more good teachers

MoreGood Teachers

Sam Freedman, Briar Lipsonand David Hargreaves

More

GoodTeachers

Sam

Freed

man,B

riarLip

sonand

David

Harg

reavesPolicy

Exchang

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£10.00ISBN: 978-1-906097-30-1

Policy ExchangeClutha House

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As Tony Blair’s former education advisor Sir Michael Barber hasnoted “The quality of an education system cannot exceed thequality of its teachers”. This is unquestionably true – countriesin which teaching is a high-status profession such as Finland orSouth Korea regularly top international league tables of pupilperformance. In this country we have many excellent teachersbut because other careers have higher status not enough of ourbest graduates join the profession and it is hard to attract olderpeople from other jobs. Moreover we remain poor at developingteachers and rewarding those who are successful.

In this report we ask two questions: how can we get moretalented people into teaching and how can we develop andreward good teaching? The answers are interlinked. For a startwe need to accept that teaching need no longer be a career forlife; that highly able people can add a huge amount to a schoolin just a few years. As the government-sponsored Teach Firstprogramme has shown good people will be attracted by a short-term commitment that allows them to earn while learning on thejob. An expansion of employment-based routes into teaching ofthis kind would have an additional benefit: the schools involvedwould become centres of training. Existing staff would gain frommentoring new teachers and new teachers would learn fromcolleagues they respect. Over time a virtuous circle ofprofessional development could be established.

Pay is also, of course, hugely important in attracting the bestpeople to teaching. However, any realistic across-the-board payrise would not be enough to make much of a difference. Insteadthe best new recruits should be fast-tracked into high-payingleadership and advanced teacher positions. At the same timeschools in disadvantaged areas should be given extra funds –and the opportunity to develop their own pay models – so thatthey can compete for the best teachers.

Previously policymakers have divided teachers’ careers into aseries of independent sub-units – recruitment, initial training,continuous professional development, leadership and so on. Wehave taken an integrated approach, arguing that changing theway we think about training throughout a teacher’s career willlead to a more flexible and dynamic model of professionalism.

Mor e Good Teacher s cover HDS. qxp: Layout 1 24/ 7/ 08 16: 54

MoreGood Teachers

Sam Freedman, Briar Lipson

and Professor David Hargreaves

Policy Exchange is an independent think tank whose mission is to develop and promote new policy ideas which willfoster a free society based on strong communities, personal freedom, limited government, national self-confidence andan enterprise culture. Registered charity no: 1096300.

Policy Exchange is committed to an evidence-based approach to policy development. We work in partnership with aca-demics and other experts and commission major studies involving thorough empirical research of alternative policy out-comes. We believe that the policy experience of other countries offers important lessons for government in the UK. Wealso believe that government has much to learn from business and the voluntary sector.

Trustees

Charles Moore (Chairman of the Board), Theodore Agnew, Richard Briance, Camilla Cavendish, Richard Ehrman,Robin Edwards, George Robinson, Tim Steel, Alice Thomson, Rachel Whetstone.

About the authors

Sam Freedman is the Head of theEducation Unit, Policy Exchange. Heachieved a first class degree in Historyfrom Magdalen College, Oxford. Aftercompleting aMasters degree in InternationalHistory in 2004, Sam joined the Indepen-dent Schools Council as a researcher. He leftthree years later as Head of Research, hav-ing also completed a second Mastersdegree in Public Policy and Managementat Birkbeck. Sam joined Policy Exchangein September 2007.

Briar Lipson is a Research Fellow at PolicyExchange. Prior to joining the education unitshe worked on Economic Competitiveness,co-authoring the report “Towards better

transport”. After graduating with an MA inEconomics from the University of Edin-burgh, she worked as a ParliamentaryResearcher for Grant Shapps MP. She is nowtraining to be a Maths teacher.

Professor David H Hargreaves is anemeritus fellow of Wolfson College,Cambridge and associate director of devel-opment and research at the SpecialistSchools and Academies Trust. He hasbeen Professor of Education atCambridge, chief executive of theQualifications and Curriculum Authority(QCA) and chairman of the BritishEducational Communications and Tech-nologies Agency (Becta).

2

© Policy Exchange 2008

Published byPolicy Exchange, Clutha House, 10 Storey’s Gate, London SW1P 3AYwwwwww..ppoolliiccyyeexxcchhaannggee..oorrgg..uukk

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Contents

Acknowledgements 4Foreword by Ryan Robson 5Executive Summary 6

1 Why aren’t there more good teachers? 102 Initial teacher training 263 Continuous professional development 434 Using teacher pay to improve recruitment and retention 545 Conclusion 66

www.policyexchange.org.uk • 3

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank RyanRobson and John Nash for their financialsupport for this project without which itwould not have been possible.We would like to thank the many peo-

ple who have taken time to talk to us dur-ing our research. We are especially gratefulfor the ongoing help and advice wereceived from Professor John Howson ofEducation Data Surveys who has spentmuch of his career engaging with the issuesdiscussed in this report.Many other people have helped us with

our research, and we would like to thankall those named and unnamed for theirtime and expertise:

� Professor John Furlong, OxfordUniversity

� Brett Wigdortz, Teach First� James Darley, Teach First � Professor Sonia Blandford, Teach First� Professor Steven Machin, LSE� Julia Neal, Association of Teachers and

Lecturers� Winston Brookes, Reading University� Nick Tomlinson, DCSF� Professor Merryn Hutchings, Institute

for Policy Studies in Education,London Metropolitan University

� Keith Bartley, General TeachingCouncil for England

� Dr Dan Moynihan, Harris Federation� Sharath Jeevan, Teaching Leaders� Steve Bright, George Green’s Training School� Amanda Spielman, Absolute Return

for Kids� Lindsay Boon, United Learning Trust� Professor Tim Leunig, LSE� Emily Dyer� Nick Hillman

Needless to say the views expressed in thereport are those of the authors, and notnecessarily of those listed.

All polling, unless otherwise stated, is fromYouGov Plc. Total sample size was 1282undergraduate students (excluding final yearsand those in teacher training). Field work wasundertaken between 9th to 14th April 2008.The survey was carried out online. All figures, unless otherwise stated, are

from YouGov Plc. Total sample size was1,041 managers/professionals (excludingteachers) and 1,282 undergraduate stu-dents (excluding final years and those inteacher training). Fieldwork was undertak-en between 10th to 14th April 2008. Thesurvey was carried out online.

4

Foreword

This report demonstrates how we canrecruit, retain and develop a new genera-tion of talented, inspired and effectiveteachers to tackle educational inequality. Itshows how we must reject the currentcommand and control approach to recruit-ment, training and pay and resist calls tofurther ‘professionalise’ teaching in wayswhich only make it less appealing to thehigh performing graduates whom we needin our schools.It argues instead that we should embrace

methods more attuned to today’s gradu-ates and the modern employment market.

This involves allowing new teachers to‘earn while they learn’, giving all teachersmuch more say over their ongoing train-ing and freeing schools to develop remu-neration schemes which are bespoke totheir particular needs. These methodswould lead to the creation of a dynamic,well trained and motivated workforce –teachers who are more appropriatelyqualified before they enter teaching andwho become better teachers in the class-room.

Ryan RobsonManaging Partner, Sovereign Capital


Executive Summary

Nothing is more important to the successof an education system than the qualityof its teachers. There are many goodteachers in this country – but notenough. The recommendations in thisreport demonstrate how we can increasethe quality of teaching by both attractingthe right people to begin with and thentraining them in the most helpful man-ner. In the past recruitment, training,Continuous Professional Development(CPD) and pay have usually been con-sidered separately, but they are closelylinked and the same arguments apply ineach area.Not only is training new staff within

schools the best way to teach them theskills that they need, but it can also attractbright people who want to learn on thejob and earn a salary while doing so.School-based training can also embedcontinuous development within schools:older teachers benefit from improving thetechniques of younger staff, creating a vir-tuous circle. School-based and, more specifically,

employment-based training allows forfaster entry and exit from the profession.In 21st century society, where jobs for lifeare a rarity, flexibility is essential to win-ning over quality recruits who want to“give something back” but do not neces-sarily see teaching as a career for life. Payis important here because such people areput off by the existing incremental payscales. Fast-track routes to positions ofresponsibility and higher pay are crucial ifexcellent performance is to be rewardedpromptly. Each chapter is constructed as a series

of propositions and recommendationswhich are listed below. Taken together webelieve that these amount to a coherentand compelling vision for the teachingprofession.

Chapter One: Why aren’t there moregood teachers?

Proposition 1: Teaching has never been a highstatus professionAlthough many within the professionthink that when teachers had more auton-omy teaching had a higher status, this isuntrue. Teaching has been a relatively lowstatus job since the post-war expansion ofschooling.

Proposition 2: There are many features aboutthe teaching profession that deter well quali-fied candidatesMany of the historic deterrents toteaching remain today. Our polling ofundergraduates and senior managers/professi onals for this report found thatlow salaries and a lack of glamour detergood graduates from teaching.Respondents felt that teaching was mostsimilar to social work and nursing. It is,however, still widely seen as a nobleundertaking so people might be pre-pared to do it for a short time – if theycan move quickly in and out of teach-ing.

Proposition 3: The deterrents to teachingcreate recruitment shortages and red-uce the quality of entrants to the profes-sionIn an earlier report for Policy Exchange,Professor John Howson showed that weface another recruitment crisis – espe-cially for teachers in science, technology,engineering and maths subjects. Ouranalysis of official statistics found thatteacher training courses are forced toaccept many weaker applicants, especial-ly in shortage subjects, and that hardlyany candidates fail their initial teachertraining suggesting standards are toolow.

6

Chapter Two: Initial Teacher Training

Proposition 1: Initial teacher training hasbecome less college-based and more school-based, but the rate of change has been tooslowPractical training in schools is more valu-able than theory learnt in a lecture hall.However, the development of trainingroutes that take place entirely in schoolshas been slow due to resistance from uni-versity teacher training departments andsometimes unhelpful government inter-ventions.

Proposition 2: School-based and employment-based routes should be made more attractiveand accessibleMore trainees are entering teachingthrough entirely school-based routes(School-Centred Initial Teacher Training)or employment-based routes (GraduateTeacher Programme and Teach First), onwhich they earn while they learn. TheGovernment’s own research suggests thattrainees on these routes prefer the focus onpractical techniques. However, the vastmajority still enter teaching through thedefault university-led routes (undergradu-ate BEd and Postgraduate Certificate ofEducation) because they are unaware ofthe alternatives. Our polling suggests thatif awareness was higher, these other routeswould be much more popular.

Recommendation 1: School and employment-based routes should be expanded to becomethe default option for suitable traineesWe recommend developing a suite ofemployment-based and school-basedtraining routes for undergraduates andcareer-changers. Teach First, already upand running, would be retained as a nicheroute for highly qualified undergraduateswho wanted to work in the most chal-lenging schools. Teach Now wouldreplace the GTP as a more mainstreamdefault route for both undergraduates and

career-changers who wanted to trainentirely in schools. Applicants would beprocessed through a centralised admis-sions system, tested and then placed inschools. Teach Next would be a spe-cialised route for senior managers andprofessionals who wanted to apply theirtalents to teaching. On joining a schoolthey would be seconded to the seniorleadership team (SLT) while training toteach. Being able to use their expertisefrom the start and to earn a leadershiplevel salary would attract more of thesepeople to teaching and help ease the com-ing leadership shortage.

Recommendation 2: The BEd should bephased outWe recommend phasing out the under-graduate BEd. It remains the most theoret-ical route yet attracts the academicallyweakest applicants. It is also more expen-sive than other routes and is seen as secondclass because it is open only to primaryschool trainees. We recommend retainingthe PGCE as there are some excellentcourses and some potential recruits mightbe put off if the only available routes wereentirely school-based.

Recommendation 3: Our proposals should befunded by replacing a small proportion ofteaching assistants with salaried traineesUnder our proposals the costs of trainingwould not increase – the money wouldsimply go to schools to co-ordinate train-ing rather than to universities; schoolscould then buy in support from universi-ties if they wanted to. However, therewould be an additional cost in the regionof £50 million because Teach Nowtrainees would be paid supernumerarysalaries (the school would not have to paythem out of their delegated budgets). Thiscould be paid for by a 3% reduction intraining assistants whose work would becovered by paid trainees embedded inschools.


Executive summary

Recommendation 4: For an expansion ofemployment-based training to work wellschools have to develop training capacityIn the past school-based routes have beenpromoted negatively as a way to get univer-sities out of training. Instead we believe thereis a powerful positive argument for school-based training. Not only are trainees morelikely to learn through practical application,but also mentoring is likely to improve theskills of existing staff. This can only happenif schools have sufficient resources. There isan existing “training schools” scheme but itis limited and confined to the secondary sec-tor. We recommend that this scheme beexpanded and tied in to Teach Now. Clustersof training schools should be developed,where possible using existing federations,trusts or academy networks, so that resourcescan be pooled and trainees experience morethan one school.

Chapter Three: ContinuousProfessional Development

Proposition 1: The diagnosis of the recurrentfailings of CPD is well establishedContinuous professional development(CPD) is too often an afterthought.Courses are either adjuncts to the latestseries of government initiatives or one-dayexternal events that are quickly forgotten.These shortcomings are widely recognised.

Proposition 2: We must break down the barrierbetween Initial Teacher Training and CPDRather than focusing entirely on trainingteachers before they arrive in schools weshould seek to create virtuous circles oftraining within schools. All teachers shouldbe mentored throughout their career – intime becoming mentors themselves.Locating training within schools will pro-mote an environment in which training isa permanent process. This would be partic-ularly valuable for teachers re-entering theprofession and fits in with our wider vision

of teaching as a flexible career that peoplecan move in and out of quickly.

Recommendation 1: Far more CPD shouldtake place in schools Lessons learnt in the classroom while “tin-kering” after discussions with colleagues orobserving practice have much more valuethan theory acquired outside schools.Mentoring will relocate CPD in the class-room and away from external courses. Thenew Masters degree in teaching and learn-ing that will be offered free to teachers intheir first five years from September 2009will work against this; we are also con-cerned that it will become, in effect, acompulsory qualification for any teacherseeking promotion, regardless of its merit.

Recommendation 2: All teachers should havea financial entitlement to CPD We recommend that instead of framing anentitlement to CPD through a potentiallyrestrictive Masters in teaching and learning,all teachers should have £500 a year to spendon their own professional development. Thiswould be paid for by consolidating some ofthe money that is currently spent by centralgovernment and its agencies supportingtheir own initiatives, like the national strate-gies. The money could be spent on equip-ment, travel to other schools, supply coverfor training or could be saved up to pay fora course in the individual’s special subject ora sabbatical. It would be accessed throughthe performance review system, in whichmentors should participate, so that it couldconnect to the wider interests of the school.

Chapter Four: Using Teacher Pay toImprove Recruitment and Retention

Recommendation 1: Fast-track routes tohigher salaries would help recruit and retaintop graduates and professionalsFaster access to higher salary bands wouldattract higher quality applicants to teach-

More Good Teachers

8

ing and help to retain good staff. There arefast-track schemes to leadership and lead-ership pay scales, but there are too manydifferent schemes, and none of them areparticularly large or well-marketed. Werecommend that they should be consoli-dated into one scheme and then promotedto potential recruits as well as existingteachers. There should also be a fast-trackroute to the advanced skills teacher statuspay scale so that good classroom teachersdon’t feel they have to move into leader-ship in order to access higher salariesfaster.

Proposition 1: The national pay agreementdiscriminates against schools in disadvantagedareasAs there are implicit costs involved inteaching in more challenging schools,especially coping with poor discipline, anational pay agreement inevitably dis-criminates against them. Wealthierschools can pay the same and offer morepleasant working conditions. The same istrue for shortage subjects. Maths and sci-ence graduates can earn more thanhumanities graduates outside teaching,but as teachers, apart from a golden hello,do not get paid more to compensate.Again this shortage hits schools in disad-vantaged areas hardest.

Recommendation 2: Schools in disadvan-taged areas need to be funded at a higher levelSchools in disadvantaged areas need themoney to pay their teachers more. The intro-duction of the “pupil premium”, attachingmore money to pupils from poorer areas thanthose from better-off areas, would providethis support. We will publish a detailed guideto the pupil premium later this year.

Recommendation 3: Once the funding is inplace, schools should be able to opt out of thenational pay agreement – levelling the play-ing field and boosting recruitmentAlthough schools can already pay extramoney, like recruitment and retentionallowances, to staff, these are either unused orare given to more or less all staff, a pattern thatis intrinsic to all national pay agreements withlocal freedoms whether in the public or pri-vate sector. Instead we need a range of com-peting, alternative pay structures. All schoolsthat employ their own staff should be allowedto opt out of the national pay agreement anduse their own model, as academies are alreadydoing. Having more money, schools in chal-lenging areas would be able to offer the mostattractive packages, which could includeincentives like smaller class sizes as well ashigher pay. Other schools would soon adoptthe pay models that proved most successful atattracting high quality recruits.


Executive Summary

1Why aren’t theremore good teachers?

Teachers like to think that the status of theirprofession is suffering a temporary blip. Ifonly government would restore some oftheir professional autonomy, reduce theircompulsory adherence to the national cur-riculum and national testing, then the pub-lic would begin to recognise the intellectualand emotional demands of their job. Butthis is a false hope. Teaching has never hadthe status of professions such as medicine orlaw. Although pay has improved consider-ably, it always has been relatively low. Sincethe expansion of secondary education afterthe Second World War many of those enter-ing the profession have had poor qualifica-tions or have seen it as second-choice career.Successive governments have tried to

improve the status of teaching. Over the past40 years it has become a graduate profession,pay has increased and teachers have beengiven their own professional body, theGeneral Teaching Council for England(GTCE). Although all of these changes havehad positive effects, none has made much ofa difference to the impression the generalpublic, including potential recruits to teach-ing, have of the profession. Polling under-taken for this report shows that undergradu-ates and those in professional or managerialjobs – the two groups from which we wouldwish to see teachers recruited – see teachingas on a par with social work and nursing,rather than medicine, engineering or the law.Perhaps then it is time to admit defeat.

Being a teacher will never be like being adoctor, lawyer or banker. No governmentcould increase pay enough to rival thesecareers. Furthermore, there are not enough

senior management roles to give teachingthe career structure that appeals to ambi-tious professionals in other fields. The vastmajority of teachers will remain where theyare most needed – in the classroom. This is not a reason to despair of ever

getting the very best people into teaching.Our polling does show that it is consideredto be a noble profession. This chimes withgovernment research – teaching representsgiving something back, spotting potential,helping your community. It is no surprisethat recruitment campaigns play heavilyon these beliefs. Although many may not want to base a

whole career on altruism alone, it may beenough to bring people into the professionfor part of their working life, especially ifrecruits are convinced that teaching willoffer them transferable skills in manage-ment and communications. The Teach Firstprogramme which fast-tracks recruits into apaid teaching job in just six weeks has beenhugely successful at attracting high calibregraduates: 5% of all Oxbridge graduateswho achieved the 2:1 or above required tojoin Teach First applied to the programmelast year and it is now fourteenth in TheTimes’s list of top graduate employees.1

Teach First has been criticised becauserecruits are committed to the professionfor only two years and 50% leave at thispoint. But that, of course, is one of themain attractions. The scheme is heavilymarketed as offering transferable skills thatwill be valuable in other jobs. The expecta-tion is that recruits will serve for two yearsin a tough school in return for these skills.

10

1 www.top100graduateemploy -

ers.com/top100.html

The 50% that discover a real vocationalcommitment to teaching are a bonus; thesepeople would probably not have enteredthe profession had the escape route notbeen clearly marked.Many of the recommendations in this

report apply lessons from Teach First to therest of the profession. As a 2004 Educationand Skills Select Committee report onteacher training put it: “More varied careersare likely to become the norm in all fieldsof work and teaching will need to adapt toaccommodate that trend and facilitate flex-ibility to allow people to move in and outof the profession.”2 This should beembraced as on opportunity to bring moregood teachers into schools – not as anunwelcome threat to the traditional model.Some aspects of government reform

seem to reflect this. Ministers have built upTeach First and another employment-based route for older career-changers – theGraduate Teacher Programme (GTP). But,at the moment, these are niche pro-grammes. Teach First trains fewer than 400teachers a year out of 30,000.3 There hasbeen no real attempt to review the mainteacher training routes – the BEd(Bachelor of Education) and the PGCE(Postgraduate Certificate of Education) –in the light of changing career patterns. The new Masters in Teaching and

Learning which will be available free tonew teachers from September 2009 seemsto work in the opposite direction. Thequalification offered is specific to teachingas a career and there is a danger that it willbecome compulsory by default – as thoserecruiting for senior management posi-tions will start to expect it of candidates. Furthermore, many in the education

world are still wedded to increasing thebarriers to entering teaching in a vainattempt to improve professional status. Arecent report from the Institute of PublicPolicy Research suggested increasing thescope of initial teacher training by “movingto a training process that…would com-

prise two years of a mix of training andclassroom practice, followed by one year’sinduction in a school, with one day perweek of obligatory training. To completethe master level qualification (if desired), afourth then fifth year would involve study-ing part-time”.4 This would mean newteachers training for up to eight years(including their original subject degree).Even doctors only have to do five years! Itis difficult to see how this fits with a widervision of teaching as a flexible career.

In this report we will offer a set of rec-ommendations designed to increase oppor-tunities for the most talented people insociety to move in and out of teaching attimes appropriate for them. This does not,of course, preclude the existence of excel-lent professionals committed to a lifetimeof teaching. Such people are essential, butflexibility is needed to ensure that thosewho are interested in teaching for part oftheir career are not put off by a long com-pulsory induction designed when teachingwas considered a job for life. This vision ofteaching requires a much greater focus oncontinuous professional development(CPD) within schools. At the momentprofessional development is loaded intoinitial teacher training. If people are mov-ing more freely in and out of the profes-sion, this will no longer be viable.

Proposition 1: Teaching has neverbeen a high status profession

In the first half of the 20th century thenumbers of state secondary schools werelimited and existed primarily to educate


Why aren’t there more good teachers?

