The Future of Initial Teacher Training: How can we attract more people to the teaching profession and support school-based ITT providers to deliver high-quality training?, NASBTT’s manifesto for change, is a welcome position paper for the sector to debate and discuss to help formulate solutions to the many issues facing school-based teacher training organisations.
The challenges to the dependable supply of high-quality new teachers have been recognised and debated within our provider networks for years, but this manifesto gives both clarity and a voice to these many shared concerns.
The financial support for trainee teachers during their training has always been an inhibitor to the accessibility and feasibility of training to be a teacher for those wanting to train in a range of secondary subjects, but also importantly in the primary age range. For those subjects with low and zero bursary, society is asking graduates to take on further debt to enter the public sector for the benefit of the whole of society.
A minimum bursary payable to all when they start their teacher training programme, with enhancements for harder to recruit subjects combined with tuition fees that are written off over the first 10 years of service would make training to be a teacher more attractive for graduates. Removing the fear of additional debt from prospective trainee teachers, when graduates in other industries can progress through professional learning pathways in other careers without this additional burden, would be very welcome.
The other area that I want to focus on in NASBTT’s manifesto is the request for a formalised and funded Teacher Professional Development Lead within each school. I have been in education long enough to remember the Advanced Skills Teacher posts that had funded release time within each Local Education Authority (LEA) area. In my earlier career I applied for this recognised professional status, secured it, and was inwardly deployed by our local authority to improve the retention of NQTs within the school. This was seen as a way in which the staffing could be stabilised and retained before any school improvement work could be initiated. This type of role protected five hours per week to support the development of NQTs and their mentors via a direct grant to the school for the LEA. This is a direct investment in the training and retaining of trainee and early career teachers which can go some way to ease the “current” crisis we have been in for decades now.
This funded role would then be able to add capacity in schools to navigate the liminal space between ITT providers that the school partners with and the internal staffing of the school. Adding this capacity would then enable those professional development leads to support the design, delivery and implementation of the Intensive Training and Practice (ITaP) elements as well as support the development of expert mentoring within their school.
As a sector, we are now looking to this new Government to show that they are listening to us, and they have both the courage and imagination to make the changes that are needed to secure the future teaching workforce that our country needs. Keeping to the status quo is not going to deliver the robust and reliable supply of new teachers that the country needs.
Economic growth depends on a skilled and responsive workforce that originates in our schools but is developed in the Further and Higher Education sectors. If we are to produce the school-leavers that are ready for the next stage in their life, we need a teaching workforce that is happy, motivated and well-trained. A long-term workforce recruitment and retention strategy is desperately needed that makes teaching an attractive prospect for graduates to move in to.
To put it simply, without new teachers being trained and retained, we cannot collectively create all of the other professions and trades that our country and economy needs.
Over the last few years, the teacher training sector has been through a lot of turbulence, change and uncertainty. The language of the “market” has felt alien to many of us that lead the organisations that train each cohort of teachers to join the teaching workforce each year. ITT providers should be seen as part of the public service that works in the public interest of the whole of society.
Derek Boyle is SCITT Director at Bromley Schools’ Collegiate.