An SNP MSP and former minister has suggested that “a potential solution” to Scotland’s teacher recruitment and retention problems could be the fast-track teacher education programme, Teach First.
During a Scottish Labour debate on falling teacher numbers, Edinburgh MSP Ben Macpherson noted that the Teach First programme had “not been discussed in the Parliament for some time” but had been “highly successful elsewhere in the UK”. He added: “Perhaps now is the time to look at it again?”
So what is Teach First? Why does Mr Macpherson see it as a potential solution for Scotland? And haven’t we been here before?
Teach First is a charity that fast-tracks graduates - usually with a 2:1 or above - to teach in challenging schools in England.
Recruits undergo five weeks of intensive training in the theory and practice of teaching and, after that, learn on the job, with a reduced timetable, and supported by mentors and tutors.
Several subjects struggling to recruit student teachers
Mr Macpherson, who made his comments yesterday, possibly sees the scheme as a potential solution because recruiting teachers in certain secondary subject areas in Scotland has become increasingly difficult in recent years.
Earlier this year, government figures showed that while initial teacher education (ITE) institutions routinely hit or exceed government targets for primary teacher recruitment, secondary recruitment has become increasingly problematic.
This academic year, about half of places on the most common route into secondary teaching, the one-year postgraduate PGDE, went unfilled, with just 1,002 of the 2,000 places available taken up.
The only secondary PGDE course to hit its target was PE; the 19 other secondary subjects listed all fell short.
Outside the Central Belt, the impact of this failure to recruit secondary teachers into ITE courses is being acutely felt.
In Aberdeenshire, the council’s director of education and children’s services, Laurence Findlay, has said that every secondary is now affected by teacher shortage.
The council’s secondary headteachers report that they are having to drop subjects such as home economics altogether because they simply cannot recruit staff. They also say that they are using non-specialists and primary teachers to teach pupils in early secondary to free up secondary specialists to deliver qualifications.
However, to date, attempts to explore non-university routes into teaching have been fiercely resisted in Scotland.
Teach First’s previous foray into Scotland
In 2017, it emerged that Teach First was exploring expansion into Scotland. After months of controversy, however, the organisation decided to pull out.
More recently, at the annual conference of the European Educational Research Association conference, held last year in Glasgow, Margery McMahon, outgoing Scottish Council of Deans of Education chair, said any similar attempts in the future would be fended off.
Professor McMahon said Scotland’s university-based teacher education was “one of our real strengths”.
However, she acknowledged that “every now and again, someone thinks ‘let’s try a fast-track model’”. She predicted that would happen again, but joked that Scotland would “fend it off at Hadrian’s Wall”.
Yesterday, her remarks proved prescient when, after many years with barely a mention of Teach First in Scotland, Mr Macpherson mooted it as a potential solution.
Teach First CEO Russell Hobby said that the charity was “not actively considering working in Scotland” but that “our mission is to ensure all children can have an excellent education”. It would “work with all aligned organisations across both public and private sectors to further that mission”.
Mr Hobby added: “It is a testament to all our trainees, ambassadors and staff that their hard work and dedication is being recognised throughout the UK.”
A 2023 National Foundation for Educational Research analysis of the impact of Teach First on English schools, to mark the organisation’s 20th anniversary, found some positives in relation to student attainment.
It also found that retention rates for Teach First teachers - a frequent point raised by critics - were still an issue, although they had improved.
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