Memorandum submitted by the British Educational Suppliers Association (BESA)

 

Please find attached the British Educational Suppliers Association's submission to the Children, Schools and Families Committee's Inquiry into Teacher Training.

 

The British Educational Suppliers Association (BESA) represents over 300 members: manufacturers and distributors of equipment, materials, books, consumables, furniture, technology, ICT hardware and digital content to the education sector. With a combined turnover of over £2 billion, BESA members supply both domestic and international education markets.

 

The BESA Policy Commission 2008, chaired by the Rt Hon Charles Clarke MP, consulted widely amongst practitioners and industry and has made several recommendations for future educational policy. Many of these recommendations concern improving initial teacher training (ITT) and continuing professional development (CPD), and these recommendations are discussed in more depth in our submission.

Summary

 

In this submission, we identify several points at which teacher training could be improved, and give recommendations for the future of initial teacher training (ITT), training for SENCOs, and continuing professional development (CPD):

· ITT should incorporate training in teaching resource availability and use, in order to better prepare teachers for modern teaching expectations.

· The work of SENCOs should be formalised and involve fuller training, in order to better support children with SEN.

· Teachers should be given the opportunity to gain systematic and truly 'professional' CPD throughout their careers, in order to keep their teaching up-to-date.

· Resource training should form a major strand of CPD, so that teachers are able to call on a diversity of resources to enhance their teaching.

 

 

 

Entry into the teaching profession

 

1. ITT and resource use

 

One area of ITT which we believe is currently overlooked is training in resource use. It is so often said that the tools used to support learning are second in importance only to the teachers who direct and facilitate that learning, but so many teachers emerge from ITT without adequate knowledge of the resources which exist or, in the case of many ICT-based resources, best practice of how they can be used to support and enliven their teaching. The BESA Policy Commission recommended that initial teacher training must include a greater emphasis on techniques to address modern product assessment.

 

 

2. ITT and special educational needs

 

2.1

In our opinion, ITT does not enable new teachers to give children with SEN the full range of support they may require. Nor should it devolve solely to the class teacher to supply this kind of support: BESA supports NASEN (National Association for Special Educational Needs) in its recommendations that all schools should have a SEN Coordinator (SENCO), and that these should be fully qualified teachers and a part of a schools' management team.

 

2.2

For too long SEN has been the 'Cinderella' area in many schools, and although much funding is available for SEN, this is often used elsewhere as it is not ring-fenced. The advantage of delegated funding is that early-intervention can be implemented at the schools level. The disadvantage of delegated funding is that the money is not ring-fenced and it is difficult to know whether it is being spent on SEN. Ofsted has found evidence that SEN budgets have been used for other 'priority' areas in schools. In 2006, the Education and Skills Select Committee considered the funding of SEN. Network 81 gave evidence:

 

'There is no ring-fencing of funding in any shape or form. In my particular school, we have over 60% on the SEN register and there is no ring-fencing of that money whatsoever from County. It could be spent on watering the garden or building a new tarmac playground. There is nothing to say where it has to go and there is nobody who comes to check. Ofsted do not check; nobody checks.'

2.3

Appropriate training, and an accredited career pathway for these SENCOs as professionals is essential if SEN is to be taken seriously and young people with SEN are to be helped appropriately. Accrediting these teachers is often difficult, so we would recommend a similar system to that in the USA for the nursing profession: that CPD at external events such as approved education exhibitions and CPD events be taken into account and documented. Such evidence should be used to inform performance management as well as qualifications.

 

2.4

This would assist these people in becoming more widely aware of the best of equipment and approaches, as well as instilling the best principles of best-value in school accounting. It would also stimulate a growing and highly-effective SEN marketplace, with growing trade links to other countries who are now recognising UK expertise in a range of areas of SEN.

 

 

CPD provision

 

3. The professionalisation of teaching and technological progress

 

3.1

The difficulty faced by the teaching profession in attaining true and systematic CPD has emerged as one of BESA's major concerns. The solutions to this issue are intimately tied up with the fundamental question of what we think the modern professional teacher should be able to do.

