9 Things We’ve Learned From NAO’s report on Teacher Training
The government has failed to meet its teacher recruitment targets for the last four years, and must show how its approach to recruiting, developing and retaining trainees achieves value for money. That’s the verdict of a new report by the National Audit Office‘s Comptroller and Auditor General, titled ‘Training New Teachers’. Among its findings, we […]
The government has failed to meet its teacher recruitment targets for the last four years, and must show how its approach to recruiting, developing and retaining trainees achieves value for money.
That’s the verdict of a new report by the National Audit Office‘s Comptroller and Auditor General, titled ‘Training New Teachers’. Among its findings, we learn the following…
1. Teacher shortages are growing Despite varying pupil numbers, the pupil/teacher ratio has stayed relatively stable in recent years, with one teacher for every 21 pupils in primary and 15.8 in secondary in 2014. The bad news is that the number of vacancies and temporarily filled positions in state-funded schools doubled between 2011 and 2014, from 0.5% of the teaching workforce to 1.2%.
The report also notes that “In surveys and other sources, a significant proportion of school leaders have also reported difficulty recruiting newly qualified teachers.”
2. NQTs are better qualified than ever, but the jury’s still out on how much impact this has had on their classroom performance In terms of the bigger picture, NQTs these days are more qualified than in previous years. In 2015/16, 75% of postgraduate trainees hold at least a 2.1 degree, compared to 63% in 2010/11.
As everyone knows, however, degrees aren’t everything. Assessments of trainees’ classroom performance have been a formal part of Ofsted inspections since June 2014, but a significant proportion of schools have yet to complete the two-stage inspection process that these involve. The NAO also points out that DfE doesn’t currently have data to compare the performance and retention of NQTs entering the profession via different training routes. Speaking of which…
3. The available routes into teaching aren’t being explained and promoted effectively enough There are presently six main routes into teaching (eight if you count Troops to Teachers and Researchers in Schools – which the NAO report doesn’t) and hundreds of training providers – a set up which, according to most of the providers and schools the NAO visited, has caused considerable confusion among providers and applicants alike.
At the moment, there’s little difference between what training providers charge, and few ways to compare how good they are. 99.5% of the teacher training providers inspected by Ofsted have been rated as ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ – but nearly half of school-based training providers are yet to be inspected, and they won’t all be inspected until 2018 at the earliest.
Then there’s the issue that trainees have different teacher training options depending on where they live. Those keen to pursue the salaried route, for example, will find that there are more providers in London in the South East than anywhere else.
4. The school-led training revolution hasn’t happened…yet The last five years have seen a big rise in the number of school-centred training providers, from 56 to 155. Contrary to the predictions made by some, however, this hasn’t led to a significant dip in university providers, with only five institutions (out of 75) pulling out of teacher training over the same period.
While universities themselves haven’t been entirely on board with this shift (not to mention a number of other recent changes), most still continue to play an important role in most teacher training. Some have even managed to establish productive new partnerships with schools and training providers.
5. The DfE may not be able to accurately gauge the extent of the teacher recruitment issue The NAO credits the DfE with working hard to come up with a teacher supply model that uses “The best routinely available data” – but goes on to note several issues with the model, which risk getting trainee recruitment targets wrong.
For one thing, there’s a big margin of error. The DfE currently estimates that 29,200 trainees will be needed in 2016/17 – but that figure could actually be 25,000 or 38,000, depending on the most ‘optimistic’ or ‘pessimistic’ assumptions. The NAO also accuses the model of having significant knowledge gaps – including a reliable means of quantifying teacher shortages – and doing little to take account of existing teachers shortages arising from missed recruitment targets. Which brings us to…
6. The DfE has missed its training targets for the past four years – by more each time The numbers pretty much speak for themselves. In 2012/13, it missed its target for filling training places by 1%; by 2013/14, this had grown to 9%.
In 2015/16, the DfE took the step of changing said target to cover postgraduate places only and reporting undergraduate places separately – but still missed the new postgraduate target by 6%. However, it seems there different stories being told in primary versus secondary. 2015/16 saw 116% of postgraduate primary places filled, compared to 82% of secondary places. On which note…
7. Secondary is proving to be a particular problem area In 2015/16, 14 out of 17 secondary subjects had unfilled training places, compared to just two subjects with unfilled places in 2011. History seems to be in rude health so far as 2015/16 recruitment is concerned, with 113% of the available places filled; in contrast, just 71% of physics places were filled.
Physics also highlights the way in which schools now seem prepared to accept trainees with lower degrees in hard to fill subjects, with 63% of physics teachers currently holding a 2.1 degree or higher.
8. Planning around teacher training is focused too much on the short term Up until 2015/16, National College for Teaching and Leadership (NCTL) specified how many trainees providers could recruit each year. From 2016/17 onwards, however, it will only specify the overall number of recruits required to each subject. Beyond saying that it wants to see more school-led training, and will look to cap recruitment numbers at universities if needed, it hasn’t said how it plans to manage teacher recruitment in the longer term.
The NCTL has talked of potentially taking steps to prevent certain providers from gaining too large a share of the market, and allowing providers to recruit for longer in regions experiencing teacher shortages. What it hasn’t done yet is confirm the thresholds at which this is likely to happen. The NAO points out that the one time this has happened so far – when universities were prevented from recruiting more PE teachers late last year – universities weren’t given sufficient warning ahead of time.
9. We’ve got a good idea of the national picture – but not the local one Finally, the NAO calls out the DfE for not paying enough attention to local and regional recruitment issues. As the report puts it, “the Department has a weak understanding of the extent of local teacher supply shortages and whether they are being resolved locally.”
The report notes that not all NQTs will necessarily teach where they’ve trained, and recognises that government has launched initiatives such as National Teaching Service to help improve certain underperforming schools. However, it also highlights the fact that the DfE’s teacher supply model isn’t being used to estimate the need for teachers at a local or regional level, leaving the school system to sort out the gaps.
You can download the ‘Training New Teachers’ report in full via the NAO website
