Education CommitteeWritten evidence submitted by the University of Huddersfield

1. Introduction

1.1 This evidence is submitted by the School of Education and Professional Development at the University of Huddersfield. It should be noted that the University endorses the submission made by the Universities’ Council for the Education of Teachers.

2. Proposals for a College of Teaching

2.1 The University supports the proposal to establish a College of Teaching and considers that such a body would have the potential to play an important role in enhancing the professional status of teachers. It is recommended that the relationship of such a body to those teachers employed outside the school sector should be given careful consideration in the context of the articulation between Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) and the designation Qualified Teacher Learning and Skills (QTLS). This is particularly important in light of the continued concern to achieve parity of esteem for the vocational curriculum and associated awards.

2.2 There would be a need for coherence between the roles of the newly established Education and Training Foundation and the College of Teaching.

2.3 The College of Teaching would need to consider carefully the position of unqualified teachers. We recommend that the College should promote the principle that unqualified teachers should be required to seek training and to become qualified before they could be recognised by the College.

2.4 The accurate “tracking” of former trainees poses logistical problems to universities. The College could have an important role in maintaining a national register of qualified teachers that would record first appointments, the maintenance of “good standing” (including safeguarding issues), changes of employment and those leaving the profession. This register could usefully inform policy debates, educational research, institutional evaluations and Ofsted inspection.

3. School Direct

3.1 The University has established strong teacher training partnerships with both schools and colleges and values the contributions made by its partners who have a vital role in informing the curriculum and ensuring that trainee teachers are able to achieve the highest standards.

3.2 The expansion of School Direct provision has led to confusion regarding the routes to becoming a trained teacher for schools, teachers and prospective candidates. This appears to have had an impact on the overall quality and number of applications.

3.3 There have been several problems with the School Direct system:

3.3.1Primary school direct places are advertised on the website as “general primary”; this is insufficiently precise. Our early years and KS1 partners have had to process many applications aimed at KS2, which is not conducive to good working relations.

3.3.2The provision to apply for several School Direct, core and SCITT places at once has led to last minute withdrawal from interview procedures and in some cases from offers. This is extremely frustrating for schools and providers and will lead to unfilled allocations in September.

3.4 More fundamentally, School Direct has made it difficult for universities to plan future staffing requirements and to ensure the long-term maintenance of the expertise that has been built up, including subject specialist expertise and the capacity to undertake educational research. In particular, we fear that subject specialist expertise in areas such as Art, Business, Design Technology, Geography, History and Music will be lost given that trainees will be distributed in ways that do not align with designated expert practice.

3.5 Related to 3.4 above, consideration needs to be given to promoting the importance of higher level awards for teachers which are crucial to the continued professional development of serving teachers and to maintaining appropriate research-led expertise in universities to develop this.

3.6 Without repetition here, we would particularly reiterate the concerns expressed in paragraphs 5 to 9 inclusive of the submission made by UCET.

4. Other Current Issues

4.1 Since 1 September 2012 trainee teachers have been subject to a new policy regarding skills tests in numeracy and literacy. The application of this change to those trainees undertaking their training during 2012–13, the majority of whom applied for their places before the announcement of the new policy, is unfair and we wish to draw this specifically to the attention of the Committee.

July 2013