Tag Archives: teacher training

Losing the teacher supply battle

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This time last year I raised the question of whether we would recruit enough trainees to become teachers in 2014, in a post dated 1st June 2013, and headed ‘Missing the Target is a Known’. Sadly, I have to make the same prediction for the 2014 round that now has but three months to run before the majority of courses start in September.

With schools so heavily involved, and would-be trainees needing to pass the Skills Tests before starting their course, anyone that hasn’t applied by mid-July, effectively at some point during the next six weeks, will probably struggle to find a course unless the NCTL makes it clear to providers that they should recruit right up to the wire, as many universities have always had to do when recruitment was challenging.

The auguries for recruiting new trainees are not good. Recently the Association of Graduate Recruiters said that nine out of ten graduate employers still have vacancies for this autumn, with businesses in engineering and IT particularly suffering. Recruiters, they added, ‘cannot find enough quality candidates’. So the golden years of the recession, when a surplus of good quality graduates flowed into teacher preparation courses at the point in the demographic cycle when rolls in secondary schools were falling, and demand for teachers was declining, is over. We need more teachers and they are becoming harder to recruit.

My current predictions based upon data released this week by UCAS from the unified application process is that the following  subjects may well miss the lower of their DfE Teacher Supply Model figure or their NCTL allocation:

  • Biology
  • Design & Technology
  • Geography
  • Mathematics
  • Music
  • Physics
  • Religious Education

The jury is still out on Chemistry, but science overall is likely to face some sort of shortfall, if only because of the serious shortage of physics trainees. Although English will meet its target, I still do not believe we are training enough teachers, and governors still tell me that they are facing challenges recruiting such teachers in some parts of the country. It is significant that the TES job site has around 250 main scale positions for teachers of English today, but only around 200 for teachers of Mathematics.

Many of the subjects in the list where I expect shortages of trainees this year, were also subjects where there was a shortfall last year, so the warning that I and others made this time last year may been heeded, but has not been dealt with, unless you consider hiring unqualified personnel as the solution.

This year, there is also some nervousness about recruitment to primary ITT courses in some parts of the country. A shortfall there would be a real disaster, especially as schools with cash reserves will undoubtedly start upping the salary they are prepared to pay in the new de-regulated world of teachers’ pay and conditions. From there, it is but a short step to abandoning the principle of free schooling so parents can top up school coffers to help attract teachers through better pay. How that will affect the notion of fairness and equity only time will tell.

 

A rose by any other name

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One of the interesting things about language is that it has the ability to be both precise and vague at the same time. As a wordsmith, the Secretary of State, who always seems more comfortable within the literacy domain than the numeracy world, has made two interesting statements this week. As already reported in an earlier post on this blog, he told the House of Commons on Monday that Osfted inspected Academy Chains. This fact was news to many who thought that Ofsted inspected only the schools in such chains, and that although the Funding Agency could look at the books of academy chains, Ofsted didn’t have the power to inspect their overall performance as they can with local authority support for school improvement orChildren’s Services.

And then, yesterday, the Secretary of State was interviewed by pupils experiencing the life of reporters as part of the BBC’s annual School Report exercise. http://www.bbc.co.uk/schoolreport/26768138

During the interview the BBC reported that Mr Gove said:

“Teachers should definitely be paid more than they are at the moment,” But he added that his department paid off the debts of some teachers at the start of their careers in the form of bursaries or additional support – particularly those teaching key subjects such as maths, physics or chemistry.

Now the idea of using bursaries to pay off student debt – at the same time as requiring the trainee teachers to take on further student debt as part of their PGCE or Tuition Fee School Direct course – is a curious one. In fact they could only voluntarily pay off existing student debt using the bursary if they were allowed to: it seems pretty unlikely that the Student Loans organisation would be able to offer a new loan with one hand will taking payment on an earlier one with the other. Perhaps the Secretary of State meant that the bursary allowed those trainees not to take out further loans (and thereby increasing their debt) to study to become a teacher.

He may, of course, have been mixing up what happens on Teach First with the situation faced by the much greater number of trainees on the other routes into teaching. In my view, working towards a salary for all trainees, to encourage the best in all subjects to become teachers, would be a positive policy development. After all, graduates that enter most private sector training programmes are now normally paid a salary and don’t have to pay for their training. Most employers recognise that making possible entrants pay for training puts off some applicants.

