Education CommitteeWritten evidence submitted by the University of Wolverhampton
Executive Summary
The University of Wolverhampton works in close partnership with schools and colleges to ensure we meet their needs. Our postgraduate teacher training programmes are primarily school based.
We value the multiple routes into the teaching profession, and support School Direct as one of those routes.
We believe that the rapid expansion of School Direct has been insufficiently planned and executed by the NCTL and moving to one sole route of entry to postgraduate teaching training could lead to a significant shortfall in teacher supply.
Many schools within our region have with withdrawn their offer for School Direct places due to the financial short-fall they will face. This is particularly the case for primary schools.
It is our experience that many of our partner schools are reluctant to engage more fully in ITT because they need to focus on other areas, such as school improvement. They do not want to take a lead role on teacher training and prefer to work with us on our more traditional ITT routes.
1. The University of Wolverhampton values the multiple routes into the teaching profession which enable the University and partners to find the appropriate training programme based on trainee teachers’ needs. We would encourage that these multiple routes into the teaching profession are maintained.
2. The University fully supports collaborative arrangements in the training of teachers with partnership schools and colleges; it is something that we have done for many years. Our postgraduate teacher training programmes typically comprise 120 days of school based training and 60 days centre based training (normally HEI based but often in other educational settings). In essence our postgraduate programmes are very much school based as are similar programmes in HEIs in England. Our partnerships are central to the work that we do in order to meet schools’ and colleges’ needs, so that we provide the very best trained teachers for children, young people and adult learners.
3. To further enhance our school and college partnerships, the University established a Teacher Education Advisory Group (TEAG) in May 2012 chaired by the head of an outstanding secondary school and designated teaching school. TEAG comprises head teachers from outstanding schools, designated teaching schools and college leaders from our region and where we meet teacher supply needs. TEAG supports, challenges and advises on ITT matters and was identified as a significant strength of the University’s partnership in our March 2013 Ofsted inspection.
4. In September 2012 the University seconded an experienced ITT colleague to the Orchard Teaching School Alliance to support the development of the six teaching school foci and with a particular brief to develop ITT, school to school support and continuing professional development. This has been very successful and was highlighted as outstanding practice in the Universities Council for the Education of Teachers (UCET) annual report 2012. The University is also at the forefront of partnership development with special schools and pupil referral units (PRU) as part of a project with the National College for Teaching and Leadership (NCTL) with a major focus on behaviour management. These partnerships are having significant impact on the quality of our training as reported by Ofsted in March 2013.
5. The rapid expansion of the School Direct programme, salaried and training routes, has been insufficiently planned and executed by NCTL, as recognised by UCET. It is the University’s view that an expansion on a scale that seeks to move toward a sole route for postgraduate teacher training has not been sufficiently thought through or evaluated. The consequence of having a sole route for teacher training is a reduction in the choice of training routes for our partnership schools and colleges which threatens teacher supply for the Black Country region in which we serve. The current success of our ITT routes is demonstrated through the very high retention and employment rates achieved in our regional partnership of schools, with employment rates currently standing at circa 98%.
6. NCTL claim that the rapid expansion of School Direct reflects the demand for places from schools. It is correct that the demand for places from students has been high. The University of Wolverhampton has received to date in excess of 2,400 applications for 90 places allocated to us through School Direct. However the quality of applications has been relatively poor and many of the applicants have not met the necessary ITT requirements for entry and we are experiencing difficulty meeting target numbers. Moreover applicants and schools have been insufficiently briefed by the NCTL regarding funding and criteria for applications, both of which have also been changed halfway through the academic year. Some schools and applicants have assumed that School Direct is the only route into teaching, possibly stimulated by the aggressive marketing of this through the media and by NCTL contacting live applicants to core ITT places through personal e-mail accounts.
7. The University of Wolverhampton is working hard to recruit and select the very best applicants for School Direct with partner schools and colleges, however this process is not without its problems, not least the administrative time and resource involved when a number of interested parties are collectively involved in the process.
8. Clearly there is a lack of understanding from schools of what each route into teaching comprises. Our experience has shown that a number of schools who originally requested School Direct salaried places have withdrawn their offer once they have realised that they will have a financial shortfall per trainee: this shortfall is normally around £6,000 per trainee. Primary schools in particular cannot afford the “on costs” and many have transferred to the School Direct tuition route or withdrawn their offer altogether.
9. School Direct has quite rightly given schools the autonomy to devise bespoke training programmes but this does not always fit well with providers who are working with multiple partners, quality assurance becomes difficult to guarantee and providers are reticent to relinquish proven programme design when they are answerable to Ofsted. In short, schools have been given increased autonomy without accountability.
10. The University of Wolverhampton works within a region of circa 15 local authorities, some in very challenging socio-economic areas and particularly our partnership schools in the Black Country. Many of our partner schools are reluctant to engage more fully in ITT due to their focus on school improvement and many schools are struggling to reach national benchmarks. Consequently a number of our partner schools are “comfortable” working with us on our traditional ITT programmes and do not wish to take a lead role in training future teachers.
July 2013