The Transformation of Initial Teacher Education: The Changing Nature of Teacher Training

171 Pages·2019·3.243 MB·English

by  ByIan Abbott, Mike Rathbone, Philip Whitehead

THE TRANSFORMATION OF INITIAL
TEACHER EDUCATION
Tracingthedevelopmentofinitialteachereducationsincethelarge-scaleexpansionof
theteachingprofessionaftertheSecondWorldWartothepresentday,TheTransfor-
mationofInitialTeacherEducationexploresthechangingnatureofteachertraining.
Examining the growth of the ‘teaching industry’, this book addresses key issues
including:
(cid:1) the return to an apprentice model;
(cid:1) the growing importance of schools in initial teacher education;
(cid:1) the continuing decline in the role played by higher education;
(cid:1) anexaminationofthebroadersocio-economiccontextofincreasedmarketisation;
(cid:1) areconsiderationoftheinternationalpoliticalfactorsdrivingthereformprocess;and
(cid:1) interviews with prominent individuals who have been involved with the
development of policy.
Consideringtheideasandidealsthathavepermeatedteachereducationandhow
these have shaped the experiences of trainees on a variety of programmes across a
broader international context, this book examines the future of teacher education
andthechanging natureofteaching,providingessentialinsightfortraineeteachers,
school staff and any academics involved in teacher education.
Ian Abbott is an Associate Professor in the Centre for Education Studies at the
UniversityofWarwick. HewaspreviouslytheDirectoroftheCentreandpriorto
thatledtheUniversity’sInstituteofEducation. Hehasworkedwithinpartnership
with a number of external organisations, including Teach First and Teaching Lea-
ders. He has collaborated with a number of schools and colleges on a range of
research and staff development projects. He has extensive experience of initial
teacher education and has worked on a range of programmes. He has written
extensively on a range of education policy issues including a number of books on
aspects of secondary teacher education.
MikeRathbonewasDirectorofContinuingProfessionalDevelopmentintheInstitute
ofEducationattheUniversityofWarwick.Hehaswide-rangingexperienceofprimary
teachertrainingandhasworkedinanumberofschoolsandhighereducationinstitutions.
Hehaspublishedwidelyonteachereducationandcontinuingprofessionaldevelopment,
especiallyrelatedtobeginningteachers.
PhilipWhiteheadbeganhiscareerineducationteachinginacomprehensiveschoolin
London in 1972. Since then he has worked across most phases of education including
secondary,further,higherandspecialeducation.Hewastheheadteacherofasecondary
school in Papua New Guinea for three years. On returning to the UK he took man-
agement roles in staff development and teacher training, before moving into develop-
mentworkinhighereducation.Hehascarriedoutresearchintolearningjourneysand
ethnicity,leadershipcultures,educationalpolicy,andprofessionaldevelopment.Atpre-
sent he is Assistant Professor in Educational Leadership and Management at the Uni-
versityofNottingham.
THE TRANSFORMATION
OF INITIAL TEACHER
EDUCATION
The Changing Nature of Teacher
Training
Ian Abbott, Mike Rathbone
and Philip Whitehead
Firstpublished2019
byRoutledge
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CONTENTS
List of illustrations vi
Preface vii
1 Introduction 1
2 The early days of teacher training 10
3 The consensus in education begins to unravel 25
4 Teacher education as a competitive market 46
5 Current government policy 64
6 International perspectives 75
7 Models of provision: higher education 92
8 Models of provision: school-based 108
9 Teach First 120
10 Conclusion 131
References 143
Index 153
ILLUSTRATIONS
Figures
7.1 Comparison of PTES results 102
7.2 Providers with the highest and lowest employment rates 102
7.3 2017 Postgraduate Taught Experience Survey results 103
7.4 2017 Postgraduate Taught Experience Survey results 103
Table
7.1 PGCE applications and student numbers 100
PREFACE
This book considers the policy and practice of initial teacher education (ITE) in
England by tracing the history and development of ITE from the earliest begin-
nings. It continues by looking at the implications of that development on policy
and practice in the modern era. These changes are subsequently set in a broader
international context.
The historical background deals briefly with the period in England before the
Second World War and continues with a more detailed analysis of events since the
war. Theimplications of significant reportsinto aspects of educationin general and
teachereducationinparticulararetracedasistheprocessbywhichteachertraining
policy moved from being apreserve of ‘experts’ ineducation to an ideological tool
of government.
Issues such as a return to the apprenticeship model, the increase in school
involvement and the decline of the role of higher education in teacher training are
put under the microscope. Inevitably, aspects of teacher recruitment and the
changing nature of teaching are considered.
Thebookuses aseriesofinterviews withindividualswho have been involved in
the development of policy including headteachers, directors of training organisa-
tions, higher education providers and officials of the Training Agency, but also
with teachers who have acted as mentors in schools, newly qualified teachers and
prospective teachers who are presently in training
An analysis of the issues raised is set alongside issues derived from research in the
field and considered against the background of present developments in England.
As attainment in education has been increasingly assumed to coincide with the
economic prosperityofanationcomparisons of attainmentinEnglandwiththat of
other nations has become common, using for example the Organisation for Eco-
nomic Co-operation and Development Programme for Student Assessment. These
sometimes unflattering comparisons have led to comparisons with teacher training
viii Preface
practices in other ‘competitor’ countries such as the United States, Singapore and
China.
Even though, as Professor Harvey Goldstein (Guardian, Letters, 7 December
2016) has pointed out, such comparisons need to be treated with care, in recent
years secretaries of state for education in England have stressed the importance of
