This year, the Welsh government is funding the salaries of around 350 newly qualified teachers (NQTs) up to the Easter break so they can “gain more classroom experience and confidence”.
This is at the same time as “providing additional capacity for schools to support learner recovery”.
Headteachers are keen to convince the Welsh government to provide the cash so that schools can keep these teachers until the end of the school year; they also want to see the scheme run again next year.
Since 2002, Scotland has, of course, been doing something similar. Here, the majority of newly qualified teachers take part in the Teacher Induction Scheme (TIS), which places them in a school for one year so they can become fully qualified.
The scheme was introduced in response to the McCrone report published in 2000. This week, we published an investigation looking back at the seminal deal that came out of the report. In a nutshell, the aim was to bring teachers in line with other professions in terms of pay but also in terms of training.
When it came to teacher probation, the McCrone inquiry found that some new teachers were taking over two years to become fully qualified and “teaching in a multiplicity of schools on a supply basis”. It described the situation they faced as ” little short of scandalous”.
Being assigned a post in a school following the successful competition of initial teacher education - as it is known in Scotland - was, therefore, a huge improvement, but there have been some noises in more recent times about a need to review the scheme, which is now two decades old.
For example, Ken Muir, former chief executive of the General Teaching Council for Scotland (GTCS), called for the scheme to be reviewed when he was still leading the teaching watchdog.
Muir, who retired from his GTCS post last year, pointed out that although it was “world-class”, one aspect that he felt could be improved was the scheme’s flexibility.
Most probationers take part in the TIS but a significant number - around 1,300 every year - find themselves on the “flexible route” into the profession, often because they are not in a position to take on a full-time job. Sometimes this is due to, for instance, caring commitments. For these probationers, not much has changed all these years later: they need to accrue at least 270 days’ teaching experience via supply and temporary contracts they secure themselves to gain full registration, rather than the 190 days of the Teacher Induction Scheme.
So, while the Teacher Induction Scheme is undoubtedly something Scotland should be proud of, arguably little has been done since 2002 to build on its success and innovation. In fact, it would be possible to argue the scheme has been chipped away at over the years, as opposed to enhanced.
The EIS teaching union’s Glasgow secretary, Susan Quinn, remembers the angry reaction from the profession when probationers started to be used to fill vacancies in schools - in the early days of the scheme when there was more money in the system, they were supernumerary.
It also used to be the case that the probationers on the scheme were expected to have roughly a third of the week out of class (30 per cent) so that they had time for professional learning, but that was later reduced to 20 per cent. Concerns have also been raised about the quality of mentoring that probationers receive following years of budget cuts.
In Wales, now that the government has funded jobs for NQTs so they have “a positive and structured start” to their careers, that will be tough to roll back on.
Staff absence rates as a result of Covid might come down, meaning fewer classes to cover, but the challenges schools face - from learning loss to wellbeing - remain acute as a result of the pandemic. In Wales, the situation is further complicated by the fact that, as of September, primary schools and some secondaries will begin introducing the new curriculum, Curriculum for Wales. If ever there was a time for more hands on deck in Wales, it is now.
So it might not be too long until Wales is running its own version of the Teacher Induction Scheme - and if NQTs continue to be in addition to a school’s core staffing, it will be Scotland looking on with envy.
That is, of course, unless the Scottish government finally decides to build on and truly enhance the groundbreaking scheme introduced 20 years ago.
