Tag Archives: training

Last word is not the most important

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It is not often that I get the last word, but that has literally happened in the latest Report of the Teachers’ Pay Review Body that can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/318574/STRB_24th_Report_Cm_8886_web_accessible.pdf Alright, I know it is only an acknowledgement of the fact that I and the Chief Executive both provided them with a briefing. In my case, one (unpublished) on teacher supply matters.

What remains of far more importance than my evidence is the discussions of the STRB about pay and recruitment to the profession that are neatly summarised in paragraph 3.56 of the Report:

3.56 As this chapter has identified, there is clear and consistent evidence that both the starting and profession-wide pay of teachers is less competitive relative to other professional occupations in several areas of the country, and that this gap is widening. Our evidence also suggests able graduates in other professions progress more quickly in the first three to five years and have more opportunity to reach higher levels of earnings as their careers progress subsequently. This heightens the risk of those in the profession feeling under-valued and recruitment and retention suffering as a consequence.

Now that is a real warning to government about teacher supply going forward. What is curious is that despite London being thought of as the least competitive part of the country in salary terms for new teachers, applications to train in London have been increasing at faster rates than elsewhere in the country this year. I don’t think it is because would-be teachers know that school teachers in Inner London do well compared to others entering the labour market with first degrees; and so they should after an extra year of training, since they fare less well against those entering the labour market with higher degrees. May be it is because of a separate London attraction factor despite the negative high prices of housing and transport in the capital.

I think the STRB have made clear that governments in the future have a real problem in relation to teacher supply that has been articulated on this blog before; but is good to read in an official publication. Increased pupil numbers, and increased demand for graduates from the wider economy, both exert real pressure on the labour market for teachers. While it was good to see that teachers joining the profession between 1997 and 2009 had relatively high retention rates, there is no guarantee in the next economic cycle that this outcome will continue unless pay keeps pace with the private sector. Interestingly, there is clear evidence that the pay reforms of the early 2000s boosted teacher retention by a couple of percentage point overall, and probably more in certain specific subjects and areas.

The STRB Report is useful evidence for NQTs negotiating starting salaries in the new market driven world. Any teachers except those in English, PE and history, are clearly in a position to start salary bargaining at say point M3 on the old scale as a starting salary just to take account of the training year. If they don’t already do so, the professional associations should be offering advice on pay bargaining to new members, and monitoring the results. I expect to be offering schools a new service along these lines, starting with secondary trainees in the class of 2014.

 

Can teaching schools create a universal model for teacher preparation and development?

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I must confess that the National College’s initial evaluation of Teaching Schools had passed me by. I don’t know whether it was because it appeared around Easter time or because it was inserted into the government’s publication list other than at the top where new publications usually appear. Nevertheless, it merits consideration by anyone interested in both ITT and CPD in schools as a means of raising standards. The full document can be found at https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/302659/RR332_-_Teaching_schools_Evaluation.pdf

The authors included a former general secretary of ASCL, and a well-known thinker on education policy, have published this report as part of a longer government backed study that commenced in 2013, and continues to 2015. There is much to ponder in their interim conclusions. In this piece I will concentrate on their discussion about initial teacher education and School Direct. The authors accept that, as is well known, last year there was little difficulty filing the primary places on offer but that there were challenges recruiting to the priority secondary subjects.

It will be interesting to see whether the same pattern will be repeated in 2014, since using School Direct to provide a local trained teaching force was cited as a reason for participating in at least one case. The report noted that:

“In some case study TSAs Teaching School Alliances), there are examples of strategic planning work that addresses the needs of local schools when allocating School Direct trainees. For the Hallam TSA, School Direct has enabled them to build leadership capacity in local Catholic schools from ‘the start of the supply chain’ (strategic partner). It has also given them the autonomy to improve the supply of high quality teachers in Religious Education (RE). It is noted that recruitment and succession planning of RE teachers are ‘a crisis in church schools’. It is, however, too early to report successes yet”

As the Report also notes, the relationship between teaching schools and higher education is evolving at present. Some TSA have strong links that pre-date the present drive to employer-led training for teachers – a return to the pre-Robbins Report position – that have survived the change in circumstances. Indeed, for some universities, it is possible to dump the bits of training they don’t want to do as well as the administrative tasks and still be paid for the teaching they do better than schools with the bonus of the university charging the faculty a lower overhead. Much no doubt depends upon whether the TSA sees training merely as ‘coaching’ or recognises that anyone entering the profession needs far more than just some lesson plans and a few tips on how to manage behaviour. No doubt the new review Gove has ordered will have something to say about this topic.

