Welsh school performance well below English and falling relative to England and OECD. Average Welsh pupils do as well as poorest English ones. Can’t be explained by spending level, poverty or ethnicity. Need to look at accountability and curriculum. (And Welsh pupils no happier).

What is the difference between unemployment and the unemployment benefit - and why does this matter. James Zuccollo and I chat about this here: tvhe.substack.com/p/chatting-une…

And specifically for physics, as there is now bursary eligibility for non-UK nationals and a £10k international relocation payment available.

Domestic numbers of placed applicants for physics are up by 40%, but international placed applicants are up by 330% on last year

Not only do London children experience air pollution well above WHO guidelines but it is worse for children in deprived neighbourhoods. Great first look at the data by Louis Hodge epi.org.uk/publications-a…

🗓️We found that over the past 15 years, there were only four in which there were a good number of suitable candidates: 2011, 2012, 2018 and 2019.

Our new #InsightPaper on Recruitment and Retention is now live to download on our website.

We are also hosting an event on Wednesday 21 February to explore the paper.

To book your place, go to ow.ly/SN0Y50QF9e0

Welsh Government Education
National Institute of Economic and Social Research
James Zuccollo
Ekaterina Aleynikova 🇺🇦

Join the #LeadershipAcademy on Wednesday 21 February for the launch event of a new Insight Series paper, Recruitment and Retention of Senior School Leaders in Wales.

For more information and to book your place visit ow.ly/Cw8250Qt3ly

National Institute of Economic and Social Research
James Zuccollo
Ekaterina Aleynikova 🇺🇦

The trade-offs between quality and quantity of teacher recruits are poorly understand and so incredibly important. This is an interesting first look and I'll be looking out for the follow-up as those teachers mature.

'Panicking about a flood of robots was, and is, mad when our actual problem is that the UK invests too little in almost everything – robots included'

Great to talk with @zjubnz about teacher value added. Not at all what we planned to discuss, just a meandering chat about education economics.

“The instinct to remove bureaucratic burdens from stressed school leaders is the right one, and they are the right people to decide how to reward their staff”: quite right, ⁦James Zuccollo⁩ ⁦Education Policy Institute⁩: tes.com/magazine/analy…

Removing the PRP requirements must not constrain headteachers’ ability to reward and retain their best teachers, particularly when average pay across the profession continues to fall further behind that of other graduate professions.”

Australia's best (but dormant) economics blogger, zjub, finally has a Substack and you can read for free!

open.substack.com/pub/tvhe/p/wha…

We find that the disadvantage gap has widened since 2019 across all phases of education, including the (often-overlooked) 16-19 phase. Indeed the 16-19 gap is the widest since the start of our series in 2017, with disadvantaged students 3.5 grades behind their peers in 2022

'Despite various government initiatives, the incidence of children's mental health problems remains stubbornly unchanged since 2020'

🔬 The Knowledge. Children's mental health is not improving | Education Policy Institute's Whitney Crenna-Jennings and Allen Joseph
schoolsweek.co.uk/how-has-childr…

Great thread on yesterday's ITT release. As Jack says, percentages of target don't tell the whole story because targets are increasing. But they're increasing BECAUSE recruitment and retention are so bad at the moment, so not a reason to worry less!

If you didn't read the whole PISA report, check out Luke's thread on the four UK nations. The pandemic's effect is clearly visible but so is the resilience of England's results, relative to the other nations.

Useful thread about why some young people are attracted (or not) to becoming teachers.

3. Adolescent girls are more likely to have mental health problems than adolescent boys

👧The gender gap in later adolescence and early adulthood remains stark overall for mental health disorders, with twice as many girls with a probable disorder compared with boys.

Great assessment of the impact the ITT market review had on provision by Jack Worth. It seems the architects were justified in thinking that new provision and partnerships would largely fill the gaps left by the providers who were not reaccredited. tes.com/magazine/analy…