Press release: Ofsted's review of three teacher training schemes shows overall improvement

19 Jan 2007

Ref: 2007-02

The Graduate Teacher Programme (GTP) is successful in recruiting good candidates, especially in secondary shortage subjects, according to An employment-based route into teaching 2003-06. The report, published today by the Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted), also found that the overall quality of teaching by trainees on the programme was better in 2005/6 compared with the previous two years.

Work experience within the classroom, and management of the programme, has improved substantially over the three years that this report covers. Half of the lessons taught by GTP trainees were at least good in 2005/06, with trainees demonstrating more strengths than their PGCE peers in understanding classroom organisation skills and managing pupils’ behaviour.

Trainees have a good understanding of their professional responsibilities, well developed classroom organisation skills and can manage pupils’ behaviour, but they are less skilled in applying their subject knowledge to teaching, and assessment and evaluation. In all three years of inspection, training for the primary phase was better than for the secondary. Secondary trainees are generally less skilled than their PGCE peers in applying their subject knowledge to teaching and devising strategies to support and assess pupils’ learning.

Ofsted’s Head of Institutional Inspection, Andrew Reid, said:

“We have seen tangible improvements in the quality and management of the Graduate Teacher Programme over the past three years and it is heartening to see this being reflected in the improving quality of teaching by trainee teachers.

“Trainees gain considerably from on-the-job training. However, there is still work to be done to further improve the quality of their teaching, particularly to ensure that secondary trainees are given a good grounding in teaching their specialist subject. To achieve this, the mentoring of the trainees needs to be improved.”

A review of The initial training of further education teachers concludes that the quality of the taught aspect of the course has improved compared with last year and is now often good. However, the quality of the practice element is still inadequate in many cases.

This year, more trainees reached a satisfactory or better standard in their teaching and a few were outstanding. Overall, they are highly motivated but still make insufficient progress in improving their subject specific teaching skills. As with the Graduate Teacher Programme, there were weaknesses with the mentoring of trainees.

When teaching their specialist subject few trainees identified and addressed students’ problems with language, literacy and numeracy. Inspectors also found that trainees can be constrained by weaknesses in their own skills in these areas. Assessment, by providers, of trainees’ core language, literacy and numeracy, as well as their practical teaching, was weak.

Mr Reid said:

“There are two key issues here that need to be addressed to build on improvements already seen: the gap in quality between the taught and practice elements of the training, and the problems identified with language, literacy and numeracy.”

Initial teacher training in vocational subjects, a survey about the quality of initial teacher training in vocational subjects, finds that training is at least satisfactory in all the providers inspected and good or better in half. Good providers base their courses on clearly identified local needs and establish strong partnerships with relevant organisations and local businesses.

At the end of their courses, trainees’ standards were comparable with those of trainees in other secondary subjects, and a large majority of trainees found employment.

Inspectors found that vocational courses such as applied ICT and health and social care provide recruitment opportunities for some trainees who might otherwise have been lost to teaching because they felt their qualifications and experience barred them. Overall inspectors found trainees’ previous work experience had a positive impact on their teaching.

However, as identified in the FE teacher training report, there are weaknesses in the work-based elements of the course and trainees had difficulty addressing some students’ low levels in key skills. Half the providers did not give some trainees good enough opportunities to teach their vocational subjects across the full 14-19 age range or across the full range of courses available in their subject, and in more than half of providers the feedback trainees received lacked focus on the vocational aspects of their subject.

Notes For Editors

Anemployment based route into teaching 2003/06,The Initialtraining of further educationteachers and Initial teacher training in vocational subjects will be published on the Ofsted website on Friday 19 January.
Ofsted is a non-ministerial government department established under the Education (Schools) Act 1992 to take responsibility for the inspection of all schools in England. Its role also includes the inspection of further education, local authority children’s services, teacher training institutions and some independent schools. During 2001, Ofsted became responsible for inspecting all 16-19 education and for the regulation of early years childcare, including childminders.
On 1 April 2007, the new Ofsted will take responsibility for inspecting children’s social care from the Commission for Social Care Inspection, inspecting adult learning from the Adult Learning Inspectorate, and inspecting the Children and Family Courts Advisory and Support Service (CAFCASS) from Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Court Administration, in addition to Ofsted’s current responsibilities.

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