Courses for further-education teachers make limited progress

Citation

(2006), "Courses for further-education teachers make limited progress", Education + Training, Vol. 48 No. 5. https://doi.org/10.1108/et.2006.00448eab.007

Courses for further-education teachers make limited progress

There has been limited progress in improving the quality of training in colleges providing national awarding body initial teacher training (ITT) courses, according to the Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted). Many of the weaknesses identified in an Ofsted survey in 2003 remain. There is still a striking contrast between the quality of the taught element of ITT courses, which is generally good, and the quality of the practical elements, which is inadequate. Training in taught sessions successfully extends trainees’ professional knowledge and expertise, but the taught and practical elements of courses are often poorly integrated.

Although all trainees observed by Ofsted inspectors reach a satisfactory or good level of teaching capability, the most capable trainees do not achieve their full potential and insufficient attention is given by trainees to analysing the impact of their teaching on students’ progress. While many courses have introduced subject mentoring schemes, the support from mentors is usually voluntary and often inadequate. Senior managers also give insufficient attention to the quality of the initial training at the institutions they manage. They rarely make the connection that improving the quality of ITT will improve the overall standards of teaching and learning as the trainees already teach within their institutions.

However, the inspectors did find, almost invariably, that trainees adopt a highly-professional approach to teaching. They have high expectations and are committed to raising the achievement of all students. Their teaching is enlivened through the use of a wide range of teaching methods and their ability to draw upon their industrial experience. They also have a strong empathy with their students and are often successful in motivating students who have a poor record of prior attainment.

Inspectors made a number of recommendations to bring about improvements. Senior managers in FE colleges should:

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  Increase the attention they give to improving the quality and standards of ITT for their staff, making the connection between the quality of ITT and the overall standards of teaching and learning within their institutions.

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  Ensure that trainee teachers are given adequate mentoring and other forms of support to develop their specialist teaching skills during their initial training and subsequent professional development.

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  Provide consistent and effective support for trainees with inadequate study skills, and ensure evaluation procedures take account of the overall experience of trainees from both the taught and practical element of the training.

National awarding bodies should develop more-robust procedures for moderating the standards that trainees achieve in their teaching, reduce the amount of in-course assessment demanded of trainees, and work with colleges to strengthen the support that trainees are given from mentors to develop their specialist expertise in teaching their own subject/vocational area.