The leaky pipeline of teacher training
We don't have enough teachers. There are very few people who would deny this statement. It is an impending pressure on the education system which could - if unaddressed - significantly impact on the quality of education young people receive in this country.
Generally the problem can be broken down into two areas: recruitment and retention. Not enough teachers are taking up teacher training places (and particularly in STEM subjects), and of those who do train not enough stick around in the classroom.
I wanted to understand in a bit more detail just what is happening here with the view to working out some policy solutions. If there was one significant pinch point where teachers flood out the door, that might be the most efficient place to focus policy initiatives. So I created this chart to map the flow of teachers from training course to classroom 5 years' later.
Unfortunately - contrary to my hypothesis - it's less of a flood and more of a drip, drip, drip of teachers opting out of the classroom and into other opportunities. This makes it slightly more complicated when thinking how to address the problem. My sense is that you'll never be able to prevent some teachers leaving at each point, so to make a substantial difference we probably need a multi-faceted approach which helps keep some additional teachers in the classroom at each stage.
Over the next few weeks I'm going to explore what some of these initiatives could be...
Generally the problem can be broken down into two areas: recruitment and retention. Not enough teachers are taking up teacher training places (and particularly in STEM subjects), and of those who do train not enough stick around in the classroom.
I wanted to understand in a bit more detail just what is happening here with the view to working out some policy solutions. If there was one significant pinch point where teachers flood out the door, that might be the most efficient place to focus policy initiatives. So I created this chart to map the flow of teachers from training course to classroom 5 years' later.
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*Including university-based training, School Direct, SCITT and Teach First pathways which comprise 99.9% of teacher training places. Does not include Researchers in Schools or Troops to Teachers which make up the remaining 0.01%.
Data taken from National Audit Office analysis of most recent National College of Teaching and Leadership data. https://www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Training-new-teachers.pdf
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Unfortunately - contrary to my hypothesis - it's less of a flood and more of a drip, drip, drip of teachers opting out of the classroom and into other opportunities. This makes it slightly more complicated when thinking how to address the problem. My sense is that you'll never be able to prevent some teachers leaving at each point, so to make a substantial difference we probably need a multi-faceted approach which helps keep some additional teachers in the classroom at each stage.
Over the next few weeks I'm going to explore what some of these initiatives could be...
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