There’s been a welcome recognition in recent government literature of the need to strengthen training across the teaching profession.
In carrying out its market review of initial teacher training (ITT), and with the introduction of a two-year Early Career Framework (ECF) for new teachers and a revised suite of in-career professional qualifications, the Department for Education has set out to “create a world-class teacher development system that makes England the best place in the world to become a great teacher”.
No one would argue with this ambition.
Additional mentoring for trainees and new teachers in their first three years is a key new feature in ITT and the ECF, and it is a positive step (although, according to the headteachers I talk to, resourcing this adequately is another matter).
However, the standards of ITT will not rise significantly until the government accepts that 36 weeks of postgraduate ITT falls some way short of the time required to create “the best place in the world to become a great teacher”.
Improving teacher training
Even within the new 2024 ITT Quality Requirements, primary trainees will be lucky to receive more than one day’s training on each of the foundation subjects.
With only six hours or so of training in, for example, physical education or art and design, is it right to then expect trainees to fly solo teaching these subjects with a class the following year?
That’s not a slight on ITT providers - there’s just not the time to cover all subjects in any great depth.
At secondary level, many headteachers tell me that their new teachers are not adequately prepared to teach examination classes, because they have not learned the intricacies of teaching key stage 4 or KS5 syllabuses during their PGCE.
It was no different 25 years ago when I started teaching German.
I received no guidance on, for example, how to teach the subjunctive or the passive voice at A level or how to conduct a GCSE oral exam and ask the types of questions needed to draw out higher grade answers from students.
Then, in my NQT year, nobody had the time to take me through these gaps in my learning (or a host of other nuances), and so my examination classes got a raw deal while I worked it out for myself.
A lack of depth
In the training time available in postgraduate ITT, it is a struggle for providers to cover child psychology in the depth that should be expected to qualify as a teacher.
And if a new teacher does not understand how a child learns, or indeed what is happening to their brains and bodies throughout their childhood, can we really expect them to master, for example, behaviour management or adaptive teaching?
The introduction of the ECF is a response to new teachers requiring more training. And while the framework recognises the benefits of time and extra training, too many schools are not resourced to implement it properly.
Headteachers tell me that they don’t have the money and their staff don’t have the time (and, in some cases, expertise) to effectively mentor new teachers. Just like 25 years ago!
Teaching for Dummies?
If schools don’t have the capacity to continue training new teachers, some are turning to extreme measures to maintain some consistency in teaching.
In one multi-academy trust teachers are required to give a number of lessons through pre-set PowerPoints: a “Teaching for Dummies” approach. Is this what teaching now means to some school leaders - to robotically follow a recipe just to ensure that the “teaching” is consistent?
If we don’t trust that our teachers can teach - whether they are newly qualified or practitioners with 20-plus years - the important question is why?
And the answer, as it can for most questions about quality in teaching, can be found in the initial training they receive, and especially the time given to it. It is simply not enough.
In contemplating what it takes to provide the best training in the world, then, it is worth considering how world-leading institutions operate.
True expertise takes time
Take, for example, Norland College in Bath, which trains nannies for royal families and is regarded as the best of the best in this arena. It takes four years to qualify to become a Norland nanny (to include an undergraduate degree in early childhood and care), and trainees spend half of their time gaining practical experience in at least six different early years settings (that’s three times the number of settings than is required in teacher training).
The final year is spent in full-time employment as a nanny prior to receiving their Norland Diploma and the guarantee of a job with an average starting salary of £40,000. At over £16,000 a year, it certainly is not cheap to train at Norland College, but it is the price you pay to train to become “world-leading”.
Postgraduate trainee teachers will have at least a three-year degree under their belt, but the subject matter of the degree won’t necessarily relate to the phase or subject in which they are training to teach.
And even if it does, it’s one thing to know your subject but something else entirely to teach it to children of varying ages and abilities.
To that end, postgraduate trainee teachers should spend at least two years under the auspices of their ITT training provider, and a full Master’s degree should be integrated into the training.
Two years is sufficient time to cover the required subject knowledge for teaching in adequate depth, as well as topics including child psychology, special education needs and disabilities, adaptive teaching, behaviour management, assessment and more.
Training should be more than just survival
It will also provide the necessary time for trainee teachers to delve more deeply into teaching methodologies, research them and then question what is currently deemed to be “known”.
The world’s best teachers spend significant time engaging in and finding out more about certain subject topics and teaching methods, and spend even more time observing, discussing and practising to work out what works for them.
It is their devotion to mastery that sets them apart. A world-leading system would recognise this, and it would furnish the training provider with the tools and the time to ensure that trainee teachers will flourish.
What they have now, though, is just about the time needed to teach their trainees to survive.
Professor Geraint Jones is the executive director and associate pro vice-chancellor of the National Institute of Teaching and Education (NITE) at Coventry University
