Supplementary memoranda submitted by

The National Association of School-Based Teacher Trainers

 

 

The National Association of School Based Teacher Trainers represents over sixty of the providers of Initial Teacher Training through school based mainstream or employment based routes. Its members are very concerned with the proposals announced regarding a six month training course. Our experience of the Graduate Teacher Programme, which would already allow suitable applicants to complete training within six months, is that only a handful of trainees are successful in this. Those who are invariably have a profile of significant school experience prior to undertaking the training. A number hope to complete in less than three terms but find that the deep understanding of subject pedagogy and the demonstration of real competence in all the standards is more challenging than originally envisaged.

 

Applications from high quality candidates: those with a burning desire to teach, a commitment to raising standards and a long held ambition to inspire and engage young people already show a healthy increase. Many in this category will be successful in changing careers, but experience shows that others, in thinking the teaching role is relatively straightforward, struggle with its unpredictability and the necessity to be able to move rapidly between high order thinking and more mundane activities. Integrating successfully into the collegiate, pragmatic and constantly evolving nature of classroom and staff room environments often proves very challenging. It is therefore unhealthy to allow potential applicants to believe that highly developed management and people skills gained in another workplace, together with excellent subject knowledge will accelerate the pace at which they acquire the skills to carry out the above. Successful teachers are both flexible and reflective and our members have noted that it takes time for individuals to adjust from a previously successful career into teaching, not least in being able to develop the sanguinity to be able to take advice and training from those with greater professional skills but less experience of life. Those who recognise that success in a previous profession is no guarantee of success often make the transition into teaching effectively, though it almost always takes more than 6 months. 

 

This organisation supports the provision of a number of distinctive routes leading to the provision of high quality teachers in schools already accessible to individuals wishing to change careers. Having worked hard to develop and maintain quality within this provision we seek to be convinced that the proposals will not diminish our ability to develop the intellectual, pedagogical and personal skills excellent teaching requires.

 

As school-based providers the recruitment and support of mentors would seem somewhat easier than for some university providers, principally because the schools with which we have links are fully supportive of a responsibility towards the sustainability of the profession as a whole. However, whilst the funding of release time can be found, even if with difficulty, pressures remain because teachers still carry the responsibility for the progress of their students even when the actual teaching is covered by supply. Preparation, Planning and Assessment time, especially for primary teachers, means that a teacher mentoring two trainees for an hour each a week is away from class for a whole day. The impact is somewhat less in the secondary sector, where it is possible to timetable mentoring time more effectively. Some school-based providers have successfully trialed 'mini-secondments' of mentors, so that job-share arrangements remove their class responsibilities whilst working with trainees. This organisation would also see that the opportunities mentoring provides for professional development through performance management will be a rich source of mentors, currently under-utilised. We must expect that mentoring will be more of a professional development stepping stone, undertaken for a few years mid-career by a high number of individuals, who might initially be less experienced than those currently holding mentoring positions. The professional development programmes provided by ITT providers will therefore need to be personalised, and offered at differentiated levels.

 

It seems essential that in recognising that all schools should have a responsibility for training the next generation, the time commitment of school staff is properly resourced, so that the work of 'teaching schools' closely resembles that of teaching hospitals. Whilst the public seem to accept that training the next generation of doctors requires trainees to have properly resourced professional support and access to real patients, the same understanding does not always apply to schools. Some schools use concerns over maintaining pupil progress and SATs results as reasons not to engage with ITT. That Ofsted does not, within school inspections, routinely comment on a school's commitment to ITT is a matter of great regret, as positive reporting on this would make the provision of quality experiences for trainees somewhat easier and contribute extensively to the sustainability of partnerships.

 

31 March 2009