So, using the phrase ‘paid off the debts of some teachers’, if indeed the transcript shows that those were the words used by the Secretary of State, seems like a somewhat loose use of language. Perhaps Mr Gove could explain both what he actually meant about paying of the student debt of teachers and the inspection of academy chains, so we can all be clear.

He might also like to elucidate on the statement about ‘paying teachers more’, perhaps in his next remit letter to the Pay Review Body.

 

Creative thinking needed on teacher supply issues

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Vince Cable apparently wants degree-level apprenticeships to become the ‘new norm’ according to recent a headline in the Independent newspaper. As a result, it appears he was thinking about earmarking an extra £20 million to support degree-level and postgraduate apprenticeships in subjects like engineering and construction. Perhaps, he should start nearer home by discussing with his Education counterparts a government sponsored apprenticeships scheme for teacher training. Although to some it might look like the re-invention of the pupil- teacher scheme of yesteryear, could such apprenticeships encourage bright school and college leavers into training as a teacher, and be a part of the solution to the looming teacher supply crisis in our schools.

Take a pupil studying physics who may not achieve an A* or A grade at A level, but is interested in continuing in the subject. At present, unless he, and sadly it is still mostly young men, can find a place on a physics degree course he cannot continue with the subject except perhaps as part of another degree. Is it worth exploring whether by creating a degree level apprenticeship in physics, teaching with a salary attached, we might encourage some of these young people to develop their expertise in the subject and become a teacher without the need for schools being required to compete in the graduate labour market. The apprenticeship can be just as rigorous as a degree, and must leave time for reflection and the other essentials of a successful university education, but might do away with some of the less useful rites of passage of a university education. In addition, it might include a period working in a successful school system overseas, such as say Singapore or Shanghai – today’s government favourite – that would allow the graduate-level apprentices to judge how well students do in their education in other countries.

These apprenticeships could be managed either by the new University Technical Colleges or by training schools already involved in School Direct. With a four year course, starting at eighteen, the new teachers could be awarded a degree after converting their apprenticeship with a final summative module, thus avoiding the need for the payment of tuition fees. The university elements of the course, such as additional subject knowledge, could be bought by the scheme’s providers at cost like any other business buying professional development services.

Without this sort of creative thinking it is unlikely that we will be able to provide sufficient new teachers to meet the demands of the growing school population well into the next decade. There are other schemes, such as the ‘Keep in Touch’ programme for those that leave the profession that might merit revisiting as well as re-training for arts and PE teachers unable to find work at present due to an ‘over-supply’ in these subjects. This might then allow for Qualified Teacher Status to be refined so as not to continue as a qualification that allows any teacher to teach any subject.

GTTR: The Final Report

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UCAS have now published the final statistical report on the 2013 applications for the GTTR teacher preparation scheme. This was the scheme that operated for nearly two decades across England, Wales and Scotland. As from the 2014 entry, the GTTR scheme has been replaced by the new, and in England, vastly more complex scheme designed to allow more choice to applicants.

The GTTR Report allows us to put some flesh on the bare bones of the DfE’s ITT November 2013 census, especially in the secondary sector where there are relatively few undergraduate places and most providers’ applications, except the lamented OU course , were handled by GTTR. The first point to note is the confirmation of the continued decline in applications that peaked at more than 67,000 for the 2010 entry. By the 2013 round, applications were down to 52,254; below the pre-recession figure of 53,931, achieved in the 2007 round. Both the number of men and of women applying was below the 2007 levels in 2013, although applications from men to primary courses seemed to have held up better than for applications to secondary courses.

Because of changes in allocations, the ratio of acceptances to applications actually fell by one point to 44% in 2013. This is still some way below the 49% acceptance rate of 2008, achieved in the run up to the recession. If allocations have reached their nadir, then it seems likely that the acceptance ratio will move higher unless either more applicants can be attracted to teaching or places are left unfilled. Much will depend upon the attitude of schools in the School Direct programme to marginal candidates, and whether they sense that enough progress can be made during the preparation to make it worth trying to help them become acceptable teachers.

