As regular readers of this blog will know, I occasionally get a response from the DfE and, when I do, I publish it here. I thought things had gone quiet when suddenly I received this, which answers points made about teacher training and the Ebac. This comes from Pamela Kearns of the Ministerial and Public Communications Division. Although it is one of those generic replies you tend to get from government, Ms Kearns has at least got a sympathetic turn of phrase. She says...
I acknowledge and empathise with the two example cases that you have highlighted in your letter and I can appreciate how disheartening it must be for both these individuals not to be able to teach their chosen subjects and pursue their chosen career.
Initial Teacher Training continues to be a popular choice for the best graduates and experienced career changers. We expect to attract 35,000 new trainees to teaching each year from the brightest graduates and the most experienced career changers, of these places around 10,000 will come through our new school routes to teacher training. However the number of applications we receive always exceeds the number of places available. This year we expect competition to be very stringent for teacher training places with around twice the number of people applying than there are places available to train.
Well, ITT has always been competitive, ask anyone who's tried to get onto the GTP!
The Government wants to move increasingly towards a school led system of teacher training. This year the Teaching Agency has received strong demand for its School Direct places and allocated 9,500 places to just under 900 lead schools working with a partnership of schools. This shows a significant demand from schools that have the desire and capacity to take a head in the recruitment and training of their own trainee teachers. Around 400 additional schools have also registered an interest in future School Direct opportunities. But, as we have seen, it is this very fragmentation of ITT that is the difficulty; where you have fragmentation you have variation and some trainees will be well trained, others will not. This is why the system was centralised in the first place. Still, what goes around comes around...
In respect of your comments on the English Baccalueate (EBacc), it was introduced as a measure in 2011 to encourage schools to offer more pupils the opportunity to study towards GCSEs in a suite of core academic subjects (English, mathematics, the sciences, geography or history and a foreign language). It is designed to leave 20-30 per cent of time for the study of other subjects as part of a broad and balanced curriculum. However the EBacc was and is not a compulsory requirement on all pupils; there are no targets associated with the measure and schools remain free to offer the range of subjects they feel best suits their pupils.Yes, do note the last sentence - this is the new position forced on the Secretary of State by the Select Committee.
On 7 February the Secretary of State made a statement on the future of qualifications, school league tables and the national curriculum. The announced proposals for qualifications at the end of Key Stage 4 follow on from the consultation held last year and set out plans for a comprehensive reform of GCSEs across the full range of subjects.
The Secretary of State also announced consultations on the National Curriculum (which runs until 16 April 2013) and separately on a new accountability framework for secondary schools (running until 1 May). The latter proposes that we judge schools against a threshold attainment in English and maths, and on progress based on pupils’ average scores in a range of both EBacc and non-EBacc subjects. This approach will provide a strong incentive for schools to offer a broad and balanced curriculum to all their pupils, including the academic core of the EBacc as appropriate, and to ensure high standards of teaching in a wide range of subjects
We wait and see. It's the fragmentation problem again - Academies and Free Schools can be national curriculum free zones
So, there you have it. However, I have also had a reply to Jackboot and Bribery and its very brevity smells of an uncomfortable truth. More in a week.
Showing posts with label PGCE. Show all posts
Showing posts with label PGCE. Show all posts
Monday, 4 March 2013
Thursday, 7 February 2013
The great Teacher Training Cock up
I've been involved in teacher training for well over a decade. I have run a Training School with two ITT partners, I've been head of an ITT partnership school, I've interviewed and taught for an HE provider and I have tutored on the GTP for many years. As a headteacher I took the first GT in my local authority (with a 3-digit reference number!), in the days when the TTA were on the end of the phone for hours as we struggled to construct a Training Plan that worked and was manageable. In those far-off days the DfES and Ofsted looked at the mixed bag of provision for this new employment-based route and, a couple of years up the line decided that the variation made trainees' experiences inconsistent and risked badly trained teachers being given QTS. Whether this was right or not, it resulted in a move towards a sensible centralisation with training being in the hands of Accredited Recommending Bodies, working in partnership with schools. Since becoming independent, I have enjoyed working with a highly respected GTP provider and have had the privilege of training or assessing trainee teachers from early years to post-16 up and down the country.
The GTP worked well (is still working well for the remaining teachers on the programme) so why am I not surprised that the Secretary of State has determined to turn back the clock under the excuse of giving power back to schools. It would be okay if it worked but the best view so far is that it is an almighty cock-up. Indeed, stir in the added complication of the EBacc debacle and we have an unholy admixture of the usual Tory confusion and wrong-thinking that we have become used to from this incompetent administration. I could bang on for ages about this as it is a subject close to my heart Instead, I will illustrate what I mean by two real examples.
