Thurrock school beats recruitment crisis by tracking down former pupils to fill teacher vacancies. Karen Thornton reports.
A SCHOOL that employs 15 per cent of former pupils on its staff has beaten the recruitment crisis by using the Graduate Teacher Programme.
William Edwards, in Thurrock, Essex, has gone for a “grow its own” staff strategy because of problems with recruitment and the school’s unpopular location.
“No one wants to work in Thurrock if they do not come from here. But former pupils make very good teachers because they come from the culture,” said headteacher Brenda Watson.
Her enthusiasm for the employment-based training route remains, despite the news (TES, December 14) that the General Teaching Council in Scotland has refused full registration to two teachers who qualified in this way.
Last year, the 1,200-pupil school was finding it impossible to cover classes. Trawling the supply agencies and expensive advertising had failed to plug the gaps, so instead it started tracking down its own and other local schools’ former pupils who had gone to university. The school is now over-staffed, after news of the scheme spread by word of mouth. Ms Watson’s only grudge is that only four of her 17 GTP trainees are funded in full by the Teacher Training Agency; she is paying the salaries of the other 13.
Both she and Clare Suttling, the school’s professional tutor, are very happy with the quality of teaching displayed by their GTP staff, and say an inspection team which recently visited the school was also complimentary.
William Edwards is now looking into whether it can train more people via the GTP route for the benefit of other local schools, in partnership with the education authority.
* Independent schools are lobbying to be included in the GTP. Geoff Lucas, secretary of the Headmasters’ and Headmistresses’ Conference, said the independent sector had been involved when the scheme was first piloted in 19978. He believes independent schools could play a key role in bringing people into teaching, particularly in the shortage subjects.
“The Government has funded independent-state school curriculum projects, but nothing on the professional development and teacher training side. We feel we have a lot to offer,” he added.
