Category Archives: ITE

Teach First guilty of misleading advertising

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It was interesting to read about a recent adjudication by the Advertising Standards Authority that have found Teach First guilty of ‘misleading advertising’. You can read their full adjudication here.

Specifically, Teach First were castigated for their use of the word ‘outstanding’ (which, as we all know – apart from Teach First it seems – has a specific resonance in education) in the phrase ‘Teach First provides Outstanding Teachers’. Here’s part of their judgement:

We noted the word “Outstanding” used within the phrase “Teach First Provides Outstanding Teachers” could be understood in a number of ways, including a subjective description of general performance. Although not a formal qualification as such, we understood student teachers could be graded in a number of ways including “Outstanding”. In any event, we considered the use of the phrase in this instance could be understood to mean that some sort of an assessment or rating of an individual’s teaching ability had already taken place, at the point at which the participant was first allocated to teach at a participating school. However, this was not the case.

Although sponsored search results are by their very nature significantly limited by space, we considered this did not negate TeachFirst’s responsibility to ensure the chosen presentation did not mislead potential schools about the type of “teacher” being offered or their decision to find out more (and click on the link to the website). We considered the fact that schools were being invited to enter into a partnership with TeachFirst and to potentially employ a trainee teacher during their two-year training programme was a significant piece of information that was likely to affect their decision to find out more about potential teachers and the involvement with TeachFirst and that further information should have been included in the ad to qualify clearly that it was a teacher in training who was being offered. Because that information was omitted we concluded that the ad was misleading.

Let’s hope that that the Teach First marketing machine takes notice eh?

Desperate tactics as Schools Direct continues to flounder

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Here’s a copy of an email that the DfE has sent to anyone registered on the School Direct (SD) applications portal. It is encouraging those who might already have applied for a mainstream PGCE to switch towards SD in an desperate bid to fill the many outstanding places on this untried, untested programme.

schools_direct_email

This email has caused quite a stir in the ITT community. It seems like a deliberate attempt to poach students from PGCE routes for Gove’s favoured SD route. It also contains many inaccuracies:

‘Competition for training places is high’. No! Not for a Schools Direct place. In fact, when asked a parliamentary question on the 24th April 2013 about how many students had been recruited, Mr Laws’ best answer was, “The National College for Teaching and Learning will be publishing data on how many applicants there have been for Schools Direct places starting in September 2013 shortly”. In private meetings, DfE officials have been pushed to provide this information and but have refused on countless occasions. It seems clear that they have massively under-recruited but do not want this news getting out at this point; it would clearly be detrimental to those students considering this route. But the key question is, of course, why is the programme under-recruiting?

‘You can train as a teacher with an expectation of a job once you qualify’. No! You can expect whatever you want, but all the schools I have been in touch with are not offering any SD student a job following their training. Many schools have been put off from partaking in this programme because of this DfE-inspired myth.

‘You could receive a bursary of up to £20,000!’ No! Only if you teach one of a very few shortage subjects.

‘Or even be paid a salary’. No! I’ve yet to hear of one school offering a training salary of the type that the old style GTP offered.

All this is very sad. The UK had a very high quality programme of HEI-led of initial teacher education delivered in partnership with schools. This has slowly been dismantled by Gove for ideological, not educational, reasons. Anyone who has been following this blog will have read the views of other significant people in the educational community who are warning of a crisis in teacher training if this continues. Recently, Professor Sir Robert Burgess, Vice Chancellor of the University of Leicester, has written directly to Michael Gove about his concerns.

Schools Direct is the latest ill-thought through, hastily implemented, and pretty much unworkable idea that Gove and his new crony, Charlie Taylor, have come up with. Anyone with an ounce of common sense and knowledge in this area will know that it is bound to fail. Yet in another parliamentary question asked to Mr Laws on the 24th April 2013 he couldn’t even confirm that a formal external evaluation of Schools Direct would be commissioned.