The Report notes some challenges for the future, including what the authors see as the biggest challenge – one that is strategic in character – namely how sustainable is the whole teaching school concept in the medium term. As they note, there are concerns about how easily public policy can change.  Even more worryingly, they note that Teaching Schools appear to have been doing the softer working around support and development but not been able to hold to each other to account (or other schools in the alliance) if performance and progress starts to slip in a school. This is a vital issue that must be addressed if quality in training and development is not to be compromised. Ofsted will have to pay particular attention to this aspect of School Direct and the other programmes operated by teaching schools.

There is much else of interest in the report, and I would urge anyone interested in this field to download and read the whole report.

Why keep a dog and bark yourself?

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The quote at the head of this piece came into my mind when I read the announcement by Michael Gove that he was establishing an independent review of teacher training courses led by a Surrey Primary head teacher with 26 years experience in one school. The DfE gave the aims of the review as:

  • define effective ITT practice
  • assess the extent to which the current system delivers effective ITT
  • recommend where and how improvements could be made
  • recommend ways to improve choice in the system by improving the transparency of course content and methods

Now these seem suspiciously similar to the task of Osfted inspectors when they look at teacher training provision. So, will the review team just read Ofsted reports, collate the findings, and publish a Report? In view of the time frame; a Report by the end of the year, from a group yet to be established, means that it will be interesting to see what more they can achieve.

Were I to commission a review it would have had terms of reference something like: consider the nature and content of the teacher preparation scheme needed to deliver an effective and improving school system that measures its performance among the best in the world for the range of children it serves while competing for entrants in a thriving labour market for those who after training will teach a diverse range of subjects and ages of pupils in many different types of schools.

The Gove review will need to consider what the purpose of choice is within training? We don’t need choice about standards. We may offer choice of course that is different for new graduates and older career switchers but we may also like both groups to train together. The Review might also ask why we don’t offer methods to allow teachers post-entry to retrain for different subjects or phases.

However,, perhaps the central question that any Review will need to address, if it is not to be a superficial endorsement of current policy directions, is how do we ensure sufficient teachers in the right places to drive the school system forward when an improving economy makes teaching seem less competitive to some new graduates as a career choice than other possible options? And once trained, how do we ensure they are recruited where they are needed?

As a primary head teacher, I hope that Mr Carter takes a long hard look at both the PGCE for primary teachers and School Direct in the primary sector, as well as Teach First’s primary offering, even if it is not actually included in his formal remit. Are there enough high quality applicants to sustain the pressure of a 39 week course that puts them in the classroom almost from day one? If not, how can we achieve such performance from the 20,000 trainees we need each year to create an improving school system?

On the secondary front, there are almost as many issues to consider, but I doubt course content and methods are really an issue except, perhaps, to see where subject knowledge fits into the picture.

Finally, the Review might like to comment on whether QTS should remain unspecified after the preparation phase or be more linked to specific subjects and phases of teaching.

 

 

Even in a coalition Ministers are Party politicians

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The good news from David Laws at the ATL Conference this week was that the Lib Dems back the need for qualified teachers in all state funded schools, unlike their Tory coalition partners. How far they are prepared to support the principle as a Party, as opposed to a Conference where delegates voted for a wide-ranging motion on the subject in the spring of 2103, only the Manifesto will reveal, but it would be helpful to see a return to at least the 2005 position of the need for appropriate preparation to teach that included subject knowledge plus pedagogy for all teachers, with a more restricted permanent licence to teach than the present un-restricted QTS that in practice is little different to sanctioning the use of under-qualified if not un-qualified teachers without letting on to parents what is allowed.

Now it is becoming more of a challenge to recruit new entrants into the teaching profession, it does seem sensible to keep track of what is actually happening post-training. We won’t achieve a world-class schooling system by letting some schools return to a position where they have insufficient trained staff. Personally, I hope that someone somewhere at either the DfE or the National College is asking the unthinkable questions about supply, and how the newly diversified system would respond to a severe shortage. One scenario that has already arisen in Oxfordshire is that of academies with spare capacity refusing to take local children, and putting the local authority in the position of having to find other places for them, even if that means paying for unnecessary transport. If schools felt they might not recruit staff, as academies they might trim their admission numbers even though it caused extra expenditure for others.

