TABLET Education


bishops also highlighted the threat to teacher training and other higher education (HE) courses as a result of ministers’ plans to end direct funding for all HE courses except for science, technology, engineering and mathematics subjects, leaving many degree courses reliant on income from student fees. Such an approach to HE, they argued, was biased towards industry and showed a “utilitarian approach”. The bishops went on to warn about the negative impact of the reforms on HE as a whole, including the three Catholic university colleges – Leeds Trinity, St Mary’s in Twickenham and Newman in Birmingham – as well as Liverpool Hope University, formed as a result of an amalgamation of a Church of England and two former Catholic teacher-training colleges. The origins of these institutions are


rooted in the development of Catholic education in the nineteenth century when the establishment of compulsory education created a need for qualified teachers to work in the growing number of Catholic schools. Critics warn that the Government’s training reforms could set back Catholic education 100 years. Professor Gerald Pillay, vice chancellor of


Liverpool Hope University, believes the reform plans could have a drastic impact on Catholic education. The education faculty at Liverpool Hope is the largest provider of Catholic teachers in the country. As such, it has a responsibility to the faith sector to challenge the coalition’s plans, he said. “The Government has latched on to an


idea that schools can train teachers better than universities or colleges can. But the White Paper which sets out the proposals also says it wants teachers to be better qualified with postgraduate qualifications. There lies the basic tension: how do you achieve the goal of teachers being better educated and better trained with less investment from the Government? “If schools do the training, one runs the


risk of mimetic behaviour where schools merely duplicate existing practice which ranges from very good to very ordinary. At Liverpool Hope University, our emphasis is on research-informed teaching and the faculty of education works with some 500 schools to ensure we can form educated teachers who are well trained. “These new plans are well intentioned


but untested as a national programme. It will fundamentally endanger very good and well-established programmes which will be costly to dismantle and cost three times as much to restore in the future. Devolution of training is not in the best interests of Catholic schools,” he said. There is no doubt that training courses


led by Catholic and Church of England HE institutions are successful. The 16 universities and colleges in the Council of Church Universities and Colleges, known as the Cathedrals Group, are consistently rated among the highest providers of teacher training by Ofsted. Liverpool Hope’s education faculty is the only grade A


S2 | TABLET Education | 5 February 2011 THE TEACHER WHO INSPIRED ME


I have vivid and fond memories of the teacher who inspired me most while I was at school, writes Julie Etchingham. Young, vivacious, intellectual and fun, Mike Sweeney wore a beige wool sweater from which he never quite got rid of the purple stains from the department’s Banda printer where he conscientiously churned out the class worksheets. He’s forever associated in my mind with that heady smell of printer ink. He was my English teacher, not long out


of training, and who arrived just as I was starting my O levels in the mid-1980s. My school was English Martyrs RC Comprehensive in Leicester, a noisy, energetic place. It had more than 1,000 pupils, drawn from a wide area of parishes around the county, and from a wide range of backgrounds. But however large the crowd seemed to be at the school, it managed to create a great sense of Catholic community. I had a big family attachment to the place too, because my parents had met there when they were young teachers. The school had a fantastic English


department led by bearded Bob Vincent, who challenged our young literary sensitivities with a chewy diet of George Orwell, Bea Campbell, Pinter and Beckett, alongside the predictable set texts of Romeo and Juliet and Othello. Mike Sweeney was his junior, but was extra intriguing to us comprehensive kids because he’d read English at Cambridge. I was hoping to apply there too, but had


provider in the north-west, while a national survey of newly qualified teachers recently voted Leeds Trinity the second best institution in the country for the quality of its training (the survey was conducted by the Training and Development Agency for Schools). Many universities and colleges argue that


the Government’s plans are unnecessary in any case, as students on Postgraduate Certificate of Education (PGCE) and undergraduate courses routinely spend more time training in schools than in college. The important thing is that courses offer the right balance of academic education and classroom training. “What really matters is that we have good


partnerships between schools and the HE institution,” says Sue Strawford, primary partnership coordinator at Newman College, which runs its own school-centred training programme in partnership with local schools. “We draw on each other’s experience and expertise to ensure students get the diversity of experience they need.” The Government, however, appears to


want to go further, handing over responsibility for training to schools. One model is the Primary Catholic Partnership in Southampton, a school-centred programme in the Diocese of Portsmouth run as a partnership involving over 30


little idea about how to go about it. He was the teacher who inspired me to give it a go. He also gave time, enormous energy and patience. In the classroom he could shake up a class of


30 moody teenagers, making us leap out of our seats to perform Shakespeare. You’d occasionally catch a glimpse through the classroom door of a more strait-laced teacher raising an eyebrow at the noise. But it was the personal help he gave me


that I appreciated most. He set me texts and marked my papers – and made time before the start of the school day to tutor me. He introduced me to poets and authors who didn’t appear in our trendy 1980s syllabus; Marvell, Milton and Donne. When I finally got into Newnham College, there was little doubt that he was the deciding factor. It’s tricky to single out one teacherabove


all others – my German teacher, Carmel Griffin, and French teacher, Catherine Coyle, were outstanding too. But as my children now begin their own Catholic education, I can only hope they, too, have a teacher as inspiring as Mike Sweeney.


Julie Etchingham is a broadcast journalist and currently co-presents ITV’s News at Ten.


schools, offering PGCE and Masters qualifications. “The programme is run by the schools


and the diocese in conjunction with St Mary’s College in Twickenham. We see great benefits in schools owning the training, but recognise the virtue of diversity in teacher education,” says programme director Paul Haslam. There is no doubt the


Southampton-based partnership has proved popular since it began 10 years ago. More than seven out of 10 students admitted to courses this year have degrees of 2:1 or above – well above the new minimum standard proposed by the Government. About 70 per cent of students go on to teach in Catholic schools, while the rest go into Church of England and other schools, both locally and across the country. Clearly, there is a great debate bubbling


up about the future of teacher education between Catholic academics, teachers, church leaders and politicians. The outcome could determine the future of Catholic teaching and the prospects for our Catholic universities for decades to come. The stakes could not be higher.


Jeremy Sutcliffe is a freelance journalist specialising in education.


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