Interestingly, of course, the email didn’t encourage students who had applied for Teach First to also apply and transfer for the Schools Direct programme. Funny that.

What should the leaders of our Faculties of Education do in response to this? Well, UCET did issue a response to this email (although today this seems to have been withdrawn from their website). My view is that all universities that are involved in Schools Direct should withdraw their staff and other resources from it immediately. We are only shooting ourselves in the foot by engaging with this scheming and manipulative approach to teacher training.

Whilst they are at it, all universities should refuse to cooperate with Ofsted until the obvious political bias of and influence on their work has been examined and removed. They are not an independent watchdog anymore and their judgements cannot be trusted.

Gove, Wilshaw and Taylor. What a damming testament to the state of initial teacher education in this country.

Learn to teach with Teach First and you are 5 times more likely to leave the profession after 5 years

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This morning I’ve been tweeting extracts from this report, the DfE’s own analysis of the 2010 school workforce census. Whilst some might consider this excellent bed-time reading, it does contain some interesting evidence about key issues within the educational debate today, e.g. the academies programme and the differences between different routes of initial teacher education.

On academies, it was interesting to note that the average teacher in an academy earns less than their counterpart in a LA maintained school; but that academies pay the highest average leadership salaries across the age groups; teachers in maintained secondary schools are also more likely to have higher degrees that their colleagues in academy schools (I’m not sure that the two are linked though!).

However, it was the data surrounding teacher retention that really struck me as interesting. It confirms something that many of us have known for quite a while: students who train to be teachers on the Teach First programme only ‘enjoy’ short teaching careers. How short? Well, the report says this:

The teacher training route for secondary teachers played an important role in influencing the odds of leaving the profession. In particular, teachers with Teach First training had odds of leaving which were five times higher than the odds for those with post-graduate training (n = 170). This is not unexpected given the objectives of the Teach First programme to bring very able graduates into teaching for two years prior to entering another profession or occupation (although it is hoped that around one half will remain in teaching beyond two years). (p.89) 

So, train with Teach First and you are five times more likely to leave teaching than if you trained in a more conventional (PGCE) route. In fact, training to be a teacher with Teach First is the largest single factor by which teachers leave teaching early (i.e. within 5 years). Here is the table that shows the likelihood or not of leaving teaching (factors above 1 increase the likelihood of leaving; factors below 1 indicate that person is less likely to leave teaching):

teacher_wastage

 

Although the figures for teachers leaving teaching after two years are not quoted in this year, the above quote is enlightening. The best that the DfE can say is that they ‘hope’ that 50% of teachers who have trained with Teach First remain in teaching after 2 years.

As an aside, hats off to our colleagues running graduate work-based training programmes, you are more likely to still be teaching after 5 years, by a small margin (0.8), compared to a traditional PGCE route.

I know some readers of this blog think I have a vendetta against Teach First. This is not the case. However, we all need to remember that Teach First is by far the most expensive and ineffective way to train our teachers. The sadness here is significant:

  • Tax payers money could be better spent (remember, Teach First have just received £76 million to run their programme for the next 3 years);
  • Teach First students don’t enjoy sustained teaching careers (with all the knock on effects that this has for the stability of an individual school’s workforce);
  • Other initial teacher education routes and the universities that have provided them are suffering and many have closed or will close in the future (read my post on Sir Tim Brighouse’s views on this if you don’t believe me);
  • Individual academics working in universities are afraid to speak out under contractual obligations that stifle freedom of expression and will, eventually, lead to whistle-blowing about shoddy practices surrounding programmes like Teach First (at great expense to those individuals who take that bold step).

But perhaps the thing that annoys me most, is that Teach First have the cheek to make a virtue out of such an obvious failing. Hey folks, enjoy a short career in teaching (after all, the teaching profession will be eternally grateful for your contribution) before moving on elsewhere to a proper career in industry, business or banking.

