There have been several reports recently identifying challenges in education or society and suggesting ways in which schools can help to address them.
Many of these recommendations say, “This should be included in initial teacher training.” However, while it’s great that initial teacher training (ITT) is increasingly being seen as a crucial part of building the expertise of the teacher workforce, we’ve got to stop treating it as the go-to solution.
ITT is essential for helping new teachers to develop the knowledge, skills and mindsets they need for a successful and sustainable teaching career. It lays the foundation for great teaching.
Teacher training: a packed curriculum
But there are good reasons why we need to stop the default answer to sector challenges being “put it into ITT”.
The first reason is simply that trainee teachers already have a packed curriculum in their year of training, which in most cases is paired with at least 120 days hands-on training in school. Here are some of the things that trainees learn in ITT:
- Planning and delivering high-quality instruction.
- Managing behaviour with clarity and consistency.
- Using assessment to support learning.
- Building strong subject and curriculum knowledge.
- Creating a positive, inclusive learning environment.
- Supporting pupils with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) and with English as an additional language.
- Holding high expectations for every child.
- Managing workload and looking after wellbeing.
The ITT curriculum needs to be carefully designed and sequenced in order to maximise learning and retention: overloading the syllabus dilutes the impact of everything in it.
If we want to add something else in, we need to take something out. Simply adding other things in means it becomes a series of tick-boxes, rather than a well-thought-through developmental programme.
Being a new teacher can be overwhelming - I know that from experience. We need to make sure that people’s first year of learning sets them up for future success.
Too much, too soon
Secondly, we need to be honest - none of us can remember everything that we learned when we first started a job.
There will always be a need to introduce new topics, update our knowledge in the face of new challenges or new evidence and refresh ourselves on knowledge and techniques.
Thirdly, we need to talk numbers. There are approximately 500,000 teachers in the system in England. Each year there are about 30,000 new teachers doing ITT.
So, theoretically it would take 16 years for all the teachers in our classrooms to have covered a new topic through ITT (and even that assumes that the topic is well designed, well taught and that people remember it, and this figure overlooks current retention rates).
So while it’s tempting, and in some cases it may even be useful, to meet every new challenge with “put it into ITT”, we need to think harder.
Long-term development
Teachers need and deserve high-quality professional development throughout their careers. They should have access to high-quality support in the initial years of their career: it sets a crucial foundation.
Furthermore, all teachers and school leaders should be able to access evidence-based, government-funded professional development on key topics and sector priorities, especially if they work in areas of high need and disadvantage. And they should be able to access it throughout their careers, not just at the beginning.
Every teacher should be able to pursue professional development in areas that are priorities for them, whether because of the needs of their pupils or school or because it supports their ongoing growth and professional expertise.
Professional development throughout a teacher’s career is critical. Earlier this year we published a report on the future of the professional development system, in partnership with the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR). proposes three levels of professional development:
- First, the “golden thread” programmes, which we believe should be fully funded from design to delivery.
- Second, training courses in areas identified as system priorities by the government in partnership with the sector. The government should fund the design of high-quality, evidence-based programmes in these areas, and fund their delivery for schools serving disadvantaged children and communities.
- Third and finally, anything that is important but not agreed as a system priority should simply be part of the ecosystem of professional development courses that schools and trusts are free to choose from.
Teacher education, training and professional development are key to building a thriving workforce able to respond to the multiple, ever-evolving challenges thrown at schools in today’s world.
But they need to be delivered thoughtfully, realistically and sustainably.
Yalinie Vigneswaran is executive director of ITT at Ambition Institute
You can now get the UK’s most-trusted source of education news in a mobile app. Get Tes magazine on and on