Within the data are some worrying figures. Some 49% of women, but 56% of men that applied were not accepted. Sadly, the report doesn’t make clear how many could not find a course because they left their application too late, and how many were considered not good enough. Even more worrying is the data on ethnicity. While 40,897 of the more than 52,000 applicants classified themselves as White, leaving around 10,000 from a defined ethnic group other than White, the percentages accepted differ sharply between the groups. Some 46.7% of White applicants were accepted, compared with just 17.2% of Black African applicants, and 28.7 of Black Caribbean applicants. At the subject level the figures are even starker. In history, curiously seen as an Arts subject by GTTR rather than a social science or humanity subject, perhaps no more than three Black African or Black Caribbean applicant or those shown as White and Black Caribbean were accepted anywhere in the country out of the 30 or so that applied compared with a better than one in four chance for the White group. As in the past this may reflect the relatively narrow range of institutions applicants from some ethnic groups apply to, and the issues that this causes. For instance of the 4,708 applications generated by the 1,510 Black African applicants, some 1,664 were made to just six providers in the London area. In one case, 344 applications yielded 23 acceptances.

One other trend worthy of note was that applicants over the age of 30, the classic career changers, declined as a proportion of all applicants from 22% in 2012 to 19% in 2013. This makes the current attitudes of new graduates towards teaching as a career even more important than during the recession. At least, the number of mature applicants is holding up so far for the 2014 entry, accounting for 22% of those that had applied by February.

Good, but with some worrying features

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The February data relating to applications for teaching preparation courses looks, on the surface, like good news for the government. Applications rose between January and February, from just over 81,000 to more than 102,000; an increase of about 20%. Not bad in a month. There was a similar percentage increase in the number of applicants, from just less than 30,000 to 36,600, suggesting that many applicants used all three of their possible choices.

Across the UK, acceptances increased from over 7,000 to more than 17,000, although the bulk of these are conditional offers – presumably awaiting the outcome of the skills tests. More worrying is the 12% of applications withdrawn although some may affect only one application since the number of applicants withdrawing from the scheme is only 390, or barely 1%. More worrying might be the 5,100 applicants where no offer was made. This is 14% of applicants. A further 25% of applicants are waiting an offer from a provider, and there are more than 5,000 interviews pending.

Applications are broadly in line with the share of places on the different routes, with HE receiving 58%, down from a 60% share in January, and School Direct 37% up from 36%. SCITT have attracted 5% of applications. (HE has 56% of places, SCITTs 7%, and School Direct 37%). So, what matters is that acceptances in future are in line with applications on all three routes. As there is considerable over-allocation of places in many secondary subjects, there is still the possibility of over-recruitment in some popular subjects, or subjects where the bursary proves especially popular. However, it is too early to tell exactly what is going on in relation to acceptances by subject, not least because the figures are not presented in a very helpful manner.

As might be expected at this time of year, applications grew at a faster rate from the older age groups of career switchers, with the 29+ groups showing the largest percentage increases in applicants, and the under-21s the smallest percentage increase; presumably as they focused on the final examinations rather than worried about course applications.

By next month there should be a much clearer picture about acceptances, since many of the 25,000 or so applicants to courses in England noted in January should have been processed by then. At that point, and certainly by the May 1st data, it should be possible to see what is happening across the different subjects sufficiently clearly to make some predictions. Hopefully, it will be good news for the government, and eventually for schools looking to employ these would-be teachers in September 2015.

Never mind the quality, feel the width

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The announcement today by Ofsted that it proposes to change the inspection framework for ITE partnerships from May, effectively immediately after the 13 week consultation period ends, http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/resources/proposed-revisions-framework-for-inspecting-initial-teacher-education-consultation-document suggests there is still no answer to the basic question; who is in overall charge of teacher supply policy?

In a year where there are already insufficient trainee teachers in some subjects, making it harder to enter and then to pass the preparation period risks making that situation worse. If that happens, who will teach the children in those schools that cannot recruit a teacher; and will these schools be in the leafy suburbs or the inner cities?

It is now time someone took overall control of how we train and then offer employment to teachers. Are schools and higher education departments of education agents of central government or independent operators in market-based environment working within a regulatory framework?

For design and technology students, a subject area of key importance where the government had difficulty securing enough training places for 2014, presumably because recruitment had been so poor in 2013, the notion of changing the ‘standard of professional dress’ needed in the kitchen or workshop might be open to debate. Will such teachers now need one set of clothes for when they are with their tutor group, and another when they are actually teaching? Will this promote a return to the use of academic gowns as cover-ups for shabby suits, patched elbows, and no doubt the ties that male teachers will be required to wear at all times.