The Labour Government who facilitated the introduction of this style of teacher training, and the Coalition Government that has sustained it, should both hang their collective heads in shame. There may be a political consensus here at the moment, but I suspect history will not be such a kind judge.

I’d like to hear your thoughts on this and if you feel strongly like me, please write to your MP about this shocking waste of money and the detrimental effect it is having on the wider ITE sector.

And if you work on a Teach First programme and are too frightened to speak out about it publicly, please feel free to contact me in confidence about your experiences.

Professor Sir Tim Brighouse speaks out the ‘Government’-induced crisis’ in Initial Teacher Education

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Professor Sir Tim Brighouse is a teacher, professor and educator to whom everyone should listen. His experience of education across the UK is second to none, and he has done a range of jobs that most of us could only dream about. He is also prepared to call a spade a spade, which is a refreshing change for an academic in my experience. On the view occasions that I have heard him speak live, I have been impressed by his vast knowledge and wisdom, his ability to bring humour into different discussions and also his compassionate humanity.

For all these reasons, the publication of this statement by Sir Tim is an important marker in the current political debate surrounding initial teacher education. I would urge you all to read it carefully. For those of you that feel that I’m sometimes provocative, intemperate (just too grumpy) and perhaps prone to exaggeration, I’d encourage you to listen to this highly informed and well respected voice. These are some of the key points that Sir Tim makes:

  1. There is a Government-induced crisis in Initial Teacher Education. It is not the fault of the sector itself. It has been caused directly by ill-informed and careless handling of educational policy by Gove and his new puppet Charlie Taylor;
  2. There is no one person or central agency that can ensure a sufficient supply of of trained teachers nationally, or an efficient local distribution of training places covering all subject areas. The distribution of places is now ‘startlingly haphazard’;
  3. QTS is no longer seen as a necessary requirement for becoming a teacher in the English state education system (unless you work for a LA-maintained school);
  4. Charlie Taylor, the new Chief Executive of the Teaching Agency, is overseeing a new system (Schools Direct) that Ofsted believes produces significantly fewer outstanding courses in teacher education;
  5. Many universities have now lost all their PGCE provision and are wholly reliant on schools choosing them to partner with for School Direct places (and what happens when they don’t);
  6. Many universities have, or will, withdraw from the provision of ITE and PGCE type provision because it is both financially and politically too unstable and too risky to carry on their involvement;
  7. Partnership approaches between universities and schools have been the bedrock of the UK’s provision in this area for years, but this is no under threat. HEIs bring much of value to this partnership that, once undone, will not be easily replaced.

I expect that Gove will dismiss Sir Tim’s paper as more ‘yada yada’ from a leftist academic. However, I would encourage you to read Sir Tim’s paper carefully. It comes from a responsible and respected pillar of the UK education system whose opinion we should take very seriously.

 

School-led partnerships setting the benchmark for high quality teacher training. Seriously?

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Ofsted’s latest press release about initial teacher training is ‘misleading, inaccurate and inappropriately political’. Not my words, but the words of James Noble-Rogers, head of UCET, in a letter yesterday to Sir Michael Wilshaw. Apart from the numerous inaccuracies in the press release, Noble-Roger’s main charge is that:

The OFSTED inspection regime is now open to the charge that, far from reporting candidly and with impunity on the state of provision, it is concerned to seek to justify government policy on ITT. There must now remain a suspicion that OFSTED ratings are a reflection of bias against university involvement in ITT. 

This is a very sorry state of affair which, unfortunately, was entirely predictable. Whilst the HEI sector has worked tirelessly with schools to create partnerships where high quality teacher education can flourish, those very same schools and other organisations such as Teach First have benefited from ideological and political reforms which, in my view, are clearly unsustainable in the longer term.

Whilst anyone with a dose of common sense knows that Wilshaw is just Gove’s puppet, there is a significant risk of irreversible damage being done to the mainstay of our initial teacher education provision in the UK, i.e. our higher education institutions. Whilst I’m well aware that I am open to criticism of individual bias (being employed by one of these institutions), I can honestly say that this is not a concern driven by personal considerations.