2 Secondary Education: Teacher

Retention and Recruitment,

Education and Skills Select

Committee, Fifth Report, 21st

September 2004, p 37

3 Soon to be 800

4 Margo J et al, Those Who

Can?, IPPR, 2008, p 11

“ Many in the education world are still wedded to

increasing the barriers to entering teaching in a vain

attempt to improve professional status”

the most academically able students. Farfewer teachers were required than today.Furthermore, teaching was one of the fewprofessions open to women; many highlyable women turned to teaching for want ofother possibilities. By the Sixties, however, the profession

had undergone a massive expansion asmore pupils stayed on until 16 and thento 18. The demand for teachers increasedat the same time as an array of new mid-dle-class jobs in the service sector becameavailable and as women began to breakthrough into historically male professionssuch as finance and law. Grammar schoolteachers had been recruited straight fromuniversities, but the growth in the num-ber of secondary moderns, and then com-prehensives, meant that schools had torecruit from other sources – primarily theteacher training colleges, which had beenbuilt by the Victorians to provide a two-year course for elementary school teach-ers.In 1957 the two-year course was

extended to three and the colleges ofeducation began a huge expansion. Thenumber of students at these collegesincreased from 33,000 in 1957-58 to55,000 five years later.5 Despite thisincrease, by 1965 teacher shortages wereacute. Many schools were failing to keepclass sizes to the statutory minimum of30 for secondary and 40 for primary.The education secretary, AnthonyCrosland, instituted an emergency pro-gramme which entailed almost doublingthe number of teacher-training placesfrom 60,000 in 1965 to 110,000 in1973.6 By the early Seventies the Depart -ment of Education had lost control. Ithad “no reliable figures…because theactivity in teacher education in the late1960s was prodigious with emergencycrowding in many places” – it was esti-mated that over 130,000 students werebeing taught in training colleges by1973.7

Unsurprisingly the breakneck speed ofthis expansion led to a severe lowering inthe quality of entrants. By the end of the1960s, 80% of teachers were coming fromthe training colleges. Although 38% ofthese training college entrants had two ormore A-levels, 25% had no sixth-formeducation at all. The minimum entryrequirement was just five O-levels.8 It wasquickly realised that the colleges wereactively putting off brighter school-leavers.One critic wrote: “The colleges, asmonotechnics, possess an inbuilt disadvan-tage at student entry because a choice, orrather a non-choice, of teaching as a careerhas to be made at too early an age. This‘trapping’ effect, it is argued, depressesmost bright sixth formers, who primarilyseek a more open form of higher educationbefore vocational commitment.”9

Prospective graduates often used to applyfor a place in a college of education as aninsurance policy in case they failed to wina university place.10

Concerted efforts to develop teaching asa graduate profession followed. The col-leges offered BEd degrees rather than justcertificates and many of the colleges weremerged with universities. From the mid-70s universities started paying more atten-tion to the Postgraduate Certificate ofEducation (PGCE) courses, whichinvolved longer periods of school-basedpractice.11 In 1983 secondary training wasshifted almost entirely to the PGCE on thegrounds that a trainee teacher should havea degree in the subject that he or she wasgoing to teach. At the same time more pri-mary PGCE places were offered – andthere has been a slow but continuous shiftfrom BEd to PGCE at primary school levelever since.12

Teaching is now firmly established as agraduate profession but its relatively lowstatus remains. In 1973 June Purvis listedfour reasons why; by and large they stillhold true today despite the huge changesin the nature of initial teacher training:

More Good Teachers

12

5 Simon B, Education and the

Social Order 1940-90, Lawrence

& Wishart, 1991, p 202

6 Ibid, p 255

7 Ibid, p 263

8 Maden M, “The Teaching

Profession and the Training of

Teachers” in Burgess T (ed),

Dear Lord James: A Critique of

Teacher Education, Penguin,

1971, pp 113-114

9 Ibid, p 115

10 Purvis J, “Schoolteaching as

a Professional Career”, British

Journal of Sociology, vol 24, 1,

March 1973, p 50

11 Crook C, “Educational

Studies and Teacher Education”,

British Journal of Educational

Studies, vol 50, 1, March 2002,

p 60

12 Adelman C, “Teacher

Education in England and Wales:

the past 20 years”, European

Journal of Education, vol 21, 2,

1986, p 176

� School teaching involves less glamourand drama than either medicine orlaw.

� The public have had greater sustainedcontact with schoolteachers than anyother group of professionals, so the joblacks the remoteness and mystique of“the heart surgeon or the lawyer incourt”.

� The qualifications of teachers in train-ing are lower than those of many otherprofessionals.

� “The public see schoolteaching as therefuge of those who do not know whatelse to do. In addition, long holidays,relative to the average worker in oursociety, help to foster the misconcep-tion that the job is an easy one.”13

We can add that teachers’ salaries are lowerthan professions with high status. In 1968teachers earned more or less the equivalentof the average national salary (femaleteachers earned considerably more thanthe female average).14 The situation hasimproved somewhat, with the averageteacher salary 50% higher than the nation-al salary average, but it is still considerablylower than standard medical or legalsalaries.

Despite the unchanging nature of manyof these factors there is a widespread per-ception among teachers that the status oftheir profession has fallen rapidly over thepast forty years. Academics fromCambridge and Leicester Universities werecommissioned by the Department forEducation and Skills in 2002, to undertakea four-year study into the status of teach-ers. In 2006 they surveyed two panels, oneof teachers and one of associated groups(teaching assistants, governors and par-ents). One question asked participants torate the status of teaching out of five forvarious years since 1967. As the graphbelow shows both groups perceive a cleardecline.15

This suggests that the profession hasaccepted the myth of decline promoted bythose organisations that wish to highlightthe negative impact of the educationreforms of the last 30 years. They argue thatthe introduction of the national curriculumand national assessment have reduced theautonomy of teachers. Combined with dis-agreeable images of teaching reflected in themedia, the result has been to undermine theprofession and reduce its status. The keydates that the authors have chosen to high-light reveal these underlying assumptions:



13 Purvis J, op cit, p 52

14 Ibid, p 47

15 The Status of Teachers and

the Teaching Profession in

England: Views from inside and

outside the profession, final

report of the Teacher Status

Project, DfES, 2006, p 32; see

www.dfes.gov.uk/research/data/

uploadfiles/RR755.pdf

0

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

3

3.5

4

4.5

1967 1979 1988 1997 2003 2006

Teachers

Associated Groups

Year

Mea

n st

atus

rat

ing

(1 =

ver

y lo

w,

5 =

ver

y hi

gh)

Figure 1.1: Teachers’ and others’ perceptions in 2006 of the decline in thestatus of teachers over the years

� 1967: The Plowden Report on primaryeducation.

� 1979: Conservative Government elected.� 1988: Education Reform Act: intro-

duction of a national curriculum,national assessment, grant-maintainedschools and local management ofschools.

� 1997: Labour Government elected:leading to the introduction of thenational literacy, numeracy and KS3strategies, standards for QualifiedTeacher Status, and performance relatedpay.

� 2003: Teacher Status Project baselinesurvey, introduction of workforceagreement, primary national strategy.

� 2006: Teacher Status Project follow-upsurvey.16

In the common memory of the teachingprofession (at least its older members) thePlowden Report is the high watermark ofofficial support for progressive, flexibleteaching methods combined with teacher-driven assessment. Since then central gov-ernment has tightened its control – and ateach stage teachers consider they have lostprofessional autonomy and thus status.This can be seen from teachers’ responseswhen asked what might increase the statusof the profession.17 The most commonresponse was concerned with job aware-ness, and called for improvements toschool resources and facilities, and forpublic appreciation of the intellectualdemands of teaching and its contributionto society. The second most commonresponse indicated that teachers thoughtthat greater focus on pupils would makethe curriculum more relevant to their livesand give pupils more say in policymakingand expression of their learning. The thirdwanted a reduction in constraints such asworkload and testing, while the fourthrecommended teacher involvement in pol-icy reform and opportunities for schoolleadership.

Proposition 2: Today there are manyfeatures about the teaching professionthat deter well qualified candidates

Although Policy Exchange supports greaterautonomy for schools and a more nuancedapproach to testing and accountability18, itseems pretty clear that these reforms alonewould not address teachers’ professional sta-tus given that it was low even when schoolshad almost complete autonomy from centralgovernment. In polling commissioned fromYouGov for this report we found that poten-tial teachers are deterred from the professionby a similar mix of factors to those JunePurvis listed in 1973.Tables 1.1 and 1.2 below show the top

ten deterrents to teaching for undergradu-ates and professionals. For both groupssalary is a powerful deterrent. It is worthnoting that salary is a much bigger issue forstudents at Russell Group universities thanothers, suggesting that students at these eliteuniversities are well aware of their potentialvalue on the employment market. Whenasked to explain their choices many under-graduates were clear that salary was indica-tive of the low status of the profession: “Inorder to get the best graduates for teachingposts, the government must offer goodsalaries for good degrees. Some teachers Ihave observed cannot write a complete sen-tence that makes sense – why would goodgraduates want to work in this environ-ment?” or “It seems that teachers’ salariesstart at quite a low level and don’t increasemuch, even with plenty of experience.”Many managers and professionals con-

sidered salary an almost impossible barrierto the profession:

“I have actually seriously considered goinginto teaching and got as far as winning aplace on a well respected PGCE course.However financially it is absolutely impos-sible. I have a mortgage and I could nottake a year out without salary (and takingout additional debt) to train, knowing

More Good Teachers

14

16 Ibid p 32

17 Ibid p 38

18 Davies C and Lim C, Helping

Schools Succeed: A Framework

for English Education, Policy

Exchange, 2008

that when I finished training I would beon maybe 25K a year. That’s about onequarter of what I earn now.”

Others were unprepared to start again atthe bottom of the salary scale with norecognition of the skills they had built upin their current job:

“[salary is a deterrent because it means]starting at the bottom of the salary scale,despite 13 years professional experiencein the public sector and having a num-ber of cross transferable skills.”

“A career change means starting towardsthe bottom of a new salary scale - I havealready built up 20 years experience inanother field (civil service) so would suffera salary drop if I moved into teaching.”

The other main deterrents stem fromPurvis’s first two reasons for low status –lack of glamour and the public’s greaterfamiliarity with schoolteachers than withother professions. Many respondents wereless than enthusiastic about the prospectof working with children and dealing withparents. The prominence of “feelingunsafe in the classroom” may be a reflec-tion of what Purvis calls the “lack of mys-tique” about teaching. Undergraduateswere particularly likely to pick this deter-rent, which may reflect their own unhap-py experiences of the classroom. Somewere explicit: “As a student I sometimesdidn’t feel safe in a classroom let alone in ateaching position”; “I’ve only come out ofschool about three years ago and youcould see what the teachers went through,being bullied etc...”



Table 1.1: Top Ten Deterrents to Teaching for Undergraduates

Total Russell group Non-Russell

All undergrads (not in final year) 1282 % 482 % 800 %

Now thinking about what DETERS or might DETER you from teaching as a profession…

Which of the following is the GREATEST deterrent?

Feeling unsafe in the classroom 231 18.0% 80 16.6% 151 18.9%

Salary 215 16.8% 105 21.8% 110 13.8%

Working with children or young 124 9.7% 43 8.9% 81 10.1%people

Teachers’ morale 99 7.7% 42 8.7% 57 7.1%

The challenging nature of the job 94 7.3% 31 6.4% 63 7.9%

Having to handle parents 85 6.6% 36 7.5% 49 6.1%

Concerns about how teachers / 43 3.4% 17 3.5% 26 3.3%schools are inspected

How the public perceives teachers/ 32 2.5% 9 1.9% 23 2.9%teaching

Speaking to teachers about the 31 2.4% 13 2.7% 18 2.3%profession

Spending more time in higher 29 2.3% 5 1.0% 24 3.0%education

As well as choosing their top deterrent,respondents were also asked to name theirtop five deterrents. Just under 10% ofundergraduates (179) chose “spendingmore time in higher education” as one of

their top five. This suggests that trying toincrease the quality of entrants by increas-ing the amount of time in higher educa-tion (a two-year PGCE, for example) isunlikely to succeed. One respondent said

More Good Teachers

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Table 1.2: Top Ten Deterrents to Teaching for Professionals and Managers

All managers/ professionals 1041 %

Again thinking about NOW, please think about factorswhich may DETER you from becoming a teacher.

Which of the following factors is the GREATEST deterrent?

Salary 211 20.3%

Feeling unsafe in the classroom 134 12.9%

Working with children or young people 108 10.4%

Teachers’ morale 90 8.6%

The challenging nature of the job 57 5.5%

How the public perceives teachers/teaching 30 2.9%

Speaking to teachers about the profession 28 2.7%

Having to handle parents 23 2.2%

Concerns about how teachers / schools are inspected 22 2.1%

The professional status of teaching 18 1.7%

Table 1.3: Top Ten Attractions to Teaching for Undergraduates

Total Russell group Non-Russell

All undergrads (not in final year) 1282 % 482 % 800 %

Thinking about what makes or mightmake teaching an ATTRACTIVE profession…

Which of the following factors MOSTattracts you about teaching?

Long holidays 251 20% 112 23% 139 17%

Helping young people to learn 197 15% 74 15% 123 15%

Being inspired by a good teacher 111 9% 42 9% 69 9%

Working with children or young people 98 8% 41 9% 57 7%

Staying involved with a subject specialism 74 6% 26 5% 48 6%

Giving something back to the community 51 4% 15 3% 36 5%

The challenging nature of the job 37 3% 18 4% 19 2%

Wanting to teach pupils better than in 46 4% 18 4% 28 4%own experience

Job security 42 3% 14 3% 28 4%

Fit with family or other commitments 42 3% 13 3% 29 4%

succinctly: “I’ve been studying all my life,by the time I leave university I will be indebt, now I have just got to the point Iwant to get a career and start earningmoney.” Respondents views on those aspects of

teaching that make it attractive tell usalmost as much about the professionalstatus of teachers as the answers aboutdeterrents. Tables 1.3 and 1.4 show thetop ten choices for the most attractiveaspect of teaching for both groups. Forboth undergraduates and managers/pro -fessionals the most attractive feature bysome distance is the “long holidays”,which fits with Purvis’s argument that“long holidays, relative to the averageworker in our society, help to foster themisconception that the job is an easyone”. Comments such as long holidays“would be a good opportunity to do allthe things that those of us who work inthe real world (who are busy paying forthe holidays and pensions of teachers) donot have time to do” were not uncom-mon.

“Fitting in with family or other commit-ments” is the third highest attraction formanagers/professionals. Unsurprisingly,the vast majority of people choosing thisoption were female. On the more positive side, however, it is

also clear that many people consider teachingto be a noble profession. “Helping youngpeople to learn” and “giving something backto the community” feature highly on bothlists. Many respondents commented on thevalue of education to society. For example, “Ibelieve there are few great vocations liketeaching; being involved in shaping the waysociety develops simply in the way you con-fer knowledge onto others” or “teachers canhave a lasting and powerful influence on chil-dren and can therefore help shape a bettersociety”. This is certainly true for people whodo decide to become teachers. In a DfES-funded study of what motivated traineeteachers to join the profession 78% said theywere strongly attracted by “helping youngpeople to learn” and 33% by “giving some-thing back to the community” compared to6% who were strongly attracted by salary.19



19 Hobson J et al, Becoming a

Teacher: Student teachers'

motives and preconceptions,

and early school-based experi-

ences during Initial Teacher

Training , DfES, 2005, p 14

Table 1.4: Top Ten Attractions to Teaching for Professionals and Managers

All managers/ professionals 1041 %

And thinking about how you view teaching NOW, please think about factors which make or might make teaching an ATTRACTIVE profession…

Which of the following factors MOST attracts you aboutteaching NOW?

Long holidays 185 18%

Helping young people to learn 99 10%

Fit with family or other commitments 45 4%

Giving something back to the community 41 4%

Working with children or young people 37 4%

Job security 32 3%

Being inspired by a good teacher 27 3%

Staying involved with a subject specialism 27 3%

Salary 27 3%

Benefits package (e.g. occupational pension) 19 2%

Recent media campaigns by theTraining and Development Agency(TDA) have attempted to tap into thesense of nobility that is attached to theprofession – and one of the great attrac-tions of Teach First is the apparent altru-ism inherent in “giving two years back”

(the US version of the programme iscalled Teach for America – perhaps a lit-tle “flag-waving” for this country but theidea is much the same). It would be eas-ier to tap into this seam of feeling, if itwas easier to move in and out of the pro-fession, and if more attention was paid

More Good Teachers

18

20 Hobson et al, op cit, p 26

21 Ibid, p xiii

The Professional Status of Teaching

Probably the strongest indicator of the status that teaching held for our respondents was how theycompared it to other professions.

As the table below indicates both professionals and undergraduates thought that teaching wasmost like the caring professions: social work, nursing and even policing. Very few respondents feltthat teaching was similar to any of the high-status professions on the list, such as doctor, solicitor orarchitect.

This chimes with the views that teachers have of their profession – the report by academics atCambridge and Leicester universities for the DfES on professional status asked practising teachers asimilar question. Social worker was the most common selection in this study as well, chosen by 40%of respondents.20 Teachers thought they should be much higher – behind only the medical profes-sion.21

Professionals Undergraduates

Thinking about teachers compared to other professions, which of the following do you feel has a similar social status to teaching? [Please tick all that apply]

Social Worker 58 52

Nurse 57 51

Police officer 47 45

Librarian 39 29

Pharmacist 20 19

Accountant 13 15

Engineer 12 7

Surveyor 12 8

Doctor 10 10

Solicitor 9 10

Veterinarian 9 11

None of the above 8 13

Architect 6 5

Website designer 5 6

Management Consultant 3 6

Surgeon 3 3

Barrister 3 4



22 Howson J, The Labour

Market for Teachers, Policy

Exchange, 2008

23 Howson J, op cit, pp 13-15

Since then, university top-up

fees have been introduced (in

2006-07) and cover PGCE and

SCITT students. The maximum

fee in 2008-09 will be £3,145 per

year and to help with this the

TDA provides a £1,230 mainte-

nance grant on top of the bur-

sary and means tests for the

rest. Student loans are also

available

to developing the transferable skills ofteachers, such as leadership and manage-ment, while they were in the profession.

Proposition 3: These deterrents toteaching create recruitment shortagesand reduce the quality of entrants tothe profession

The relatively low status of teachinginevitably affects the quantity and quality ofentrants to the profession; academic qualityof teaching in England is very variable;many subject areas will miss their recruit-ment targets this year;22 and providers of ini-tial teacher training often have little choiceover whom they recruit. Courses at themost prestigious institutions will usually bestocked with well qualified applicants, butothers can end up struggling to fill places.Although it is true that academic ability isnot by itself enough to make a good teacher,it does matter. There is a close correlationinternationally between education systemsthat recruit only the best graduates andthose that achieve the highest scores in com-parative tests. None of this is an argument

for raising the entry barriers to becoming ateacher, but it is an argument for makingteaching more attractive and accessible.Finding enough teachers has been a public

policy headache for many years, but the situa-tion became critical in the 1990s. In a workingpaper for Policy Exchange, Professor Howsonexplained: “By early 2000, it must have beenclear to policymakers in government thateither something had to be done to improverecruitment or a disaster would ensue.Recorded vacancies in secondary schoolsmeasured in the January census had risen from680 in 1997 to 1,143 in 2000 as school rollsrose and the number of new teachers fell.Vacancies were to peak in 2001, at 2,477.“The drastic solution, announced sud-

denly in March 2000, was the introductionof the Training Grant of £6,000 for allpostgraduate trainees, although not fortrainees on undergraduate courses.”23

Alongside the training grant, “goldenhellos” were introduced for shortage sub-jects. The combined effect of these finan-cial inducements was to boost recruitmentaway from crisis levels. In the last fewyears, though, numbers have started todrop again as Table 1.5 shows.

Table 1.5: Applications to Selected Secondary Subjects by ProspectiveTeacher Trainees, February 2001 – February 2008

Subjects 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008

Mathematics 352 453 546 690 873 1,125 1,056 896

Physics 66 96 104 136 127 181 185 129

ICT 130 240 404 544 430 553 355 297

Geography 366 420 406 458 482 646 440 376

MFL 645 697 685 724 664 858 620 588

Source: GTTR applicant statistics (online). From John Howson, The Labour Market for Teachers 1997-2008, (Policy Exchange, London,2008)

01 Year 08

01 Year 08

01 Year 08

01 Year 08

01 Year 08

In fact, provisional data suggests that keysubjects such as maths, science and modernforeign languages will miss recruitment tar-gets this year (see Table 1.6).One result of the difficulty in hitting

recruitment targets is that providers ofinitial teacher training have to take on avery high proportion of applicants. AsFigure 1.2 shows, applicant:acceptanceratios for most higher education ITTcourses in 2007 were very high. For geog-raphy and design technology postgradu-ate courses 77% applicants were accept-ed. For music the figure is 73% and forscience 69%. Across all subjects the aver-age is of 59%.24 Compare this with a 5%-10% acceptance rate for a typical RussellGroup university undergraduate human-ities degree.

This high acceptance rate to ITT canbe achieved only by accepting some can-didates with very poor qualifications.The academic quality of entrants forundergraduate BEd is a particular con-cern. According to the Training andDevelopment Agency (TDA), in 2005-06 32% of undergraduate entrants didnot have A-levels. Instead they applywith GNVQs, through access courses orwith foreign degrees. Of those that didhave A-levels, the average tariff score was269, which is roughly equal to a B andtwo Cs.25 Figure 1.3 shows how thiscompares with entrance standards fordegrees in other subjects usingUniversities and Colleges AdmissionsService data for 2007. For medicine theaverage tariff score is 473, equivalent to

More Good Teachers

20

24 Ibid, p.35

25 Ibid

Table 1.6: Applications to PGCE Courses (England), Projection of Filled Places, March 2008

Subjects Mar-07 Apps Mar-08 Apps Likely Revised Est. %Target/ Revised Fill?total to come recruits recruits Target revised recruits/

(-30%) recruits Targets

Mathematics 1,299 2,585 1,113 1,286 2,399 1,679 2,169 77% 0.77 N

English 2,693 3,805 2,323 1,112 3,435 2,405 1,695 142% 1.42 Y

Science 1,903 3,910 1,628 2,007 3,635 2,545 2,954 86% 0.86 N

MFL 803 1,810 791 1,007 1,798 1,259 1,523 83% 0.83 N

D&T 330 832 289 502 791 554 907 61% 0.61 N

History 1,470 1,708 1,290 238 1,528 1,070 908 118% 1.18 Y

Geography 558 894 468 336 804 563 624 90% 0.9 N

Art 925 1,387 865 462 1,327 929 549 169% 1.69 Y

Music 405 770 429 365 794 556 558 100% 1 Y

RE 615 1,114 609 499 1,108 776 660 118% 1.18 Y

Citizenship 272 455 256 183 439 307 200 154% 1.54 Y

Business St 456 958 341 502 843 590 544 108% 1.08 Y

ICT 475 1,119 407 644 1,051 736 908 81% 0.81 N

PE 2,139 2,366 2,056 227 2,283 1,598 740 216% 2.16 Y

All Secondary 15,537 25,171 14,183 9,634 23,817 16,672 14,862 112% 1.12 Y

All Primary 17,254 19,066 16,126 1,812 17,938 12,557 7,456 168% 1.68 Y

The projection of the outcome for this year’s application round in England is based on the figures of last year’s applications and the number of applications as stated by

the GTTR compared with the estimated target for application in some subject-based courses. Columns two and three were used to calculate the number of applications to

come (column five) by assuming a similar trend in applications as shown in the remaining part of the last round. The addition of this month’s figures in column four to

these numbers provides an indication of a possible total for this year’s applications. Adjustments for withdrawals and unplaced applicants were made by subtracting 30%

of the total as displayed in column seven. Matching these figures with the estimated targets for this year (column eight) allowed a preliminary estimate of this year’s situa-

tion. From John Howson, The Labour Market for Teachers 1997-2008, (Policy Exchange, London, 2008)

almost four A grades. The average entrytariff for all subjects is 318 or an A andtwo Bs. Of all subject areas education issecond to last, ahead only of creative artsand design.26

At postgraduate level, in 2005-06 – thelast year for which figures are available – of

those entering teacher training with a UKclassified degree 59% had a 2:1 or higher(upper class degree), 34% a 2:2 and 7% athird or pass. That means more than 2,000students entered ITT with a third-class orpass degree.27 The subjects with the greatestshortage of recruits fare worst. For maths



26 Derived from UCAS online

statistical database

27 TDA Performance Profiles

2005-06

80%

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Figure 1.2: Percentage of applicants accepted to the HE ITT courses, England, 2007

500

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Figure 1.3: Average tariff, by subject group, of those successfully accepted ondegree courses for entry 2007

Source: GTTR applications and acceptances 24/09/07

Source: UCAS statistics. Data excludes those degree accepts with a zero tariff score.

and science the proportions of entrantswith a 2:1 and above were 46% and 50%respectively. And the proportion of ITTentrants with less than a 2:2 was 16% ininformation and communication technol-ogy, 17% in maths, and 11% in sciencecompared to 7% across the board. In2005-06, 318 graduates started a mathsPGCE with only a third or pass in theirfirst degree.

