Memorandum submitted by the Association
of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL)
SUMMARY
RECRUITMENT
— ATL commends the Government on existing
teacher recruitment and retention initiatives to provide financial
incentives to enter teaching and we would urge the Government
to revisit tuition fees for newly qualified teachers working in
the public sector.
— ATL would like to be assured by the
Government that there will be sufficient and timely monitoring
of movement from higher education into employment in the public
sector, particularly the teaching profession.
Retention
— ATL fully supports the GTCE's view
that every strategy related to education should at one and the
same time be a retention strategy. At the heart of retention is
an effective system-wide human resource management strategy that
recognises the role of support, developmental opportunities and
personal and professional recognition as key elements sustaining
and enhancing motivation.
— It is our view that that the DfES's
record in this respect is highly variable. Many initiatives, such
as the introduction of performance management and the performance
threshold, have had, and continue to have, an adverse or neutral
effect.
— Retention is critically related to
the level and quality of support provided in every school and
to the professional opportunities for both career progression
and for a sense of growing professional competence, esteem and
value.
— Retention of teachers in their early
years cannot be addressed until the capacity, both in terms of
skills and expertise and working conditions, of those who support
them is taken more seriously. This is not an issue which can be
addressed by the present conception of workforce remodelling.
— ATL recommends, as it has on many
previous occasions, that the training of induction tutors, team
leaders and mentors is given a high national priority and that
it is fully recognised in a framework of Standards and career
progression, since the support of a trained and accessible colleague
is a key issue in the retention of teachers in the early years.
We consider that a date should be set by which ASTs, induction
tutors, team leaders and middle managers should hold a coaching
and mentoring qualification or by which a coaching and mentoring
module should be an element of the relevant quality assured Standards.
— ATL recommends that, as a contribution
to retention and to the wider benefits to the school system, funding
for the development of each teacher in the first five years is
ear-marked separately for every primary and special school and
that a substantial proportion of the funding should be for use
at the discretion of the individual teacher. Secondary schools
should be required to identify separately in their budgets the
funding allocated to teachers' CPD for those in the first five
years of teaching and make available a substantial proportion
for the discretionary use by the individual teacher.
— The revision of the NPQH should look
critically at whether sufficient attention is paid to developing
the skills of human resource management, especially those skills
which relate to establishing a positive organizational culture
and developing and motivating professionals.
— The DfES should continue to promote
IIP and quality systems which continue to put personnel development
at the centre of management.
— ATL considers that not until accountability
for teacher retention is incorporated intelligently into the accountability
structure will there be qualitative changes to the negative experiences
which encourage teachers to look for alternative employment options.
— ATL has cautioned the DfES against
policies such as the professional bursaries, which we applaud
in principle as a motivating and imaginative scheme, but which
are not available to teachers later in their careers. There are
severe dangers in providing new and individualised opportunities
for those in the first five years of teaching, but leaving a missing
generation of teachers in their thirties and forties to the vagaries
of the decisions school management makes about the allocation
of resources for professional development.
— Funding for sabbaticals, secondments,
international opportunities, research scholarships, and for individually
determined development opportunities, which is open for application
by the individual teacher and not under the control of the school
must be seen as a retention issue. It will also be necessary to
incentivise training for middle management and leadership and
to ensure that is it compatible with a reasonable work/life balance
and for those with family and other responsibilities.
— ATL welcomes the DfES consultation
on Subject Specialism. We support the proposals for National Centres
of Excellence and we agree that subject associations, too, have
a key role to play. However, we believe there could be an adverse
effect on both the recruitment and retention of secondary teachers
if it appeared that the DfES was seeking to influence the subject
associations towards a centrally-determined view of the subject,
curriculum materials, teaching methods or shared values.
— The issue of attracting, developing
and retaining effective secondary teachers is central to the Government's
stated aim of raising standards and providing differentiated and
individualised opportunities for each young person. Central Government
initiatives, DfES implementation strategies, local education authorities,
school governing bodies and headteachers must all co-ordinate
to ensure that secondary teachers do not leave teaching because
of negative experiences. Teachers' experience of teaching must
match or exceed their expectations and this requires strategies
to ensure that the working environment does engage, enable and
support staff. This, and not a climate of constantly proving competence;
being regarded as under-trained and un-modern; and of inspection
and monitoring, is what is needed to secure recruitment and to
encourage retention.