Over the last 12 years I have worked with HEI (my own and others as an external examiner), GTP and SCITT groups. I have also had very close friends and colleagues work alongside Teach First (never a pleasant experience apparently and one best avoided, but that’s another story). Clearly, there are dedicated professionals working for the best of their students in every ITT context. However, the political bias in favour of SCITTs and Teach First is beyond a joke. Anyone with a genuine concern for the future of our teacher education programmes in the UK should stand up and speak up against Ofsted and this Government’s misleading and ill-informed propaganda about what works, and doesn’t work, in terms of quality initial teacher education.

The headteachers of schools who pander to Gove and support these politically driven reforms should take a serious look at themselves. Short term political favour and financial advantage will get them so far; but the longer term potential damage to them and their schools as these reforms are seen for what they are (unviable in terms of scale, unsustainable in terms of financial resource, and will result in poorer quality teachers) will come back to haunt them, and their schools, for years to come.

The leaders of our HEI ITT programmes should also get a grip on reality. Dancing to Ofsted’s tune is a dangerous strategy. A more robust response is needed by the sector as a whole. Gove and his SPAD attack buddies, Wilshaw, Wigdortz and others who are seeking to capitalise on the creation of ‘free’ market for ITT (or, in the case of Teach First, a ‘free’ market subsidised by millions of Government development funds), will not go away. By 2015 the damage will have been done and I’m doubtful that any future Government will reverse the damaging policies that are being inflicted on the sector right now.

These are sad times for those working within initial teacher education in the UK. Quality programmes are closing across the country, organisations that have worked in partnership for years are being turned against each other, individual academics are frightened to speak out about the truth because they are worried about their own and their colleagues’ jobs, and what counts as ‘quality’ has been turned on its head. The ‘nasty party’ has returned and is spreading its nastiness across the sector in bucket-loads.

By way of a footnote, a FOI request has been made to Ofsted and the DfE regarding the communications around this press release between these organisations. A copy of UCET’s letter to Chris Wormald, Permanent Secretary at the DfE is available here. I hope a response is forthcoming but I wouldn’t hold your breath. Gove’s DfE doesn’t have a great record in this respect.

Local allocations for teacher training numbers spell more bad news for the arts in our schools.

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Gove’s latest mad-cap idea to pass control of the number of teachers to be trained each year to schools, academy chains and Local Authorities (as reported in today’s TES) spells further disaster for the arts in our schools. Whilst no-one, not even Gove himself I suspect, knows exactly what the plan is here, the general shift away from a national overview of teacher numbers to locally determined figures is bad news all round. As Professor Howson, from the University of Oxford, comments:

If we lose national oversight we could go back to the situation we had previously where local authorities regularly didn’t have enough teachers because they didn’t get their numbers right.

And as others have commented, there is already regional variation within the system based on data relating to the employment of NQTs in each Government region.

However, we are at a point now, both in primary and secondary schools, where many headteachers are deciding to either buy-in arts and music provision from visiting staff (rather than cover this through their core staffing allocations) or not bother at all. Examination frameworks such as the EBacc, and now the ABacc as some have called it, are also having major and detrimental effects on the provision of arts education at Key Stages 4 and 5. As the research on this blog has indicated for several years, this Government’s stated commitment to the arts, and music education in particular, is not backed up by educational policies that are supporting these subjects. In fact, the exact opposite is true.

This is a heady mix of bad news for arts educators. Educational policies that relate to curriculum design, budgetary constraints, changing OFSTED inspection criteria, inconsistencies and favouritism in initial teacher training reforms, and now the potential restructuring of teacher allocation numbers, are all working against the provision of a comprehensive, development and high quality arts and music education for all our pupils. It’s about time that those with power, and responsibility, sit up, take notice and begin speaking out about these things.