Of course degree classes are not uni-form between universities – the type ofinstitution from which graduates arerecruited is also important. Research fromthe Sutton Trust shows that a dispropor-tionate number of teachers who haveattended the best universities end up inthe independent sector. It found thatnearly 30% of independent school teach-ers are graduates of leading universities (as

More Good Teachers

22

1st 2:1 2:2 3 Pass

15000

10000

5000

0

Figure 1.4: Undergraduate degree classifications of postgraduate traineeteachers with UK classified degrees 2005-06

Table 1.7: QTS outcomes for Teacher Trainees 2005/6

Qualification aim

QTS Outcome Final year Undergraduate Final year Postgraduate Total

Awarded QTS 5,604 27,499 33,103

Yet to complete the course 405 1,531 1,936

Left course before the end 38 1,690 1,728

Withheld: skills test not met 108 447 555

Withheld: standards not met 42 195 237

Withheld: standards & skills test not met 69 262 331

Skills test not taken (standards met) 73 171 244

Skills tests not taken (standards not met) 16 27 43

Undefined 6 5 11

Total 6,361 31,827 38,188

Source: TDA performance profiles 2007

Source: TDA

ranked by the major league tables) com-pared with 10.5% in the maintained sec-tor.28 It also found that over 60% of inde-pendent school teachers have a 2:1 orhigher compared with only 45% of theteachers in maintained schools.Not only is it possible to get on to an

ITT course with a poor academic record itis also very difficult to fail once on thecourse. Table 1.7 shows that 87% of traineesachieved Qualified Teacher Status in 2005-06. Only 2.7% failed to meet the standardsexpected and/or the basic skills test.

One reason may be that the basic skillstests, which are equivalent to grade C GCSEsin English, maths and IT, can be taken asmany times as necessary in order to pass.Worryingly it seems that teachers are findingthese tests increasingly difficult. In 2000-01it took trainee teachers an average 1.28 timesto pass the numeracy test and 1.14 times topass the literacy test. By 2005-06 these fig-ures had risen to 1.49 and 1.4 respectively.30

At the extreme - in 2006 one trainee teacherneeded 28 attempts to pass the numeracy testand another took 19 attempts to pass the lit-



28 Tracey L and Smithers A,

Teacher Qualifications, Centre

for Education and Employment

Research, The Sutton Trust,

2003

29 www.tda.gov.uk/upload/resou

rces/pdf/q/qts_itt_req.pdf

30 Hansard, 16th July 2007,

Column 126W

The minimum entry requirements for ITT

To teach in a maintained school or non-maintained specialist school in England a teacher must beregistered with the General Teaching Council for England (GTCE), and in order to register a personmust have Qualified Teacher Status (QTS).

To achieve QTS a teacher needs to have completed a period of initial teacher training (ITT) whichhas enabled them to meet the necessary professional standards; a formal set of skills and qualitiesrequired to be an effective teacher. Currently the QTS standards relate to three areas: professionalattributes, knowledge and understanding, and skills.29

QTS is achievable through a number of different initial teacher training routes: undergraduateand postgraduate; and training and employment based.

At present the basic requirements for entry to teacher training in the UK are relatively low:

Beyond these, individual providers of ITT may have their own entry requirements and selection pro-cedures. All application processes for ITT include an assessment interview.

Once on a course, a trainee must pass skills tests in numeracy, literacy and information and com-munications technology. An ITT provider cannot recommend a candidate for QTS until they havepassed these tests.

A PGCE is an academic qualification that incorporates QTS, and is not in itself necessary tobecome a teacher. (There is however concern that when teachers transfer abroad, only PGCEs andnot QTS are recognised.)

Qualification Grades needed

A GCSE (or recognised equivalent) in English Grade C or above

A GCSE (or recognised equivalent) in mathematics Grade C or above

A GCSE (or recognised equivalent) in a science subject if you want to teach primary or key stages 2/3 Grade C or above

A UK degree (or equivalent qualification) Pass

Undergraduate qualifications

Please note that a degree is not required to begin undergraduate teacher training, ie bachelor of education and bachelor

of arts/science with qualified teacher status. The initial teacher training providers awarding these qualifications will have

their own requirements.

Source: http://www.tda.gov.uk/Recruit/thetrainingprocess/basicrequirements.aspx

eracy test.31 These people are now, presum-ably, qualified teachers. It is remarkable that alimit has not been imposed to bar those whoclearly struggle with literacy and numeracyfrom entering classrooms.Some involved with teacher education

dismiss all of this evidence regarding theacademic quality of recruits on the groundsthat intellectual ability alone does not makea good teacher. To some extent this is obvi-ously true – it is easy to imagine a bookishscholar rendered useless in minutes by a

class of rowdy teenagers. Leadership, empa-thy and communications skills are allimportant attributes for a good teacherwhich may not be reflected in a degreeresult. However, there is quite a strong rela-tionship between success in achieving qual-ifications and performance within schools.Many Teach First teachers, selected out ofthe group of Russell Group graduates with2:1s or higher, have a huge impact on theirschools within a few years.32 The impor-tance of having a well qualified teaching

More Good Teachers

24

31 See www.theyworkforyou.

com/wrans/?id=2007-07-

16a.148857.h&s=literacy+test#g

148857.r0

32 “Rising to the Challenge: A

review of the Teach First initial

teacher training programme”,

Ofsted, January 2008. For a

specific example see the gradu-

ate profiled in www.timesonline.

co.uk/tol/life_and_style/educatio

n/article3248114.ece

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Nor

way

Rom

ania

Int.

aver

age

Cyp

rus

Indo

nesi

a

Egy

pt

Chi

le

Phi

lippi

nes

Sau

di A

rabi

a

Sou

th A

frica

Figure 1.5: International PISA Scores (which test 15 year olds in school) byCountry 2003

Figure 1.6: TIMSS Average Maths and Science Scores of 8th Grade Studentsby Country, 2003

force can also be seen by comparing theeducational performance of other countriesthat hire a higher proportion of top gradu-ates as teachers. A recent report on high per-forming school systems, co-authored by theformer head of Tony Blair’s delivery unit,Michael Barber, for McKinsey found that inSouth Korea teachers are recruited from thetop 5% of the graduate cohort, in Finlandfrom the top 10% and in Hong Kong andSingapore the top 30%.33 By comparison,according to the New Commission of theSkills of the American Workforce, in the USteachers are recruited “from the bottomthird of high-school students going to col-lege”. England and Wales, as we have seen,hover in the middle of these two extremes.Data from the Programme for

International Student Assessment (PISA)performance tables seem to bear out Barber’scontention – that a well qualified teachingforce is a requirement for a high performingschool system (though, of course, manyother variables also affect international com-parative test results). Figure 5 below showsmaths, reading and science scores from the2003 round of PISA testing for all OECDcountries that took part.

The results for the various countriesdiscussed above (apart from Singaporewhich did not take part in this particularstudy) are highlighted. The graph showsthat the three countries Barber identifiedas recruiting teachers from the top 30% ofthe graduate cohort (Finland, South Koreaand Hong Kong) all ranked highest over-all in the PISA 2003 tests. Although abovethe OECD average, England lagged con-siderably behind these countries. The USfell significantly below the OECD aver-age. 2003 data from the Third International

Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS)supports PISA’s ranking of South Koreaand Hong Kong close to the top and theUS some way behind. It also placesSingapore first in the sample (Figure 1.6).Similarly, in the Progress in Intern -

ational Reading and Literacy Study(PIRLS) tests for 2006, Hong Kong andSingapore were both placed in the topfour countries and the US and Englandwere some way behind.34 As Barber putsit: “The quality of an education systemcannot exceed the quality of its teach-ers.”35



33 Barber M and Mourshed M,

How the World’s Best-Performing

School Systems Come Out on

Top, McKinsey & Company,


34 “Distribution of Reading

Achievement”, Exhibit 1.1,

PIRLS International Report, 2006

35 Barber, op cit, p 16

2Initial teacher training

Teaching will never have the status ofprofessions such as medicine or law.Instead it should be reconfigured to makeit easy for successful graduates to move inand out of teaching at suitable points in theircareer. Furthermore teaching should empha-sise and develop the opportunities it canoffer to acquire transferable skills in leader-ship, management and communication. Most new teachers still have to spend a

year or more training in higher educationbefore getting a job. This is unattractive forthose who do not want to make a long-term commitment to teaching. It is alsoproves wasteful for trainees who find thetheoretical knowledge learnt in the seminarroom to be of little practical use in theclassroom. Donald McIntyre and HazelHagger were right when they wrote:“Classroom teaching expertise cannot inprinciple be derived from theoretical oridealised views of teaching.”36

Over the past 30 years there has been areluctant acceptance that practical, compe-tence-based training is more valuable thantheory. At the beginning of their careers,new teachers need to acquire the craft ofmanaging classrooms so that their pupilslearn effectively. This is not achievedthrough the acquisition of abstract knowl-edge in a seminar room; it is gained

through apprentice-style training in class-rooms. Surgeons acknowledge that tobecome a surgeon they need to be appren-ticed to an experienced colleague in anoperating theatre. We think the same prin-ciple should apply to teachers. Yet the vastmajority of trainees do not spend enoughtime in schools. This Government has implicitly

acknowledged the importance of school-based routes into teaching by introducingTeach First and the Graduate TeacherProgramme (GTP). Both allow recruits togo straight into a teaching job withoutspending time in higher education. TeachFirst is a niche course – recruiting only 1%of new teachers annually and the GTP isfiendishly difficult to access unless theprospective candidate is already working ina school. The vast majority of new teachersstill come through traditional higher edu-cation training routes: the BEd (for pri-mary) and the PGCE (for primary and sec-ondary). We would like to see initialteacher training overhauled to makeemployment-based routes far more com-mon and far easier to access. The development of these routes would

refocus training and resources on schools,which would become more responsible fortraining new staff. A virtuous circle wouldresult as more experienced teachers bene-fited from mentoring new colleagues.Higher education would remain involvedin training, but as the junior partner of theschool rather than an independent institu-tion – the money would go to schools sothat they could decide the level of externalinvolvement.

26

36 McIntyre D and Hagger H,

Learning Teaching from

Teachers: Realising the potential

of school-based teacher educa-

tion, Open University Press,

2006

“ We would like to see initial teacher training overhauled

to make employment-based routes far more common and

far easier to access”

Proposition 1: Initial Teacher Traininghas over the years become lesscollege-based and moreschool-based, but the rateof change has been too slow

Teacher training has gradually becomefocused on imparting practical techniquesfor the classroom rather than the theory ofeducation. From the late 1970s a numberof universities began to incorporate longperiods of school-based teacher practice intheir PGCEs. There was a slow trend“towards a curriculum in which the disci-plines of education became less prominent,where the status of professionally orientedcourses (e.g. curriculum studies, languageand education) rose and students spentmore time in schools”.37

The Thatcher Government acceleratedthe shift. In 1983 the BEd route was large-ly confined to prospective primary teach-ers.38 In 1984 the Council for theAccreditation of Teacher Education(CATE) was established to monitor ITT –signalling the end of higher educationautonomy.39 The amount of time studentshad to spend in schools during their train-ing was defined for the first time. In a1989 circular this was set at 75 days forone, two and three-year courses and 100days for four-year courses. The circular alsorequired that certain topics be covered onall courses.40 By 1992 these had evolvedinto “competencies” though they were stilldefined very broadly. The use of the word“competencies” was important: it symbol-ised the Government’s belief in developingpractical skills rather than theoreticalknowledge. The amount of time PGCEstudents have to spend in schools has sincebeen further extended to 24 weeks – ortwo-thirds of the course (typically separat-ed into two placements at differentschools). These measures were, in part, a response

to a series of critiques of university-ledtraining by right-wing think-tanks with

access to the Conservative government.41

These critiques with their aggressive toneand focus on undermining the “neo-Marxist” ideological bent in teacher train-ing institutions were very effective in con-vincing the Government to take action.They were, however, also unhelpful in cre-ating such a highly-charged politicalatmosphere that evidence that the “theory-into-practice” model of teacher educationwas not working got lost in the ideologicalmêlée. During the 1990s the relationshipbetween the Government and the trainingprofession deteriorated, culminating in aseries of politically explosive inspectionsand re-inspections of ITT provisionordered by the Chief Inspector ChrisWoodhead. This led to the development ofa much tighter “national curriculum” forteacher training in four key subjects(English, maths, science and ICT) andmuch more prescriptive “standards” (ratherthan competencies) for other subjects.Subsequently the relationship between thegovernment agencies (TDA and Ofsted)and ITT providers has become less con-frontational and the curriculum and stan-dards have been made much broader. The poisonous atmosphere of the late

Eighties and Nineties made it much harderfor those academics in the training profes-sion, such as Donald McIntyre and DavidHargreaves, who were arguing that traineeteachers found it difficult to translate theo-ry into classroom practice.42 McIntyre, withcolleagues at Oxford University, developedthe Oxford internship, which activelyinvolved schools in designing teacher train-ing. “Teacher education has often in thepast been a very peripheral activity forschools”, he subsequently wrote, “we want-ed to heighten its profile, to make it quitean important activity in the schoolsinvolved.”43 It was difficult to sell thisvision, however, when other voices weretalking of a “sinister sub-plot” to depriveuniversities of business and “the politicalrape of initial teacher training”.44


Initial teacher training

37 Furlong J et al, Teacher

Education in Transition: Re-form-

ing professionalism? Open

University Press, 2000, p 21

38 Adelman C, “Teacher

Education in England and Wales:

the past 20 years”, European

Journal of Education, vol 21, 2,

1986, p 176

39 In 1994 this became the

Teacher Training Agency (TTA)

and has since been renamed the

Training and Development

Agency (TDA)

40 Ibid, pp 23-24

41 See, for example, Cox C et

al, Whose Schools? A Radical

Manifesto, Hillgate Group, 1986;

Lawlor S, Teachers Mistaught,

Centre for Policy Studies, 1990

42 See, for example, Brown S

and McIntyre D, Making Sense

of Teaching, Open University

Press, 1992 and Hargreaves D,

The Future of Teacher

Education, Hockerill Education

Foundation, 1990


“Professional Development

through the Oxford Internship

Model”, British Journal of

Educational Studies, vol 40, 3,

August, 1992, p 265

44 Maclure S, “Through the

Revolution and Out the Other

Side”, Oxford Review of

Education, 24 (1), 1998 pp 15-

16; Gilroy D, “The Political Rape

of Initial Teacher Training in

England and Wales”, Journal of

Education for Teaching, 1992,

18, (1), pp 5-21

This was the backdrop to the initialattempts of the Thatcher and MajorGovernments to introduce school-basedteacher training. Given the antagonism itis unsurprising that some of these were lessthan successful. In 1989 the Governmentlaunched the Licensed Teacher Scheme(LTS), a radical experiment that allowedschools to hire unqualified non-graduateteachers (they had to have two years ofunspecified higher education) to paid postson a two-year licence. It was up to theschools to decide what training the recruitneeded and whether to use any higher edu-cation provision. After two years thetrainee was assessed and could become afully qualified teacher. Unfortunately, because the scheme was

open to non-graduates it became seen as alast resort for solving recruitment crisesrather than a positive way of opening upthe profession. One headteacher com-mented at the time: “I have never appoint-ed a licensed teacher when a qualified onehas been available.” Because LTS recruitswere used primarily to cover vacancies theywere often sent to poorly-performingschools that were unable to train themproperly. Ofsted noted in 1993 that “manyof those Licensed Teachers who were per-forming poorly were in schools which wereconsidered unsatisfactory for the trainingof teachers…Hardly any of those LicensedTeachers in poor placements were betterthan satisfactory and poor teaching wasoften linked to a poor placement”.45

Geoffrey Partington has noted that in alltheir enthusiasm for the Licensed TeacherScheme the right-wing think-tanks behindthe Government’s ideas seemed to forgetthat schools actually had to have the capac-ity to provide the training.46

The Labour Government replaced theLTS in 1998 with the Graduate TeacherScheme, now the Graduate TeacherProgramme. In its latest form it hasretained some elements of the LTS –recruits are still paid and are still predomi-

nantly based in the school. However, theprogramme has been formalised – as thename suggests only graduates can apply,recruits are typically supernumerary (inaddition to the fully staffed school) andthey must also now spend at least 60 daysactively training.47 The GTP is very diffi-cult to enter and provides a relatively smallproportion of new teachers (about 15%).The Articled Teacher Scheme (ATS)

launched in 1989 at the same time as theLicensed Teacher Scheme, was in manyways a government-designed version of theOxford internship and was much moresuccessful than the LTS (the two wereoften confused). The ATS was a modifiedtwo-year PGCE – 80% of the recruits’time was spent in a local school and theywere given a generous bursary rather thana means-tested grant (all PGCE applicantsreceived a grant from 2000). The idea wasto prove the validity of school-based train-ing and to recruit more mature applicantswho may previously have been put off by alack of financial support. It was broadlysuccessful in both. Ofsted noted in 1993that “almost invariably, Articled teachersadopted a professional attitude. They had abetter understanding of the pattern ofschool life and the role of the teacher andtook a more active part in the life of theschool than many students trained byother means”.48 Unfortunately, the ATSwas considerably more expensive thanother routes and was shut down in 1994.It was replaced with School-Centred

Initial Teacher Training (SCITT) anentirely school-based (but not employmentbased) one-year postgraduate certificate ofeducation that was no more expensive thanthe standard PGCE. The idea was, and stillis, for schools to group together in consor-tiums to provide the necessary training.The money goes directly to schools andthey can buy-in higher education expertiseif they wish – but many do not. Because the grant for SCITT courses is

no higher than for university-based

More Good Teachers

28

45 Furlong J et al, op cit, pp 57-

59

46 Partington G, Teacher

Education in England and Wales,

Institute of Economic Affairs,

1999, p 81

47 www.tda.gov.uk/upload/

resources/pdf/i/itemhgtp.pdf

48 Ibid, p 53

PGCEs they have had a lower profile andstruggled to get going. But there has beena gradual increase; in 2000-01, 760 grad-uates were on SCITT courses out of atotal of 18,020 (4.2%). In 2007-08 thenumbers were 1,650 out of 22,880(7.2%). Initially Ofsted judged SCITTsto be well below the quality of universityPGCEs. As Alan Smithers has shown,however, in his annual league table of ini-tial teacher training providers, the gap hasnarrowed considerably in recent years.49

Some that have been running for a longtime are producing exceptional results.For primary training, Devon PrimarySCITT and Billericay EducationConsortium came second and thirdbehind Cambridge University in the over-all rankings. For secondary, theNorthumbria DT Partnership would havecome third behind Cambridge andOxford.50 And as we will see, SCITT hasthe highest levels of approval of any routefrom trainees who participate.But the quality of applicants to SCITTs

is, on average, considerably lower than foruniversity PGCEs. This is most probablydue to the low recognition of SCITTcourses among undergraduates and the factthat universities provide the majority ofundergraduate career advice and are notkeen to put themselves out of business. Ifnothing else, SCITTs have shown that it ispossible to provide high -quality teachertraining without compulsory higher edu-cation input. The Government also introduced Teach

First in 2003 – a direct copy of the US pro-gramme, Teach for America. It operates asan independent charity and focuses onattracting high flyers into teaching for twoyears to work in challenging schools.Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) is gainedafter the first year and the initial six weeksinduction and ongoing training are co-ordinated by Canterbury Christ ChurchUniversity. Trainees are employed asunqualified teachers in their first year, so

earn a salary and are given responsibilityfor classes from the start. The schemebegan in London; it has since been extend-ed to schools in Manchester and theMidlands with a view to expanding to 11cities by 2010. It has also begun placingparticipants in primary as well as second-ary schools.So far Teach First has been very success-

ful in attracting high achieving graduates,and has been embraced by politicians ofall parties. Ofsted, in its first review ofTeach First earlier this year, commendedmany features of the programme includ-ing its management by Canterbury ChristChurch University and its impact ontransforming education in London.51

Inspectors considered half the traineesthey saw to be “outstanding”, while somewere judged to be “amongst the mostexceptional trainees produced by anyteacher training route ”.

Proposition 2: Action should betaken to make school-based andemployment-based routes moreattractive and accessible

Table 2.1 lists all of the currently activeroutes into teaching. Despite the attemptsto diversify over the past few decades, byintroducing school and employmentbased routes into teaching, most traineescontinue to qualify through traditionalhigher education routes. Figures 2.1-2.4overleaf show the change in the numbersqualifying for each route between 2000-01 and 2006-07.52 In both primary andsecondary there has been a steady growthin the numbers coming through theGraduate Teacher Programme and School-Centred Initial Teacher Training. Therehas also been growth in the OverseasTeaching Training route (OTT) whichoffers EU qualified teachers a four-yearlicence to teach at the end of which theyare assessed for QTS.



49 Smithers A and Robinson P,

Teacher Training Profiles 2007,

University of Buckingham

50 Ibid, p 6

51 Rising to the Challenge: a

review of the Teach First initial

teacher training programme,

Ofsted, January 2008; see

www.ofsted.gov.uk/assets/Intern

et_Content/Shared_Content/File

s/2008/jan/teachfirst_rv.pdf

52 Howson J, The Labour

Market for Teachers, Policy

Exchange, 2008

30

Route

Descrip

tionDuration

Financial Support

TeachingEntry req

uirement (ab

ove the qualification

minim

um req

uirements

gaineddetailed

in chapter 1)

BE

dD

egree in education with Q

TS3 or 4 years

No

QTS

2 A levels

BA

or BS

CD

egree in Arts or science w

ith QTS

3 or 4 yearsN

oQ

TS2 A

levelsTo take part, you first need to be w

orking in a schoolThe program

me norm

ally Your school w

ill continue to pay you anQ

TSThe equivalent of tw

o yearsas an unqualified teacher. A

blend of work-based

takes two years.H

owever,

unqualified (or qualified) teacher’s salary (240 C

redit and Accum

ulation teacher training and academ

ic study , allowing

depending on your previous(starting from

£14,751 depending on yourand Transfer schem

e (CATS

) R

TP - R

egisterednon-graduates w

ith some (2 years) experience

teaching experience, it may

responsibilities, experience and location).points) of higher education.

Teacher Program

me

of higher education to complete a degree and

take less time.

