Training… and retaining
In 2012 our school made the decision to train teachers. A simple statement now, but a step that took plenty of courage (and associated insomnia inducing pondering) to make. Looking back now, it seems like such an obvious way forward. Easy? well not quite, but thanks to our school direct and SCITT courses, we now have a steady supply of talented and well trained new teachers across our alliance of schools.
When I was a trainee in the late 80s, I remember my training being far less thorough than what we insist upon now. However the real challenge came as an NQT…we weren’t just thrown in at the deep end in those days…the lifejackets were dangled out of reach too!
Which brings me to my point. It is one thing to train teachers well, but if the headlines and retention figures are to be believed, as school-based providers, we must look beyond the years they are with us as trainees and ensure that they are well supported in those fledgling years to ensure we retain the teachers we have fought hard to recruit and train.
At Shotton Hall, we truly believe in the school-led system. What better way to build a future workforce than taking them under your wing and showing them how it’s done yourself. However, we see ITT as a two year mastery of skills, not just 36-weeks of learning the ropes. We place as much importance on what our new teachers do when they fly the nest as we do when they are in it.
In their NQT year we set and monitor career development and progression targets for our new teachers and ensure one to one support is in place from our core tutor team. We keep personal contact channels with their tutors open and offer dedicated CPD sessions in the areas that cause the most stress to new teachers, which includes behaviour, assessment and workload. We also offer networking opportunities across the year with our get together sessions where all NQTs meet for extra support on specific topics and to catch up with each other and share ideas and concerns.
As well as the primary support and guidance needed as an NQT, we also place importance on career progression for NQTs and RQTs and have leadership development programmes in place for both. This means, for our trainees, there is a clear path to be flown from ITT to middle leadership and onto senior leadership and headship.
If we are to fully understand and fulfil our remit as SCITTs, we must ensure that the early teaching years are not the poor ITT relation and be as supporting and nurturing as we can. We will still of course have some bobbing about in the deep end, but I believe it is our responsibility, as leaders of a school-led system, to dangle the life jackets within reach!
Lesley Powell, Executive Principal at The Academy at Shotton Hall and CEO of the Shotton Hall Learning Trust