Memorandum submitted by Professor Andy Goodwyn,
Head of Education, University of Reading

Summary

Consultation with colleagues is clear that the document itself can only be a summary.

Key points

1. There is a well established evidence base which informs both ITT, PPD and CPD, and an ongoing research tradition which is extending and refining that knowledge. However there is a clear need for more longitudinal research that might establish the effective impact of different models of ITT over considerable periods of time. There is also a need to develop more evidence about highly effective models of teaching, for example critical examinations of Advanced Skills Teachers and the relatively new, 'Excellent teacher'. Although the body of evidence accumulated by Ofsted was never made publically available, the revised models of Ofsted inspection will reduce observations of teaching and there is an argument for replacing this archive with another form of cumulative observation of good teaching.

2. Whatever the benefits of the combined accountability measures of TDA standards and Ofsted Inspections, one outcome has been to steadily and markedly reduce autonomy and innovation in ITT. As well as narrowing the experience of trainees this has made ITT a much less attractive career and the overloading of the training year has reduced the capacity of many University departments to develop the research skills of their junior staff. This depletion of research capacity does not sit well with the aspiration to make teaching a more evidence based profession or with the extreme pressure on major Universities to engage in RAE type research. Underlying all these issues is the clear concern that there is too much emphasis on 'training' and not sufficient attention to 'education and development'.

3. The introduction of Standards to ITT was overall a success and strengthened professional knowledge about the development of trainee teachers. Equally the extension of standards into the NQT year and the modest recognition of the need to provide NQTs with a slightly reduced timetable have been positive developments. The Early Career Development Profile is a useful bridge between ITT and NQT status, but might be usefully extended in scope. There is an argument to suggest that a two year model of ITT might be a more coherent approach to early development and that the traditional PGCE/GTP year is massively overloaded and that the concept of teacher development should be seen as much more of a continuum. Investment in teachers throughout the first five years of their careers might be hugely beneficial. The emphasis on 'M' level work within the PGCE has been very effective and various innovative schemes have developed to build on this work to provide full Masters opportunities. The introduction of the concept of an MTL has much potential but the current model being piloted is highly problematic and endangers the future of current well established and highly effective Masters level provision. Such a fundamentally important development needs a very substantial period of piloting and revision before it is embedded in the profession.

4. ITT providers have evolved sophisticated and well evidenced criteria for selecting trainees with the appropriate characteristics to become good teachers. Providers expend huge efforts on the selection and interview process and this is highly effective in ensuring that the great majority of trainees enter the profession successfully; more recognition of this resource intensive process would be helpful.

5. Current entry requirements are generally sound although there can be too narrow an emphasis on a 2:1 level of achievement through traditional study. These figures are too often used in a League Table manner and can hamper providers from selecting candidates from less traditional and culturally diverse backgrounds. The value of the three ITT tests in Numeracy, Literacy and ICT and the time devoted to passing them is very questionable. It would be far more appropriate for providers to determine whether trainees need such tests.

6. The intense pressure of the ITT year does not allow some trainees to develop at a sensibly slower pace than others, this is especially true for less 'traditional' students and trainees in shortage subject areas. Equally, there should be more recognition that the filtering out of some trainees is a necessary and positive outcome and not a failure on the part of a provider. The introduction in shortage areas of Subject Knowledge Enhancement programmes is a major step forward for increasing recruitment and for enabling more mature candidates to reach appropriate levels of subject knowledge before beginning and ITT course.

7. The TDA has become a much more responsive and collaborative agency in the last few years and this is a very welcome reorientation.

8. The constant changing of allocations, however reasonable at national level, has been highly problematic at institutional level. For example offering a strong secondary PGCE programme covering all, or almost all, secondary subjects, provides an excellent training environment for trainees. If numbers in certain areas are drastically reduced this makes maintaining such provision highly problematic and may lead to permanent loss that cannot easily be reintroduced when allocations are increased. Such a loss of expertise can also reduce the opportunities for in-service teachers to undertake relevant CPD and Masters opportunities.

9. The PGCE style route remains the most important and durable route into teaching and maintains the concept of teaching as a graduate style profession on a par with other professional careers. The GTP has begun to develop into a valuable alternative, with some parity to PGCE, but should remain a minority route. It is an area where more autonomy for providers might lead to more innovation and to attracting a more diverse population into teaching. More flexible and distance learning routes are valuable for filling gaps in provision and for a small minority of trainees but they are difficult to quality assure.