For example,an H

ND

, a DipH

E

qualify as a teacher at the same tim

e. Suitable for

or the first two years of a

mature people w

ho want to change to a teaching

bachelors degree.career but need to continue earning w

hile they train.

PG

CE

- The original postgraduate route into teaching

1 yearTax free bursary of £4000 for prim

aryQ

TS

Degree

Postgraduate

and £6000-9000 (subject dependent)and a

Certificate in

for secondary. Golden hello at start of

PG

CE

Education

2nd teaching year of £2.5 - 5k (amounts

depend on start date and subject).S

CITT -

For graduates who w

ant to complete

1 yearTax free bursary of £4000 for prim

ary andQ

TS

Degree

School C

entredtheir training in a school environm

ent.£6000-9000 (subject dependent) for

and most

TrainingS

CITT program

mes are designed and

secondary. Golden hello at start of 2nd

also get a delivered by groups of neighbouring

teaching year of £2.5 - 5k (amounts

PG

CE

schools and colleges.depend on start date and subject).

GTP

- Graduate

Participants w

ork as unqualified teachersU

p to one school year, full S

chools pay participants on anQ

TSD

egree. Applicants m

ust applyTeacher P

rogramm

ein a school. M

ost employm

ent basedtim

e, depending on your unqualified or qualified teacher’s

directly to a GTP

provider who

training providers are partnerships of bodiesprevious teaching experience

salary (anywhere from

£14,751w

ill either find them a school

such as schools, local authorities and(m

inimum

duration is 3 depending on responsibilities,

willing to em

ploy them as an

accredited initial teacher training (ITT) m

onths).experience and location).

unqualified teacher, or they will

providers. There are about 107 suchneed to find such a school

providers in England.

themselves.

Teach FirstA

programm

e run by an independent2 years (Q

TS gained

Point 3 on the unqualified teaching

QTS

* A m

inimum

of a 2.1 charity enabling top graduates to spend

after the first year)scale during the first year (around

undergraduate degree.tw

o years working in challenging secondary

£16,700) and normal N

QT salary

* 300 UC

AS

tariff points (24schools in London, M

anchester and the Midlands,

(around £20,700) during the secondpoints using the old tariff,

qualifying as a teacher while com

pleting leadership year on the program

me (there is

equivalent to BB

B at A

-level).training and w

ork experience with leading em

ployers.an additional London w

eighting)*A

bility to show high levels of

competency in areas such as

leadership, teamw

ork, resilience, critical thinking, com

munication

skills, initiative and creativity, andrespect, hum

ility, and empathy.

Assessm

ent only Technically a G

TP, it offers the chance to demonstrate

3 months m

inimum

but N

oO

TSThose w

ho already have a degreeyou m

eet the standards required to achieve QTS

by basically the tim

e to compile

and substantial experience ofcom

piling and submitting a portfolio of evidence of your

and submit a portfolio of

working in a U

K school as an

abilities as a classroom teacher. A

lso features a evidence of your abilities as

instructor or qualified teacher,day-long assessm

ent visit to your school.a classroom

teacher, and or as a teacher in an independent

complete the day-long assess-

school or further educationm

ent visit. Can take up to a

institution, may be able to qualify

year to complete.

with m

inimal teacher training.

Overseas

Those qualified as a teacher overseas and outside the D

epends on extent of add-Your school w

ill continue to pay yourQ

TSP

articipants must first be qualified

Teacher E

EA

may be eligible to w

ork in England as a tem

porary itional training needed. Longest

salary and the costs of additionalas a teacher overseas and

Trainingteacher w

ithout qualified teacher status (QTS

) for up to you can spend on the progra-

training will be covered up to

working as an unqualified teacher

Program

me

four years. Once they have a teaching position in a ,

mm

e is one year full-time

a value of £1,250in a school in England. In addition,

school, the OTTP

provides them w

ith an individual if they qualified outside the

training and assessment program

me w

hich leads to E

uropean Econom

ic Area (E

EA

),qualification to teach in E

ngland permanently.

they will need a qualification equ-

-ivalent to a UK

bachelors degree

Training based

Employment based

Employment based

Training based

UNDERGRADUATEPOSTGRADUATE

Table 2.1: Tab

le of Teacher E

ntry Routes

Since 2000-01 the percentage of pri-mary trainees coming from higher educa-tion routes has fallen from 90.4% to80.6%. For secondary trainees the drophas been slightly greater – from 90.3% to74.4%. This shift has provided welcomediversity to teacher training, however thevast majority still qualify through tradi-tional routes. We do not believe that these tradition-

al routes remain more popular because ofany intrinsic merit but rather because thePGCE and BEd (for primary) remain thedefault routes for teacher training.Because there is no central list of schoolsoffering GTP places entry is dominatedby people who already have a relationshipwith a school and are looking to continuein a more formal role. There is also nocentralised admissions process so schoolstaking on a graduate without school expe-rience are taking a risk.

Teach First is deliberately designed as aniche route and highly targeted at elitegraduates from the best universities. It isrun by an independent charity rather thanthe Training and Development Agency andhas no intention of expanding beyond 5%of the market (it currently represents about1%). Recruits are placed only in schools indeprived areas so the majority of schoolshave no access to Teach First recruits.53

For most graduates, either straight outof university or coming from another job,the default way to become a teacher is bycompleting a PGCE. Indeed our poll ofundergraduates found that only 20% wereaware of Teach First. The figure was higher(29%) for those at Russell Group universi-ties – which are specifically targeted byTeach First, but still relatively low. Themajority of managers/professionals (58%)were unaware that “it is possible to train andqualify as a teacher in one year while also



53 For example, they must have a

minimum of 30% of pupils receiv-

ing free school meals

Figures 2.1: Primary ITT Recruitment by Route, 2001/01

Figures 2.2: Primary ITT Recruitment by Route, 2006/07

Figures 2.3: Secondary ITTRecruitment by Route, 2000/01

Figures 2.4: Secondary ITTRecruitment by Route, 2006/07

All undergraduate

PGCE

SCITT/other nonHEIGTP

RTP

OTT

6,580

6,580

110

510

70650

6,830

7,940

840

1,850140 720

All undergraduate

PGCE

SCITT/other nonHEIGTPRTP

OTT

6,830

OTT

80 20860

550

1520

12470

All undergraduate

PGCE


RTP

OTT

All undergraduate

PGCE


RTP

OTT

Teach First

860

3520

1170

890

14980

25040

working and being paid as an unqualifiedteacher” (through the GTP), this included55% of those who said they would consid-er teaching as a career. When explained to respondents, however,

employment-based routes were consideredattractive. As Table 2.4 shows the first choiceof undergraduates when asked to choose themost attractive aspect of Teach First was “thechance to get a responsible paid job immedi-ately” and the second was the emphasis ontransferable skills. A considerable majorityof managers/professionals considered theGTP option to be more attractive than aPGCE. When asked whether they wouldprefer to take a one-year postgraduate courseor qualify as a teacher while also workingand being paid as an unqualified teacher,53% chose the latter option and 29% theformer – 18% were don’t knows. Signifi-cantly 61% of managers/professionals whowere prepared to consider becoming ateacher chose the GTP option (31% chosethe PGCE). This is a crucial finding as itsuggests that there is demand for employ-ment-based routes into teaching that is notbeing met due to a lack of awareness of theGTP and difficulties in accessing it.Evidence from the Becoming a Teacher

project, a six-year longitudinal study ofteachers’ experiences of ITT and early pro-fessional development, funded by theDCSF, supports the view that school andemployment-based routes would be more

popular if they were easier to access andbetter understood.54 In the first reportfrom the project recent entrants to trainingwere asked which routes they were aware ofwhen they first applied to train. Table 2.2gives the results for all respondents barthose who were on the route in question(Teach First was not included as it hadonly just been launched).55 Table 2.3breaks down the responses by age. As thefirst table shows only 25% of people join-ing routes other than the GTP orRegistered Teacher Programme (RTP) hadeven heard of it and, there is far greaterawareness of traditional higher educationcourses than school or employment-basedroutes. There is slightly higher awareness ofthe Graduate Teacher Programme amongolder recruits but it still far lower than forthe PGCE or BEd courses.

More Good Teachers

32

54 For more information about

the project see www.becoming-

a-teacher.ac.uk

55 Hobson A et al, Becoming a

Teacher: Student teachers’

motives and preconceptions,

and early school-based experi-

ences during Initial Teacher

Training, DfES, 2005, Table 4.1;

see www.gtce.org.uk/research

/commissioned_res/workforce1

Table 2.2: Awareness of OtherRoutes into ITT Amongst Trainees

Training route Per cent

University-based PGCE 75%

BEd 61%

BA or BSC with QTS 39%

Flexible, university based PGCE 34%

SCITT 28%

GTP/RTP 25%

Table 2.3 Awareness of Other Routes into ITT Amongst Trainees, by Age

Age (%)

20-24 25-29 30-34 35-39 40-44 45 or over

BEd 62 59 62 60 65 59

BA/BSc with QTS 43 35 34 37 40 38

University-based PGCE 71 83 77 75 79 76

Flexible university-based PGCE 27 42 41 40 44 44

SCITT 19 34 43 38 39 39

GRTP 14 38 40 39 45 49

Source: Becoming a Teacher Project

Source: Becoming a Teacher Project

The first Becoming a Teacher reportreport also indicated that new trainees onuniversity-led courses were concernedabout the level of “irrelevant” theory ontheir chosen routes. PGCE studentsreported that much of the work done out-side schools seemed beside the point. Onesaid “I think sometimes they put too muchemphasis on, you know, can you quote theconstructivist theory and things becauseyou go and ask a real teacher in a realschool…they don’t relate to that anymorebecause they’re in there doing a real job.”Others had similar concerns: “Too muchemphasis is placed on [research] rather

than them telling us what to do if we’reaccused of touching a child or the realissues that occur day-to-day…enoughabout that theory and that theory, tell mehow I mark a child’s book.”56

This was in marked contrasts to traineesstarting school-based routes such as theGTP: “The theory might be nice and I’msure there are certain things I might want toknow in more depth that I would have goton a PGCE, but then you spend hours in alecture theatre trying to think about how itwould work in the classroom, whereas I cando things and see how they work in theclassroom and it’s so much more beneficial



56 Hobson J et al, op cit, pp 90-

92

Table 2.4: Most Attractive Aspects of Teach First for Undergraduates

Thinking about your future career which of the following best applies to you?

Total You definitely You would You would not You definitely do Don’t knowwant to consider currently not want to

become a teacher becoming consider become aa teacher becoming teacher

a teacher

All undergrads (not in final year) 1282 % 31 % 403 % 431 % 394 % 23 %

Which if any of the following doyou think is the MOST attractive aspect of Teach First?The emphasis on tackling

educational disadvantage through 169 13% 5 16% 72 18% 57 13% 31 8% 4 17%working in challenging schools

Being part of an elite group 125 10% 0 0% 25 6% 46 11% 53 13% 1 4%at the top of the profession

Having a limited two-year 83 6% 0 0% 22 5% 33 8% 26 7% 2 9%commitment to the programme

Keeping your career options open 258 20% 3 10% 97 24% 81 19% 74 19% 3 13%thanks to the emphasis on transferable skills

The chance to get a responsible, 296 23% 15 48% 98 24% 97 23% 81 21% 5 22%paid teaching job immediately

That it commences, before 53 4% 2 6% 18 4% 23 5% 9 2% 1 4%the teaching term begins, with an intensive 6 week residential training course

The support network of school 96 7% 4 13% 41 10% 35 8% 16 4% 0 0%mentors, tutors and mentors in business

None of the above 202 16% 2 6% 30 7% 59 14% 104 26% 7 30%

really.” Another said “with the best will inthe world, I don’t think classroom manage-ment can be taught from a book. You needthe life experience outside the classroomand you need to see it in action.”57

In the second report of the six-yearBecoming a Teacher study the authors sur-veyed trainees who had just finished theirITT year. The responses followed a similarpattern to the first report; 46% of BEd stu-dents felt their course had been “too theo-retical” as had 33% of primary PGCE stu-dents and 19% of secondary students. Thiscompared to just 12% of those on primarySCITT courses (10% of those on second-ary) and 5% of those on primary GTP(10% of those on secondary).58 SCITT andGTP trainees were also clearer about thelinks between theory and practice thanthose on PGCE and BEds.59

Recommendation 1: School andemployment-based routes shouldbe expanded so as to become the“default” option for suitablenew trainees

Government attempts to break away fromtraditional models of teacher training havehad limited success. University-led BEdsand PGCEs continue to train the vastmajority of new teachers – though a lowerpercentage than in the past. Our pollingreveals high demand for employment-based, school-led training – that offersgreater financial stability and a chance tolearn transferable skills in a challengingenvironment. Rather than remaining marginal, we

believe that school-run, employment-basedroutes in teaching should become thedefault option for new trainees and recom-mend the development of variations to suitdifferent groups. Teach First should beretained and developed as a specialist routefor elite students who want to work in themost challenging schools and have responsi-

bility for classes from the start. Teach Nowwould be a new route for both recent grad-uates and career changers encompassing theGTP and incorporating some aspects ofSchool-Centred Initial Teacher Training andTeach First models. Teach Next would offeran accelerated route for experienced man-agers and professionals to move quickly intoleadership positions in schools.These routes would be branded and

marketed heavily to undergraduates andpotential career changers. They would bepresented as a new, flexible way to givesomething back to the community whiledeveloping valuable transferable skills.Applicants would go through a centralisedadmissions process and would have to passan assessment showing that they were suit-able for employment by a school straightaway. The TDA would be instructed toprovide a significant number of places onthese routes – which would increase overtime as they became better known. As a corollary we propose reducing the

number of trainees passing through tradi-tional university-led courses. BEd placesshould be phased out and the number ofPGCE places reduced, but this latter routewould be maintained for students whowere not ready or willing to go straightinto a school.

Employment based routes: Teach First, TeachNow and Teach Next:We believe that Teach First has proved itselfand should be given the potential to expand.It is run by an independent charity so thenumber of places is not in the direct controlof government or its agencies and has told usthat it does not envisage providing morethan 5% of teacher training places.60 This isunderstandable – Teach First works onlywith schools in the most deprived urbanareas and their numbers are limited. We sup-port the existence of a niche route designedto place graduates of the highest quality inthe most difficult schools, but believe thatthere is potential for expansion to all parts of

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57 Ibid, pp 92-96


Teacher: Student teachers’ expe-

riences of initial teacher training

in England, DfES, 2006, p 43

59 Ibid, p 48

60 In a speech on the 23rd June

2008 Gordon Brown announced

that places on Teach First cours-

es would be expanded to 850,

just under 3% of all trainee

teachers; see www.number-

10.gov.uk/output/Page15829.asp

the country. Graduates need an alternativeemployment-based route that engages withall schools, rather than only the mostdeprived, and allows the full demand foremployment-based training routes to bemet. Equally the GTP does not meet the

demand for employment-based routesfrom older career changers. Not only areplaces limited but they are very difficult tofind. Applicants either have to spot a GTPplacement advertised independently by aschool or go through a local Employment-Based Initial Teacher Training (EBITT)provider.61 These are listed on the Trainingand Development Agency website butmost do not have their own site and evenwhen they do it is unclear how manyplaces are available or at which schools.Each EBITT has its own application pro-cedure and in London alone there are 15.62

Also, EBITT providers in higher educationrequire applicants to secure employment ina partner school as well as gaining a placewith them directly. It requires extremedetermination to work through the system.Even if an application is successful therewill only be a few places available for eachEBITT – and these are typically oversub-scribed. The process could almost havebeen designed to deter those interested inteaching via an employment-based route. We would meet demand for both new

graduates and career changers with a newroute – Teach Now. Any graduate wouldbe able to apply through a central agencythat could be run either by the TDA or theGraduate Teacher Training Registry (a sub-sidiary of UCAS that runs the applicationprocess for PGCEs). This agency wouldalso be responsible for assessing the qualityof entrants. Applicants would also beexpected to pass the existing basic skillstests in ICT, English and Maths beforewinning a place, rather than taking them atthe end of initial teacher training – whichhappens in most cases at the moment.Candidates who fail these skills tests would

be allowed to retake them only once ratherthan an unlimited number of times.Successful candidates would also beexpected to pass a cognitive skills test andwould be interviewed, possibly in groups ifit was impracticable to interview thatmany candidates individually.63

A centralised application process wouldbe significantly easier for candidates tonavigate. We have spoken to EBITTproviders, the TDA and people applyingfor the GTP, and it is clear that the currentsystem of applying to providers as well aspartner schools is fraught with unnecessarycomplexity: it deters applicants, and canlead to good candidates being rejected. Moreover, research suggests that with-

out a centralised system, applications topostgraduate teacher training courses tendto be rejected in an unsystematic way,depending on the available vacancies atparticular institutions.64 A centralisedapplications process would be fairer, moreefficient, present a more professional facefor applicants in the initial stages andwould also ensure quality: it would not beacceptable for poorly qualified or incom-petent trainees to be given paid positionsin schools. And finally it would make iteasier for schools to be involved; theywould be able to participate in the TeachNow programme without having to vetcandidates themselves or join an EBITT,though they could be given some role inthe selection process. Successful applicants would then be

placed in a participating school as near towhere they lived as possible – as happenswith Teach First trainees. If candidateshave an existing relationship with a



61 According to the TDA web-

site providers of employment-

based training are “partnerships

of bodies such as schools, LEAs

and accredited ITT providers

empowered to design and deliv-

er individual programmes of

teacher training”.

62 www.tda.gov.uk/partners/

recruiting/ebr/drbs/ebittcontacts.

aspx?search=1&region_id=3

63 In its report, Those who can?,

the IPPR suggests that all ITT

candidates should have to pass

a cognitive skills test (p 104). We

are opposed to the idea of using

psychometric profiling of appli-

cants as part of the selection

process for trainees. Although it

could help determine what style

of teacher someone will be and

thus the support that they might

benefit from, it will not determine

whether someone is going to be

a good or a bad teacher and

should therefore not be used in

the selection process

64 Gorard S, Beng Huat S,

Smith E, White P, Teacher

Supply: the Key Issues reviewed

in the British Journal of

Educational Studies, 56:1, March

2008 , pp 110-112(3)

“ A centralised applications process would be fairer,

more efficient, present a more professional face for applicants

in the initial stages and would also ensure quality ”

school, as a teaching assistant for example,then it would be assumed that they wouldbe placed in that school. Once a TeachNow trainee had begun his or her place-ment the school could then decide how tocontinue training – existing teacherswould act as mentors and schools couldalso buy-in additional support from high-er education or consultancies. Therewould be a clear incentive for higher edu-cation institutions to provide a service thatwas useful to the schools and theirtrainees. Some schools might ask, as withthe Teach First scheme, for regular schoolvisits by instructors from the universities.Ultimately the preferred higher educationsupport package would be that which theschool felt was best for the development ofits trainees.We also propose that Teach Now be

organised in a way that encourages eachyear group to work together throughouttheir training and support one another. Inpractice this might mean a residentialinduction, away days or group trainingdays. Feedback suggests that while TeachFirst participants develop a very usefulesprit de corps, completing other forms ofemployment-based ITT can be a verylonely experience.

As well as offering an accessible and wellmarketed employment-based route, TeachNow could also improve retention rates inthe early years and during training. AsFigure 2.5 shows, at every age level thereare fewer drop-outs from employment-based courses than from mainstream uni-versity-led courses.There are a number of possible explana-

tions. First, people are less likely to dropout due to financial difficulties becausethey are receiving a salary. Secondly,trainees have a greater sense of responsibil-ity towards their school as they are a full-time member of staff there. Finally,employment-based routes ease the transi-tion between the theory and practice ofteaching. There is a mismatch between thelocation of training places in higher educa-tion and jobs. In particular, many teacherstrain in cathedral cities only to be con-fronted when they qualify by the very dif-ferent challenges of working in inner-cityschools. If trainees are employed in schoolsbefore they qualify, induction wouldbecome less of a hurdle and more newteachers would remain in the profession.Alongside Teach First and Teach Now

we propose a new third route: Teach Next.This would be designed for senior man-

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36

45%

40%

35%

30%

25%

20%

15%

10%

5%

0%Under 25 25-29 30-34 35-39 40-44 45-49 50-54 Over 55

EBITT

Mainstream

71

1499 235 937 149

499121

430123

424

91

263

54

124

3035

Figure 2.5: Percentage of final year trainees not awarded QTS in 2005/06 byage group and provision type

Source: TDA performance profiles

EBITT courses include the GTP and RTP, Teach First and OTTP (but not assessment only).

Mainstream routes includes BEds and BA & BSC with QTS, PGCEs and SCITTs.

agers and professionals tired of the rat-raceand interested in applying their skills toteaching. A programme of the same name“to promote mid-career routes into teach-ing” has been mooted by the Government,but there are, as yet, no details as to what itmight entail. The first mention came fromGordon Brown in his last Mansion Housespeech as Chancellor on 20th June 2007.65

The idea, he said, would be to “encouragemen and women of talent to move mid orlate career into teaching”. A week laterLord Adonis referred to Teach Next in aspeech along with another variant, TeachLast, (he did admit this was a terriblename) for those at the end of othercareers.66 It has surfaced in speeches peri-odically since then, but there are no solidproposals. Indeed, in response to a recentparliamentary question as to how manytraining places had been assigned to TeachNext, School’s Secretary Jim Knightanswered bluntly: “At present there is noTeach Next programme.”67

Early this year the Institute of PublicPolicy Research (IPPR) also recommendeda Teach Next route. Again however, theygave little indication as to what Teach Nextwould involve beyond recommending that“this scheme be rolled out on a similarmodel to Teach First, in order to inspireindividuals with more career experienceinto the profession”.68

Our proposal for Teach Next is morefocused, as the development of Teach Nowwould provide an appropriate route formany career-changers. We envisage TeachNext as a route restricted to an elite groupof mature trainees. It would make specificuse of their skills by including them fromthe start as an additional member of theirschool’s senior leadership team. Being ableto make a difference quickly would be aconsiderable attraction for high-levelcareer-changers; having to start at the bot-tom of the pile with 21 year-olds straightout of college is a serious deterrent. In ourpolling of managers and professionals 54%

of respondents agreed that a fast trackroute to school leadership that took advan-tage of their professional experience wouldmake teaching significantly more attractive(36% disagreed). This rose to 80% amongthose who would consider switching toteaching (15% disagreed). We agree with the IPPR that this new

route should be modelled on Teach First(the Government has worked on theassumption that its Teach Next route wouldbe run by the same charity that managesTeach First). A small number of applicantswould be selected through rigorous assess-ment via interview, role-play and writtentest. Successful candidates would bematched with schools looking either forspecific expertise (for example, legal, finan-cial, human resources, marketing) or gener-al managerial support. On joining theschool Teach Next teachers would betrained in the same way as for otheremployment-based routes but would alsojoin the school’s senior leadership team(SLT) as an extra member. It is not difficultto imagine an ex-accountant helping aschool struggling with the financial com-plexities of modern education, a formermanagement consultant developing a newmanagement structure or an ex-army officerhelping to enforce a new discipline policy.69

Once training was completed and QTSwas gained they would be expected to retaintheir position on the senior leadership teamand would earn a management-level salary.They would still experience a drop in salarybut a more manageable one. They couldtake over a formal role as an assistant ordeputy head when the opportunity aroseand would be ideal candidates for headshipswithin a relatively short period of joiningthe profession. This would be extremelyvaluable – the shortage of candidates forheadships is acknowledged as a seriousproblem for schools over the comingdecade. As figure 2.6 shows about 35% oftoday’s teaching force is already over 50, soa large proportion of the workforce will



65 Brown G, Mansion House

Speech, 20th June 2007; see

www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/news

room_and_speeches/press/2007

/press_68_07.cfm

66 “We need to expand Teach

First…and look at the potential

of similar schemes for mid and

late career professionals. Teach

Next and – but we need a better

title for this one! – Teach Last

need to follow Teach First; and

as Gordon Brown said in last

week’s Mansion House speech,

we need to set about creating

them now.” Adonis A, “Towards

an 80% Education System”,

Inaugural Sir John Cass

Foundation Lecture, Cass

Business School, City University,

25th June 2007

67 Hansard: Column 248W, 28th

April 2008

68 Margo J, Benton M, Withers

K, Sodha S and Tough S, Those

Who Can? IPPR, 2008, p 104

69 For an example of the impact

that former soldiers can have on

behaviour see Burkard T, Troops

to Teachers, Centre for Policy

Studies, February 2008

retire in the next 15 years. About 80% ofprimary and 86% of secondary school head-teachers are aged 45 and over, so seniormanagement positions are likely to go toyounger, less experienced staff.70 An influxof senior professionals with leadershipexperience would undoub tedly help.

