The pandemic and education – regions most ready for back to school
When the 2022 GCSE and A-level results were published, disparities between the regions across the UK emerged. Commentators have speculated on the widening attainment gap between the North and the South, suggesting causes such as the disproportionate impact of Covid-19 on education and the current state of the teaching job market.
Schools across the country will have used the summer to realign their reality with their targets, whether through recruitment drives, reworking lesson plans or investing in online teaching resources to alleviate workload. That reality has been changing dramatically since 2020, with Covid-19 related closures, restrictions and changes causing huge disruptions to life at home and school.
Ahead of the new academic year, we gathered data to see how the pandemic’s effect on education continues to cause disruption by analysing which region’s schools in England are the most ready to reopen this September.
How has Covid impacted the education sector?
Other pandemic-related cultural shifts such as the ‘great resignation’ also affected the education sector – while our own research found that Google search terms relating to teacher training in certain subjects spiked at certain points during the pandemic, Teacher Tapp’s June 2022 report showed that the number of new jobs advertised are up 47% from last year, and 14% higher than pre-pandemic.
Following the proposed increase to teacher salaries, many school leaders face potential recruitment freezes without further funding to support the rise, while unions threaten strike action amid fears the increase doesn’t match inflation rates.
There are factors to consider when running a successful school, but maintaining good staffing levels is critical. Using publicly-available information, we gathered data that delved deeper into this area. We looked at aspects such as pupil-to-teacher ratios, average class size and number of vacancies in each region to create an index that shows which areas are entering the new school year well-prepared.
|
Location |
Pupil to teacher ratio - Index score |
Average class size - Index score |
Ratio of teacher vacancies to total headcount - Index score |
Ratio of temporarily filled posts to total posts - Index score |
Overall |
|
|
North |
30 |
100 |
100 |
100 |
330 |
Most ready |
|
North |
15 |
33 |
94 |
61 |
202 |
|
|
South |
19 |
47 |
71 |
60 |
197 |
|
|
East Midlands |
4 |
40 |
79 |
68 |
191 |
|
|
West Midlands |
15 |
20 |
86 |
63 |
184 |
|
|
Yorkshire and the Humber |
0 |
27 |
76 |
76 |
178 |
|
|
Inner |
100 |
47 |
0 |
8 |
155 |
|
|
East of England |
7 |
27 |
76 |
41 |
151 |
|
|
Outer |
26 |
47 |
52 |
0 |
124 |
|
|
South East |
19 |
0 |
47 |
56 |
122 |
Least ready |
Schools post-pandemic – which regions are ready to move forward?
According to our index, schools in the North East are most prepared for September 2022. Though it doesn’t have the lowest pupil-to-teacher ratio, the number of teacher vacancies to total pupil headcount in the North East scored best among all regions. There are also only a small number of temporary staff in the North East, meaning that pupils benefit from continuity.
The South East, on the other hand, scored lowest on the index, with the largest average class sizes and among the largest pupil to teacher ratios. Overall though, other Southern regions had the best pupil-to-teacher ratios, while the North East and North West had the lowest ratio of teacher vacancies. After the North East, Yorkshire and the Humber had the lowest ratio of temporary teachers, followed by the East Midlands.
How has the pandemic affected teachers?
The return to pre-Covid schooling also means that in-person exams are back. When they first returned in summer 2022, 82% of head teachers had reported stress and anxiety to be higher than pre-pandemic according to a survey from the Association of School and College Leaders – we analysed this further in our report, ‘How has the return to the exam hall affected stress among students?’.
A number of school curriculum software tools have been developed to help students better cope with workload, revision and exam preparation, with blended learning driving the need for online teaching resources and cloud-based platforms that are accessible both in school and at home. Teachers can dive into the data to streamline their lesson plans based on the real needs of their students, rather than taking a ‘one size fits all’ approach to teaching.
Regardless of how well-resourced a school is, systems that can improve the experience for both pupils and staff can help to improve attainment standards.
Methodology
Using publicly available datasets relating to state-funded primary and secondary schools in England, we created an index using ratios to inform our findings.
We sourced our data from gov.uk’s national statistics search engine, covering School Workforce in England (Reporting Year 2021), Schools, pupils and their characteristics (Academic Year 2021/22). We also looked at data from TES to learn how many jobs are advertised per region.
