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NEWS • VIEWS • INFORMATION • ADVICE
GOVERNMENT MUST ‘GRASP THE NETTLE’ ON TEACHER RETENTION
Too few newly qualified teachers are receiving a supported start to their careers, the NASUWT has told MPs.
There is a lack of support and development for newly qualified teachers, which, coupled with a lack of jobs, means that many are not getting their induction entitlements.
New teachers are frequently being forced to take on supply work, which is not an appropriate entry point into the profession, Chris Keates, General Secretary of the NASUWT, told the Education Select Committee. Giving evidence as part of the Committee’s inquiry into the recruitment and retention of teachers, Ms Keates said:
“We are finding a lot of casualties where people who could make excellent teachers are being treated as though they are experienced teachers and are not having a stable placement for their first year.
“For example, many newly trained teachers are going on to supply work.”
Ms Keates called for the Scottish model of a guaranteed placement to complete induction for all newly qualified teachers to be implemented across the UK.
She added that this would also ensure that public money used to train teachers is not wasted and called on the Government to ‘grasp the nettle’ in ensuring that all newly qualified teachers get a quality induction.
The introduction of the English Baccalaureate and greater autonomy over the curriculum in academies and free schools is adding to the problem for new teachers as jobs are being squeezed out in ‘non-core’ subjects, Ms Keates argued.
Allowing free schools to employ teachers without qualified teacher status (QTS) will also have a deeply damaging impact, Ms Keates told the committee, in addition to undermining public confidence in the education system and the status of teaching as a profession.
“We believe that qualified teacher status is part of the contract with the public and parents – that they have a right to expect that teachers are operating within a national framework of standards that is regulated.”
Ms Keates highlighted findings from the Union’s Big Question Survey 2011 that 83% of teachers felt professionally disempowered by the accountability system that forces them to spend more time focusing on the inspection system than on teaching.
This, coupled with the introduction of curriculum reforms, has left teachers feeling that they are being told what to teach and how to teach it, she told the committee. The result is that over half of NASUWT members who responded to a Union survey said that they had considered quitting the profession in the last 12 months.
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www.nasuwt.org.uk/TeacherTraining
‘Slap in the face’ for ICT teachers
The NASUWT has branded plans by Michael Gove to scrap the current ICT curriculum for schools, amid widespread criticism of ICT teachers in England, ‘a slap in the face’ for the subject’s teachers.
The Secretary of State for Education has claimed that ICT teaching is ‘harmful and dull’ and stated that he intends to scrap the current programme of study and replace it with computer science.
The NASUWT is deeply concerned that these plans will result in the sidelining of the subject in schools and could put teachers’ jobs at risk.
“ICT was left out of the EBacc and therefore, like all excluded subjects, its future status was already at serious risk,” said Chris Keates, General Secretary of the NASUWT. “This latest development downgrades ICT even more.
"There is now a real risk that schools will marginalise ICT completely, reduce dramatically its share of curriculum time and put the jobs of specialist teachers at risk.
“This is no way to promote the value of a subject that is critical to education in the 21st Century.”
The NASUWT will be making a formal submission to the Department for Education’s consultation on the plans for the reform of ICT.
Let us have your views at the NASUWT’s Facebook page –
www.facebook.com/NASUWT.
Global ties under strain
A project that supports schools to make links with others around the world is under threat after the Coalition Government ended its funding.
Global School Partnerships (GSP) enabled UK schools to link up with other schools in developing countries to enhance pupils’ learning and enable them to learn more about other nations and cultures.
The world of GSP was showcased in the last edition of Teaching Today, which profiled a project between teachers from a group of schools in west Wales who have fostered links with schools in the sub-Saharan African country of Lesotho. Teachers from both nations have visited each other’s schools and pupils have had the opportunity to develop relationships with pupils thousands of miles away and learn more about their lives. The Department for International Development (DFID), which funded the GSP programme, has announced that the current phase of funding for the project will stop at the end of March. While DFID has stated that it remains committed to supporting partnership between schools in the UK and developing countries, it seems clear that there will be significantly less funding for this work in future. Elizabeth Thomas, an NASUWT member who took part in the Lesotho exchange, has been told that her school’s linking project will now have to end a year early because of the withdrawal of funding.
She said it was unlikely that her school would be able to maintain the links it had made without support from DFID.
“All of the schools linked with Lesotho have been affected, which is a great shame considering the impact it has had in the schools.
“Without the funding it will be extremely difficult to maintain sustainable partnerships, since lack of funding in the schools in Lesotho makes regular communication difficult.”
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