Teacher Training
Teacher Focus
Simon Roberts, Director of the Teaching School at The Arthur Terry School in the West Midlands, examines the issues surrounding teacher training and looks at how things are steadily improving.
T
he publication of the coalition’s white paper entitled ‘The Importance of Teaching’ in 2011 highlighted the need for change within our education system. Aspirations were set high for our system to become one of the world’s fastest improving. Schools were to be given greater autonomy in the recruitment, training and practice of teachers and leaders. As a cohort one National Teaching School designated in July 2011, we at The Arthur Terry School have embraced these changes to the benefit of our students.
Teaching today is a highly regarded profession attracting the highest quality graduates. A recent MORI poll [February, 2013] revealed that teachers, just behind doctors, are the nation’s second most trusted profession with 86% of those polled trusting teachers to tell the truth. This alongside an attractive bursary for the training year is attracting well educated and talented individuals to apply for teacher training courses. In addition, top graduates are recognising that the profession is challenging and exciting, with many opportunities for career progression. It is also widely acknowledged that the teaching day is never the same and the opportunity to have life changing impact
October 2013
on young people appeals over many other professions.
In the same white paper there was clear vision and direction for the future of initial teacher training. Many school leaders were already of the opinion that schools needed to play a greater role in the training of new teachers and endorsed the need for more than half of trainees to be trained by schools by the end of the present parliament. In addition the development of Teaching Schools was based on the philosophy of the successful University Hospitals, an environment where new entrants to the profession could train alongside outstanding practitioners and put theoretical concepts into practice.
School Direct is one of the new training options available to schools. It is hoped that groups of schools will take the opportunity to collaborate and take a greater role in teacher training. The benefit of working as a group of schools makes the likelihood of employment for the trainees higher at the end of the course, which is the unique expectation that this new route has over alternative training programmes. The School Direct programme has allowed us to define the programme of study for our Associate Teachers, in collaboration with the outstanding university providers in the West
Midlands. Our partnership of eighteen schools has the rationale of investing the time of our very best classroom practitioners working alongside those training within our schools, with the aim of recruiting these to become our future Newly Qualified Teachers (NQTs). It is very much the vision that all future appointments will be from our pool of training teachers and reduce the need to advertise nationally.
As a Teaching School alliance we recognised the range of expertise in our schools to work alongside the trainees. In addition our schools are fantastic resources often not utilised in the training process. Our sessions were designed to allow Associate Teachers (we use this term to encourage a sense of place and community belonging for our School Direct participants) to explore theoretical content through focused learning walks across our schools and engaging with the children and adults that work there. Reflective follow-up sessions would allow them then to adapt their practice to consider the key learning points from the session. This innovative approach to training has been championed by the National College for Teaching and Leadership.
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