More seriously, providers have no control over where their former trainees find a teaching job. Many years ago I questioned the problem of trainees that learnt their craft skills in a cathedral city, but ended up working in an inner city. The cultural and other shocks for the successes of our education system learning to work as teachers with the whole range of learners have been brought home very clearly in the two recent TV series. Preparing teachers for the ‘real world’ in its many manifestations is a key part of training, but at present using their skills and qualities to best effect as they emerge during training isn’t part of the deal.

Are Ofsted really pointing to a disconnect in the profession between training and employment that has affected the primary sector ever since training was taken away from the employers and moved to higher education, where training for selective schools and the independent sector already mostly took place to the extent that there was any training at all.

Ofsted, do at least seem to be on the side of the need for a training requirement; otherwise what’s the point of the framework? However it isn’t clear whether they support the notion of any school-based trainees teaching from day or accept the need for some initial input such as the 30 days offered by Teach First. What may be more important is how trainees in schools with few behaviour-management issues are prepared for more challenging situations where they might eventually want or be required to work? Is training entirely in one school a good idea, or does a period in more than one school enhance and deepen the experience of learning how to become a teacher?

It seems to me that changing the framework for inspection without clear ministerial guidance on the training process, and its link to employment, is like putting the mobile phone before the mast to update the cart before the horse analogy.

You cannot penalise a provider that has no control over where a trainee takes a job unless you make it an absolute requirement as to what needs to be covered during the training period, and make that the same for all providers.

Ofsted, the NCTL through the DfE, and the employers of teachers, all need to sort out a framework for producing both enough teachers, and teachers of high quality so that we can move the school system forward. At present, what is emerging is a muddle that might have serious consequences for teacher supply at a time when the school population is rising rapidly.

Where have all the flowers gone

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Pete Seeger, who died earlier this week, was a constant presence on the record player during my university days in the 1960s. Interestingly, one of the songs he recorded in 1963, ‘Little boxes’, formed the background to a student project undertaken by my first group of trainee teachers at the University of Worcester during the early 1980s. Persuading the external examiner that group work was a good idea, and that the outcome could be a tape-slide presentation, and not just an essay, was an interesting challenge: now it might be impossible.

I was reminded of Pete Seeger’s ‘Where have all the flowers gone’ when I saw the figures produced by UCAS earlier today about applications up to the 20th January this year for the unified teacher training application scheme. Now, it is a new process, and there are still seven months to recruit and still leave time for taking the Skill Tests before courses start, so today’s figures are really only straws in the wind.

However, the headlines show that while younger applicants appear to be applying in good, if not yet sufficient numbers,applications from those between the ages of 25 and 40 seem below the numbers that might be expected, especially since all career changer routes now go through the unified admissions process.

What could be especially worrying is the apparent decline in applications for primary courses.  In January 2011, some 21,300 applicants had applied for primary PGCE courses, and an unknown number had applied for employment-based routes into teaching. Last year, the primary PGCE number was just over 17,000. This year, when applicants can make up to three applications to different courses at this stage of the process it is impossible to know the actual number of applicants from the published figures. However, if applicants made, on average, 2.5 course choices per applicant, the number of applicants would be just less than 15,000 or 6,000 fewer than in 2011 despite the inclusion of the employment-based places. The position for secondary subjects is even more confusing, partly because of the possibility of candidates making applications to different subject areas amongst their three choices. However, Chemistry, languages, music, Religious Education and Physics look to be ones to watch for potential problems; and both art and drama may be less attractive this year than in the past.

Whether Educating Yorkshire, and the TV series about Teach First currently being shown on BBC, are helpful to recruiting probably hasn’t been tested yet. But, unlike the army, teaching currently isn’t running any recruitment adverts on television. This is despite the need for around 40,000 trainees this year, roughly half the size of the British land army after its latest cutbacks. Spending a bit of cash on recruitment advertising might be a wise move for the government because it cannot afford to under-recruit on primary preparation courses given the increase in pupil numbers over the next few years. A more radical move would be to reassess either the bursary levels or the need for trainees to pay fees. After all, the government could either just pay the fees or even say to schools that they should pay to participate in School Direct rather than be paid by the trainees or the government.