MAIN EVIDENCE
1. ATL agrees with the Audit Commission's
summary in Recruitment and retention; A public service workforce
for the twenty-first century (2002) that public sector staff
want to "make a difference" in a job that satisfies
them, and with a reward package that meets their needs. But .
. .
— People are leaving the public sector
because of negative experiences rather than compelling alternative
options.
— Most public sector employers do not
know why their staff are leaving.
2. We also agree that there are no simple
solutions:
— Recruitment and retention are issues
that go to the heart of how organisations are led. Pay is one
but only one aspect of this.
— Government and national bodies can
play a key role in creating a positive image of public service
work.
3. And that critical success factors include:
— People's experience of work must
match their expectations.
— Their working environment must engage,
enable and support staff.
— Staff need to feel valued, respected
and rewarded.
4. Those who might and do enter secondary
teaching are influenced by precisely these factors. They are highly
educated and have readily available employment alternatives. Other
employers recognize the worth of personable graduates, with good
communication and inter-personal skills and adapt rapidly and
flexibly to social and legislative developments which affect their
recruitment pool. In ATL's view there remains much to change in
order to maintain the teaching workforce even at its present level.
RECRUITMENT
5. We do not wish to reiterate here the
endemic problems of recruiting teachers, especially in the shortage
areas of mathematics, science and modern foreign languages, which
in Time for Standards the Government appears to accept
are insuperable and concerning which there is information readily
available to the Committee, for example, in the OECD Country Background
Report Attracting, developing and retaining Effective Teachers
in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
(Ross and Hutchings, 2003). Our concern is with Government initiatives
where an undesirable impact on teacher recruitment could be avoided.
Most recently ATL has expressed its concern for the impact of
the proposals in the White Paper, The future of higher education.
The likely impact of changes to the funding
of students in higher education
6. ATL is disappointed with the Government's
thinking in this area. The teaching workforce is an ageing one:
its replacement demands a more strategic approach than has been
demonstrated to date. The proposed funding changes, we believe,
will have significant and damaging effects on teacher recruitment.
The need to repay higher levels of indebtedness will weaken the
flow of people choosing to work for a teacher's salary in the
public sector. Government action might, of course, move towards
schemes of debt relief for teacher entrants; but it seems likely
that these would focus on alleviating effects in the more desperate
areas of recruitment (such as London). The general effect nationally
would still be significant and damaging.
7. ATL commends the Government on existing
teacher recruitment and retention initiatives to provide financial
incentives to enter teaching and we would urge the Government
to revisit tuition fees for newly qualified teachers working in
the public sector. ATL would like to be assured by the Government
that there will be sufficient and timely monitoring of movement
from higher education into employment in the public sector, particularly
the teaching profession.
RETENTION
8. ATL fully supports the GTCE's view that
every strategy related to education should at one and the same
time be a retention strategy. At the heart of retention is an
effective system-wide human resource management strategy that
recognises the role of support, developmental opportunities and
personal and professional recognition as key elements sustaining
and enhancing motivation. It is our view that the DfES's record
in this respect is highly variable. Many initiatives, such as
the introduction of performance management and the performance
threshold, have had, and continue to have, an adverse or neutral
effect. Retention is critically related to the level and quality
of support provided in every school and to the professional opportunities
for both career progression and for a sense of growing professional
competence, esteem and value. It is important throughout a teaching
career but we wish to divide our comments into factors which affect
teachers in the first five years of teaching, described now as
Early Professional Development (EPD), and factors which influence
teachers we describe as Career Professionals.
EARLY PROFESSIONAL
DEVELOPMENT
9. It is clearly critical now to retain
a much higher percentage of those we recruit. Attrition rates
in the first five years of teaching are unacceptably high. ATL
welcomes the national extension of the Early Professional Development
(EPD) programme from 2004 but there are lessons and concerns from
related initiatives that must be taken into account.
