Batshit new PGCE requirements being dumped on schools

[noblegiraffe]

Just been reading the DfE ITT training document for next year and it looks like they've decided to deal with the extreme shortage of trainees by making the training more onerous?

15 hours per week in the classroom on both placements? (Not all teaching, but still, when are they going to do their planning?)

Something called Intensive Training and Practice that I don't quite understand what it is but looks like it will also happen in schools in addition to placements.

And the big kicker - a requirement for mentors (just normal teacher ones) to do 20 hours of training before mentoring, and then 6 hours every year after.

They are going to struggle to find mentors for this. I already mentor, it's unpaid, I give up a PPA a week for meetings and now they want me to do 20 hours training? I might well tell them where to stick it.

Wow! How will teachers do the training? Is there info on that?

That's ridiculous.

Should have posted a link to the full document https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1181568/Initial_teacher_training_criteria_and_supporting_advice_2024_to_2025.pdf

It says the ITT provider has to design it so I assume they'll be delivering it. 20 hours is a huge commitment, particularly if it has to be done at the start of September when everything is already really busy.

No one is going to want to be the mentor and schools won’t sign up for the placements. What a load of crap.
I was a mentor last year and the systems were the most stupid thing I’d seen in ages.

As usual not thought through. They really should ask teachers what is needed in terms of training.

No, they won't, and schools already struggle to find suitable mentors because of the exodus of experienced staff.

I am genuinely baffled by the insistence of the government to announce reforms and plough ahead with them as if the education sector were even remotely stable, rather than it being in crisis with a severe shortage of teachers and buildings falling around our ears. Like when Rishi announced maths to 18 and the response was "who will teach it?", the idea that people wouldn't just hop to whatever stuff they decide should be implemented is alien to them.

I work with a provider who are trialling this.
I did an hour of training after school this week via zoom which was them reading me the stuff they'd emailed.
Next week I am meant to be at two hours of face to face training after school. Start time 3.30. Location an hour away from where I work.
I've been mentoring in varying roles for two decades. I've designed and run mentor training. I do actually get time and money for this because of my role.
But I cannot take time away from my
classes to sit through training, however good it is.

Last year our mentor training was via a series of short pre-recorded videos that we could watch at leisure and a zoom meeting, which was fine. No way would I be travelling anywhere now, and no way am I sitting through 20 hours of anything. Particularly as I have been mentoring a while now - what are they going to tell me?

The same is true of ECT induction. Mine had to travel 45 minutes for a three hour session today, which meant that they were out of school all day.
To add insult to injury, the vital "specialist" sessions that two of them attended were delivered by people less expert on the subject than they are. And one subject was cancelled entirely, late last night.

Being a mentor is onerous enough as it is. There's no way I'll be doing this for no money, thanks.

It’s totally ridiculous. I’m a HoD and have got a trainee again this year. I’m an experienced teacher and mentor, but I won’t be agreeing to another trainee next year if this is the case. I lose one PPA a week for the official meeting plus loads of other time before and after school helping them and checking planning etc. I don’t get paid and the department doesn’t get any money. I’m just too busy.

Is this a sneaky plan to get bodies in front of classes, by any chance - you know, expecting schools to skimp on the out of lesson training by making 90% of it with years 7-9 whilst qualified teachers deal with KS4? Not the government's fault, then - they'll claim they've increased teachers whilst the cannon fodder wonder what the fuck has hit them.

I was wondering this. No mentor? No worries! Teach First don't have mentors in the lessons with them, why do you need one?

Absolutely it is.

So year 9 have Miss Thing for maths, and the parents have no idea that not only is she not qualified, but her degree is in drawing and she got a D at A level.

Yes, that trainee was in my school. Yes, they were terrible at it.

I’m already seeing inappropriate teachers being used as mentors ie. very young, not doing great themselves with behaviour or teaching yet.

The impact isn’t only on the quality of the training but on the classes who now get their education from a less than great teacher and now may have 15 hours a week of that with a student.

Quality of trainees has been questionable for a while, doing even more of their training in schools with, in my school at least, increasingly inexperienced mentors, is going to do nothing to improve that.

I’m assuming much of this training will, as with mentoring, be done in your own unpaid time? I used to enjoy mentoring, now I avoid even having a student paired with one of my classes because of the work and time required for filling out observations paperwork and giving the level of feedback required when the student is really, really… how to say it?

And add in to all of this fewer providers being accredited to continue training teachers and the whole thing is farcical. Our local SCITT is quite healthy in terms of recruitment but I'm going to struggle to sort the timetable for our placement next term as it is, let alone when they up the hours.

I’m not even being paid for mentoring. I’m getting one hour of ppa a week and I have to use that for a meeting with my etc.

Teach First don't have mentors in the lessons with them

From day one? But they aren't in any way qualified at that point, not even L3 TA.

How can they possibly train without being with a teacher?

It is madness but as a provider we are doing what we can to adapt existing systems- e.g. we usually have a visiting tutor and mentor do a joint observation of a trainee once per placement, and then have a follow up discussion- and as we've always said this has been to support the mentor in doing observations and feedback, this is now going to count for 1.5 hours of the 6 hours training each time. And at least some of the intensive training and practice can be provider-led, not in school (the DfE actually dialled back on this massively). But the whole process of reaccreditation has been massively disruptive and uninformed- e.g. the ITAP comes from research in the US where trainees don't spend much time in school so need to find alternative ways to learn practical teaching skills, which just isn't the case here.

One of our local providers has already moved to something similar. We were due to have several trainees this year and had to withdraw as SLT felt it was far too much to expect from teaching staff. We’re happy for the professional mentor to undergo lengthy training, but expecting all subject mentors to do it is just going to worsen the recruitment (and retention!) crisis.

Unless they pay mentors more or reduce other elements of their timetable then people won't take it up. There's NO time.

That is absolutely awful.

It is a typical example of the non-joined up system we see in education. Schools are starved of funds, anyway. How on Earth with they provide mentors with 20 hours of training? This will entail time away from classes, additional paid hours (unaffordable) or yet more unpaid overtime?

I mentored a SCITT last year. It was very hard work! And the SCIT scheme is designed to be mentor-friendly as the providers recognise the need to not overburden the mentors.

The PGCE is risking making itself redundant. There are several other ways of obtaining QTS these days (Teach First, SCITT etc).

They have to get on with it and then sob to their TF paid mentor by phone, then attend weekend and evening trainings.

The USP is that they're almost exclusively high achievers with no experience of deprivation or the multiple factors that children face, so they're vulnerable to SLT telling them 'but you're Teach First, we were told you were the best, we thought better of you', their own fear of failure - and because Teach First will happily bankrupt them for the fees/lost income if they drop out during their two years.

The attrition rate is relatively low because it costs them so much mentally and financially to leave in those two years. The rates of leaving the moment that they're not tied into a contract, though...

How are existing schools or teachers going to deal with this?

I understand that Teach First actually charges schools for placing trainees, and the head teacher of the primary school where I'm a governor decided a couple of years ago that this wasn't a good use of school budgets. I think she looked more at schemes through which experienced support staff could train to qualify.

How are teachers going to be trained effectively with no financial support for students or for schools involved (including remuneration and/or paid working time for staff mentoring etc)?