David Laws also told the ATL Conference he wanted stability in the system after the next general election. Personally, I want predictability ahead of stability. Michael Gove is increasingly looking like his Labour predecessors of the 1960s who wanted a universal comprehensive system for all, but failed to impose their will on local authorities, leaving a legacy of secondary education that was little more than a geographical lottery when it came to the type of school system. There was some explanation then for the reticence of the Labour government in that schooling was seen more as a local responsibility. There is no such excuse in the new nationalised world of schooling in the Labour/coalition era of the last decade. At least make all secondary schools academies, so that parents know the rules they will play by, even if the rules are set in Westminster. A failure to take this action will leave a legacy of school organisation that is different across the country, and also with local government still struggling to know its role in education. The position of the primary sector is more complicated, and there is a need for the faith communities to engage more in the debate since they manage a significant proportion of primary schools, especially in the rural areas. Are they happy to see power transfer to Whitehall from the local town or county hall?

Sufficient teachers, of the right type and quality in a school system that is sound in organisation seems like a good recipe for moving the education system forward, especially if some of the more idiotic curriculum changes are also addressed.

Physics still a major concern

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Just how bad is the situation in Physics this year when it comes to applications for teacher training?Before answering that question it is worth recalling the situation in the spring of last year.  During March last year I reported on this blog that on the 15th March 2013 only 4% of the ‘salaried’ School Direct places for Physics were shown as ‘unavailable’, as were just 6% of the ‘non-salaried’ Physics ‘Training’ places. That was a total of 29 places out of 572 on offer for Physics shown as ‘unavailable’, and presumably, therefore, filled in March 2013.

I thought that I would have a go at repeating the exercise this year. The unified UCAS application system makes tracking less of a challenge than the DfE system in use last year, and with a bit of cross-checking against the NCTL allocations list that appeared recently, I think I have been able to make a fair stab at the position as of 11th April, some three weeks later than last year, and without the interference of Easter.

The NCTL identified some 263 salaried and 587 tuition places available for Physics 2014 through School Direct according to the allocations spreadsheet I have used. There were also no doubt some places for Physics and Mathematics, but I have ignored those for this exercise. Allowing for some anomalies between UCAS and NCTL regarding tuition fee and salaried routes, my estimates suggest no more than 10 of the 263 Salaried places are current ‘unavailable’ – some 3.8% compared with 4% last year at a date three weeks previously. Similarly, the tuition fee route appears to have some 31 places ‘unavailable’ out of 587 – some 5.28% – compared with 6% in last year’s analysis for March. However, 13 of the 31 places ‘unavailable’ are located in just two schools, one of which has been showing ‘no vacancies’ for some time. It would be helpful if both Whitmore High School in London and Sandringham School in St Albans could share with others how they have been so successful in attracting trainee Physics teachers. But, at least the overall numbers recruited to date are slightly higher than last year, even if the percentages are similar because of the extra places available through School Direct, albeit the total is just 38 this year compared with 29 at a point three weeks earlier in 2013. However, thanks to a Rumsfeldian ‘known unknown’ there are a 100 or so Salaried places, and slightly more than 300 tuition fee places that might have been filed in schools awarded more than one place. Any of these places filled cannot be distinguished from the figures this year.

In view of the fact that overall the UCAS data showed that 26% of the Teacher Supply Model figure of 853 trainees (the level of suggested need) were shown as ‘under offer’ of one sort or another on 17th March it would seem likely that higher education and SCITT providers have achieved higher rates of filled places in Physics  in the current recruitment round when compared with School Direct unless the there are lots of filled places in the ‘known unknown’ schools with more than one place on offer. If it is the case that higher education and SCITT have filled a greater proportion of their places so far, and the situation does not change by the end of the recruitment round, then it must reopen the debate about the usefulness of a training model that fails to fill places available.

Now the issue, as it was last year, may well be around what is the acceptable quality of a trainee? Pitch the standard  too high, and there won’t be enough trainees, and next year some schools won’t be able to recruit a Physics teacher – assuming the TSM calculations are anywhere near correct. Pitch the standard too low, and the quality of new teachers won’t be good enough.

To my mind this is an issue where government needs to provide a clear steer to the sector so that when Ofsted calls everyone can be judged by the same standards. Otherwise, the advice to higher education must be: play safe and don’t take a candidate you think a school wouldn’t offer a School Direct place to. If that further reduces supply, so be it.

What is very clear now is that, at least in Physics, we are heading for the same outcome as last year when the required number (note not a target) wasn’t reached unless there is a swift and dramatic change in acceptances, and probably applications. This is especially as at the 17th March there were only 200 applications not covered by offers in the UCAS system, including those declined places.

 

No time for God

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Why has a Secretary of State who once ordered that a copy of the King James Bible be sent to every school allowed Religious Education to sink to such a parlous state in many schools across England? Why is RE effectively ignored in some Academies and Free Schools? The HMI Report on the teaching of RE, published this weekend*, should really have come as no surprise to Mr Gove because earlier this year the All Party Parliamentary Group on RE published a report expressing serious concern about teacher preparation in the subject and its effects on the way the subject was being taught.

