While the Teacher Tapp panellists were distracted last week googling their favourite education secretaries, we asked a series of straightforward questions last week about teach training and discovered a new trend: ‘train-and-stay’.
How did we discover it? First, we asked what year panellists achieved their qualified teacher status (QTS) and if their first post-QTS job was in a school which they experienced during their QTS trianing.
When we did some analysis, we discovered trainees are increasingly staying in the school experienced during their QTS year:
Why? In part, the change is due to training programmes such as TeachFirst, which require participants to stay in the same school for their first year after qualification. Other on-the-job routes, such as the GTP, also gained loyalty from trainees who had often worked in the school previously as a teaching assistant.
What the figures show is that schools which are NOT training people to get QTS will likely find it harder to recruit new teachers. (As the new teachers are sucked up by the ones where they train).
This doesn’t mean your school should run out and sign up to School Direct. Taking PGCE students on placements can work too.
But it’s definitely worth thinking about how your school can get some trainees in the door and hang on to them where possible. If nothing else, it’ll save your recruitment costs. And it seems from the data that ‘train-and-stay’ is only going to get bigger, so it’s best to get on-board asap.
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Please use these materials at staff briefings, CPD sessions, your children’s birthday party, at bus shelters, etc…
- A colourful powerpoint (with script)
- PDF version of the 5 slides
- A 1-page black-and-white easy-print set of instructions