The longer the government leaves any reaction to these numbers, the more they risk compounding the shortfall in recruitment they witnessed last year and that won’t play well in the run up to the 2015 general election. The government has the luxury of weekly data, whereas the rest of us will have to wait until the end of February for the next set of figures.  By then, the recruitment round will have reached the half-way point, and in previous years the trends across the whole cycle will be readily apparent: the clock is already ticking.

Work smarter not harder

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A big thank you to the Guardian.com that featured my blog post on episode two of the series about Teach First currently being shown on the BBC: It brought in around 1,000 extra views of this blog over four days, and make the target of 10,000 by the end of January into a feasible proposition.

Episode three of the series was aired last Thursday, and I caught up with it on the BBC i-player yesterday. The underlying themes of the episode seem to be the continuing discipline issues encountered by one of the trainees, and the interaction between teachers and pupils as they learnt about both motivation and setting boundaries. In doing so they also learnt about themselves. What was missing, I felt was any analysis of feedback to trainees making satisfactory or better progress. On the other hand, the one teacher causing concern said at one point she as being observed in half her lessons. How any preparation programme can afford such a high level of observation is a matter of no little wonder to me. What we didn’t see was the way the feedback from these observations was translated into action by both the school and the teacher. There was an interesting juxtaposition of one trainee teacher making a class enter the science lab several times because they didn’t do it to her satisfaction the first time and the trainee judged to have problems were there was no sense of what strategy she was using to gain control of the class.

As I expected, Caleb, and his opinions, featured in the episode along with the views of several other pupils, particularly about examinations. Perhaps too much time was spent on the slaughtering of the birds as a bonding exercise, and we didn’t really hear what the teacher though the outcome of that exercise had been after teaching the pupil again for several lessons. Also, did the RE teacher set to find an Arab looking Joseph (non-speaking) by his head of department really call another teacher Sir when he entered his tutor group to speak to a pupil? I will need to go back and re-check.

The new teachers spoke frankly to camera about their experiences, and the first year trainees were compared to a second year Teach First participant that the school wanted to keep even thought she expressed concern that the results for her Year 11 group would show a dip over the previous year: time will tell. One teacher that featured in episode two didn’t seem to appear this time, but there was no explanation as to why he didn’t feature.

The next episode will take the teachers into their second term when my advice to them would have been, work smarter not just harder. It assessment and preparation are taking over your life, look at how you can restore some normality, because it you aren’t teaching a full timetable think what it will be like when you are. So far, apart from assessed lessons, we have seen few interactions between the Teach First teachers and the bulk of the staff at the schools. Do they ever take part in department meetings or socialise outside of their group?

As a series about human interaction, and the feelings of young people, it makes interesting television, but whether I am not sure about what I have learnt about the Teach First method of preparing teaching that is different to other methods once they are in the classroom except that after a whole term of teaching the team are still being supportive of the teacher facing the most challenge. In this episode she received a warning about her progress from a University tutor. Next time, will she sink or swim in the new term?

More on made not born: how teachers are created

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Last night I caught up with the second episode of BBC3’s new series, ‘Tough Young Teachers’ that is all about the progress of a group of Teach First recruits. (Past episodes are available on the BBC i-player). The teachers featured were working in Harefield Academy, Crown Woods School and the Archbishop Lanfranc School. Although Teach First started as a programme for inner city schools, these three schools that are located in Uxbridge, Croydon, and Bexley, might better be characterised as suburban, and not inner city. That doesn’t mean that they aren’t challenging. Their Free School Meals measure for the Pupil Premium – anytime in the past six years on free school meals – ranges from 29.2% at The Harefield Academy, to 41.7% at Archbishop Lanfranc, and 46.2% at Crown Woods College according to DfE figures; all well above the national average. Both the latter two schools have a significant number of pupils whose native language isn’t English; although as a measure of the need for support it is probably worth re-visiting this indicator to see how it is calibrated. It might be better to classify whether pupils have a level of English that allows them to function effectively in a learning situation rather than know what their native tongue might have been.

All three schools have above average levels of persistent absence, and perform less well with least able pupils than their most able. According to the DfE, Archbishop Lanfranc is an 11-16 school, and the other two have sixth forms. This point worries me, since it is not clear how Teach First ensures any exposure to post-16 teaching for those placed in 11-16 schools? If they want to stay in teaching after two years, this lack of sixth form experience might restrict the range of schools willing to employ them. This is always a risk with a single-training location over courses that allow training in several schools during the programme.