international comparisons. In this book we examine teacher training practices in
other parts of the world and utilise our experience of working with students and
serving teachers in Africa, Asia, North America, the Arabian Gulf and various
European countries.
Few people close to education doubt that teacher training in England is in tur-
moil. Changes and development are announced frequently, as for example the
teaching apprenticeships announced by the Department for Education in October
2017 and the earlier white paper ‘Education Excellence Everywhere’ (2016, www.
gov.uk), in which the then education secretary, Nicky Morgan, announced that
the government would strengthen university- and school-led training by increasing
the rigour of ITT content, putting a greater focus on subject knowledge and evi-
dence-led practice whilst continuing to move to a school-led system. New criteria
would be used for ITT providers with qualified teacher status being superseded by
a system based on greater classroom effectiveness. In addition, similar changes were
to be introduced in the strengthening of professional development provision for
serving teachers.
Teacher recruitment has gone from bad to worse, as exemplified by the debacle
of the National Teaching Service initiative to put ‘elite’ teachers into struggling
schools. Launched in 2015 and discontinued a year later, the scheme, which
reputably cost over £200,000, recruited only 24 teachers in spite of promising
teachers £10,000 relocation expenses. The Public Accounts Committee reached
thefollowingconclusionintheir reportof June2016: ‘Ministers have “no plan”to
meet the growing teacher shortage in England – teacher training targets have been
missed for four successive years’ (2016). Secretaries of state for education continue
to face the same issue with evidence set out in July 2017 that a quarter of teachers
who qualified in 2011 had left the profession within four years (Education Policy
Unit).
The chair of the Public Accounts Committee Meg Hiller said that the govern-
ment had taken too little responsibility for getting recruitment right and that the
DepartmentforEducationremained woefullyalooffromconcerns raised bystaffin
schools and the freely available evidence. All of which, she concluded, puts at risk
the educational attainment of pupils and consequently their life chances.
The 2016/17 reports came out as almost all political interest was centred on the
European Union referendum and thereafter on the implications of the result. As a
consequence, education secretaries were changed quickly depending on their view
of the referendum and reports on education were largely ignored by the press and
apparently also by politicians. It is possible to argue that this disturbing state of
affairs is one result of education policy becoming a ‘political football’, a process
whichhasbeengoingonsince1976whenthethenprimeministerJimCallaghan’s
Preface ix
speech at Ruskin College expressed concern about standards in educational attain-
ment. He required his education secretary Shirley Williams to make changes in
order to improve attainment, thus initiating the involvement of politicians in
micro-managing education practice which is now commonplace (Abbott et al.,
2013).
The changes in education policy as a whole which started almost 50 years ago
have increased in momentum and scope to include the recruitment of school
governors, the forced academisation of schools and the increasing influence of
commercial and religious organisations on schools and schoolchildren. Teacher
training has not been exempt from this continual upheaval and these policy
developments have had a significant impact on the schools, children, their teachers
and headteachers. Future teachers run the risk of not being equipped to think for
themselves with policy makers assuming that there is a right and a wrong way to
teach, forgetting the immense diversity of schools, children and practitioners
(Alexander et al., 2010).
Theauthors ofthisbookhave workedineducationintheUnitedKingdomand
elsewhere for over 40 years – both as tutors in institutions concerned with teacher
education and prior to that as schoolteachers. Their experience ranges from teach-
ing in nursery, primary and secondary schools (frequently with studentsin training)
to working as tutors, heads of department and directors of programmes, etc. in
teacher training colleges, polytechnics, colleges of higher education and universities
across the United Kingdom and abroad. They have taught with two-year-trained
ex-service personnel, worked within school/college partnerships, the Graduate
Teacher Scheme, School-Centred Initial Teacher Training, Teach First, School
Direct and other programmes of training. They have all been instrumental in put-
ting government initiatives into practice and working with schools and other pro-
viders and continue to do so.
In addition, their own very varied training as teachers has enabled them to
consider how it has helped, or perhaps hindered, their own teaching practices and
brings to bear a practical knowledge of the positive and negative aspects of various
forms of teacher training – valuable at a time when many far-reaching changes are
taking place in teacher training.
We would argue that teacher training has to include sections that are carried out
as practice in schools and which will become meaningful only if they are preceded
and followed by careful consideration of how various practices will most benefit
the children and trainee. The latter need to consider what to look for in a school,
the teachers and the children. Afterwards, there must be an opportunity for
reflection with others about the practice and on how to apply lessons learned to
subsequent experience.
We would argue that whereas there had been an over-reliance on a theoretical
approach tothetrainingofteachers,thishassteadilyandsensiblyshiftedtowardsan
emphasis on the work in schools. However, by 2016 it has been allowed to move
almost entirely to a ‘teaching as a craft’ approach where any theoretical content is
ignored. Largely, too, this movement has not been backed by a ‘research into