Sadie

I've always been drawn to physics because it reveals how the world actually works beneath the surface appearances. Growing up in St Albans, my secondary school physics teacher, Mrs Chen, had this gift for making quantum mechanics feel as real as the pencil in your hand. She'd use everyday objects to demonstrate wave-particle duality, and suddenly the abstract became concrete. I spent two years after university working for a renewable energy consultancy, but every evening when I was tending my heritage tomatoes in the little garden behind my flat, I found myself sketching out lesson plans in my head. The patience required to grow something from seed reminded me why I wanted to teach – both processes need time, attention, and faith that small actions compound into something meaningful.

In September 2023, I applied for physics teacher training through the University of Hertfordshire's PGCE programme. I'd researched everything: the course structure, the placement schools, even the commute from my flat. The admissions process went smoothly until I met with Dr Matthews, the admissions tutor. He explained that while my application was strong and they'd be happy to offer me a place, there was a problem with funding. The teacher training bursary for physics had been reduced from £27,000 to £15,000 for the East of England region.

"The Department for Education says there's insufficient budget allocation for regional variations," Dr Matthews told me across his desk, which was covered in similar applications from other would-be physics teachers. I asked what that meant exactly. He explained that the DfE had to work within spending limits set by the Treasury, and regional adjustments hadn't made the cut this year. It sounded reasonable at the time. Governments have budgets. Sometimes there isn't enough to go around.

But the numbers didn't add up for me personally. Even with the £15,000 bursary, I'd be looking at a significant drop in income for the year-long training programme. I couldn't afford my rent on that amount, let alone living expenses. I deferred my application and moved back in with my parents, taking on part-time physics tutoring to keep some money coming in.

By January 2024, I was frustrated enough to contact the Department for Education directly. I spoke with an official in teacher recruitment who confirmed what Dr Matthews had told me. "We have to work within the envelope we're given," she said. "Treasury spending constraints mean we can't increase regional allocations this year." Again, this sounded like a reasonable explanation. The government has to balance its books like any household.

But something about the situation nagged at me. I decided to visit my old school, Samuel Ryder Academy, to see Mrs Chen and talk through my options. She'd retired, but the current headteacher, Mr Williams, was happy to chat. He showed me around the science department, and I was struck by what I saw. Three physics teacher positions were unfilled. Classes were being covered by supply teachers or maths teachers stepping in reluctantly. In one lab, a group of Year 11 students were working through a textbook exercise on electromagnetic induction because there was no qualified teacher available to demonstrate it properly.

"We desperately need physics teachers," Mr Williams said. "We've been advertising these positions since last summer." He mentioned that the University of Hertfordshire had forty empty places on their physics teacher training course. Forty people who could be preparing to fill exactly these kinds of gaps.

Walking home from the school, I passed the university's education building. I'd walked past it hundreds of times before, but this time I stopped and looked properly. Through the ground-floor windows, I could see modern training classrooms equipped with interactive whiteboards, demonstration tables, lab equipment – everything needed to prepare dozens more physics teachers. The rooms sat empty most afternoons. The infrastructure was there. The need was there. The candidates were there. So what exactly was it that "there was no money" for?

That's when I started to question the logic I'd been accepting. The UK government issues its own currency. It creates pounds when it spends and destroys them when it collects taxes. It doesn't need to find pounds hidden under a mattress somewhere before it can spend them into existence. When Treasury officials said they had to "work within an envelope," they were choosing the size of that envelope. They were choosing to create fewer pounds for teacher training while creating plenty of pounds for other priorities.

The real constraint was never the money. The real constraint was whether the people existed – they did. Whether the training facilities existed – they did. Whether the schools needed physics teachers – they desperately did. Whether the materials and resources existed to train more teachers – they sat unused in those university classrooms every afternoon.

The excuse wasn't a fact. It was a choice wrapped in the language of financial impossibility. Someone in Westminster had decided that training physics teachers wasn't worth creating the pounds to make it happen, even though every component needed for success was sitting there ready to be connected.

I'm still here, still tutoring, still watching empty classrooms and unfilled teacher training places exist side by side while officials cite spending constraints. But I understand now what I didn't understand at the start. When I hear "there is no money" for something the country needs, I hear it differently.

I used to accept the excuse that "there was no money." I hear it differently now. The government that prints the notes and mints the coins told me it could not find enough of them to train the people who were standing right there, ready to work. The real question was never about money. It was about whether the people existed, whether the skills could be taught, whether the materials were available. They were. All of them.

The excuse was not a fact. It was a choice wrapped in the language of impossibility. It is the same logic as a household that says "we cannot afford it," except a household does not issue its own currency. The government does. The limit was never the money. The limit was the willingness to spend it into the places and the people who needed it.

What happened to me isn't just my story. It's the story of every constituency where people and needs exist side by side while someone in Westminster says the cupboard is bare. The cupboard belongs to the people who built it. They choose what to put in it.