personalised learning and other key educational reforms, which is why we are pleased to see increases in teaching assistants and support staff."
Key findings from the statistics include:
• Average class sizes have fallen or remained the same across all age groups, with the number of infant classes reported as having more than 30 pupils is 730, down from 890 in January 2006. See table 1 below.
• Continuing falls in pupil-teacher ratios (PTR) and pupil-adult ratios (PAR) in both primary and secondary schools. See table 2 below.
• Rise in total local authority maintained school workforce by 2.4% from 723,100 in 2006 to 740,400 in 2007. There was a marginal drop of 600 (0.1%) in the number of teachers in schools, though at 434,900 numbers still remain up by 9% on 1997, reflecting the long term increases in teacher numbers. See table 3 below.
• A drop in the number of teacher vacancies in nursery, primary, secondary and special schools to 2,040 (0.6% of teachers in post) in January 2007. The overall vacancy rate for full-time head teachers has fallen from 0.8% to 0.6%. See table 4 below.