10. Current measures are valuable but not adequate for long term change; at least some of these issues are culturally systemic and might only be rectified if a number of features made teaching more comparable in pay and conditions to professions such as Medicine and Law. More emphasis should be made on high status roles such as ASTs and Excellent teachers rather than over emphasizing Leadership [which can only ever be a tiny minority of teachers]. Much more research needs to be done into the ways and means that can be adopted first to attract and then to retain 'minority' populations, this is acutely the case for men entering primary teaching. Providers should be given much more creative flexibility to try new approaches and the necessary experimental nature of such innovation should be supported and not restricted by compliance issues. The 'Fast Track' experiment, in ITT, was an example of a reform that might well have had a significant long term impact but was not sustained.

11. Existing ITT provision is very effective in preparing trainees for all four phases but the training year is overloaded to such an extent that trainees and schools expect too much competence on too many dimensions. The induction period into teaching should be conceptualized as a 5 year period in which trainees will develop real expertise; this is especially true in relation to understanding the special needs of students and to developing really effective classroom competences especially in more challenging schools. Trainees can neither develop deep understandings of the special needs of students in one year, nor on the basis of 24 weeks of school experience of only two schools. That trainees could be fully trained in this respect is not only an unrealistic expectation, but a profoundly misleading one. Equally, the behavioural, and other social and pastoral, issues related to schools in challenging circumstances, cannot be 'understood' through one ITT programme. This fact does not reflect negatively on the trainee, the ITT programme, or the school itself. The introduction of an early career MTL into the first 5 years of teaching might allow some reduction in the 'front loading' of ITT and more opportunities for teachers to develop more resilient and robust understandings of generic teaching competences.

12. The current system is over-prescribed and dominated by notions of 'compliance', this is not an innovative culture. The very 'high stakes' nature of inspection and the quantitative measurement of trainee 'outcomes' make provision very conformist. Individual, and groups of providers, should be encouraged to pilot and develop new models of teacher training. When the curriculum in all phases has been substantially revised, when the 14-19 agenda is moving forward and when the 'Every Child Matters' agenda is having impact, it would be an excellent time to empower providers to offer trainees much more choice and diversity. The recent encouragement to give trainees experiences in setting other than traditional schools is an excellent example of how courses can 'add value'. Opportunities for more international exchange would also be extremely beneficial to ITT trainees [and tutors]. The move for Ofsted inspection to become chiefly a self-evaluation exercise is welcomed and offers an excellent opportunity for providers to be asked to demonstrate innovation and to evaluate its outcome.

13. Higher Education remains absolutely fundamental to the development of the teaching profession and to steadily improving the evidence base, through continuous research, of what makes for effective teaching and learning. Tried and tested qualifications such as the PGCE add very considerable status and academic credibility to the teaching profession. The embedding of high quality ITT within an HE setting provides a very distinctive quality to trainees' experience. HE involvement in ITT has remained one stable and enabling element in the education system within a context of continuous and often questionable 'reforms' within, and to, the school system.

14. Overall the development of partnership, especially between substantial HEIs and groups of schools has become well established and has developed a shared culture of mutual understanding, in this sense it is sustainable. It would be beneficial if the responsibilities of partnership were more equally shared by schools, which are under no obligation to be in a Partnership.

15. There is unquestionably a demographic crisis facing providers of ITT as many senior colleagues retire and as the attractiveness of a career in ITT continues to diminish. It is vital here to view ITT as one element within an Education Department's remit especially when considering the skills of an ITT workforce. A career in ITT is attractive because of the balance that individuals can achieve between ITT, Masters level work, PhD supervision and professional research. It is also significant to stress the national importance of attracting international students to HEIs. Any review of ITT must place it within this much broader context. This context includes the national and international significance of educational research. One element is the development of an evidence base for ITT itself, another is research about student's learning which, when infused into ITT by knowledgeable tutors, directly impacts on the quality of trainees' understanding. Fundamentally it is more important to see research skills as a necessary element for an ITT tutor working with the teaching profession at all stages, including Masters as a minimum for all teachers. It is axiomatic that ITT needs to attract highly talented people who can inspire and develop future generations of teachers. A career in ITT needs status and significance and it needs an induction period just as teaching does. The practice of consistently employing sessional staff with plenty of school experience [but little else] does not build any long term capacity and steadily erodes the knowledge base of Education as a discipline. There is an increasingly powerful case that ITT needs a more structured and resourced approach to the early career development of ITT tutors, especially as they are likely to have spent a number of years in schools to gain practical experience. It is also clear that school based colleagues involved with ITT trainees, need frequent opportunities to improve their skills and refresh their knowledge, this places a considerable resource burden on providers.