Ever since the creation of the National Curriculum in the Education Reform Act, the position of RE has been anomalous, mandatory, but neither a core nor a specified subject, rather in a position of its own.

Religious Education has suffered most at primary level where many PGCE courses can devote only a few hours to preparing teachers to deliver the subject despite their need to be familiar with a range of faiths, and the position of those with no belief in a deity at all.

It is to be hoped that if Mr Gove does take a new interest in the subject he does not treat it as a branch of history; just require the learning of specific bible passages. For a start such an approach would lead to many parents withdrawing their offspring from RE lessons. Rather, in this modern age, the subject can help foster tolerance, and a world-view. Faith is a very personal matter, but that does not mean non-faith schools should ignore the importance position of religious beliefs in society, and the views of those who do not accept them. As we approach the festival season that for many schools runs from Halloween – a festival seemingly sponsored by the retail trade – to Christmas – another festival that for many people seems these days to have been annexed by retailers – it is important for young people to know the importance of faith to many in this country and across the world so that they make up their own mind as to what they believe.  However, it doesn’t contribute to league tables, despite the RE community striving to have the GCSE included in the English Bacc. Many schools and local authorities have obviously paid little heed to the development of the subject or the maintenance of their SACRE. As Ofsted say in their Report ‘Recent changes in education policy are having a negative impact on the provision for RE in some schools and on the capacity of local authorities and SACREs to carry out their statutory responsibilities to monitor and support it.’

For intending primary school teachers, and those that train them, the issue is how to cope with any demand from on high that they pay more attention to RE as a subject in the curriculum. In reality, what needs to be addressed is the question of how we train our primary school teachers to provide them with the time and space to learn about the whole curriculum both during their training and the subsequent professional enrichment and development activities they undertake during their careers as teachers.

* http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/resources/religious-education-realising-potential

Apocalypse Soon?

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Recently BBC Television has been running a series about films and their music. One of the trailers was from Apocalypse Now and showed the choppers scything through the sky on their way to attack Viet Cong positions to the accompaniment of the music of Richard Wagner. Interestingly, according to his wife, the current Secretary of State for Education is a big Wagner fan. However, it is, perhaps, a coincidence that the Wagnerian sense of the end of the world that is so often conveyed by the use of the term Gotterdammerung might just now be applied to what seems to be happening in the world of teacher training.

In my last post on the topic of teacher supply I promised not to write about this issue again until the time of the ITT census in November and, in terms of reviewing the 2013 round, I hope to stick to that resolution. However, the world moves on apace, and the next four weeks will be of vital importance for the future shape of teacher training in England. Bids for 2014 control numbers, as targets are now called, will be collated from a “snapshot” taken by the NCSL on the 11th October. It is rumoured that the outcome will be presented to Ministers on the 14th October. Certainly, schools requesting School Direct places had to have notified the NCSL of initial requests by the 23rd September. Other providers, although they weren’t given a deadline in the recently published methodology document, would have been well advised to have made bids by now, even though final re-worked targets won’t be available until early in 2014, and changes by anyone allocated any sort of place can be made right up until the start of August 2014.

Although the NCTL announced that allocations would be published in November; it is difficult to see how, if the Select Committee hold another evidence session with the Minister in late October, the figures won’t, at least at the headline level, be in the public domain by then.

The key issue is whether the “control numbers” represent a realistic expectation of the number of training places needed in each phase, and secondary subject. In Physics and Mathematics, where there is to be no restriction on recruitment, this is not a factor, but anything could happen.

If schools bid for more than the 9,500 School Direct places of 2013 in the 2014 round (minus the 1,640 Mathematics and Physics places that are uncapped making 7,860 bids within the secondary control envelope), and that envelope is not increased, then that leaves less than 4,000 places for other providers including higher education. As SCITTs and other non-higher education providers accounted for around 900 “control envelope” secondary places in 2013 (excluding Mathematics and Physics), and might be expected to bid for more for 2014, that could leave as few as 3,000 places available for higher education across all subjects within the envelope. If the “control envelope” doesn’t increase at the same rate as bids from schools for School Direct then even the 3,000 places might be generous.

After allowing for the guarantee to ‘outstanding’ providers from the Secretary of State that he issued in June, it is difficult to see how the denominational promise is going to be satisfied in secondary and if it is, whether there will be any places left for providers not judged ‘outstanding’. Apocalypse Soon could then become Apocalypse Now and an apt description of what could well happen to teacher education in higher education over the period between now and Christmas.