Induction
10. ATL welcomed the introduction of an
induction year, with its specific provisions for induction support
and a reduced time-table for each newly qualified teacher (NQT)
but it is clear that it may not have made the contribution to
retention and motivation that it should have done. The evidence
of the variability from school to school is extensive, including
the DfES Research Report 338 Evaluation of the Effectiveness
of the Statutory Arrangements for the Induction of Newly Qualified
Teachers (Totterdell et al, 2002). However, two of
the researchers have gone on to investigate "rogue"
school leaders who "treat new teachers badly or unprofessionally,
wasting public resources and, in some cases, hindering or potentially
ruining individuals' careers and losing them to the teaching profession"
(Bubb et al, 2003).
11. They found that the extent to which
NQTs enjoyed their first year of teaching appeared to be related
to factors, such as, the extent to which they felt their induction
tutor had been accessible, their individualised induction programme
and the behaviour of their classes. For example, of those that
said their induction tutor had been accessible for support and
guidance, 49% enjoyed their first year "very much" while
only 13% whose induction tutor had not been accessible said this.
As the researchers say, and as ATL agrees, the role of the induction
tutor/mentor is complex and crucial in induction. Yet teachers
undertake the role for no extra money and are allocated little,
if any, time to support their less experienced colleague. Researchers
found that 15% of induction tutors had not been on any training
for the role.
12. This situation was foreseeable since
the initial introduction of the Regulations for induction was
not accompanied by system-wide awareness raising and training
for teachers in the schools who would be responsible for NQTs.
Furthermore, there are two recent examples of how schools are
left unprepared to support their NQTs. From next September NQTs
are to be assessed against a new set of Induction Standards and
it is said that these Standards represent a progression from the
Standards for Qualified Teacher Status (QTS), which are used for
the assessment at the end of initial teacher training (ITT). Yet
the new Standards have only been available since April 2003, leaving
little time for schools to be aware of the changes let alone consider
or deliver the necessary training for their induction tutors.
In the week of 19 May 2003 the Teacher Training Agency (TTA) also
held conferences on its revised Career Entry and Development Profile
which is to be used from September 2003. It was emphasised that
the change this is intended to bring about is to promote a "process",
as we understand it, this is to promote induction as a means by
which the NQT is to become more reflective, more self-evaluative,
more able to consider their long-term career aspirations and to
promote a constructive dialogue between NQTs and their induction
tutors.
13. ATL fully supports induction as this
professional process, and indeed, would argue that this should
have been the conception and intent from the outset. However,
schools are not even to be sent the Career Entry and Development
Profile, induction tutors are receiving no advance notice of these
changed expectations and, most critically, schools and LEAs have
little time and even less resources to adjust the skills profiles
of those selected to support NQTs or to adapt their training programmes.
Furthermore, the issue of training for induction tutors is still
not being addressed by the TTA and DfES. If the TTA and the DfES
really appreciated our new teachers as the essential resource
they are we do not think that such arrangements would be so belated
and ill-thought through. We hope the Committee will think fit
to make forceful recommendations about improvements in this area.
14. The research also identified a key area
of concern for induction for secondary NQTs in that 37% of secondary
NQTs said that they had taught outside their subject, but only
half of these said they had extra support. This is clearly a deficit
which can be demotivating and adds additional stress and vulnerability
in the first year of teaching.
15. Retention of teachers in their early
years cannot be addressed until the capacity, both in terms of
skills and expertise and working conditions, of those who support
them is taken more seriously. This is not an issue which can be
addressed by the present conception of workforce remodelling.
ATL recommends, as it has on many previous occasions, that the
training of induction tutors, team leaders and mentors is given
a high national priority and that it is fully recognised in a
framework of Standards and career progression, since the support
of a trained and accessible colleague is a key issue in the retention
of teachers in the early years. We consider that a date should
be set by which ASTs, induction tutors, team leaders and middle
managers should hold a coaching and mentoring qualification or
by which a coaching and mentoring module should be an element
of the relevant quality assured Standards.
The variability of school management and leadership
16. But the issue of "rogue" schools,
in our view, goes deeper. The researchers illuminate their findings
by the following example:
Beta is a very well-managed school, which
gets good results from a socio-economically deprived group of
students. It is recognised by the DfES as a very good school and
has Beacon status. However, its management of human resources
is less impressive. It employs large numbers of NQTs. Over a third
of the teachers are fresh from training college. This appears
to be a deliberate policy that allows salary costs to be kept
at a minimum.
