Education CommitteeWritten evidence submitted by Association of Teachers and Lecturers

ATL and Education Policy

1. ATL, as a leading education union, recognises the link between education policy and our members’ conditions of employment. ATL champions good practice and believes that teachers as professionals must be recognised for their knowledge, expertise and judgement, at the level of the individual pupil and in articulating the role of education in increasing social justice.

School Direct (SD)
School Capacity

2. Members and staff in schools where School Direct already operates already describe their schools facing the “constant challenge of capacity”,1 including the organisational role of setting up the supporting infrastructure needed.2 SD requires significant investment in the professional development of staff mentors who fulfil a key role. It also requires adjustments to the workload of staff to support their access to continuing professional development (CPD) so that they can better support the learning and experience of SD trainees.

Expectations

3. ATL is concerned that there is a mismatch between trainees’ expectations and what schools can realistically deliver. The DfE’s website tells potential applicants that “your school…will have a job in mind just for you” yet leaders in SD schools are clear that “there’s no guarantee of a job for School Direct trainees”.3 If schools do meet these expectations of a job, then many will soon reach their capacity to take on new trainees. It also risks schools taking on their trainees on short-term contracts leading to less stability/continuity for children and wastage in terms of teachers having no jobs to go on to.

Impact on HEIs

4. While HEIs have worked hard to support SD programmes in their linked schools, they have suffered from the DfE’s single-minded emphasis on the SD route, to the detriment of HEI routes. With places re-allocated to the SD programme, HEI allocations have shrunk, resulting in the reduction of HEI courses. This has particularly affected the range of courses which HEIs have been able to offer.

Evidence and Evaluation

5. ATL is concerned, that as with many of the recent education programmes, there has been insufficient evaluation of the programme with little review of evidence from the pilot stage; instead, the pilot has been immediately proceeded by a large-scale rollout of the programme. This is now compounded by a lack of proper monitoring around current SD recruitment. Unlike HEIs, there is no requirement on SD providers to inform the DfE of their recruitment figures and no incentive to keep those figures up to date. On figures that currently exist,4 there is concern at the increasing probability of a shortfall in trainee numbers with the inevitable impact this will have on teacher supply numbers in the year ahead.

Risks of a School Based Approach

6. As ATL stated in our earlier submission to the Select Committee,5 ATL members are concerned that an imbalance in ITE provision towards classroom based training will undermine efforts to expand professional learning on child development and SEN, which involves deeper-level theoretical understanding. Classroom-based training without appropriate/sufficient HEI input, will be limited to direct experience, potentially only in one school, thus limiting students’ range of learning, understanding and experience. There is also the risk that some SD school leaders will be involved with SD “to ensure recruits who understand our school”:6 but will this produce recruits who understand teaching and learning in different school contexts? Training needs to ensure transferability of approach, understanding and skills to ensure a high-quality profession.

High Quality ITE

7. Initial teacher education needs to provide students with a good grounding in subject pedagogy, child development, understanding pupil behaviour, SEN, early stage approaches, assessment which supports learning. It needs to be based on evidence and encourage critical and reflective practice. These needs must be met by all ITE routes and we are concerned that an overemphasis on the school route places a huge burden on a system which must also focus on the education of children and young people.

Proposed College of Teaching
Teacher Professionalism and Agency

8. ATL strongly supports the vision for a new professional body for teachers with the aim that this will drive forward a more positive view of teacher professionalism. Teacher agency is a key part of this view and therefore we believe that such a body should be independent and member-driven and we welcome the vision set out in the recent College of Teaching proposals. Further, ATL also supports a vision for the College which extends that professional agency to key areas such as teacher standards and which works for policy and practice based on evidence rather than short-term, and politically-based ideology. In order for the College to have authority around key aspects of teaching and the role of teachers, it needs to be independent and should therefore be funded through membership fees and should support the qualification of teachers as a base standard for membership.

Teachers’ Professional Development

9. ATL supports the vision outlined for the College of Teaching which promotes the professional career-long development of teachers. We believe that teachers should have access to a framework of teacher professionalism which builds on the foundations of teachers’ initial professional education and recognises life long professional development. A teachers’ professional body should have a strong element of CPD within its remit; as a promoter of CPD quality and to promote teachers’ access to, and opportunities for, high-quality CPD. ATL also strongly supports mentoring as a professional vehicle for reflection and development and thus agrees with the proposed College of Teaching’s model of development which includes the provision of guidelines and training for mentoring.

Influence and Representation

10. ATL believes that a College of Teaching should be a proponent of evidence based practice, seeking to advise policy-makers on the results, whether in areas of teaching practice, ITE, curriculum, assessment, inspection, teaching pupils with SEN etc. To build its evidence base, and indeed its influence, it should base its work on partnerships and networks, with professional unions, subject associations, HEIs etc. and directly with the profession itself. The governance structure of a professional body for teachers should also reflect the range of evidence and influence it hopes to capture; covering the primary, secondary, SEN, independent, FE and Early Years sectors.

Conclusion

11. ATL and AMiE (ATL’s leadership section) are concerned that the teaching profession is facing increasing challenges including the undermining of the QTS status and a risk to initial training routes with likely impact on future teacher numbers. SD must be reviewed with urgency to assess its impact on ITE. ATL are also submitting a separate response to the Select Committee regarding SD recruitment. ATL strongly supports the vision of a College of Teaching which will provide teachers with an independent voice and agency to promote a qualified and evidence driven teaching profession.

July 2013