In 1846, the government solved the problem of providing enough teachers for the growing school population by allowing the creation of pupil-teachers, partly based upon the model in use by the army for their schoolteacher sergeants. After an apprenticeship in a school, starting at age 13, successful pupil teachers were encouraged to compete for Queen’s Scholarships to allow them to progress to a training centre or college for further instruction and learning.

Fast forward 177 years, and there are rumours in the press of the re-establishment of this route for school-leavers that would be willing to receive instruction in schools to become teachers of shortage subjects while learning ‘on the job’. The scheme would avoid the students having to take out loans to pay the fees of higher education institutions for degree courses, and presumably would provide a modest income as well.

This is a further example of the pendulum swinging away from teacher preparation that is external to a school, a swing back that started in the 1990s, and always seems to attract government interest in periods of teacher shortage, and tracking back to school-based preparation. To date, schemes such as the Graduate and Registered Teacher Training programmes of the Labour government, and the School Direct Salaried and Fee schemes of the present government have been aimed at either career changing graduates or at least those with a degree. This has been in line with the decline in undergraduate courses that for the past fifty years have only flourished in a few secondary curriculum subjects, such as physical education and design and technology: even these have dwindled over the past few years since fees were introduced by the Labour government.

So, would a modern apprenticeship scheme for school-leavers to learn to become mathematics, computing or even physics teachers work? I hope the government has done some market research before announcing any such scheme. If not, it could follow the path of the Fast Track Scheme and various attempts to place middle and senior leaders into challenging schools, all of which were projects that either didn’t proceed beyond the stage of a trial or lasted only a few years.

The first question for anyone considering introducing an apprenticeship scheme is what sort of schools are finding recruitment challenging? I wrote a blog about this in July Free School Meals and teacher vacancies | John Howson (wordpress.com) Successful schools in areas where teachers want to work probably see a high percentage of their sixth form depart for university courses at eighteen. Will some studying these subjects want to stay at the school to become a teacher? Are these the schools experiencing teacher shortages?

Will schools with high staff turnover and sometimes with challenging ofsted grades be allowed to train apprentice teachers, even if these are the schools facing the most difficulty recruiting staff in these subjects? That is a key question. If eighteen-year-olds have to move to another school to become an apprentice will the be willing to do so?

Schools will need to be funded properly to take up the scheme. The decline in the use of the School Direct Salaried Scheme, as the central funding was reduced, illustrates the problem. Schools are funded to teach pupils and not to train teachers, even if there is a shortage. Supplying teachers is seen as the job of government.

I have no doubt that some academy chains and even possibly some dioceses might be persuaded to take up an apprenticeship scheme for teachers. Using the apprenticeship levy raised from primary schools to pay for training secondary school teachers won’t, I suspect, go down well in some quarters.  

Then there is the question of subject knowledge development if an apprentice is to be able to teach anything beyond Key Stage 3; who would want to become a teacher with a qualification devoid of subject knowledge up to graduate level. Of course, the schools could enrol the apprentices in distance learning degree courses, but that costs money. They could even expect the apprentice to pay for their own subject knowledge development to degree level. We won’t know until the Secretary of State reveals the plans for any scheme which approach might be favoured.

As this is August, this might be regarded as a ‘silly season’ story were it not for the fact that current schemes for attracting graduates to become teachers have failed, and the government obviously needs to try something different.

Will it work? If the teacher associations refuse to take part, then it won’t, but it would allow the government to say that teachers sabotage a solution to the teacher shortage crisis.

Will school-leavers want to sign up? A level students in the shortage subjects suggested can often earn more than teachers, even with modest degrees from non-Russel Group universities or by leaving school and starting work, so any apprenticeship scheme would need to be sufficiently enticing to attract applicants other than those that couldn’t find either a university place or a job opportunity.

So, please Secretary of State do some market research before announcing any scheme in order to convince everyone that there is a viable and continuing cohort of potential trainees for any apprenticeship scheme.