011+Initial+Teacher+Education

the newly launched SCETT conference publication 'In Defence of Teacher Education', which provides a unique defence of education as a field of study essential for future teachers. It is addressed primarily to policy makers but should be read by all teachers, teacher trainers, academics and all those who believe that teaching is a profession and not merely a 'craft'. and can be found here.

Department for Education (2010). The Importance of Teaching: The Schools White Paper 2010. London: Stationery Office. Available online: here []

Department for Education (2010). The Case for Change. London: Stationery Office. Available online: here []

Bousted, M. (2010). ‘Plagued by an army of “fleas” that won’t get off our backs, is it any wonder teachers descend into mediocrity?’ TES, 26th November. Available online: OECD, (2008). Improving School Leadership. Available online:

15th MArch Gove manipulating statisics [] rather than the sub-report on BME. However, he has presented the findings in a highly selective and somewhat non representative way ..... Gove's "more than a third of teachers did not feel the current standards provided a good definition of teacher competence" is based on the following

"It was also apparent that nearly two-thirds of respondents (63 per cent) felt that the professional standards provided ‘a good definition of teacher competence’, suggesting that these standards had provided useful benchmarks for many teachers; again, only six per cent of respondents disagreed or strongly disagreed with this statement, though there were also nearly one in four teachers (23 per cent) that neither agreed nor disagreed." (p24) Which does not quite accord with Gove's interpretation.

His "41 per cent believed that professional standards did not make any difference to the way they taught" is drawn from: "Perhaps one of the most telling responses to this series of questions was that relating to the direct statement: ‘In practice, the professional standards do not make any difference to the way that I teach’. In this case, although more teachers agreed (41 per cent) than disagreed (24 per cent) with this statement, almost one in three neither agreed nor disagreed (29 per cent): a sizeable proportion of teachers, therefore were ambivalent about the influence of the professional standards on their teaching." (p25) http://music-education-review.wikispaces.com/011+Initial+Teacher+Education The report goes on to suggest "This may be explained by teachers not having used the standards and therefore being unable to respond to the statements, or it may be that teachers are simply attributing greater importance to other influences on changing their teaching practice." (p25) As can be seen - again, Gove's interpretation of the findings is somewhat at odds with the NFER's

98.5% pass rate here He [the Secretary of State] added that just 1.5% of newly qualified teachers do not achieve Qualified Teacher Status (QTS), which is granted to teachers who have demonstrated that they have met the required professional standards to teach in the state sector. "This suggests that what we have is a process that isn't a truly effective mechanism for ensuring that people are as skilled as they need to be," he said." Whereas it might just as easily imply that even with students with third class honours degrees who've not served in the military, ITE providers manage to ensure that almost all their students satisfy the state's requirements.

ICT & ITE National POlicies -country report presentation UK makes damaging reading (slide 23) Unesco ICT Portal

Four Univeristies to ax Music PGCE depts; most remain with less than 10 places. How viable is this? Apr 11

27th June. The government published its ITE Review.