Recommendation 2: The BEd shouldbe phased out

The numbers entering teaching via anundergraduate degree have been decreasingfor many years. We believe it is time tospeed up the process and phase out theBEd altogether. As David Hargreaveswrote in 1990: “The trouble is that theBEd is seen by many people – in the pub-lic at large, in higher education and amongits own students – as somehow a second-class degree …it is seen to be narrow inscope and strongly tied to a particularchoice of career; and, with the phasing outof most secondary BEd courses, it is adegree for intending primary teachers.This last point is particularly damaging,with its unwarranted implication that pri-mary teaching makes fewer intellectualdemands than secondary teaching.”71

Nothing has changed since this waswritten – except that the BEd is a moremarginal route (even for primary) than itwas then. The percentage of new primaryteachers coming from BEd courses hasdecreased from 47.4% in 2000-01 to37.3% in 2006-07. Former EducationSecretary David Blunkett even called theBEd a “sub-degree” in the House ofCommons (perhaps a slip-of-the-tongue,but certainly a Freudian one.)72

There is little obvious merit in keepingthis route open. As BEds take three (or four)years they are more expensive for the TDAto cover than others. John Furlong has alsoargued (in the context of provision in Wales)that undergraduate routes are considerablyless responsive to changes in predicteddemand than are one-year postgraduatecourses.73 They also attract the weakest can-didates of any route into teaching – studentson BEd degrees have, on average, the secondweakest A-level tariff score for any subject.Right-wing commentators have relentlesslyattacked the theoretical nature of much ofthe BEd course. Their tone has undoubted-ly been overly strident on occasion, but it isodd that candidates with the weakest aca-demic record are receiving the most academ-ic approach to training. If educational theory

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70 http://education.guardian.

co.uk/primaryeducation/story/0,,

1891240,00.html

71 Hargreaves D, “Another

Radical Approach to the Reform

of Initial Teacher Training”,

Westminster Studies in

Education, vol 13, 1990, p 7

72 Hansard: Column 222, 16th

May 2000

73 Furlong J, Review of Initial

Teacher Training Provision in

Wales, National Assembly for

Wales, 2005

20%

15%

10%

5%

0%

Under 25 25-29 30-34 35-39 40-44 45-49 50-54 55-59 60-64 Over 65

Figure 2.6: Registered and ‘in service’ teachers by age group 2006/7

GTCE: Profile of the teaching profession, annual digest of statistics 2006-7

does have a place it is surely at postgraduatelevel when candidates have already masteredthe art of managing a classroom.It is certainly not a helpful route for

trainees. Teachers qualified via a BEd whodecide to switch careers are hamstrung witha narrowly specific degree, and this is anti-thetical to a professional model that seesteaching as anything other than a career forlife. The discussions reported in theBecoming a Teacher study suggest that theprimarily reason for taking a BEd is, ironi-cally, speed.74 For the 18-year-old whoknows he or she wants to be a teacher or the29-year-old teaching assistant without adegree, a three-year BEd is the quickest wayinto teaching as it avoids the need for aPGCE on top of an undergraduate degree.The addition of an extra year before gainingQTS would no longer be such a burden if awell advertised mainstream employment-based training route like Teach Now existed. We continue to regard the PGCE as a

viable route into teaching – it just isn’tappropriate for those who want to movequickly into the profession, and perhapsonly for a short time, or for those who areput-off by the prospect of more time inhigher education. There are some very poorPGCE courses but also many good ones.Oxford and Cambridge are (unsurprisingly)especially good at attracting highly qualifiedwell-motivated candidates; as we have seenthe Oxford internship model involves closepartnership with local schools. Under ourproposals the number of trainees taking aPGCE would decrease and the BEd wouldbe phased out altogether, while the numberof places on employment-based routeswould increase dramatically. The exact pro-portions taking PGCE or employment-based routes would depend on demand –but a significant number of potentialtrainees will continue to prefer a gentlerintroduction to teaching. A choice com-posed entirely of employment-based routeswould most likely put off some well-quali-fied applicants.

Recommendation 3: Our proposalsshould be funded by replacing a smallproportion of teaching assistants withsalaried trainees

Much of the shift to employment-basedroutes would cost no more than from uni-versity-led routes. The training costs ofTeach Now would be no greater than aPGCE; the money would just go to theschool rather than the higher educationprovider. The only additional expensewould be the supernumerary salaries (notpaid for out of the school’s budget) of newtrainees. Currently those entering the sys-tem through Teach First are not supernu-merary. Because they are so carefully select-ed they are expected to take on a full-timeteaching vacancy from the word go, aftersix weeks’ intensive training during thesummer holidays. This seems to work well- especially as Teach First focuses onschools in deprived areas, which are morelikely to have vacancies. We would extendthis principle to Teach Next. Those select-ed for this route would be of high enoughquality to take over a teaching position,funded out of the standard school budget,straight away – and their transferable skillswould offer additional value so attractingschools to the scheme would not be hard.For Teach Now, however, teachers

would be trained over the course of theyear in the classroom, as GTP trainees arenow. Because they would not be teachingmany classes on their own it would not befeasible for schools to pay for trainees fromtheir budgets. There is also a logistics issue:the scheme would probably be on too largea scale to match vacancies with trainees. Aswith the GTP, therefore, the majority ofsalaries would be supernumerary, thoughexceptions could be made if a school want-ed to train someone already working for itin some capacity in addition to its allocat-ed places. There are around 5,000 supernumerary

GTP places funded by the TDA. It is diffi-



74 “Other trainees had chosen

to pursue undergraduate routes

because, in some instances,

they would allow people to qual-

ify more quickly than is possible

when following a three-year

degree course with an addi-

tional year’s ITT.” Hobson A

and Malderez A, op cit, p 57

cult to anticipate exactly how many extratrainees would come through employment-based routes if our proposals were imple-mented because the balance of demand withuniversity-led courses would take time tosettle. If an additional 10,000 a year were tocome through employment-based routes ofwhich 8,000 trained via Teach Now, the costof supernumerary salaries (assuming theywere paid at existing unqualified teacherrates of £14,751) would be about £100 mil-lion a year after tax. Around half of thiswould come by transferring the (untaxed)bursaries that would have been paid to thesetrainees had they done PGCEs.75

Any government wishing to implementthese proposals without incurring extraspending could reduce the number ofteaching assistants in those schools partici-pating in Teach Now. A graduate traineewould cost only slightly more than a teach-ing assistant (the exact average salary forteaching assistants is unknown because fig-ures are not held centrally but it is in theregion of £12,000-£13,000). The TeachNow trainee is likely to be better qualifiedthan a teaching assistant – only 25% ofwhom have A-level qualifications.76 Thereis also no evidence that teaching assistantshave a positive impact on learning, where-as a recent study suggests increasing thenumber of trainee teachers in a school hasa positive impact on Key Stage 3 scores.77

This study probably underplays the truepotential value of trainees as it looks onlyat PGCE students. The Ofsted report onthe Teach First scheme suggests that paidfull-time trainees can have an even greaterimpact. There are currently 165,000 teach-ing assistants in English schools, a 3%

reduction would cover the costs of allTeach Now supernumerary salaries.

Recommendation 4: For an expan-sion of employment-based training towork well schools have to developtraining capacity

The “training school” model, and its trans-formative influence on existing staff, hasgrown out of the shift from higher educa-tion to school-centred training over thepast three decades. Too often governmentshave given negative justifications for themove away from university-centred cours-es rather than emphasising the positiveimpact that training can have on schools. Ifteaching is to be reconfigured as a flexiblecareer then the existence of schools inwhich training is a permanent process isextremely valuable. The opportunity todevelop a clearly defined set of transferableskills over a short period while being paidto teach is one of the key attractions ofTeach First and should be a feature of alltraining. During the 1980s the statutory changes

to the amount of time trainees had tospend in schools led to considerable angerin university education departments butalso, and more helpfully, new thinkingabout the potential relationship betweenschools and higher education. As we haveseen the Oxford internship PGCE wasgroundbreaking – substantial financialsupport from Oxfordshire local educationauthority gave schools working withOxford University the resources to work incollaborative partnerships. Some of theacademics involved in the programmeexplained: “Teachers…[have] an equallylegitimate but perhaps different body ofprofessional knowledge from those inhigher education. Students are expectedand encouraged to use what they learn inschool to critique what they learn withinthe college or university and vice versa.”78

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75 PGCE students in shortage

subjects also receive £5,000

“golden hellos” which are

unavailable to GTP trainees. We

would extend them to Teach

Now so that a maths teacher

coming through this route could

earn around £20,000 in his or

her training year

76 Blatchford P et al, “Report on

Findings from the Second

National Questionnaire Survey of

Schools, Support Staff and

Teachers”, Strand 1, Wave 2,

2006, DfES, 2007, p 106

77 Hurd S, “Does School-based

Initial Teacher Training Affect

Secondary School Performance?”

British Educational Research

urnal, 34:1, 2008, pp 19-36,

78 Furlong J, op cit, p 80

“ There are currently 165,000 teaching assistants in

English schools, a 3% reduction would cover the costs

of all Teach Now supernumerary salaries ”

This may seem obvious but it was revo-lutionary for a university education depart-ment in the 1980s. It remained an unusualposition for much of the 1990s despite therecognised success of Oxford’s collaborativemodel perhaps because there was nonational resource, equivalent toOxfordshire’s investment, earmarked todevelop training and mentoring withinschools. In 1990 David Hargreaves offered an

even more radical vision for “teachingschools” to take responsibility for training.They would be given additional resources“to use some of their staff for trainingduties, and also buy in the expertise ofteacher trainers”.79 He correctly argued thatfor school-based ITT to work the schoolsneed to be high performing: the mainweakness of the Licensed Teacher Schemewas that many of trainees were placed inpoor schools that happened to have vacan-cies. Hargreaves’s ideas led in the end to two

different outcomes: the development ofSchool Centred Initial Teacher Training(this was, and is, delivered through consor-tiums rather than individual schools); andtraining schools. In 1992 a book by aheadteacher, Rowie Shaw, developedHargreaves’s idea of “teaching schools” intoa practical vision of what she called “train-ing schools”.80 In looking for a long-termvision for teacher training, Shaw made acompelling case for the “reflective school”,to encompass and go beyond the “reflectivepractitioner”, where ongoing training andprofessional development are built into theeveryday school environment.One of the Labour Government’s first

publications on teaching – the 1998 GreenPaper, “Teachers – Meeting the Challengeof Change” incorporated the trainingschool idea and argued for the develop-ment of “a network of schools pioneeringinnovative practice in school-led teachertraining”.81 The network of schools becameknown as the training schools project.

Higher education institutions and otherproviders of initial teacher training wereinvited to nominate partner schools thatthey considered had provided high qualityITT and, in the first year of the scheme(2000-01), 54 schools were awarded thespecial training school status – receiving£100,000 to build up training capacity. In 2003 Ofsted produced a very positive

evaluation of the programme noting thatalmost three quarters of the schoolsinvolved had taken increased numbers oftrainees and that the quality of school-based training had improved.82 There wereadditional benefits: “Teachers in almost allof the schools felt that the programme hadresulted in improvements in their teaching;they had become more reflective and ana-lytical of their own practice”; “two thirds ofthe schools attributed improvements in therecruitment and retention of teachers toinvolvement in the programme”; and“additional resources provided for teachertraining had also been beneficial to thewider work of the schools”.83 In the sameyear, at the national training school confer-ence, David Miliband, then Minister forEducation, described training schools asthe “quiet revolution” in education.84

Yet, despite the success of existing train-ing schools there has not yet been a revolu-tion. In fact, in July 2005 participation inthe training school programme becamedependent on a school being (or becom-ing) a high performing specialist school(HPSS) and meeting the criteria set at thepoint of the school’s redesignation. HPSSrequires a combination of a high Ofstedscore and good exam results – higherrequirements than previously – and sounsurprisingly the training schools pro-gramme has remained limited. There are around 240 secondary train-

ing schools and around 40 primaryschools that are associate members of thescheme (they cannot receive funds as theydo not participate in the specialist schoolsprogramme). If anything these numbers



79 Hargreaves D, op cit, p 8

80 Shaw R, Teacher Training in

Secondary Schools, Kogan

Page, 1992

81 “Teachers – Meeting the

Challenge of Change”, DfEE,

1998, p 44

82 “An Evaluation of the Training

Schools Programme”, Ofsted,

November 2003, p 5

83 Ibid

84 www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/

trainingschools/pdf/Full_confe

rence_report2.pdf?version=1

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are likely to decrease over the next fewyears as training schools that won theirstatus before the 2005 changes fail toachieve HPSS status.85 Participatingschools receive £60,000 - £90,000 addi-tional money from the Department forChildren, Schools and Families each year,a third of which must be spent on out-reach with local schools. Typically train-ing schools take significant numbers ofPGCE placements and participate in theGTP scheme – some are part of SCITTconsortiums. Much of the additionalresources are used to train existing teach-ers as mentors and to pay them a littleextra for taking on this role. We are proposing a much more radical

shift to school-led employment-basedtraining. To help to make this work thenumber of training schools would need tobe significantly increased and encouragedto champion the Teach Now programme.We envisage training schools becoming thefocal point of Teach Now “clusters”, help-ing other schools in their area to assess var-ious forms of training provision, developmentoring programmes and work withlocal higher education institutions to regu-late and aggregate demand.86 Increasinglyschools are already participating in trusts,foundations and academy networks and

Teach Now clusters could be based onthese where they exist. Operating in clus-ters would also allow trainees to have expe-rience of more than one school environ-ment – currently a valuable feature of alltraining routes.The training schools programme

would require more money. Bringinganother 1,000 schools into the schemewould cost between £60 and £90 milliona year on top of the £15 to £20 millionspent on the existing 242 schools. Ofstedconcluded, though, that the programme“represents good value for money”because it not only improves training, butalso recruitment and retention, and offersvaluable continuing professional develop-ment for existing teachers.87 Schoolsengaged in a virtuous circle of training,mentoring and reflection will be betterfor trainees, staff and pupils. They willalso be more attractive to prospectiveentrants as they offer the promise of gen-uine continuous professional develop-ment rather than just initial training –and the prospect of developing valuabletransferable skills, even if they only spenda relatively short time in teaching. Schoolbased training can also be a useful way forschools to vet potential future recruitsonto their permanent staff.

85 Ibid

86 The TDA, which does not

have responsibility for training

schools, has recently developed

a programme along these lines

called partnership development

schools. Clusters of five schools

work together to increase the

quality and capacity of school-

based placements for initial

teacher training. Additional fund-

ing is provided to the lead

school to support the adminis-

trative work for the cluster. This

should be merged with the train-

ing schools programme

87 “An Evaluation of the Training

Schools Programme”, Ofsted,

November 2003, p 5

3Continuousprofessionaldevelopment

In the last chapter we saw how the internshipdeveloped by Oxford University was themost successful and widely imitatedmodel of school-based initial teachertraining. The architects of the schemeaccepted that teachers at the start of theircareers need to acquire the craft of operat-ing successfully in classrooms and thatsuch knowledge is best acquired in schoolin a kind of apprenticeship under thesupervision of an experienced practition-er. The academics behind the internshipalso observed that training teachers in thisway had an additional benefit: it promot-ed the continuous professional develop-ment of those teachers doing the train-ing.88

The process of training within a schoolbenefits everyone involved. It can create avirtuous circle whereby new teacherslearn from experienced colleagues, notonly in their first year of ITT but overthe first few years of their career; themore experienced teachers continue theirown development and learn new tech-niques. As the younger teachers learnmore they too become mentors – and theprocess continues. This may seem idealistic but it can, and

does, happen in schools where training iscentral. Unfortunately such schools arerare. Because initial teacher training isprimarily organised by higher educationinstitutions, schools generally play a sub-ordinate role. The changes we haveargued for – more employment-based

ITT and the expansion of the trainingschools programme – would go a longway to embedding the virtuous circle ofprofessional development in schools.However, we also need to think about theway in which resources currently targetedat continuous professional development(CPD) could be used to support this vir-tuous circle.

The money and time devoted to CPDis often wasted. Too much is spent eithersupporting the constant churn of govern-ment initiatives or on one-day out-of-school courses with no follow-up. Weargue that each teacher should be given afinancial entitlement to spend on his orher own professional development andthat this should be integrated into thementoring and coaching programmesthat would extend from the changes inITT we have recommended. The schoolwould focus its efforts on building thementoring programme, while individualteachers would be responsible for usingtheir entitlement, with the support oftheir mentor, to make the best possibleuse of this system.



“Professional Development

through the Oxford Internship

Model”, British Journal of

Education Studies, vol 40, 3,

August 1992

“ We argue that each teacher should be given a financial

entitlement to spend on his or her own professional

development and that this should be integrated into

the mentoring and coaching programmes”

More Good Teachers

44

Proposition 1: The diagnosis of therecurrent failings of CPD is wellestablished

“A good deal of what passes for ‘profes-sional development’ in schools is a joke –one that we’d laugh at if we weren’t try-ing to keep from crying. It’s everythingthat a learning environment shouldn’tbe: radically under-resourced, brief, notsustained, designed for one-size-fits-all,imposed rather than owned, lackingany intellectual coherence, treated as aspecial add-on event rather than as partof a natural process, and trapped in theconstraints of a bureaucratic system wehave come to call school. In short, it’spedagogically naive, a demeaning exer-cise that often leaves its participantsmore cynical and less knowledgeable,skilled or committed than before. Andall this is accompanied by overblownrhetoric about ‘the challenge of change’‘professional growth’ and ‘lifelong learn-ing’.”89

Matthew Miles’s indictment of whatpasses for CPD would be recognised bythousands of practising teachers inEngland. Something has gone desperatelywrong; the many well-intentioned attemptsto rectify this have failed and the causes aredeep-rooted. Most CPD for most teachersshould be about how a professional canmove from the basic competence acquiredin initial teacher training to the expertise ofthe first-class teacher. Yet CPD is typicallyconcerned with enabling teachers to keepup with the avalanche of central govern-ment curriculum and assessment reforms. Teacher education as a whole remains

“front-end loaded”; the most extensive andexpensive element is pre-service – ITT. It iseasy to gather teacher recruits together inan administratively convenient one-yearcourse in universities – the PGCE – andthe costs are relatively low since manyrecruits have just completed higher educa-tion and need not be paid a full salary. Oncompletion of ITT the beginning teacheris treated as “qualified” and so this heavy

89 Miles M, in Guskey T and

Huberman M (eds) Professional

Development in Education: new

paradigms and practices,

Teachers College Press, 1995

A Brief History of CPD

Until the 1980s professional development after initial training was left almost entirely to individualteachers. They could pursue a variety of external courses provided by local education authorities andhigher education institutions, but such development was patchy and uncoordinated, and not every-one had access to it.

The Education Reform Act 1988 introduced five compulsory days of in-service training (INSET)for all teachers. Headteachers, and central government, soon co-opted these days to provide trainingupdates for whole schools – essential once the national curriculum and national assessment began.

Under the Act budgets were devolved to individual schools, so the capacity of local authorities todeliver training was substantially reduced. With schools now responsible for buying in their owntraining there was a massive increase in the number of unregulated consultancies and other commer-cial organisations in the market.

The Labour Government has always professed its commitment to CPD. The General TeachingCouncil (GTC) was established in 2001 to promote teachers’ professional development; it runsnumerous schemes, produces research and organises events. In 2005 the Training and DevelopmentAgency (TDA) was given responsibility for co-ordinating CPD, though it does not, as yet, regulatesuppliers. The TDA is heavily involved in developing the Masters degree in teaching and learningwhich will be offered free to all teachers in their first five years of service from September 2009.

At the same time the Government has increasingly tied funding for CPD to its centrally deter-mined priorities. For example, the national literacy and numeracy strategies for primary schoolsrequired extensive retraining – which has been widely criticised for its superficial and unreflectivenature.

investment, somewhat dubiously, is held tobe justified. Further professional develop-ment is severely neglected.Since most ITT providers are based

outside schools, a culture of mentoringfor new staff within schools has not yetdeveloped. Most teachers do not have asuperior colleague who is nominated tooversee their professional development.Mentoring is an essential aspect ofschool-based ITT – and a prime advan-tage of expanding employment-basedroutes would be the extension of mentor-ing. In schools that are not trainingschools and do not participate in SCITTsor employment-based ITT, whether anew teacher has a mentor or coach is amatter of chance. During the first fiveyears, a critical time in a teacher’s career,many are tempted to leave the profession– and too many do – because they feeltired and frustrated and lack the supportof an experienced mentor. Further professional development is

mainly provided by agents external to theschool. The most prestigious providers areuniversities, who offer a variety of diplo-mas and degrees, on either a full-time orpart-time basis. Getting a higher degree isoften seen as a vital addition to promo-tion prospects, even though it may con-tribute little or nothing to a teacher’scompetence. The introduction of a freeentitlement to a Masters degree in teach-ing and learning for recently qualifiedteachers could exacerbate this. For mostteachers, however, CPD is provided by arange of other institutions: governmentagencies, including the NationalStrategies and the National College forSchool Leadership, much of whose provi-sion is free or subsidised; from localauthorities; and (especially in recentyears) from commercial enterprises andconsultants. Most of these services takethe form of very short courses, especiallythe one-day event, without follow-upsupport. Teachers are recruited on the

basis of the school’s willingness to release,and often pay for, the teacher for whomthe course is relevant. Yet external courseshave far less value than school-basedtraining.There is widespread agreement that

teachers have far too little control overtheir own professional development andthat too much of it is determined bycentral government priorities. A study ofteachers’ perceptions of CPD in 2003,funded by the DfES (now DCSF),painted a depressing picture: 63% ofteachers felt that “CPD generally meetsthe needs of the school rather than mepersonally”; 72% felt that “too manytraining days are driven by nationalagendas” and just 32% of secondaryschool teachers felt that they had “a partin setting the agenda in the schoolINSET [in-service training] days”.90 Areport published early this year, and con-ducted as part of Cambridge University’smassive ongoing review of primary edu-cation, argued that “the governmentCPD strategy fails to recognise thatteachers need more responsibility andcontrol over the focus, structure andtiming of their professional developmentand that this is fundamental to thedevelopment of professional learningcommunities that have the capacity tosolve problems and to be creative”.91 Inanother report this year, commissionedby the General Teaching Council(GTC), Philippa Cordingley noted thatschools which offer successful CPD“provide opportunities for staff to col-laborate and to be proactive about theirown learning”.92

The balance between ITT and CPDneeds to be recalibrated so that there ismuch greater focus on post-qualificationdevelopment and mentoring. The develop-ment of schools as centres of training willenable them to offer much more CPDthemselves rather than relying on externalsuppliers. Finally, funding needs to be


Continuous professional development

90 Hustler D et al, Teachers’

Perceptions of Continuing

Professional Development, DfES,

2003, pp 19-25

91 McNamara O et al, “Primary

Teachers: Initial Teacher

Education, Continuing

Professional Development and

School Leadership

Development”, for The Primary

Review, University of

Cambridge, 2008, pp 28-29

92 Cordingley P, Qualitative

Study of School-Level Strategies

for Teachers’ CPD, Centre for

the Use of Research and

Evidence in Education, January

2008, p 26

diverted from central government andagency schemes to provide a clear financialentitlement for all teachers, so that theycan take control of their own career devel-opment.