NQTs tend to teach the lowest streams and
all are expected to do a lunch duty, even though this is not usually
a requirement of any teacher let alone a new one. NQTs have no
written contracts.
There are meetings with induction tutors
but they are not supportive, nor are they intended to be. They
are line-management meetings to ensure that the NQTs are conforming
to school policies. No staff have attended induction tutor training.
Observations are carried out by people within
the school, but they are done to monitor and assess, rather than
support and so NQTs dread them rather then seeing them as helpful.
Within the school there is a climate of
bullying that results in fear of senior management and a distrust
of being too open with other teachers. Staff are discouraged from
talking to each other. One NQT was admonished for talking to other
new teachers.
Almost all the NQTs (10 out of 11) leave
during or at the end of their first year at the school. The four
NQTs who had left who we interviewed spoke of severe bullying,
having to ensure that students were quiet, even in the playground.
"They (the principal and deputies) made my life miserable."
They found the experience damaged their self-confidence enormously.
One said that she was unable to work for a month.
17. Although in our experience this is an
extreme example of poor human resource management, there are many
aspects that illustrate a more general lack of concern in many
schools for the impact of their demotivating conditions on retention
across the system as a whole. We agree with the researchers that
Ofsted inspections are not an effective deterrent, because they
take place infrequently (every 4-6 years) and it is clear that
unless the school is seriously failing to provide an adequate
education for the students, the inspectors are incapable of exerting
the pressure needed to ensure compliance. We note with interest
their comment that:
NQTs are dissatisfied with the inconsistency
of provision, which they see as unfair and bringing into question
the status of induction as a whole. Individual new teachers appeared
highly aware of the provision other NQTs were receiving because
they stayed in contact with college friends through networking
sessions and courses. Indeed, the most common area needing improvement
identified by the NQTs surveyed was tighter monitoring of school
provision.
18. This concurs with ATL's view, which
we set out later in relation to the need to make more transparent
the arrangements for ensuring the accountability of schools for
factors which influence teacher retention.
Funding
19. The means of funding EPD, in ATL's view,
is closely related both to what has been said above in relation
to "rogue" schools and to the impact EPD will have on
retention rates. ATL was dismayed to learn that what had previously
been ear-marked funding to support individual NQTs is now to be
submerged into the general school's budget. We regard this as
a retrogressive step. For many years we argued that each NQT deserved
direct funding and that only in this way could the funding for
the reduced time-table and supportive induction programme be provided
without adverse impact on other colleagues' opportunities for
professional development, especially in small schools and in schools
with a highly mobile teaching force, heavily dependent on new
entrants. We believe that it is unfair on the new entrant if the
funding for their support appears to be in competition with other
pressing priorities. We are also concerned that schools which
do not put the proper value on a new entrant, or indeed on investing
in and motivating its people generally, will use the lack of transparent
funding as an excuse not to provide high quality support and development.
20. The recent publication, A Report
on the Award-Bearing INSET Scheme outlined, too, the problems
of devolving professional development monies to schools when it
said that there are risks of undermining system-wide capacity
by making decisions on teachers' further professional development
too "subject to the aggregated effects of decisions made
by individual headteachers concerned wholly or mainly with the
impact on their own school development plan, budget and staffing."
The authors pointed out the contradiction with the Government's
CPD strategy, which aims to open up more scope for meeting teachers'
individual needs for professional development, "since heads
will understandably tend to allocate resources to improve their
school, rather than individuals or the wider system." (Soulsby
and Swain, 2003)
21. ATL believes that, combined, these are
pressures that suggest seriously that, unless there is specific
funding, any funds for CPD may get diverted away from teachers
in their early years or away from individual development which
could benefit not the school but the profession—both of
which will down-play the contribution professional development
makes to retention across the system.
22. ATL recommends that, as a contribution
to retention and to the wider benefits to the school system, funding
for the development of each teacher in the first five years is
ear-marked separately for every primary and special school and
that a substantial proportion of the funding should be for use
at the discretion of the individual teacher. Secondary schools
should be required to identify separately in their budgets the
funding allocated to teachers' CPD for those in the first five
years of teaching and make available a substantial proportion
for the discretionary use by the individual teacher.
