January 30, 2018
Please see here the letter from Nick Gibb which was sent to all ITE providers yesterday.
To summarise, the key points are:
- ITE providers should recruit applicants who have the potential to be effective teachers post training;
- the ITE requirements will be changed so that providers will have to demonstrate what they are doing to maximise recruitment;
- ITE providers with apparently high rates of rejection will be subject to DfE scrutiny;
- the ‘open allocations/recruitment’ approach adopted for 2018/19 will also apply for 2019/20.
We are aware the contents of this letter will be causing some concern for our members who will want to continue to resist any lowering of quality. Our messages to the DfE have very strongly focused on the need to maintain high expectations and this will continue to be the case.
Basically the National decline in applicants is not the issue here, it’s all our fault for being so choosy about who we let into the profession and if we would just allow everyone who applies to have a training place, then all our problems would go away.