Proposition 2: We must break downthe barrier between ITT and CPD

We have argued that the expansion ofemployment-based initial teaching train-ing would help break down the boundariesbetween training and teaching. It wouldallow high-level graduates and career-changers to move quickly into the profes-sion and learn on the job. In addition itwould draw existing staff into the trainingprocess by engaging them as mentors. ITTand CPD would begin to blend into oneprocess. Rather than qualifying and thenbecoming a teacher, new recruits wouldstart teaching immediately and continue tolearn and develop for as a long as they werein the profession. The time when initial training could

provide teachers with all the knowledgeand skills necessary for a lifetime career islong past. The world in which educationoperates is itself undergoing rapid andoften deep change, which has a real impacton young people and their experience ofschool. Knowledge is also changing veryfast, especially in fields such as science. Asteachers progress through their careers theytake on new responsibilities for which theyneed regular preparation and support. Butmost teachers need to spend at least 20years in the profession before they havespent as much time in CPD as in ITT. Thebalance between the two is wrong.The training school programme

explored in Chapter Two is essential todeveloping the model of continuous train-ing. Training school status enables schoolsto pay for a full-time member of staff todevelop training programmes and pur-chase appropriate assistance from external

providers. It also allows for the develop-ment of mentoring programmes for newand existing teachers. Funding is also pro-vided for outreach to other schools in thearea to help them set up CPD and mentor-ing programmes as well. Although mostschools now have a member of staff withsome overall responsibility for professionaldevelopment, not every teacher has a sen-ior colleague who will act and mentorand/or coach and who will take care of hisor her professional development. Everyteacher needs such a person if CPD is to beeffective. We believe that this would represent a

natural extension of the growth in the useof mentoring and coaching among staffover the past few years. Today’s teachers areless inclined to work alone than was oncetrue. The shift towards spending time inschools as part of ITT has promoted men-toring and coaching; experienced mentorsreport that they learn as much from theprocess as their mentees. Participants inthe Becoming a Teacher study found theschool-based part of their training to bethe most useful and the most positiveaspect of that was talking to their mentor,followed by being able to “engage in pro-fessional dialogues, which helped them tothink about their practice as teachers”.93

Teachers on entirely school-based ITTroutes (SCITTs and GTPs) had, on aver-age, better relationships with their mentorsthan those doing a BEd or PGCE.94 This isunsurprising as trainees on school-basedroutes have a more “permanent” home intheir school and are likely to developstronger relationships. GTP trainees werealso much more positive about their rela-tionships with other staff – which is prob-ably because, as employed teachers, theyhave a stronger bond with the school andother staff consider them a fellow employ-ee rather than a trainee.95

These positive changes in initial teachertraining would develop faster if our recom-mendations for the expansion of employ-

More Good Teachers

46


Teacher: Student teachers’ expe-

riences of initial teacher training

in England, DfES, 2006, p 67

94 Ibid, p 81

95 Ibid, p 85

ment-based ITT were taken up.Mentoring is, though, no panacea. Thelate Sir John Harvey-Jones, former chair-man of ICI, wisely cautioned: “We think,as we do in many cases of apprenticeships,that putting a young person with someoneexperienced will automatically transferknowledge and theory. We fail to realisethat what happens is that the bad practicesaccumulated over the years get handed onand on and on.”96 It is important that it isthe most effective teachers who becomementors and coaches. The value of thetraining school model, if properly imple-mented, is that teachers are taught tobecome mentors rather than just assignedto trainees without guidance. Alongside recent increases in mentoring

there has been an associated developmentof appraisal schemes and various forms ofperformance review for teachers. Last yeara new performance review model wasintroduced. Although they can have anuneasy relationship with professionaldevelopment, these schemes have focusedattention of what teachers do in classroomsand have encouraged mutual classroomobservation. We propose building a specif-ic financial entitlement into the perform-ance review to make it less top-down andmore meaningful for individual teachers.(In a minority of schools, teachers areobserved by their students who offer adviceon how the teaching might be improved.When first tried, this seemed to be a dar-ing and risky venture. However, results forteachers and students are reported to be sopositive that the practice is spreadingquickly.) An associated development is the

growth of what is called “distributed lead-ership”. The basic idea is simple and by nomeans new. Its essence was captured byRoland S. Barth a quarter of a centuryago: “My vision for a school is a placewhose very mission is to ensure that stu-dents, parents, teachers and principals allbecome school leaders in some ways and at

some times.”97 But it is only recently thatmany schools have begun to implementthis vision. It is almost certainly crucial tothe success of school-led and school-basedCPD, for it ensures that relatively inexpe-rienced staff are given opportunities tolead at the very point where they are indanger of becoming demoralised or bored. It is a very small step from distributed

leadership to new practices. Conven tion -ally it was left to academic researchers orofficial projects to take charge of change inclassroom practice. In fact much of thisexternally devised innovation failed whentried out in the mainstream. The historyof the curriculum is littered with the detri-tus of such failures. The disaster ofPitmans’ initial teacher alphabet for earlyliteracy is just one example. Today, howev-er, growth in school-led innovation isimpr ov ing teaching and learning and,unlike the failed external model, the out-comes are spreading between schools. Thisis partly because the innovations havebeen devised and tested by the right peo-ple, and partly because these practitioner-innovators are credible in the eyes of theirpeers. As McIntyre and Hagger argue, thebest place to learn about the complexitiesof classroom teaching is where that teach-ing is happening; and “the best peoplefrom whom to learn most about thosecomplexities are those who have engagedwith them on a daily basis.”99

Recommendation 1: Far more CPDshould take place in schools

CPD should no longer be predominantlybased in short courses conducted outsidethe school. Instead, most CPD should bebased in schools and led by fellow practi-tioners. Willard Waller insightfully observedas long ago as 1932: “The significant peo-ple for a school teacher are other teachers,and by comparison with standing in thatfraternity the good opinion of students is a



96 Harvey-Jones J All Together

Now, Heinemann, 1994, p 116

97 Roland S. Barth, in

Lieberman A, (ed) Building a

Professional Culture in Schools,

Teachers College, 1982

98 Harvey-Jones J, op cit, p 80

99 Hagger H and McIntyre D,

Learning from Teachers:

Realizing the potential of school-

based teacher education, Open

University Press, 2006, p 7

small thing and of little price. A landmarkin one’s assimilation to the profession isthat moment when he decides that onlyteachers are important.”100 Teachers do notdeny that ideas and inspiration can comefrom other kinds of people – academics,business people, writers – but it is theirsuccessful peers who share “life in thetrenches” that have the greatest credibilityin the central matters of teaching andlearning. If some colleague can demon-strate that something works for them in asimilar situation, then he or she is a trust-worthy source of advice.

University-led initial teacher trainingcreates a divide between theory and prac-tice that is inherently undesirable.Professor Michael Eraut believes this alsoapplies to CPD. In 1994 he published hismagisterial study Developing ProfessionalKnowledge and Competence. New knowl-edge about how to be effective in class-rooms, he asserted, is developed by lead-ing-edge professionals rather than throughformally designed research. So CPD con-ducted by experts outside the classroomrisks imparting abstract knowledge thatcannot be translated into classroom prac-tice. It is inappropriate to think of profes-sional knowledge as first being learned inan academic context and then later beingused. Learning, Eraut suggests, takes place

during use. Acquiring knowledge andusing knowledge are not separate, but thesame process. Talking or writing about edu-cation is a dominant form of knowledge usein both the academic and school contexts;but the classroom context is fundamental-ly different. As a result, CPD all too often

provides yet another strand of separate,unintegrated and therefore wasted knowl-edge. So it comes as no surprise to Erautthat “the lesson from three major studies ofINSET in the United States is that effec-tive INSET needs to be sustained andintensive and to provide individual sup-port in the classroom... The common prac-tice of providing input without follow-upis almost bound to fail, because it funda-mentally misconstrues the nature of theprofessional learning process in the class-room.”101

The DfES study of teachers’ perceptionsof CPD confirms Eraut’s analysis. Teachersconsidered “practical applications” to bethe single most important element to suc-cessful CPD. The authors of the study notethat in discussion with teachers “the lan-guage of relevance and ‘genuine usefulness’recurs”. One participant said: “We sooften go through the theory of how thingsshould be but it’s how that is actually goingto impact on me in the classroom and howit’s going to get through to the childrenthat matter.”102

Teachers do develop ideas and new prac-tices on university-based courses, but rarelyimplement them successfully in their ownschools. McNamara notes that the “cas-cade” approach to CPD popular in theEighties and Nineties – where a curricu-lum co-ordinator would attend a, some-times lengthy, course and then disseminateinformation to other staff – was aresounding failure.103 It seems that whenev-er a teacher takes time out of school to goon a course, it stimulates antibodies in thehost school, and the zeal of the newly-enthused teacher is soon dampened by theresistance an innovation may provoke.Identifying best professional practice doesnot ensure that it is transferred across theprofession. The remedy, then, is that CPDshould be largely in the hands of profes-sionals within schools. They should designthe infrastructure for the delivery of CPDand the development of teachers.

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100 Waller W, The Sociology of

Teaching, Wiley, 1932, p 389

101 Eraut M, Developing

Professional Knowledge and

Competence, Falmer, 1994, p 37

102 Hustler D et al, op cit, p 92

103 McNamara O et al, op cit, p 21

“ It is now well established that a school identified by

Ofsted as failing will be operating a seriously defective

CPD policy ”

School-led CPD has to build not on themodel of the external INSET course, buton what teachers do in their classrooms:the observation-led model intrinsic tomentoring. From the very beginning oftheir careers, teachers learn to tinker, tomodify their carefully planned lessons tomeet the unpredictable responses of theirpupils. This is how teachers build up theircraft knowledge. Michael Huberman hascaptured this fact:

“Essentially, teachers are artisans work-ing primarily alone, with a variety ofnew and cobbled-together material, ina personally designed work environ-ment. They gradually develop a reper-toire of instructional skills and strate-gies…through a somewhat haphazardprocess of trial and error, usually whenone or other segment of the repertoiredoes not work repeatedly. Somewhere inthat cycle they may reach out to peers oreven to professional trainers, but theywill typically transform these inputsinto a more private, personally congen-ial form.”104

Huberman rightly argues that CPD willneed to be grafted onto the ways in whichteachers spontaneously go about such tin-kering in their classrooms; which is whymentoring and observation are so impor-tant.CPD that is largely school-based offers

challenges both to government and tohigher education. Government would haveto abandon some of its imposed CPD andreplace it with support for the new CPD,with advice about priorities. Of course,some schools might not handle CPDresponsibilities as they should, though thatis less likely now that schools are typicallyworking in clusters, consortiums, trusts,federations and academy networks ratherthan standing alone as in the past. Clustersbased around training schools would giveadditional support to schools struggling to

develop programmes. Government shouldcertainly ensure that CPD is closely moni-tored by Ofsted, for a school that neglectsCPD also neglects its staff and studentsand undermines improvements in teachingand learning. Indeed, it is now well estab-lished both that a school identified byOfsted as failing will be operating a seri-ously defective CPD policy, and that get-ting the right CPD practice in place isessential to the school’s recovery. Yet,astonishingly Ofsted does not take trainingprovision into account when inspecting aschool. This should be rectified as soon aspossible. There will always be room for some

external courses. Many teachers need toupdate their subject knowledge and this ismost easily done by learning from academ-ic specialists. But a good working rulewould be that external courses are justifi-able only when it is demonstrated thatschool-based versions of such professionaldevelopment are not viable and when thereis provision for follow-up support. The impact on higher education of this

shift to school-based CPD would be pro-found. We have seen how strongly the staffof some teacher training colleges and uni-versity faculties of education resisted themove to a more school-centred and school-based ITT. Academics have the same biasregarding CPD. Their preference – notunnaturally – is for serving teachers toattend full-time courses. In fact, most ofthe people on one-year, full-time coursestend to come from overseas; funding forUK teachers is in very short supply, somost attend on a part-time basis. However,this is a business that remains heavily pro-ducer-led. The academics plan course con-tent according to their own preferences,not least for the esoteric, specialised aca-demic knowledge of educational theoryand research, rather than the craft knowl-edge on which professional practice isbased. They often succeed in recruitingserving teachers, for many of whom the



104 Huberman M, “Teacher

Development and Instructional

Mastery”, in Hargreaves A and

Fullan M (eds) Understanding

Teacher Development, Cassell,

1992, p 136

need for a diploma or higher degree ismore important than the detailed content.(This is also true for courses run by nation-al agencies, such as National ProfessionalQualification for Headship, the mandatoryqualification for headship run by theNational College for School Leadership.This has been subject to revision after revi-sion because the content is so patently outof line with participant expectations.)Teachers would benefit more from univer-sity-led CPD if academics spent far moreof their time tutoring mentors in schools(as the academics involved in Teach Firstand many GTP programmes do). When itcomes to CPD most still prefer to basetheir activities in the seclusion of the sem-inar room. Over the years universities have justified

this preference on the grounds that teach-ers need and deserve opportunities forreflection. In making this claim they haveoften invoked the idea of “the reflectivepractitioner”, a term coined by DonaldSchon.105 CPD is thus often interpreted astime out in which teachers may be reflec-tive about themselves and their work. Thisis how it is understood by the majority ofpractising teachers, who would naturallylike more time off-the-job to prepare fortheir classroom roles. A closer inspection ofthe original text, however, reveals thatSchon talks about “reflection-in-action”.This is what professionals do when theymeet some unexpected problem and haveto devise a way through – the trial-and-error experiments that Michael Hubermansaw as part of teachers’ natural tinkering.But time out in a university course is notan opportunity for such reflection-in-action, which is a part of everyday profes-sional activity, but rather reflection-on-action. This other kind of reflection maybe a good thing for professionals to do andit may improve practice, but there is noevidence that this is so. For reflection-on-action is not at the centre of Schon’s analy-sis, whereas reflection-in-action is. And the

best way to strengthen this kind of reflec-tion is through on-the-job mentoring andcoaching. Michael Eraut has suggested that, as

part of their role, universities should beworking to support teachers in knowledgecreation and utilisation, so strengtheningthe capacities of teachers for innovation.106

This would be a marked change of empha-sis. However, the influential work of PaulBlack and Dylan William on assessment,which has led to significant improvementsin the quality of teaching and learning,pioneered a new form of partnershipbetween teachers and research. It deservesto be imitated. New technologies offerscope for imaginative academics to con-tribute to school-based CPD, comple-menting the work of Teachers’ TV, whichis still underused by schools. The recent announcement that a two-

year Masters degree in teaching and learn-ing will be available free to teachers in theirfirst five years suggests that the Govern -ment has learnt some but not all of theselessons. Although few details are yet avail-able (the degree will be available fromSeptember 2009), it is encouraging to seethat it is intended to be “practice-based”and delivered primarily in schools. It is alsoencouraging that there is a focus on devel-oping existing teachers as coaches andmentors with money set aside for train-ing.107 In “Being the Best for ourChildren”, the document laying out theplans for the Masters, the DCSF notes that“trained coaches could make a wider con-tribution to induction, training and devel-opment across the school and the Mastersin Teaching and Learning should serve tosupport an increasingly collaborative cul-ture in professional development.”108 Thisis welcome and fits in with our argumentfor school-based training throughout ITTand CPD.However, framing this offering in the

form of a Masters runs the risk that likeother externally designed qualifications it

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105 Schon D, The Reflective

Practitioner: How professionals

think in action, Basic Books,

1983; and Educating the

Reflective Practitioner, Jossey-

Bass, 1987

106 Eraut M, op cit, p 41

107 “Being the Best for our

Children”, DCSF, March 2008, p

14

108 Ibid, p 15

will become a semi-compulsory course thatteachers take because they want promotionrather than because of any intrinsic merit.The DCSF has clearly tied itself in knotsover this problem. In “Being the Best forour Children” it insists: “No teacher wouldbe penalised for not having a Masters levelqualification”. But in the very next sen-tence says: “We envisage that as moreteachers gain MTL we would expect this tobe a factor when employers are recruiting.”The two statements flatly contradict eachother; and the latter is more likely to beaccurate.109

If the Masters does become compulsoryin all but name there is the accompanyingrisk that the content will be designed to fitin with central government strategies. Aswith the five-day entitlement to in-servicetraining, and the NPQH for aspiring head-teachers, it will be easy for future adminis-trations to tweak the course to reflect theirpriorities. Then there is the role of highereducation institutions – to “validate theprogramme is genuinely at Masters leveland provide a tutor for each participantwho would have the lead role in assessingprogress”. This risks forcing schools andteachers to engage with topics in an overlyformal and bureaucratic manner. It mayalso mean a drift away from the practical.After all PGCEs are primarily school-basedand yet, as we have seen, there is still toomuch unhelpful theoretical content formany participants.Across the board the potential lack of

flexibility in the entitlement for teachersand school is a considerable concern.There is no reason why a CPD entitlementneeds to be offered as a Masters. Because itis in “teaching and learning” it will have noapplication outside the profession and willlack transferability. As such it would havelittle or no value in giving the professionadditional status (as opposed to, say, lead-ership development). In the polling weconducted for this report we included theproposed Masters in the list of potential

attractions for new recruits. It went unno-ticed by respondents. In the question toundergraduates about the attractions ofTeach First, however, “keeping your careeroptions open thanks to the emphasis ontransferable skills” was the second mostattractive feature of the programme. A flex-ible entitlement would give teachers thefreedom to take charge of their own careerdevelopment in the context of schools witha training culture.

Recommendation 2: All teachersshould have a financial entitlement toCPD

Framing CPD entitlement as a Mastersdegree is not only unnecessary and inflexi-ble it is also expensive. The bureaucracy,assessment and formal higher education allcost money. £30 million has been assignedto the Masters for its first two years ofoperation.110 This money will only cover afirst cohort of 2,400 newly qualified teach-ers and the first year of a second cohort –less than 1% of all teachers taken togeth-er.111 Because of the cost, it is available toteachers only in their first five years. TheDSCF has acknowledged that it will onlybe able to make the qualification availableto mid-career teachers by charging teachersand/or schools.112 (Teachers in mid-careermay end up having to pay for what is, ineffect, a compulsory qualification if theywant promotion.)Although it is often claimed that too lit-

tle is spent on CPD there is considerableexpenditure, of which the new Mastersdegree is just part. Increasing resources forCPD would not necessarily mean that thetime and money would be well spent.Without some fundamental changes inthe way they are allocated, we are con-vinced that extra resources would be awaste. Too many are currently in thewrong hands: the various providers of con-ventional CPD, including government



109 Ibid

110 Hansard: Column 1579W,

21st April 2008


28th April 2008


Children”, DCSF, March 2008, p

14

departments and agencies, local authori-ties and higher education. It is in all theirinterests to preserve the status quo.Instead we should simplify CPD fundingand direct it to individual teachersthrough a financial entitlement. CPD funding comes from two sources. A

part of every school’s delegated budgetshould be spent on CPD. There is no ring-fencing, however, and as schools have differ-ent spending priorities, the proportion spenton CPD varies widely. The second source iscentral and local government. Again it isimpossible to track how much money isbeing spent on CPD because it comes fromso many different pots. The TDA spent £17million on postgraduate professional devel-opment and INSET last year.113 Localauthorities spend a further £25 million ayear on teacher development.114 Central gov-ernment will spend an astonishing £300million providing support for the primaryand secondary national strategies in 2008-2009 – as well unidentifiable additionalfunds for teacher development within otherstrategies, such as, providing retraining forstaff who will soon be teaching specialiseddiplomas.115

Inevitably the fact that these lattersources of funding are ring-fenced skewsCPD priorities towards government initia-tives – and this is one of our central con-cerns with regards to the new Mastersdegree. As we have seen 72% of teachers inthe DfES perceptions of CPD study feltthat their training was driven by nationalagendas. Schools Minister Jim Knightrecently said: “Building on the current per-formance management arrangements, wewill continue to explore with social part-ners [teaching unions] how we mightframe an entitlement to CPD.”116 But it isdifficult to see how such a system of enti-tlements would be compatible with thedepartment’s continuing practice of assign-ing money for specific schemes.Take this baffling paragraph from the

DCSF’s most recent set of CPD proposals:

Funding is being made availablethrough the Standards Fund so everyschool should have the capacity torelease the headteacher, core subjectleads and other key teachers for trainingin Assessment for Learning (AfL) andpupil progress tracking. We are workingwith the National Strategies, theQualifications and CurriculumCouncil and the National AssessmentAgency to design, support and establishwhole school teaching and learningpolicies and systems. The basis for thetraining will be the existing materialsand support available through theNational Strategies. Universal supportwill be available to all teachers andschool leaders from this year through theNational Strategies. In future years sup-port will be differentiated, capitalisingon the work of schools with leadingpractice and intensifying support toschools who need it.117

Not only is the DCSF persisting in assign-ing funding to specific initiatives, it hasalso shut down all of the programmes thathave given teachers some ownership overtheir own professional development. In2000 the DfEE (as it then was) introducedprofessional bursaries: £500 a year grantsfor teachers in their fourth and fifth year ofteaching to spend on their own CPD.118

These were successfully piloted and thenrolled out nationally but have, unaccount-ably been dropped since then.119 In 2001 asimilar scheme was piloted for second andthird-year teachers called early professionaldevelopment (EPD). This ran in 12 localauthorities and allocated second-yearteachers £700 a term and third-year teach-ers £350 a term for their own develop-ment.120 The pilot was very popular – 75%of teachers involved felt that it had signifi-cantly affected their ability to contribute totheir colleagues and their school.121 Again,unaccountably, the department decidednot to pursue the project after the pilot.