16. The TDA model of three year cycles of PPD provision has been problematic but has ensured the provision of a reasonable number of Masters level places for a modest number of teachers. Many HEIs have developed imaginative schemes to enhance the 'M' level achievements of their former trainees and of those from other institutions; this is partly because there is more autonomy and flexibility at Masters level compared to ITT.

17. The provision of CPD remains entirely 'patchy'. The current market forces model does not provide all teachers with much access to regular CPD opportunities. The 5 in-service days are typically as good as the quality of the school and its leadership, this inevitably varies enormously, and therefore an NQT [as do all teachers] needs access to more quality assured provision. The role of LAs is equally variable, with their size and resourcing equally so. The introduction of Standards for serving teachers suggests that they must individually account for their own CPD and this is a welcome emphasis putting teaching on more of a par with comparable professions. However it is not clear how individual teachers can access CPD on an equitable and properly resourced basis. There is also a problematic gap between single day, 'one off' CPD events and the sustained commitment to a part-time Masters over several years. The introduction of an MTL [discussed below] will never replace the need for ongoing CPD. The simple example of the rapidly changing role of ICT highlights how continuously teachers must enhance their skills. There is a strong argument for a more developed and less market forces style model of CPD with a stronger role for LAs and for HEIs, appropriately tasked and incentivized to produce high quality learning opportunities for teachers. Equally teachers need to be incentivized and provided with a reasonable level of opportunity to undertake CPD during working time and not in twilight time. It is highly ironic that teachers, charged with being role models of learning, have so little opportunity within their work time to undertake learning themselves. It is vital that a balance is struck between the needs of the system and schools and the development of individual, extended professionals. Serving teachers who are expected to take responsibility for their CPD must be able to exercise their judgment not only on what is simplistically 'needed' but what is also refreshing and challenging; sustaining enthusiasm and energy in teaching over many years requires stimulation and reinvigoration.

18. The current, TDA operated, system for tracking the impact and spending on PPD provision is a mechanistic and somewhat flawed model. The use of the term impact is part of the problem as it conceptualizes a simplistic cause/effect outcome. The benefits of undertaking a Masters programme, over several years, include developing a great deal more knowledge and understanding and are better understood as enhancing capability and capacity for further learning.

19. CPD, as discussed above, could not currently be genuinely evaluated. The typical 'tick list' model of evaluation at the end of a day's course is more likely to focus on the quality of the lunch than the learning and its subsequent impact. Some variability in the perception of impact is normal and can be anticipated. Variability also allows for innovation and challenge rather than conformity and mere uniformity. The impact of CPD might be better judged by combining samples of teachers own perceptions, those of CPD providers and some sampling by trained evaluators, not inspectors i.e. professionals who might certainly evaluate and feedback to providers, but whose job is to identify the characteristics of good CPD for the benefit of the system generally.

20. The potential introduction of an MTL for all teachers may well be a hugely significant and valuable development with considerable impact on ITT. The current proposals are very unlikely to meet this expectation. As the proposed model is neither fixed nor clear but there are strong emergent characteristics then the following points must be stated:

20.1 Making teacher a Masters level profession is entirely welcome and would benefit ITT in the long run as teachers become more knowledgeable about their practice and more able to explain it to colleagues;

20.2 It can make teaching a more attractive career and raise the status of the profession;

20.3 In order to accomplish points 1 and 2, it must be genuinely comparable to existing Masters in all respects and to be validated by reputable Universities as are all current Masters;

20.4 It must be taught and assessed by suitably qualified tutors who have credibility and comparability with tutors on all Masters programmes;

20.5 It must be an entitlement with sufficient flexibility to acknowledge the autonomy of busy professionals;

20.6 It must be recognized that such a generic qualification will not replace more specialist masters, e.g. a module in Special Needs within and MTL is not the same as a Masters in Special Needs;

20.7 An MTL, especially if targeted at early career teachers, should enable them to undertake further CPD and PPD and therefore is not a 'finishing school' model.

January 2009