Teacher Training

Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 9:49 pm on 5 February 2002.

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Photo of Baroness Andrews Baroness Andrews Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip) 9:49, 5 February 2002

My Lords, it is a great privilege and pleasure to take part in this debate, especially in the light of the excellent maiden speech from the right reverend prelate the Bishop of Chester and the complementary wisdom from another educational guru. If we can observe the sense of teachers joining the dance, we shall definitely have raised their spirits. In a sense, that is what it is all about—recovering the reason why so many teachers went into teaching in the first place.

I have an interest to declare. Ten years ago I set up an educational charity to try to help schools to develop their extra-curricular activities and community links. In so doing, I discovered that that was the first time that anyone had publicly thanked teachers for the extra activities that they undertook. The small element of recognition that I thought was such a natural part of what we should be doing turned out to have a revolutionary quality and made it possible for our organisation to raise funds and support. That now means that we have 8,000 schools joined with us in a network that is developing those activities.

With the privilege of going into schools on a regular basis, I have discovered the extraordinary dedication that means that teachers not only give 100 per cent during the day but then find the extra energy to attend early, to start a breakfast club, stay on until 7 p.m. or 8 p.m., just as the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, said, go back at weekends to offer additional support and even run schemes during the holiday. They do it because they love the children and they love teaching. That is the absolutely fundamental foundation on which we build and from which we can take hope for the future.

It has been an extremely good day for education—not only because the Ofsted report is so positive and gives us some clear pointers for future action but because of the Times Educational Supplement survey last week. I cannot imagine that the Secretary of State ever expected to read a headline that basically said that the teachers lot is a happy one. She must have enjoyed her weekend enormously because of that.

The profound sense of vocation is really what Mike Tomlinson has been speaking about. He has been rightly praised today for reiterating what we have not said often enough, which is, as he put it,

"I cannot remember a time when there has been so much good teaching".

That is a wonderful and powerful phrase. It is gratifying to see the Government taking the advice that new teachers are given in the classroom, which is that we should always give three times more praise than blame. That is now happening because we have an exemplary Secretary of State, an ex-teacher who knows the value of praise and what it can achieve. By her language she is making a major difference to how teachers feel about what it is to be a teacher.

But this debate is about things that are not going quite right. We must ask why they are going wrong: why does such a high proportion of students in training never make it into the classroom? The noble Lord, Lord Dearing, was quite right when he spoke about the infectious apathy or disaffection that many young teachers pick up by osmosis when they enter the classroom for their teaching practice. One of the problems is that even those, such as Alan Smithers, who have explored the reasons for the bad drop-out rates, are not absolutely certain what is happening or why. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, that we should have more intelligence to track those young people and find out why they do not make it into the classroom: what were their motivations in becoming teachers in the first place; what did they expect to get out of it; and where did it go wrong?

I should like to concentrate on why 20 per cent of young teachers leave teaching within three years: in what way is teaching proving to be such a disappointment for them? No matter how many extra students have been recruited—it is an impressive record, including in shortage subjects, such as CDT, science, modern foreign languages and religious education for which I am sure that the Minister will give us the figures—there are some incontrovertible realities that cannot be fudged. One is that the demand for teachers in the next few years is bound to increase, because pupil numbers in secondary schools will increase. Secondly, the profession is ageing; we will see a massive exodus in the next 10 years of people who are now in their 40s and 50s. Thirdly, the rate of resignation from the profession is also increasing, and we need to know why.

It may be that the overall national rate of 1 per cent vacancies is, in fact, a low and quite comforting figure, but it disguises huge regional variations and does not deal with the fact that in every classroom in which there is no mathematics teacher, there is a crisis. If there is a poorly qualified supply teacher, there is another sort of crisis, both for delivering the curriculum and managing the children.

The Ofsted report today has confirmed what all the other researchers have already told us. The main issue relating to recruitment is not pay: it is workload, closely followed by pupil behaviour, professional autonomy and the value of teachers. It is not rocket science. Recently, a leading educator put it this way:

"Workload is rising not least because we are expecting our teachers to be clerical officers and administrators for too much of their time . . . We must ensure that every paper-based task required is absolutely necessary and related to standards".

Those are strong words, but, strangely, they come not from the former chief inspector, but from the present Secretary of State, who understands well what is going on in the classroom. That refutes any charge of complacency.

If the Government were complacent, they would not be cutting down so dramatically on what can be sent to schools. I know to my cost that even when one is trying to send good news, one cannot get it into the schools. It is not so much the paper or even the e-mail traffic—which, as we all know, has exploded—and it is not the work of teaching for continuous improvement. It is the standardised and immensely detailed written account of what has been done, which seems, sometimes, to provide more evidence that the managers have managed, rather than that teachers have done their job. In that context, it is self-evident that urgent attempts must be made to free-up and enhance the teachers' role. That is where the new Education Bill has a contribution to make. We have seen an expansion in the number of classroom assistants, bursars and other supporting staff and in ICT, but the emphasis must be on supporting—not replacing—the teacher. Teaching is an interpersonal gift; it is not a technical transfer.

I also welcome the opportunity that the Bill will, in turn, provide to extend the autonomy of successful schools and the creativity of the classroom. Again, that is a major issue. What young teachers value is not the opportunity to turn out a thousand ticks a day; it is the opportunity to turn the classroom into a place in which their imagination can run riot, alongside those of the children.

Recently, I had the privilege of being able to fund a small project that took classroom teachers out of the classroom and into performing arts organisations for a day at a time over a term. They went to dance organisations and theatre organisations. They learnt about what it was like to be an artist and how to borrow artists' techniques that they could go back and use in the classroom. They went back refreshed and enthused about their own creativity. Of course, the children had an enormously good time as a result, and it benefited the school in all sorts of ways. Those teachers will stay in teaching, I believe, because that has helped them to rediscover some sense of why they had gone into it in the first place. However, finding the time to take them out of the classroom caused problems. That is a problem: if we are to have structured professional development, that means, in the short term, that people will have to be taken out of the classroom and it might be difficult to provide cover.

There are many more things that, I hope, the Government will consider. The National College of School Leadership is definitely making a major difference to the way that head teachers perform and to the way that schools perform. However, we need more support for middle management. The induction year is an excellent idea, but we do not have the skilled managers to provide support to young teachers in their first year, which makes all the difference. How many young teachers have been turned off because their first encounter with a group of stroppy 13 year-olds dedicated to wrecking the lesson has not been supported? No one has been able to help them with the day-to-day realities.

The problems of recruitment and retention are not unique to Britain. It does not help to know that. But we have to rise to the challenge of creating a framework for the teaching profession which is about a buoyant economy and not a failing economy.

The Secretary of State referred to the remodelling of the profession. It is a radical term and could mean a radical solution. It may not be a McCrone solution for England, but it is certainly worth looking at some of the ideas put forward, for example, by the Institute of Public Policy Research in terms of what can be done about time in the classroom, including the time necessary for preparing lessons. It put forward many good ideas. I hope there will be lots of access courses for classroom assistants and all school staff. As the noble Baroness said, they know a great deal about schools and can make a great contribution.

Finally, I turn to the word "trust" about which we have heard so much today. Trust must be there for all our public servants, particularly the teachers. It is not only their task to care for children, but also to create that ability to think independently which goes on to make them critical and contributory servants in society. So let us build up that trust. I believe we are doing that now. For some years there was a lot to answer for, but we are now on our way.