Professional Development of Teachers

This report by the think tank Policy Exchange considers how to recruit, retain and develop a new generation of talented, inspired and effective teachers to tackle educational inequality.

It argues instead that we should embrace methods more attuned to today’s graduates and the modern employment market. This involves allowing new teachers to ‘earn while they learn’, giving all teachers much more say over their ongoing training and freeing schools to develop remuneration schemes which are bespoke to their particular needs. These methods would lead to the creation of a dynamic, well trained and motivated workforce – teachers who are more appropriately qualified before they enter teaching and who become better teachers in the classroom.

Key points:
- Pay, Continuing Professional Development (CPD), recruitment and training should be linked and considered together.
- More on the job training, especially at the start of the career ("earn whilst you learn"), as this would help both new starters as well as experienced teachers.
- More flexibility in employment and pay scales, allowing some to "fast track" current systems.
- Teaching is considered to be similar to social work and nursing (by managers and graduates) but is seen as a noble profession and would be considered if flexibilities exist allowing for fast entry and exit.
- In shortage subjects the standards to accept new teachers are too low and hardly any applicants fail.
- Phasing out the BEd route, as it is the most expensive route and usually attracts the least academically able teachers.
- Far more CPD should take place in schools.

There are also recommendations on teacher pay and linking this to CPD.