More Good Teachers

52

113 2006-7 Annual Report and

Accounts, TDA, p 58

114 Departmental Report, DCSF,

2008, p 92

115 Standards Fund Guidance

(Annex C); see

www.teachernet.gov.uk/docbank

/index.cfm?id=12227


28th April 2008


Children”, DCSF, March 2008, p 11

118 “Professional Development:

Support for Teaching and

Learning”, DfEE, 2000

119 “Professional Bursaries for

Teachers in their 4th and 5th

Year of Teaching”, DfES, March

2002, p 1

120 Moor H et al, “Professional

Development for Teachers Early

in their Careers: An Evaluation of

the Early Professional

Development Pilot Scheme”,

DfES, 2005, p ii

121 Ibid, p iv

The same has happened to the £3 mil-lion that was allocated for individual bestpractice research scholarships, for teachersto carry out research in partnership with auniversity or other schools and the moneyput aside for sabbaticals for experiencedteachers working in challenging schools.122

Again both these schemes were wellreceived but were quickly dropped. Suchsmall-scale schemes were simply too vul-nerable to the constant initiative churn inthe department – but they did show thevalue of giving individual teachers discre-tion over their own professional develop-ment. We believe that an individual financial

entitlement is necessary to shift the focusof CPD away from central governmentpriorities and back to individual teachers.Giving every teacher in the country a £500allowance would cost £217.5 million ayear which could be paid for by consolidat-ing money currently allocated to specificstrategies; using the money that the DCSFand the TDA intends to spend on theMasters or ring-fencing a small proportionof the money delegated to schools. Teachers should then be informed of the

share of the CPD pot to which they areentitled, and the total resources for theCPD of a school staff should be handedover to the school. This entitlement shouldbe built into the performance review sys-tem. At the moment the performancereview model tries to tie in professionaldevelopment with performance-related pay,but there is no specific resource attached to

the process. The appraisal is typicallyundertaken by teachers’ line managers whodo not necessarily have a strong personalrelationship with them. We envisage men-tors and coaches participating in the per-formance review so that the expenditure ofeach individual’s entitlement would bedirectly linked to their relationship withtheir mentor/coach. The evaluation of theEPD scheme showed the importance ofmentoring both in supporting teachersearly in their careers and in ensuring that afinancial entitlement was spent in a waythat benefited both the individual teacherand the wider school community.123

The entitlement that we are proposingcould then be used in the context ofbroader school-designed CPD but wouldstill allow individual teachers the oppor-tunity to take control of their own career.Or they could use it to go on a subjectcourse; buy equipment; pay for a supply-teacher to cover a trip to observe a teacherin another school; or to train to become amentor/coach themselves. Allowancescould be saved over several years to fundmore expensive projects such as a Mastersdegree or a specific unit developed for theMasters or to fund a longer sabbatical.Schools could then focus their otherCPD resources (especially if they wereable to access additional funds throughthe training school programme) on devel-oping mentoring and observation pro-grammes that would allow individualteachers to make the best use of theirentitlements.



122 McNamara O et al, op cit, p 25

123 Moor H et al, op cit, pp vii-viii

4Using teacher pay toimprove recruitmentand retention

Salary is the greatest deterrent to teachingfor professionals and the second greatestfor undergraduates. Although teachers’average salary increased in real terms by15% between 1997 and 2007, and startingsalary by over 10%, these are still consid-ered relatively low compared to other pro-fessions.124

Although higher salaries are available forschool leaders and for outstanding class-room teachers, it usually takes a long time toachieve them. Graduated pay increases overa lengthy period of service militate againstour preferred model of teaching as a flexibleprofession that top graduates can move inand out of while developing transferableskills. The employment-based routes we dis-cussed in Chapter Two should be linked to

fast-track routes into leadership oradvanced/excellent teacher positions so thatthe very best can earn higher salaries faster.The current pay structure also distorts

the labour market as teachers in shortagesubjects and in difficult schools get no pre-mium. This means that pupils in disadvan-taged areas are subject to more frequentchanges in teaching staff and lower qualityteaching. The schools that have the great-est need to incentivise recruitment – thosein disadvantaged areas – are also the oneswith the greatest financial pressures. Theywill have many more children with behav-ioural problems and learning difficultiesand will probably spend more money onpastoral support, such as educational psy-chologists and classroom assistants to helpstruggling pupils. Only if extra funds arediverted to these schools and they are giventhe same freedom as academies to opt outof the national pay agreement will they beable to design, and pay for, more flexiblesalary structures. The most successfulstructures will be widely copied and thiswill also help attract top-level recruits.

54

124 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/

education/6733315.stm

125 School Teachers’ Review

Body 17th Report press release,

“A fair and affordable three-year

pay award for teachers”, Ed

Balls, 15th January 2008

Table 4.1: Usual minimum starting salary for newly qualified teacher1997-2007125

1997 2007 Cash increase Real terms increase

England and Wales £14,280 £20,133 41% 10.4%

Inner London £16,341 £24,168 47.9% 15.8%

“ The current pay structure also distorts the labourmarket as teachers in shortage subjects and in difficultschools get no premium”

Recommendation 1: Fast-track routesto higher salaries would help to recruitand retain top graduates andprofessionals

The simplest way to improve recruitmentto the teaching profession would be toincrease pay across the board. There are atleast 13 studies from around the worldwhich confirm that recruitment and reten-tion are sensitive to pay – that an increasein salary leads to a wider pool of potentialapplicants.126 This is unsurprising: teacherrecruitment is always more difficult in abuoyant graduate job market. Several other

studies show that increasing salary not onlywidens the pool, but also increases thequality of those hired. David Figlio’s analy-sis of the American teacher labour marketshows a positive relationship between a dis-trict’s teacher salaries and that district’sprobability of hiring well-qualified teach-ers.127

Unfortunately an across-the-board payincrease that made any difference would beprohibitively expensive. During the recentteachers’ strike on April 24th 2008, theNational Union of Teachers demanded a10% increase (or £3,000, whichever ishigher) for all members. If this was agreed,


Using teacher pay to improve recruitment and retention

126 These are listed in Webster

E et al, Reforming the Labour

Market for Australian Teachers,

Melbourne Institute Working

Paper no 28/04, 2006, p 9

127 Figlio D, “Can Public

Schools Buy Better Qualified

Teachers?”, Industrial and Labor

Relations Review, vol 55, 4, July

2002

The Current Pay Structure

Teacher pay and conditions are reviewed annually by the School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB),which reports in January on the pay settlement for the following April. Every year the Secretary ofState sends the review body a letter setting out the matters on which it is to report. Technically thisdoes not prevent it from reporting on other matters, but in practice it usually sticks to the remit. TheGovernment has undertaken to implement the recommendations of all pay review bodies unlessthere are clear and compelling reasons to the contrary and in recent years a number of pay awardshave been more favourable than the Government would have liked.

In the most recent STRB report classroom teachers start on a main pay scale that has six levels.Newly Qualified Teachers (NQTs) usually start on M1 (schools have discretion to start them at ahigher level to account for previous experience) and, subject to satisfactory performance, move upone point each year. If their performance has been excellent they can progress by two points. In 2008-09 the range, from M1 to M6 of the main pay scale for teachers outside London, will be £20,627 to£30,148.

Once they reach M6, teachers can apply to be examined against the “post-threshold” standards. Ifthey are allowed to cross the threshold they join an upper scale which, in 2008-09 will range fromU1 at £32,660 to U3 at £35,121 (outside London). Progression on the upper pay scale is technical-ly performance-based and left to the discretion of governing bodies and headteachers. Teachers donot typically move up the upper pay scale more often than once every two years.

There are separate scales and levels for advanced skills teachers (AST) and excellent teachers (ET),both introduced in response to criticism that limiting higher pay levels to those in management givesthose who excel in the classroom a perverse incentive to move into administration. In January 2007,from a pool of 435,200 regular teachers working in local authority maintained schools in England,only 4,060 (less than 1%) had AST status. As for ET, one year after the scheme began in May 2006,only 34 teachers had applied and 26 qualified for ET status.

Those in leadership positions are paid on a 43-point spine, which in September 2008 will extendfrom £35,794 to £100,424 (outside London). Placement on this spine is largely determined by thenumber of pupils in a school, though governing bodies do have discretion to pay headteachers abovethe pay spine.

Other payments – teaching and learning responsibility (TLR) payments – can be made to teach-ers who take on extra responsibility; these range from about £2,000 to £12,000. Schools can alsomake payments and offer benefits for a fixed period in order to recruit and retain teachers; theamounts are left to the discretion of schools and they can be awarded for a maximum of three years.In exceptional circumstances awards for retention can be renewed.

it would cost the Government in theregion of £1.5 billion extra a year. Eventhen it would have only a limited effect;salaries would still not be competitive withmedicine, law or finance. There is simplyno way teaching (outside of leadershippositions) will ever pay as much, on aver-age, as these careers. It is one of the mainreasons why we need to reconfigure teach-ing as a flexible profession rather than acareer for life. Rather than throw a hugeamount of money at the entire professionit makes more sense to target funds atthose top graduates and professionals whoare deterred from teaching by the length oftime it takes to earn a higher salary.Although it is unlikely that top gradu-

ates and professionals would go into teach-ing for the money per se, both our pollingand the success of Teach First suggest thatthey will consider spending some part oftheir career in the classroom. A pay modelwhich rewards longevity is antithetical torecruiting such people. If they can access arelatively higher salary faster they are morelikely to become teachers.Box 1 shows that teachers are expected to

pass through a series of pay spines beforereaching a competitive salary. A survey ofteacher pay undertaken in 2007 for theSchool Teacher’s Review Body (STRB)reveals that almost all pay decisions are beingtaken on the basis of time served. Progressthrough the first six pay points on the class-room teacher spine is, almost without excep-tion, annual. In secondary schools, 99% ofthe teachers who were on the first point(M1) in 2006 were on the second point(M2) by 2007. Of those on M5 in 2006,100% were on M6 in 2007. The figures areno different for primary teachers. Almost noteachers had progressed more than one paypoint in a year or had stayed on the same paypoint. It is fair to assume that headteachersconsider movement along this spine as auto-matic, regardless of merit.128

Once on the upper spine teachers canexpect only biannual jumps to the next

point unless there are exceptional circum-stances. Only when the third pay point isreached can the individual be consideredfor advanced skills teacher status. So ittakes at least ten years to gain access to thehighest pay scale for classroom teachers –and then many more years to climb thatscale. The only way to circumvent this is towin promotion to a leadership position(assistant head, deputy head or head-teacher). These posts are obviously limitedand tend to be held by older teachers whohave served their time. A recent survey bythe General Teaching Council for Englandfound that the average length of service ofsecondary teachers who thought that theymight become a headteacher in the nextfive years was 17.8 years and 12.9 years forprimary.129

The difficulty in accessing higher levelsalaries is clearly a big deterrent for talent-ed people who might want to spend just afew years in teaching. Our poll of profes-sionals asked whether the fact that teach-ers’ pay is set and based on length of expe-rience in the job, rather than flexible andbased on performance, was attractive ornot: 50% found the length of serviceapproach unattractive compared to only22% who found it attractive (28% wereunsure). The majority of undergraduateswere unsure (42%) – perhaps reflectingtheir inexperience of employment – but ofthose who did have an opinion there was aslight majority in favour of flexibility (33%to 25%). Many of the professionals feltthat the drop from their existing salary to astarting salary for teaching was too greatfor them to manage.The need to move incrementally

through pay bands is especially unattrac-tive to professional and managerial career-changers looking to spend a short period oftime in teaching. More employment-basedinitial teacher training (as discussed inChapter Two) would go some way to alle-viating the financial disadvantage of mov-ing into teaching but, once qualified, the

More Good Teachers

56

128 Hodgson A et al, Survey of

Teachers’ Pay 2007, ORC

International for the Office of

Manpower Economics,

September 2007, p 36; see

www.ome.uk.com/downloads/93

439_TP_Report_v12.pdf

129 See www.gtce.org.uk/gtc

publications/gtcmagazine_

autumn2006/08mappingopinions

salary is still likely to be lower than thesecareer-changers previously earned. Wehave proposed that recruits enteringthrough our Teach Next route should jointhe leadership pay spine once they qualifyas teachers because they would immediate-ly join their school’s senior leadership teamand take on associated responsibilities.There should also be mechanisms to tie

other ITT routes with accelerated progressto senior positions. There are a number ofdifferent fast-track schemes but their rela-tionship with each other and ITT isunclear. They all focus on leadership roles;there is no accelerated route to advancedskills teacher status.The Department for Education and

Skills (DfES) introduced the Fast Trackprogramme in 1997. It sought to identify,develop and retain talented individualsfrom within the teaching profession byoffering an accelerated route to seniorschool leadership. Although Fast Track wasoriginally open to both new and servingteachers, it was rebranded in 2005 as aleadership development programme forqualified teachers only. The reason givenwas that the focus of current concerns wasupon retention rather than recruitment.The same reason was given for removingthe £2,000 financial incentive for thoseparticipating in the scheme. Responsibility for running Fast Track

was transferred from the Government tothe National College for SchoolLeadership (NCSL) in September 2006.130

CfBT Education Trust managed the pro-fessional development, advice and guid-ance, and events provision, and developedthe online community. At its peak therewere almost 2,000 in the scheme. Howeverfrom March 2008 recruitment was sus-pended and the NCSL is developing areplacement scheme to start in September2009. At the same time NCSL has set up, with

ARK, an education charity and academysponsor, and the Specialist Schools and

Academies Trust, the Future Leaders pro-gramme.131 Applicants must write twoshort essays on their suitability and passthree online tests at an assessment centre.Those accepted receive intensive trainingduring the summer and then take up resi-dency as part of the senior leadership teamat a challenging school where the head-teacher and a dedicated external coach actas mentors. During this year participantsare required to complete a series of leader-ship projects. The following year partici-pants take up a post as a senior leader inanother challenging school. At the end ofthe two years they achieve the NationalProfessional Qualification for Headship(NPQH), which all new headteachersmust have. They are expected to be a sen-ior leader within 12 months and a head-teacher within four years. The scheme iscurrently only available in Greater Londonand Greater Manchester.132

In the past few months the partners inFuture Leaders and Teach First have set upa new programme, Teaching Leaders, todevelop the skills of middle managers. Inits pilot year there will be 40 places avail-able. It is a two-year in-post developmentprogramme aimed at realising the leader-ship and management talents of middleleaders in complex urban schools, and it ishoped that it will fill the development gapbetween initial teaching training (whetheron Teach First or other routes) and FutureLeaders. The scheme will include a resi-dential week each summer; coaching by anexperienced urban practitioner; masterclasses, group discussion, workshops andseminars; and an in-school project. Theprogramme will require participants to



130 See www.dfes.gov.uk/

research/data/uploadfiles/RR726

.pdf

131 See www.future-leaders.

org.uk/

132 See www.future-leaders.

org.uk/

“ Many of the professionals felt that the drop from their

existing salary to a starting salary for teaching was too

great for them to manage ”

commit to approximately eight days oftraining per year in their own time, as wellas several days of in-school coaching andthe residential weeks in August.In addition Teach First is developing its

own Teach On programme which will pro-vide development opportunities and sup-port to Teach First ambassadors whoremain in schools after their initial two-year commitment.This is – to say the least – a confusing pic-

ture for anyone thinking of teaching as acareer. For a start it is unclear why the NCSLare supporting different routes with the sameobjective. Why develop another acceleratedleadership route when Future Leaders/Teaching Leaders is already up and running?Surely it makes sense to consolidate fundingand expertise into this one route. We believethat Future Leaders/Teaching Leaders shouldbe expanded across the country. This consolidated accelerated leadership

scheme should be directly linked to initialteacher training routes so that it can beadvertised to potential new recruits. AllTeach First and Teach Now trainees shouldhave the option of applying for the acceler-ated leadership path at the end of theirtraining course. A financial incentive forsuccessful candidates should also be re-introduced to encourage applications. Finally, an alternative route should be

developed for talented new recruits whowish to remain in the classroom: directingall of the best candidates towards leader-ship risks denuding classrooms of talentedteachers. There should be an acceleratedadvanced teacher scheme so that newlyqualified teachers can access the highestclassroom teacher pay scale within a fewyears of joining the profession. Again thisshould be advertised to potential recruits.The possibility of earning a £40,000-£50,000 salary within a few years of join-ing the profession would increase the poolof talented people prepared to considerteaching at a considerably lower cost thanan across-the-board pay increase.

Proposition 1: The National PayAgreement discriminates againstschools in disadvantaged areas

It is well established that the existence of anational pay structure distorts the labourmarket. Schools in disadvantaged areascannot financially compensate for theimplicit costs of teaching in a more diffi-cult environment. People move betweenjobs and workplaces not only because ofsalary, but also because of difficult workingconditions, personal safety, the challenge ajob offers and individual circumstances.The undergraduates we polled said that“feeling unsafe in the classroom” was aneven greater deterrent than salary. Becausethese implicit costs and benefits will varyenormously from school to school, andwill vary in importance for one personfrom another, it makes sense for pay to beas flexible as possible to counterbalancenon-pecuniary costs.One academic remarked: “Uniform pay

may sound fair but it leads to aninequitable distribution of teachers. It mayseem counterintuitive that uniform paycould be inequitable, but the reason is thatteachers’ compensation is determined bytheir wages and their working conditions.And working conditions are partiallydetermined by the…students that areassigned to them.”133

Although teachers’ pay is not nearly asuniform in this country as it once was, it isstill highly structured and centralised. Aswe have shown most teachers will start ataround the same level and gradually earnmore over the course of their careers.Teachers in inner London (uniformly) earnmore because of the cost of living but oth-erwise there are few concessions to thelabour market. Teachers working inschools in disadvantaged areas do not, as amatter of course, earn more than those inleafy suburbs. Maths and science teachers,whose qualifications could well lead to amuch higher wage premium than arts and

More Good Teachers

58

133 Gordon R, Kane T and

Staiger D, “Identifying Effective

Teachers Using Performance on

the Job”, The Hamilton Project,

Discussion Paper, January 2006;

see www.brookings.edu/~/

media/Files/rc/papers/2006/04e

ducation_gordon/200604ha mil-

ton_1.pdf

humanities teachers, do get a golden hellowhen starting but after that are on thesame pay scale as everyone else. This,unsurprisingly, means that it is harder torecruit good teachers for difficult schoolsand that there are persistent shortages ofmaths and science teachers.Many studies have shown how schools

facing challenging circumstances struggleto recruit and retain high calibre teach-ers.134 Between 2001 and 2005 AlanSmithers and Pamela Robinson produced aseries of seminal reports looking atturnover and wastage of teachers. Theyfound that retention rates vary consider-ably between different types of school.135 AsTable 4.2 shows, turnover was higher insecondary schools with poorer academicperformance; proportionally more pupilswith special needs; and higher numbers ofpupils on free school meals. They alsoestablished that there is a tendency forteachers to move from schools with poorGCSE results to those with better.136 Thesefindings were supported by additionalreports on the factors affecting teachersleaving the profession and moving to dif-ferent schools.137

In a report for the Institute of PublicPolicy Research, Merryn Hutchings foundthat full-time staff turnover in “vulnerable”schools (disadvantaged, defined on thebasis of GCSE performance) and“matched” schools (that had better attain-ment but were otherwise similar to the vul-nerable schools) was 14.2% and 10.9%respectively.139 Hutchings showed that the

vulnerable schools found it more difficultto fill teacher posts; while 79% of adver-tised posts were filled in matched schools,in vulnerable schools the comparable figurewas only 55%. Headteacher responses to anaccompanying questionnaire were alsorevealing: those running vulnerable schoolswere much more likely to complain abouthaving “difficult teaching staff”.140

Education Data Surveys, a company pro-viding research and information about thesector, has compared the average number ofnationally advertised teaching posts in the638 maintained secondary schools whererecently less than 30% of pupils achievedfive GCSEs at A*-C including English andmaths, with the number for all maintainedsecondary schools. The average for the 658failing schools was 7.9 teacher posts adver-tised, while the national average was 6.5.141

The deterrents to working in difficultschools are not surprising. Hutchings foundthat teachers in vulnerable schools were con-cerned about pupil behaviour, low attain-ment, poor management and an unpleasantworking environment.142 Smithers andRobinson found a similar range of factorswere cited in a survey of those leaving teach-ing.143 These are all implicit costs of workingin certain kinds of school and in many casescould be counterbalanced by increasingsalaries. The teachers in Hutchings’s surveynamed “higher pay” as the most importantfactor when asked “if you were to move toanother school, what would you be lookingfor in that school?”144 Smithers andRobinson found that just over half of teachers



134 Select Committee on

Education and Skills, Fifth

Report; see www.parliament.the-

stationery-office.co.uk/pa/cm2

00304/cmselect/cmeduski/1057/

105706.htm#note30

135 See www.buckingham.ac.uk

/education/research/ceer/pdfs/

turnover.pdf


Teacher Turnover, Wastage and

Movement between Schools,

Buckingham University, May

2005, p 50

137 See www.dfes.gov.uk/

research /data/uploadfiles/

RR640.pdf and www.dfes.gov.

uk/resear ch/data/uploadfiles

/RR430.pdf

138 www.parliament.the-sta-

tionery-office.co.uk/pa/cm20030

4/cmselect/cmeduski/1057/10

5707.htm#n91

139 Hutchings, M, Choice and

Equity in Teacher Supply: Report

on staffing data and on surveys

of headteachers and teachers in

‘vulnerable’ and ‘matched’

schools, IPPR, 2005

140 Ibid, p 13

141 We are grateful to Professor

John Howson for sharing this

information with us

142 Hutchings M, op cit, pp 28-

29


“Factors Affecting Teachers’

Decisions to Leave the

Profession”, DfES Research

Report 430, 2003, p 49

144 Hutchings M, op cit, p 30

Table 4.2: Teacher Turnover and Wastage in Secondary Schools by Intake138

Group GSCE Results Free School Meals Special Needs

Turnover Wastage Turnover Wastage Turnover Wastage

Above Average 11.48 7.06 16.21 7.55 16.52 7.58

Average 12.76 7.01 13.34 7.62 13.40 7.65

Below Average 15.54 8.02 12.10 7.42 11.99 7.32

moving to another school could have beeninduced to stay – and “additional allowances”were the most significant inducement forthose teachers with a permanent contract.However, only one in twenty movers wasoffered an incentive to stay.145

Implicit costs are especially problematicfor schools in London. Despite the extrasalary allowances for inner London teachers,schools in the capital struggle more thanmost with recruitment problems – presum-ably because of the ready availability ofalternative jobs and the high cost of living.In 2000 the School Teachers’ Review Bodycommissioned research into recruitmentand retention of classroom teachers, com-paring 12 schools in London local educa-tion authorities with 12 outside.146 Theyfound that all but one of the Londonschools were facing difficulties in recruitingteachers compared with only half of thoseoutside. And while outside the capital themost commonly cited negative factor inretention was workload, in London it washousing costs. Smithers and Robinson alsofound that London and the South East havehigher levels of turnover than other parts ofthe country147 and that the capital losesteachers to other parts of the country.148

They also found that salary was a muchmore important factor in deciding to leave aschool than in other parts of the country.149

For shortage subjects, such as maths andscience, the implicit costs of teaching are mag-nified by the opportunity costs. Graduates inthese subjects forgo much greater potentialearnings than graduates in humanities or artssubjects (see Figure 4.1 for average wage pre-miums for different degree subjects). While schools in disadvantaged areas

struggle to hold on to good teachers allschools struggle to find good science andmaths teachers. Teacher training providerstend to accept a far higher proportion ofapplicants on to ITT courses for these sub-jects than for humanities subjects. Thoseaccepted are more likely to have lower sec-ond or third-class degrees. A study by theNational Foundation for EducationResearch (NFER) in 2006 found that 24%of teachers deployed to teach mathematicshad neither a degree nor an ITT qualifica-tion in the subject. For science the figurewas rather less at 8%, but the studyrevealed that 44% of all teachers whotaught science were biologists comparedwith 25% who were chemistry specialistsand 19% physics specialists.150

More Good Teachers

60


Teacher Turnover, Wastage and

Movement between Schools,

Buckingham University, May

2005, p 63

146 “The Recruitment and

Retention of Classroom

Teachers”, IRS Research, 2000,

in Smithers A and Robinson P,

“Factors Affecting Teachers’

Decisions to Leave the

Profession”, DfES Research

Report 430, 2003


op cit, 2003, p 42


op cit, 2005, p 63


op cit, 2003, p 60

150 Moor H et al, Mathematics

and Science in Secondary

Schools: The Deployment of

Teachers and Support Staff to

Deliver the Curriculum, NFER,

2006

151 The Economic Benefits of a

Degree, UK Universities

Research Report, 2006; see

bookshop.universitiesuk.ac.uk

/downloads/research-grad-

prem.pdf

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sFigure 4.1: Gross additional lifetime earnings (wage premiums) by degree subjectcompared to two or more GCE A-levels151

Source: (Pooled labour force survey 2000-2005)

The NFER study also found thatschools in the most disadvantaged areassuffered the most from these shortages.Maths teachers who were not specialists inthe subject were most often found in thelowest attaining schools and those servingareas of socioeconomic deprivation. In sci-ence, the imbalance in the representationof biology, physics and chemistry special-ists was unevenly spread across schools. Forexample, 26% of 11-16 schools had nophysics specialist.152

An American academic, AnthonyMilanowski, has argued that maths andscience graduates are particularly highlymotivated by earnings and ascribe muchless value to the non-pecuniary rewards ofteaching (giving something back) thanthose with other degrees.153 Even if this isnot the case the opportunity costs of teach-ing for maths and science specialists meanthat automatically paying them the same asother teachers is unfair.

