Education CommitteeWritten evidence submitted by the University of Oxford, Department of Education
Introduction
1. The Department of Education at the University of Oxford (OUDE) has an outstanding record both in educational research and in teacher education. In the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise, Oxford University was the only HEI to return all of its eligible staff to the Education Unit of Assessment and the work submitted was judged to be at the highest level of quality in the UK. The PGCE programme for intending secondary teachers in seven subjects was established as the groundbreaking internship scheme in the late 1980s and has influenced policy and practice in initial teacher education across the country and internationally. It is a school-based model of teacher education and is run by a partnership consisting of approximately thirty secondary schools and the Department. Its current Ofsted grading is “outstanding”.
School Direct
2. As longstanding supporters of school-based teacher education, OUDE welcomes some aspects of the School Direct approach; however, there are also several aspects which give rise to concern and we set out both sides of our views in this submission.
3. We are currently working with two consortia of schools on the non-salaried SD scheme and are collaborating on recruiting up to 26 trainees for 2013
4. The major concern we have about SD is that the model of the teacher which underlies this version of a school-led approach is a limited and restricted one that understands teaching as a craft rather than as a profession. This model and its concomitant “apprenticeship” model of learning to teach were set out in the Government’s White Paper The Importance of Teaching. The model is in stark contrast to the understanding of the nature of teaching in the 21st Century that is being pursued elsewhere in the UK (eg in the Donaldson Report in Scotland) or in other nations where teaching quality has been recognised as outstanding. The prime example of this is Finland, where entry to teaching is through a programme of five years of study leading to a Master’s degree.
5. At OUDE our PGCE programme has been consistently underpinned by a research perspective and this is recognised by colleagues in schools as being an integral element of the approach which helps to ensure that, on qualification, teachers have developed the understanding and the skills through which to continue their professional development and learning in a systematic and rigorous way. While the SD model does not necessarily exclude these perspectives, there is clearly some risk that these dimensions of teacher preparation will be diminished.
6. On the other hand, it is certainly our intention to strengthen the research element in our programmes, including through our involvement in SD, not least through the introduction of an innovative Education Deanery model—a multi-layered approach to the creation of a professional learning community—between our Department, the wider University and a number of local schools. (At a local level, the Education Deanery shares many aspirations with the College of Teaching—see below.)
7. We have long experience of carrying out recruitment and selection of candidates for ITT in partnership with school staff. The SD model puts the school in the lead for these processes. So far, our experience of this has been satisfactory and many schools have been modelling their approach on their long experience of working with us over many years. We do have concerns, however, that as SD expands, there may be schools which do not have the capacity or experience to carry out these processes effectively.
8. There is a danger that the SD model will lead to beginning teachers having a limited professional experience during their training. This relates not only to the possibility of a reduction in the research underpinning to their learning but also to the reduction of the range of experience in their training. In our current approach to the PGCE, through our partnership with a very wide range of schools, we are able to ensure that every candidate has experience in different settings and can therefore understand the significance of school context and of different approaches taken in different schools.
9. There are also concerns about schools having less experience of marketing for this audience and lacking the resources to undertake effective broadcast marketing. There may not be staff available in schools during the key final recruitment period in late July and August and, perhaps most importantly, schools do not have the incentive to recruit to allocated places that HEI providers have had because they do not have dedicated staff working on ITE. There is also concern about the Government’s lack of intelligence about numbers recruited to SD and their apparently laissez-faire approach to national teacher supply.
10. The new allocations model for ITT places, whilst currently protecting HEI providers with top Ofsted grades, is bringing a new degree of volatility into education departments across the sector. There must be some concern that the accumulated professional experience and research quality that has been developed by many university departments over many years will be jeopardised through the instability brought into the sector through the new mechanisms.
College of Teaching
11. We would welcome the creation of a new College of Teaching that can act as a professional body for teachers. The members of the teaching profession in England have had too little opportunity to influence the development of the teaching community over many years, an opportunity that is available to many other professions in England and to teachers in many other jurisdictions.
12. Such a body could take on the future development of professional standards, and be responsible for maintaining those standards within the profession and for recognising their achievement through appropriately accrediting members.
13. The College should lead to the improvement of practice across the profession and ensure that intellectual and academic rigour prevails in the profession, in order to pursue the goals of providing a quality of education for all learners that is outstanding.
July 2013