Another risk of such single-school programmes also became apparent in last night’s episode. One of the group was seen facing considerable discipline challenges in their classroom. In a traditional programme of teacher preparation they would receive a second chance to start again in a new school on their next placement. This would allow for a fresh start and see whether they could improve with a new set of pupils. On Teach First, it was suggested last night that the choice is to be battle through or be sacked. In an earlier post last year, I commented how much Teach First appeared to spend on recruitment and selection, so it is worrying that someone can pass through selection, and the six weeks of training, and still face such challenges in a school where many pupils are there because of their sporting achievements: judging by their appearance, and that of the school, they are also generally working in a supportive learning establishment. But, television has to tell as story that entertains, informs and hopefully educates the viewer, so we may not know the real situation. However, that student was filmed sitting down in the classroom too much for my liking, although the arrangement of the furniture probably also didn’t help a new teacher.

For entertainment value, watching endless lessons can become a bit like watching paint dry for the average viewer, and even I looked at my watch a couple of times, so the storyline of the pupil recently returned from a spell in a Pupil Referral Unit offered an interesting counterpoint. Caleb was articulate, truculent, and as viewers know from Educating Yorkshire before Christmas, exactly the sort of pupil to challenge a school, and its experienced teachers, let along one just arrived from six weeks of basic training outside the classroom. No doubt viewers will see more of Caleb in later episodes.

By now the viewer also knows something of the personalities of the new recruits. They also know, if they didn’t already, that teaching is not easy, and there is no such thing as deference to authority in modern society. Respect has to be earned in the classroom as on the beat or by anyone in a position of authority.

As ever, one asks of oneself, how would I have fared?  I don’t know, but if it is any consolation to those training at present, my first year, admittedly with no training, and as a supply teacher in Tottenham, was far worse than some of the scenes from last night’s programme. I will watch future episodes with interest.

Do 40% of teacher quit in their first five years?

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When the HMCI makes a statement such as ‘we invest so much in teacher training and yet an estimated 40% of new entrants leave within five years’ it much be taken as being authoritative, and presumably correct. However, it is worth digging a bit more deeply into the data to see what actually happens to new teachers. Fortunately, the DfE published a detailed analysis of a cohort in their review of the first School Work Force Survey of 2010. https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/182407/DFE-RR151.pdf

According to the DfE’s analysis of 100 entrants to training, 56 would still be teaching in the state-funded sector five years later, and another six would be teaching in the non-maintained sector; others might be teaching abroad or in the further education sector, possibly in a sixth form college. So, the 40% looks like an upper limit on the number leaving post-qualification.

What is more interesting is the loss after actually entering the profession. According to the DfE analysis, only 4 of the 47 postgraduates that found a teaching job left after five years, and the number of undergraduates was actually greater by one at the five year point than the number counted at the first year after training; presumably as late entrants found a teaching job. This analysis, therefore, points to the greatest loss being between training and employment. Indeed, of the 63 postgraduates that completed training only 47 will be teaching in publicly-funded schools a year after training, along with 12 of the 17 undergraduate completers.

So, is this loss of around a quarter immediately after training a matter for concern? Much may depend upon whether during the period of the DfE analysis too many teachers were being trained. Hopefully, some decided after completing the course that teaching wasn’t the career for them. Other students, especially mature students, may be tied to a particular location, and just haven’t seen a job in their subject advertised yet.

Indeed, since HMCI Annual Reports in recent years have said how good new teachers are, it seems a little odd to suggest there might have been a dip in quality recently. HMCI cannot have his cake and eat it. Either he repudiates publicly the work of his predecessors or he explains what evidence he had to use for his speech to the North of England Education Conference.

Personally, in the new world where many schools sail alone, I think it is important to ensure adequate professional development for new teachers. The audit trail will quickly reveal whether it is during training or afterwards that problems arise. What is more important is for the evidence of any systemic weakness during training to be fed back into consideration of how teacher preparation might evolve. For instance, more time in the classroom might not improve classroom management outcomes unless it is associated with the time spent on the theory and techniques of behaviour management, and the part played by good subject knowledge and an understanding of young people. If, as a result, HMCI decides to tell the government that the present one-year course, especially for new primary schools teachers needs a complete overhaul, I would be delighted.