 

3.2

Our rate of technological progress is accelerating such that our tentative steps to update our education system lag behind in the accelerating race to change. Teachers, therefore, need constant preparation for change. Over the decades the teaching profession has been ill served by the roller coaster that has taken us between directed time and the workforce agreement. The teaching profession in the UK is now amongst the highest paid in Europe (OECD Report). The profession is attracting excellent new members. It is a profession of which we should be proud. With this in mind, it is important to make the description of 'profession' more meaningful through higher quality and more systematic CPD.

 

3.3

In most professions, initial training is constantly updated. Professional development is undertaken as a combination of courses and individual development: some paid for and in company time, and some undertaken without payment and in own time but with a view to career enhancement. So it should be for the teaching profession. Last year saw the NUT's 15 October press release arguing the case for schools to dedicate "sufficient time in the day" to ensure that school staff are given the support that they need so that they can make the most of technology.

 

3.4

The BESA Policy Commission made several recommendations on improving CPD and the professionalisation of teachers, which we would be happy to see the CSF Committee take forward. It recommended that a debate be started, perhaps led by the GTC, with the TDA and teacher professional associations as important stakeholders:

· To redefine what the modern professional teacher should be able to do, the conclusions of which should feed a modernisation of initial teacher training and a reassessment of teacher CPD,

· Accepting that more must be done to support teachers' development in the context of their schools' needs,

· Whilst establishing the career enhancing development which would be a personal commitment.

 

 

4. CPD and resource use

 

4.1

Following on from our recommendations for improving ITT through training in resource use, and our recommendation that all initial training be backed up and updated by a rigorous CPD framework, training in resource availability and use should continue throughout a teachers' professional life. In this way, teachers can continue to deliver the best possible teaching throughout their careers.

 

4.2

It is crucial to recognise the importance of a diversity of resources. Dry science (science delivered entirely through computer simulation) does not make good scientists: students need the full opportunity to experiment and explore, aided by technologies such as data-logging to make methods up to date, relevant and learning-time efficient. Across other phases of education the need for a variety of teaching aids and books is vital. Current Government thinking is that savings can be made by smarter procurement, in particular by aggregating purchases across a number of schools or wider. As the experience of BSF is beginning to demonstrate, where procurement of infrastructure is concerned, aggregation is possible and sensible, but only really effective where all the schools concerned have been involved in specifying the aggregated solution.

 

4.3

However, when it comes to the content, teaching aids and books for an individual class, these should properly be decided upon by the relevant teacher - choosing the right tools for their classes and individual students. By implication, aggregation of these classroom items is neither feasible nor desirable if maximum learning is to be achieved. Importantly, for both the input to aggregated specifications and for the teacher to make best value choices, a degree of expertise is required: the informed purchaser.

 

4.4

On this issue BESA has traditionally offered the major hands-on opportunities during the year, BETT and the Education Show, for teachers to see, test and compare products. Whilst some 10% of teachers do make use of these events each year, there would be tremendous value in facilitating a higher percentage to benefit from exposure to products and the CPD seminars which support the exhibitions. First-time visitors can also find BETT and the Education Show daunting because of their size, yet the large range is how we seek to deliver a comprehensive reflection of what is available to the market. It follows that the regularity of visits is important, building a broad understanding of the products that can support teaching and learning. Many BESA members offer free product and related pedagogical training. However, concerns are often expressed that schools are reluctant to support such training, often because of the cost of time. This is a false economy when it hinders a school from achieving best value from a purchased product or service.

 

4.5

The Policy Commission recommended the following steps to remedy this problem:

· The NPQH syllabus needs expanding to ensure that leaders are open to an understanding of innovative resources and approaches to achieving best value.

· Being up to date with an understanding of the resources that can support teaching in any given subject area should be an aspect of continuous professional development. Facilitating teacher visits to events such as BETT and the Education Show would support the CPD need in this area. Some professions eg nursing even use such events to accredit professional development over time.

· Schools should take more advantage of training provided by the educational supplies industry.

 

February 2009