The proposed website to support career progression
for teachers in the first five years of teaching.
23. ATL supports the development of a website
to inform teachers in the first five years of teaching of possible
career paths and of professional development opportunities. However,
we suggest that the DfES and CfBT, which has been commissioned
to design and create the website, maintain close contacts with
the likely users to ensure that it is attractive, user friendly,
and, above all, a good use of their time. We are less confident
of the ability of a website to audit a teacher's strengths and
weaknesses, to develop self-evaluation skills, and to identify
professional development needs. ATL has argued for the benefits
of, in effect, a careers service for teachers, since not all schools,
headteachers or team leaders have access to the full range of
career routes and opportunities. But we do not think that it will
contribute to retention if the DfES sees this as a cheap alternative
to enhancing the capacity of the profession to support less experienced
colleagues and providing the time for them to do so. It is widely
felt that such developments may motivate confident, aspiring and
extrinsically motivated young professionals, but may have less
to offer those who are motivated by the intrinsic challenges of
classroom teaching and the collegiality of working with their
professional colleagues.
24. Valuable though they may be, not everything
can be achieved by virtual activities and we would suggest that
the motivation and support that underpins morale and retention
is one thing that requires inter-personal skills and human qualities
in the real working environment. As the Audit Commission concludes
"the working environment must engage, enable and support
staff". ATL considers that it is precisely the working environment
that has the greatest effect upon the recruitment and retention
of secondary teachers. When it is unsupportive it can have a powerful
negative effect on those who would otherwise consider themselves
career professionals.
CAREER PROFESSIONALS
Management and the conditions in schools
25. ATL is fully appreciative that many
Government initiatives influence a school's environment. They
can impact upon workload, professional autonomy, the need for
retraining and the resources which each school has available to
alleviate pressures and to provide a positive environment for
teachers. The Ross and Hutchings report states that teachers are
leaving the profession because of frustrations about their professional
autonomy and the ability to be creative in their work. However,
it is also widely recognised that the "organisational culture"
of a school has a very significant effect on a teacher's sense
of well-being and on the opportunities for professional development,
both related to motivation and retention. Some of the characteristics
of such a culture are an atmosphere of trust, good communications,
recognition for good work, an emphasis on enhancing everyone's
confidence, supportive colleagues and encouraging professional
development. This is supported by the DfES's own strategy for
professional development. Yet poor people management persists,
notwithstanding the introduction of the NPQH and the work of the
National College for School Leadership.
26. We would argue that day-to-day management
has the greatest effect on the retention of career professionals,
as well as on their morale and productivity. We welcome the DfES
Research Report 336 Establishing the Current State of School
Leadership in England, (Earley et al, 2002) which provides
a relevant bench-mark. For example, the research established that
30% of secondary headteachers identified the standard "lead,
support and co-ordinate high quality professional development
for all staff, including your own personal and professional development"
as an area in which they would welcome further training and recommended
that leadership development programmes need to ensure that they
are paying sufficient attention to the management of interpersonal
relations and that a key component should include managing professional
development for others. We hope that the proposed revision of
the NPQH will see new opportunities for these issues to be remedied.
It is also clearly necessary to continue to promote positive approaches
to human resource management in schools.
27. We, therefore, conclude that:
The revision of the NPQH should look critically
at whether sufficient attention is paid to developing the skills
of human resource management, especially those skills which relate
to establishing a positive organisational culture and developing
and motivating professionals.
The DfES should continue to promote IIP and
quality systems which continue to put personnel development at
the centre of management.
Intelligent accountability
28. It has recently been suggested that
we need a new concept of "intelligent accountability".
ATL considers that not until accountability for teacher retention
is incorporated intelligently into the accountability structure
will there be qualitative changes to the negative experiences
which encourage teachers to look for alternative employment options.
Like the NQTS above we are now led to the view that the most common
area needing improvement is the tighter monitoring of school provision.
29. We, therefore, propose the following:
A key performance indicator for the DfES should
be to narrow the gap in the developmental capacity of school leaders
as demonstrated in, for example, Establishing the Current State
of School Leadership in England.
The DfES should incorporate into all its policies
the clear message that headteachers and governors are unreservedly
accountable for the continued development and career progression
of personnel and that this is a key issue in raising standards.
