Education CommitteeFurther written evidence submitted by the National Union of Teachers
1. The National Union of Teachers (NUT) welcomes the opportunity to submit evidence to the Select Committee’s inquiry. The submission will consider the recruitment process from both the applicant and school perspective, in addition to its implications for the national supply of teachers.
Applicant Perspective
2. Currently the recruitment process for those wishing to train to be a teacher as part of School Direct is not user friendly and requires considerably more time and effort than the equivalent process for the PGCE route. First, applicants have to navigate the National College for Teaching and Leadership (NCTL) website and search for individual suitable schools which offer the subject or phase they are interested in. This is particularly difficult for those wishing to make a specific modern foreign language application, as the website search facility does not offer choices of language, so applicants must contact each lead school for information on which languages they are offering as part of their School Direct programme for that year.
3. Each school has different application deadlines and processes, just as they have differently structured training programmes. Not all of this information is readily available on school websites. Potential applicants therefore have to spend considerable time and effort in finding out basic information before deciding whether to make an application.
4. This compares poorly to the Graduate Teacher Training Registry (GTTR), which has a very straightforward and comprehensive search facility. For example, it covers all areas of the country, all types of courses and has filters which facilitate searches by type of course, including course requirements and part time/full time basis. Especially important is the filter which distinguishes between courses which lead to a professional graduate or postgraduate (PGCE) award: the significance of this is referred to only once on the School Direct website, in a general article on the programme, so applicants may be unaware that a School Direct place would not fulfil their requirements.
5. The NCTL website does include a list of providers, both commercial and Higher Education institutions (HEIs), with whom the school works. Sometimes schools work with more than one provider, particularly in relation to secondary specialist subjects. Applicants therefore have a considerable amount of research to do on the accredited provider element of their training, with the additional difficulty that different information and data is publically available for each type of provider, making comparisons between them problematic.
6. For training places advertised by Teaching Schools and other school partnerships, applicants do not necessarily know in which school they will actually be based. Not all lead schools include the contact details of the other schools in their partnership on the NCTL website. Lead and partner schools may or may not be geographically close, as extended or “virtual” school partnerships have been encouraged, especially outside the major conurbations.
7. A maximum of three applications can be made at any one time, compared to four via the GTTR for the PGCE route. Candidates have to submit a personal statement to support their application. The NCTL website offers an “application form assistant tool”, which it directs candidates to use. Unfortunately—and inexplicably—this is relevant only to those applying for PGCE places. In contrast, the GTTR website contains an extensive range of support materials for applicants, with telephone helpline back up. Unlike School Direct, GTTR registered applicants can use a tracking system to monitor the progress of their applications.
School Perspective
8. There is considerable bureaucracy involved in School Direct registration and application for places, which lead schools must undertake on behalf of all the schools in any form of ITT partnership. One of the most difficult aspects of the process is the ability to predict accurately future employment needs to determine the number and type of places to request, whether individually or across the partnership. The current arrangements give schools one month only to complete the process. There is no central mechanism for checking if schools’ predictions and requests for places are realistic. There is, however, little required from schools in the way of data submission on the recruitment process. Unlike providers registered through the GTTR, there are minimal data collection requirements. School Direct vacancies do not have to be regularly up-dated, for example.
9. Because of the flexibility inherent in School Direct, schools also have to come to agreement about a wide range of matters, all of which can be time consuming. Essential matters to research, discuss and agree upon include the type of training to be offered, whether to offer a PGCE or Masters level credits in addition to QTS; how much training schools will deliver themselves; and which accredited partner to work with. These decisions might relate to all courses to be offered or be made for each individual subject specialism. The lead school also has responsibility for checking the suitability and capability of partnership schools to participate in School Direct, including schools in special measures. This is another considerable burden placed on schools, which may also lead to significant variations in quality of provision offered.
10. As noted above, with so much variation and so little information available centrally, schools may find themselves bombarded with requests from potential applicants for information about various aspects of their School Direct offer. A cursory glance at web forums such as the Student Room and Times Educational Supplement show that many of this year’s applicants were frustrated by both lack of information posted on school websites and the amount of time it took schools to respond to their queries.
11. Schools are also responsible for promoting their own School Direct vacancies, which could entail considerable work and is not cost-neutral. It is interesting to note that, in the FAQ section of the NCTL website, it says that schools are not required to advertise posts externally, so it may be that some schools use recruitment methods which may not give all potential applicants equality of opportunity. Given the responsibility schools have for promotion, it is a little odd that the NCTL, which has responsibility for all ITT routes, should decide to email PGCE applicants registered with the GTTR this year and ask them to consider opting for School Direct instead.
12. The DfE has given schools involved in School Direct a clear message that they should focus on recruiting graduates with a 2:1 degree or above. Anecdotal evidence suggests that schools have taken this message seriously and have rejected applicants with lower degrees. Whilst important, degree classification is not the only or even best way to identify a potential good teacher—personal characteristics have a large part to play too. HEIs have always tended to look beyond degree classification when recruiting PGCE candidates: with the advent of School Direct, however, they may now find that only those with 2:2 or below degrees apply to them.
Implications of Current School Direct System
13. As expressed in our submission to the “Great Teachers” inquiry, although much has been made of the level of interest in School Direct, the DfE is unable to provide exact figures on recruitment, as it does not require schools to confirm places offered, unlike HEIs via the GTTR. It also seems unable to differentiate between multiple applications by applicants. It may be that there are significant vacancies in key subject areas which will be unknown until the new academic year starts, vacancies to which HEI-based PGCE courses could have recruited. This may subsequently lead to teacher shortages in some subjects/areas. It also makes any kind of national teacher supply modelling or planning impossible.
14. It is perhaps fortunate that School Direct was launched at a time when secondary pupil numbers are falling, thus mitigating demand for secondary subject specialist teachers. In the primary sector, however, pupil numbers are predicted to continue to rise until the end of the decade. It is extremely risky for the Government to seek to replace a system of ITT which worked with a new school-based model, where primary schools have the least capacity to train the quantity of new teachers needed in the sector.
July 2013