Recommendation 2: Schools indisadvantaged areas needto be funded at a higher level

In a pamphlet for the Social MarketFoundation (SMF), Robin Harding notedthat “while there is now some scope for thepayment of bonuses in areas of shortage, itis hard to make use of them in areas of dep-rivation, as public service funding formu-lae do not provide sufficient extra funds toallow for this.”154 This is certainly true foreducation. Schools that have large num-bers of students from deprived areas dotend to have more money – but notenough to cover the extra services theyhave to provide let alone pay staff more.As a recent Institute for Fiscal Studies

(IFS) report clearly shows, the moneythat local authorities receive each year tohelp schools in disadvantaged areas istypically “flattened” across all of theschools in the authority.155 This is largely

because of the minimum funding guaran-tee, which ensures that a school cannotreceive less money per pupil than in pre-vious years even if its demographic haschanged and pupils need less extra help.The IFS report also shows that much ofthe extra money that schools in disadvan-taged areas do get comes from the centralgovernment “Standards Fund”, which isusually directed at political priorities andis often only short term.156 This meansthat it cannot be spent on permanentteaching positions.In a separate report, due to be released

in October, we will lay out our mecha-nism for offering additional financial sup-port to schools in disadvantaged areas. Wewill argue for a “pupil premium” by whichchildren from areas of disadvantage wouldhave an additional sum of moneyattached to them when they join a school.The more pupils of this kind a school hasthe richer it will be. There are two clearbenefits to the pupil premium: it reducesthe incentive for schools to “cream-skim”pupils from wealthy areas – as these chil-dren will have less money attached tothem; and it also provides schools withmore difficult pupils the extra resourcesnecessary to succeed.Those schools that have the most diffi-

culty recruiting and retaining teachers willbe much better off (by many hundreds ofthousands of pounds a year in some cases).Most of the headteachers we have spokento in the course of our research on thepupil premium have emphasised theimportance of teaching over other factors(they are correct to do so – changes in thequality of teaching staff have a far biggerimpact on learning outcomes than anyother form of expenditure). Some told usthat they would want to employ moreteachers to reduce class sizes or pastoralstaff to help with emotionally troubledpupils. Others said that they would like touse the funds to pay their existing teachersmore.



152 Ibid

153 Milanowski A, “An

Exploration of the Pay Levels

Needed to Attract Students with

Mathematics, Science and

Technology Skills to a Career in

K-12 Teaching”, Education

Policy Analysis Archives, 11(50),

December 2003

154 Harding R, Poverty Pay:

How Public Sector Pay Fails

Deprived Areas, Social Market

Foundation, April 2007, p 25

155 Sibieta L, Chowdry H and

Muriel A, Level Playing Field?

The Implications of School

Funding, Institute of Fiscal

Studies, June 2008, pp 41-48

156 Ibid, p 42

Recommendation 3: Once the fund-ing is in place, schools should beable to opt out of the national payagreement – levelling the playing fieldand boosting recruitment

Although providing more money forschools in disadvantaged areas is a prereq-uisite for any recruitment scheme, it isnot by itself enough. Salary structures alsohave to be redesigned so as to allow theseschools to pay more. We do not believethat trying to make the national structuremore flexible can work. The national payagreement already offers various mecha-nisms that schools can use to pay teachersmore, but these are either rarely used orregarded as an entitlement that all teach-ers deserve regardless of their school, sub-ject or performance. Instead schoolsshould be allowed to opt out of thenational pay structure entirely. Academies– which already have this power – haveshown the potential for innovation thisoffers. If the freedom was more widelyavailable competing pay models woulddevelop and those that proved most suc-cessful at recruiting and retaining staffwould be widely adopted. Because thepupil premium would ensure that schoolsin poorer areas would be richer than thosein better off districts, they would gain themost benefit from the changes we recom-mend.In his SMF pamphlet Robin Harding

argued that national pay schemes that pur-port to offer local flexibility are inherentlyflawed as flexible payments quicklybecome seen as an entitlement and so can-not be used in the way they were intended.He cites the example of the NationwideBuilding Society in the 1990s, which gavemanagers of local branches the flexibilityto vary pay: “Staff quickly came to expectthe payments, benchmarking themselvesagainst colleagues in other branches anddemanding parity. Managers started usingthem as a tool to deliver progres-

sion…Flexibility became an administrativeburden and a significant cost; in 1998Nationwide was forced to introduce amore structured system. This has generallybeen the experience across the private sec-tor, and today almost no national organisa-tion in the private sector employs any localflexibility.”157

This description fits the experience ofschools. Box 4 makes clear that the existingpay structures, although appearing rigid,do contain an element of flexibility; head-teachers and governing bodies potentiallyhave significant discretion over what teach-ers earn. Newly qualified teachers can bestarted higher up on the pay scale. Teacherscan be paid an additional sum over threeyears to join a school or stay if they threat-en to leave. Teachers should only be movedon to the upper pay scale if their perform-ance merits it and non-management teach-ers can also be raised to advanced or excel-lent teacher status which have even higherpay bands.As happened at Nationwide however, in

practice these flexibilities have eitherbecome expected entitlements or are notused. The movement of teachers on to thehigher pay scale is a good example. Thethreshold between the two pay spines wasexplicitly introduced as a performance-related measure, yet is has become a for-mality rather than a test of merit.According to the STRB, in 2006-07,between 50 and 60% of those who wereeligible applied to access the upper payscale and 95% of them were successful.158

During the preparation of a previousreport we spoke to a number of headteach-ers who told us that it was simply notworth refusing an application for the upperpay scale. One headteacher recalled thathis was the only one of 15 local secondaryschools who did not allow everybody whoapplied on to the upper pay scale. “Theytook me to a tribunal and then they lost,but the amount of time that took from myworking life was huge.”159

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62




Foundation, April 2007, p 25

158 Ibid, p 9

159 Davies C, Lim C and

Freedman S, Helping Schools

Succeed: A framework for

English Education, Policy

Exchange, 2008, p 15

Other flexibilities have been widelyignored. Table 4.3 below shows that only4% of full-time teachers were receivingsalaried recruitment and retentionallowances in January 2007 (3% in pri-mary schools).160 Where these allowancesare being used the amounts are small. Just12% of primary teachers who havereceived an allowance receive more than£2,000. None receives more than £4,000.In secondary schools only 27% receivemore than £2,000 and, again, almost nonereceives more than £4,000.161

They have, though, been widely used ininner London – schools in the capital arethree-and-a-half times more likely to makeuse of retention and recruitmentallowances than those outside (14% to4%).162 But even this exception proves therule. Teacher unions in some innerLondon authorities have campaigned, suc-cessfully, for all teachers to receive recruit-ment and retention allowances.163 Schoolsin London can afford this because far fewerteachers are on the upper pay spine – 45%are in their first five years of teaching com-pared to 33% nationally.164 The problem isclear: either flexibilities in the national paystructure are ignored or they are seen as anentitlement that must be applied to allteachers.Robin Harding’s solution to this prob-

lem is “zonal pay” – a system which wouldinvolve creating six salary bands for schoolsdepending on the difficulty they haverecruiting staff.165 This would remove localflexibility and replace it with nationallyagreed local pay. Unfortunately the system

proposed is extremely complex – schoolswould move in and out of salary bands astheir recruitment problems waxed andwaned. Moreover it is simply unrealistic toargue that “moving down a pay zone neednot demotivate staff who have workedhard to improve their school”. A reductionin pay always demotivates – especially, onewould think, if it was a response to schoolimprovement. There would be a perverseincentive for schools to artificially main-tain recruitment difficulties.

If local flexibility within a nationalstructure cannot work, and Harding’s pro-posal for nationally agreed local pay is toocomplex, then the best option left is toallow schools to opt out of national payaltogether. Given that our pupil premiumwould make schools in deprived areas rich-er, pay liberalisation would help themcompete for staff on fairer terms.There is already a precedent for this:

academies (the Government promises 400in development by 2010), because they arenot bound by the school teachers’ pay andconditions document, have freedom overthe ways they reward and retain staff.Defending this freedom in a parliamentarydebate, schools minister Jim Knight said:“Academies need to respond innovatively






Manpower Economics,


161 Ibid, p 43

162 Ibid, p 15

163 www.hackneynut.co.uk/

news_2001_tabled.html;

Camden NUT fought a similar

battle.

164 www.hackneynut.co.uk/

news_2001_tabled.html p 6




Foundation, April 2007, pp 32-

40




Manpower Economics,


Table 4.3: Proportion of classroom teachers receiving salaried recruitmentand retention allowances by type of school, January 2007166

Recruitment and Retention Incentives Primary Secondary Special All

Full-time teachers 3% 4% 2% 4%

Part-time teachers 1% 3% 2% 2%

“ The problem is clear: either flexibilities in the national

pay structure are ignored or they are seen as an entitlement

that must be applied to all teachers ”

Source: STRB

to the huge challenges they face. The abil-ity to negotiate their own pay and condi-tions to meet the particular needs of theacademy, its staff and students, is part ofthe increased flexibility they need to meetthese challenges.”167 We agree entirely –which is why all schools should be giventhe flexibility to opt out of national paystructures if they have alternative ways tosolve local recruitment difficulties. So far academies have been relatively

cautious. Their initial unpopularity inmuch of the education world has madeacademy sponsors nervous of any dramaticdeviations from the national pay structure.Things, though, are slowly changing. TheARK academies, while making use of thenational pay and conditions document,also employ a structured bonus scheme fortheir principals, and all Harris academiesemploy a performance-based bonus systemwhereby if a school’s GCSE results increaseby 10% (e.g. from 30% to 33%) all staffreceive a £300 bonus. Some academies,such as Mossbourne in Hackney andCapital City in Willesden, pay staff extrain return for working longer hours. The United Learning Trust (ULT), the

largest group of academies in the country,has gone the furthest in developing its ownmodel. In place of the standard M1 to M6pay spine they use two pay bands, PT1 andPT2, for pre-threshold teachers. The PT1bands are for NQTs and those in their sec-ond year as teachers, and PT2 contains fourincrements. Depending on their perform-ance, teachers on PT1 and PT2 can be fast-tracked within their pay band. Performanceis measured on whether teachers satisfy keycompetencies and fulfil three objectives setout by mutual agreement in their previousannual appraisal. These might relate, forexample, to the academic attainment of thepupils they teach or to their own profes-sional development. Once beyond theupper pay threshold, teachers can join oneof three streams: experienced teachers;teacher leaders and leadership.

The experienced teachers band containsseven increments. The teacher leaders band(similar to advanced skills teacher status)has a minimum salary but no upper limit.It is promoted to recruits and existingteachers as a potential “blue sky” salary.The leadership band has three levelsdepending on their importance and senior-ity of the role. Again, while bands 1 and 2have maximum and minimum salaries,band 3 is “blue sky”. Beyond this comesprincipal and vice-principal’s pay which isentirely unrestricted.As academy groups grow in size and

develop confidence, they will find it easierto experiment in this area and more willdevelop their own models as the ULT hasdone. At the moment they are highlyattractive to new recruits: they have greatnew buildings and a much stronger corpo-rate ethos than most schools. There are alsoclose connections between Teach First andacademies. As the number of academiesgrows to 400 and above, though, and thenovelty wears off, competition for the bestteachers will increase and salary freedomswill become increasingly important – espe-cially if the pupil premium gives the acad-emies (which are all in areas of deprivation)access to considerable extra funding. One academy head told us: “When

teachers start working here they come witha different mind-set, one that acknowl-edges that the old system of pay structuresand conditions is not necessarily going tobe stuck to.” Things already seem to beaccelerating: Kunskapsskolan, the Swedishschools company that is setting up twoacademies in the London Borough ofRichmond, allocates salary budgets to itsschools in Sweden depending on testresults, financial management and theresults of an annual survey of pupils andparents. Teachers can also negotiate indi-vidual pay rises with their headteacher.168

We propose extending the pay flexibili-ties enjoyed by academies to all schoolsthat employ their own staff – voluntary-

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167 www.publications.parlia

ment.uk/pa/cm200506/cmhansr

d/vo060706/text/60706w1509.htm

168 Stewart W, “A pay rise? That

depends on your pupils”, Times

Educational Supplement, 13th

June 2008

aided, foundation and trust schools (com-munity schools’ staff are still employed bythe local authority).169 We would expectthese powers to be used first by groups ofschools, either academy networks or foun-dations, as they are more likely to have HRcapability. In the long run, some modelswill be more successful in attracting high-quality staff than others, so all schools willbe able to choose from a variety of provenpay models. There are many potential variations on

the standard pay structure that schoolscould use to win recruits. Some might gofor highly flexible systems – such as theKunskapsskolan schools in Sweden. Othersmight use performance-related bonuses(these work best when shared between awhole department or school as it is veryhard to pinpoint the relationship betweenpupil performance and an individualteacher). Others might use perquisites –related to the other activities of the acade-my sponsor or trust partner.170 Becauseheadteachers would be free to spend pupilpremium money as they saw fit they couldinstead reduce class sizes or buy specialistequipment – and use these improvementsas an incentive for those potential recruitswho are more concerned about behaviourthan money. Whatever works well willsoon be copied. There would even be the possibility of

radically innovative pay models such as theone used by the Equity Project (TEP) inNew York. This is a 480-student middle

school in the Washington Heights neigh-bourhood of New York City that will openin September 2009 as a charter school (astate-funded independent school, like anacademy). Its aim is to put into practicethe theory that teacher quality is the mostimportant school-based factor in the aca-demic success of students, particularlythose from low-income families.171

Teachers will receive an annual salary of$125,000 and the opportunity to earn asignificant annual bonus based on school-wide performance. This way pay will benearly twice as much as the average NewYork City public school teacher earns androughly two-and-a-half times the nationalaverage teacher salary. TEP will raise mostof the money needed for this through costsavings resulting from the high quality andproductivity of its teachers. In short, theywill test whether hiring and payingMaster’s level teachers what they are worthis a cost-effective mechanism for boostingstudent achievement.It is not difficult to imagine the impact

that a few schools offering £50,000 start-ing salaries would have on the UK market.If schemes like this were used in theTraining and Development Agency’s pro-motional material they could act as a pow-erful recruitment tool for the whole profes-sion. The potential to earn this high asalary would attract a lot of interest even ifnot widely available. Pay could become apowerful recruitment tool without across-the-board pay increases.



169 In an earlier report, we rec-

ommended that all schools, over

time, should take on foundation,

voluntary-aided, trust or acade-

my status and that local authori-

ties should move to a commis-

sioning role. See Davies C, Lim

C and Freedman S, Helping

Schools Succeed: A framework

for English education, Policy

Exchange, 2008

170 “Lord Harris offers employ-

ees at the Harris academies a

15% discount at Carpetright!”,

Financial Times, 28th November

2007

171 See www.tepcharter.org/phi

losophy.php

5Conclusion

As Michael Barber wrote: “The quality ofan education system cannot exceed thequality of its teachers.” This is unquestion-ably true – countries in which teaching is ahigh-status profession such as Finland orSouth Korea regularly top internationalleague tables of pupil performance. In thiscountry we have many excellent teachersbut because other careers have higher sta-tus not enough of our best graduates jointhe profession and it is hard to attract olderpeople from other jobs. Moreover weremain poor at developing teachers andrewarding those who are successful.In this report we have asked two ques-

tions: how can we get more talented peo-ple into teaching and how can we developand reward good teaching? The answersare interlinked. For a start we need toaccept that teaching need no longer be acareer for life; that highly able people canadd a huge amount to a school in just afew years. As the government-sponsoredTeach First programme has shown goodpeople will be attracted by a short-termcommitment that allows them to earnwhile learning on the job. An expansion ofemployment-based routes into teaching ofthis kind would have an additional bene-fit: the schools involved would becomecentres of training. Existing staff wouldgain from mentoring new teachers andnew teachers would learn from colleaguesthey respect. Over time a virtuous circle ofprofessional development could be estab-lished.Pay is also, of course, hugely important

in attracting the best people to teaching.However, any realistic across-the-board payrise would not be enough to make much of

a difference. Instead the best new recruitsshould be fast-tracked into high-payingleadership and advanced teacher positions.At the same time schools in disadvantagedareas should be given extra funds – and theopportunity to develop their own paymodels – so that they can compete for thebest teachers. In Chapter One we argued that attempts

to mould teaching into a traditional high-status profession such as medicine or lawhave not worked. It would be a huge mis-take to continue down this path – as somehave suggested – by extending the timespent in training so as to force trainees todevote more energy to the theory of educa-tion. This would deter exactly the type ofambitious high-flyers we want to attract.Instead we should promote the nobility ofteaching; that giving something back whiledeveloping valuable communication andleadership skills is worth doing. Thiswould be much easier to do if moretrainees could be employed, and earning,from the start of their training.In Chapter Two we showed how initial

teacher training (ITT) could be trans-formed by introducing additional employ-ment-based routes. Not only would theseroutes attract more successful graduatesand career-changers, but they would alsolead to better training. The evidence thattrainees find it hard to translate theorylearnt in the university lecture hall intopractical techniques for the classroom isnow irrefutable. Yet more than three quar-ters of trainees still spend at least a year inhigher education before joining a school asa salaried staff member. On-the-job train-ing, supported by the funds currently

66

diverted to higher education, would be farmore valuable. Existing teachers wouldalso benefit by learning new techniqueswhile mentoring new staff.In Chapter Three we argued that this

mentoring process should underpin allcontinuous professional development(CPD). At the moment most of the moneyand time spent on CPD is being wasted ontraining to support endless governmentinitiatives or superficial one-day courseswith no follow-up. We would give allteachers a financial entitlement to spendon their own professional development,which would be integrated with the per-formance review process and supported bya mentor. This would give teachers auton-omy over their own development whilesimultaneously allowing schools to guidethis development through support andappraisal. In Chapter Four we made the case for a

more flexible attitude towards teachers’pay. Fast-track routes to leadership andadvanced classroom teaching positionsshould be promoted to encourage the bestand the brightest. We would also give

schools the freedom to opt out of thenational pay agreement. If schools in dis-advantaged areas were also funded at ahigher level, this freedom would allowthem to compensate staff for working inmore difficult circumstances. It would alsoallow for innovative pay models, such asperformance-related bonuses or salarieswith no ceiling. The models that provedmost successful in attracting new staffwould soon be copied.Taken together we believe that these rec-

ommendations amount to a coherent andcompelling vision for the teaching profes-sion. Previously policymakers have dividedteachers’ careers into a series of independ-ent sub-units – recruitment, initial train-ing, continuous professional development,leadership and so on. We have taken anintegrated approach, arguing that chang-ing the way we think about trainingthroughout a teacher’s career will lead to amore flexible and dynamic model of pro-fessionalism. This, in turn, will increase thenumber of high-quality entrants to theprofession, which will mean more goodteachers.


Conclusion

MoreGood Teachers

Sam Freedman, Briar Lipsonand David Hargreaves

More

GoodTeachers

Sam

Freed

man,B

riarLip

sonand

David

Harg

reavesPolicy

Exchang

e

£10.00ISBN: 978-1-906097-30-1

Policy ExchangeClutha House

10 Storey’s GateLondon SW1P 3AY

www.policyexchange.org.uk

As Tony Blair’s former education advisor Sir Michael Barber hasnoted “The quality of an education system cannot exceed thequality of its teachers”. This is unquestionably true – countriesin which teaching is a high-status profession such as Finland orSouth Korea regularly top international league tables of pupilperformance. In this country we have many excellent teachersbut because other careers have higher status not enough of ourbest graduates join the profession and it is hard to attract olderpeople from other jobs. Moreover we remain poor at developingteachers and rewarding those who are successful.

In this report we ask two questions: how can we get moretalented people into teaching and how can we develop andreward good teaching? The answers are interlinked. For a startwe need to accept that teaching need no longer be a career forlife; that highly able people can add a huge amount to a schoolin just a few years. As the government-sponsored Teach Firstprogramme has shown good people will be attracted by a short-term commitment that allows them to earn while learning on thejob. An expansion of employment-based routes into teaching ofthis kind would have an additional benefit: the schools involvedwould become centres of training. Existing staff would gain frommentoring new teachers and new teachers would learn fromcolleagues they respect. Over time a virtuous circle ofprofessional development could be established.

Pay is also, of course, hugely important in attracting the bestpeople to teaching. However, any realistic across-the-board payrise would not be enough to make much of a difference. Insteadthe best new recruits should be fast-tracked into high-payingleadership and advanced teacher positions. At the same timeschools in disadvantaged areas should be given extra funds –and the opportunity to develop their own pay models – so thatthey can compete for the best teachers.

Previously policymakers have divided teachers’ careers into aseries of independent sub-units – recruitment, initial training,continuous professional development, leadership and so on. Wehave taken an integrated approach, arguing that changing theway we think about training throughout a teacher’s career willlead to a more flexible and dynamic model of professionalism.

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