The first example is a successful police officer, now a detective, with a Masters degree. This officer is desperate to leave the police, where they feel they are not making the difference they joined up to make. They thought long and hard and decided that the future with the most promise is to be a teacher, where they can use their many skills to touch the lives of children and young people. As a good degree holder the logical point of entry was through Teach First. But is was not to be. Having a good degree and an MSc do not necessarily qualify the applicant for the programme if they are not directly related to teaching a subject - never mind that, in this case, they would suit a teacher of history, psychology, politics and citizenship. So, abandon Teach First and try Schools Direct. Lo, the same problem. So, with a solid determination, the individual turned to primary teaching and applied for Schools Direct places in primary settings. They did not make the cut the first time because, it seemed, the school had an existing TA they wanted to employ. Onto the next attempt The application was for one of five salaried places but the reality was that there was one salaried place and four with no salary. At the end of the process the candidate was told they had been unsuccessful and the headteacher gave the required feedback. During this the head said 'we couldn't understand why you would want to leave the police'. This is staggering!
Michael Gove made it quite clear that the PGCE would continue as a nonsalaried route into teaching for university leavers and via SCITTs while the Schools Direct programme was for career changers. So, here we have a young person, highly qualified and with all the skills and experience police training brings; just the sort of applicant that Gove would have had in mind. But the people in charge of the decisions - giving power back to schools - have missed the whole point. So, fingers crossed for the next attempt where, with any luck, the decision makers will have read the manual!
The second case is that of a person who, having had a successful career in car sales, was made redundant from a sales manager position for a major brand. Redundancy focuses the thinking, and they decided to become a teacher. Having no degree, they found an access course, completed it with distinction and got a place at Goldsmiths on their Secondary DT programme. This has been very successful and, from September, they will have a post in a visionary school where engineering, design and technology matters. But, of course these subjects do not matter to the Secretary of State and have atrophied since they were excluded from the EBacc set of subjects. Consequently, training places are drying up and this excellent Goldsmiths course will be closing, with DT becoming a PGCE option.
These individuals are fine young people to be proud of, but what a time to be joining the teaching profession as the clock steadily unwinds to 1960.
The GTP worked well (is still working well for the remaining teachers on the programme) so why am I not surprised that the Secretary of State has determined to turn back the clock under the excuse of giving power back to schools. It would be okay if it worked but the best view so far is that it is an almighty cock-up. Indeed, stir in the added complication of the EBacc debacle and we have an unholy admixture of the usual Tory confusion and wrong-thinking that we have become used to from this incompetent administration. I could bang on for ages about this as it is a subject close to my heart Instead, I will illustrate what I mean by two real examples.
The first example is a successful police officer, now a detective, with a Masters degree. This officer is desperate to leave the police, where they feel they are not making the difference they joined up to make. They thought long and hard and decided that the future with the most promise is to be a teacher, where they can use their many skills to touch the lives of children and young people. As a good degree holder the logical point of entry was through Teach First. But is was not to be. Having a good degree and an MSc do not necessarily qualify the applicant for the programme if they are not directly related to teaching a subject - never mind that, in this case, they would suit a teacher of history, psychology, politics and citizenship. So, abandon Teach First and try Schools Direct. Lo, the same problem. So, with a solid determination, the individual turned to primary teaching and applied for Schools Direct places in primary settings. They did not make the cut the first time because, it seemed, the school had an existing TA they wanted to employ. Onto the next attempt The application was for one of five salaried places but the reality was that there was one salaried place and four with no salary. At the end of the process the candidate was told they had been unsuccessful and the headteacher gave the required feedback. During this the head said 'we couldn't understand why you would want to leave the police'. This is staggering!
Michael Gove made it quite clear that the PGCE would continue as a nonsalaried route into teaching for university leavers and via SCITTs while the Schools Direct programme was for career changers. So, here we have a young person, highly qualified and with all the skills and experience police training brings; just the sort of applicant that Gove would have had in mind. But the people in charge of the decisions - giving power back to schools - have missed the whole point. So, fingers crossed for the next attempt where, with any luck, the decision makers will have read the manual!
The second case is that of a person who, having had a successful career in car sales, was made redundant from a sales manager position for a major brand. Redundancy focuses the thinking, and they decided to become a teacher. Having no degree, they found an access course, completed it with distinction and got a place at Goldsmiths on their Secondary DT programme. This has been very successful and, from September, they will have a post in a visionary school where engineering, design and technology matters. But, of course these subjects do not matter to the Secretary of State and have atrophied since they were excluded from the EBacc set of subjects. Consequently, training places are drying up and this excellent Goldsmiths course will be closing, with DT becoming a PGCE option.
These individuals are fine young people to be proud of, but what a time to be joining the teaching profession as the clock steadily unwinds to 1960.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)