Accountability for all teacher development (pedagogic
and leadership) should be reported on by Ofsted.
Ofsted should comment on:
— Each school's provision of CPD for
teachers in their first five years of teaching, in secondary schools
this should include provision for subject support and development.
— The level of the school's involvement
in educational research; networked learning communities; international
opportunities and with higher education institutions and subject
associations.
— The extent to which the school's
self-evaluation had honestly evaluated the conditions in the school
which support a positive working environment.
Headteachers should be able to demonstrate that
all staff have been consulted on the School Improvement Plan and
its implications for professional development.
Headteachers should be required to report to
the governing body on the programme of support for each teacher
in the first five years of teaching and on why any teacher fails
to succeed against the Performance Threshold Standards.
The missing generation
30. The Ross and Hutchings report identifies
the retention of this "missing generation" of teachers
in their thirties and early forties as the issue which may prove
more intractable. We agree with this report that the retention
of those who are in this cohort is critically important, since
they form the principal pool from which future professional leaders
and managers will be drawn. ATL has cautioned the DfES against
policies such as the professional bursaries, which we applaud
in principle as a motivating and imaginative scheme, but which
are not available to teachers later in their careers. There are
severe dangers in providing new and individualised opportunities
for those in the first five years of teaching, but leaving this
missing generation to the vagaries of the decisions school management
makes about the allocation of resources for professional development.
Once again we would argue for funding, for sabbaticals, secondments,
international opportunities, research scholarships, and for individually
determined development opportunities, which is open for application
by the individual teacher and not under the control of the school.
It will also be necessary to incentivise training for middle management
and leadership and to ensure that is it compatible with a reasonable
work/life balance and for those with family and other responsibilities.
The emphasis on subject specialism
31. We believe that these proposals have
the potential to encourage retention in the secondary sector.
ATL welcomes the DfES consultation of Subject Specialism. We support
the proposals for National Centres of Excellence, linking teachers
with higher education institutions, although we consider that
the concept should be extended to all subject areas and not only
science and mathematics. We agree that subject associations, too,
have a key role to play. However, our members value above all
the independence and autonomy of their subject associations and
the extent to which they maintain the integrity and values base
of their area of specialism. We believe there could be an adverse
effect on both the recruitment and retention of secondary teachers
if it appeared that the DfES was seeking to influence the subject
associations towards a centrally determined view of the subject,
curriculum materials, teaching methods or shared values. Secondary
teachers do indeed have a passion for their subject, which is
often what takes them into teaching, but to destabilise this "subject
professionalism" will adversely influence their motivation
to enter and remain in school teaching.
CONCLUSION
32. The issue of attracting, developing
and retaining effective secondary teachers is central to the Government's
stated aim of raising standards and providing differentiated and
individualised opportunities for each young person. Central Government
initiatives, DfES implementation strategies, local education authorities,
school governing bodies and headteachers must all co-ordinate
to ensure that secondary teachers do not leave teaching because
of negative experiences. Teachers' experience of teaching must
match or exceed their expectations and this requires strategies
to ensure that the working environment does engage, enable and
support staff. This, and not a climate of constantly proving competence;
being regarded as under-trained and un-modern; and of inspection
and monitoring, is what is needed to secure recruitment and to
encourage retention.
REFERENCES
Audit Commission (2002) Recruitment and retention;
A public service workforce for the twenty-first century; Public
sector: Summary.
Earley, P et al (2002) Establishing
the Current State of School Leadership in England, DfES Research
Report 336.
Bubb, S et al (2003) Accountability
and responsibility: "Rogue" principals and the induction
of new teachers in England, Paper presented at AERA 2003,
Chicago, 25 April, 2003.
DfES (2003) The future of higher education
Cm 5735.
Ross, A and Hutchings, M (2003) Attracting,
Developing and Retaining Effective Teachers in the United Kingdom
and Northern Ireland: OECD Country Background Report, Institute
of Policy Studies in Education, London Metropolitan University,
March 2003.
Soulsby, D and Swain D (2003) A Report of
the Award-bearing INSET Scheme.
Totterdell , M et al Evaluation of the Effectiveness
of the Statutory Arrangements for the Induction of Newly Qualified
teachers DfES Research Report 338.
May 2003
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