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The General Teaching Council for England today publishes two reports on findings from its 2007 teacher survey.
The first report focuses on teachers’ views on continuing professional development and their own career plans. The second explores teachers’ experience of working to improve pupil achievement and their judgements on how achievement should be recognised and measured. A third report, with the views of a sample of Black and Minority Ethnic teachers will be published later this month.
Teachers’ access to good quality continuing professional development continues to improve, the survey finds. For the third year in succession, the proportion of teachers who say that their development needs have been met (in full or in part) has risen – from 77 per cent in 2004 to 83 per cent in 2007. However not all groups of teachers have fared equally well – for example 37 per cent of supply teachers say their development needs have not been met.
Teachers’ plans to move into leadership or headship have not changed significantly since 2006. Then and now, the proportion of teachers who say they expect to become a head teacher in the next five years remains at six per cent. But this figure includes all teachers, even the most junior, and the proportion of those saying they expect to move into leadership positions is more encouraging, at 31 per cent. Efforts by the National College for School Leadership to promote headship are bearing fruit. Nine per cent of respondents say they plan to take the National Professional Qualification for Headship in the next five years – equivalent to 45,000 teachers.
The male bias in school leadership looks set to continue. More than four in ten (41 per cent) of men compared with 29 per cent of women anticipate moving into leadership positions and nearly twice as many men (15 versus eight per cent) plan to take the National Professional Qualification for Headship.
The demographic profile of the teaching profession is unbalanced, with more than 50 per cent of teachers aged 45+. This makes retention a serious issue for schools and local authorities as these more experienced teachers, often in senior positions as school leaders, move towards retirement. Over a quarter of senior teachers* responding to a question on retirement say they are likely or highly likely plan to retire in the next five years, as do half of all serving head teachers who stated their intentions.
Commenting on the career findings GTC Chief Executive Keith Bartley says:
‘We have substantial numbers of teachers who are interested in moving into leadership positions in schools. It is vital that we make a renewed effort to understand and invest in the support that they need to succeed. We then have to help more of them to step up further to headship. Concerns about work life balance and administrative overload are key factors deterring senior teachers from taking the next step and yet once in role, head teachers say the job is immensely rewarding. We will continue to support the National College of School Leadership’s succession planning strategy.
‘Along the way, we must ensure that we capitalise on the experience of that substantial group of senior and experienced teachers who will be retiring in the next five years. We know that they find it professionally rewarding to share the depth of their learning with less experienced colleagues and we cannot afford to let that expertise leach away.’
For the 2007 survey, the GTC chose to focus on teachers’ views and experience of pupil achievement and strategies for tackling underachievement. The survey found that teachers do not take a narrow view of attainment, as measured by national tests. Instead they want to see more emphasis on creativity, becoming a life long learner and on becoming active citizens. Seventy per cent said that schools give too much emphasis to national test-focused achievement, with primary teachers particularly likely to take this view. Teachers identify a very broad range of factors which can impact on pupil achievement. Gender, ethnicity, class, family background and income are all cited. Higher or lower parental expectations are seen as key. Nine out of ten teachers with experience of working with parents to help them support their child’s learning said the effort had a beneficial impact on achievement.
Writing in the Foreword to this report, Sarah Stephens, GTC Director of Policy points out that many of the factors that can affect achievement are well known but says ‘We cannot assume that a pupil will under attain, just because he or she is a member of a group that has been shown statistically to be at risk of doing so…..Schools are key determinants in the paths that individual pupils take and .. teachers are crucial to confirming or interrupting those paths.’
On the finding that more than half of teachers responding to the survey said league tables had a negative impact on achievement, Keith Bartley said:
‘The evidence is clear that tests in themselves do not raise achievement. The GTC believes the time has come not only for a radical overhaul of league tables but of the assessment regime as a whole. We need more valid forms of assessment that draw on teachers’ judgement and expertise and promote – not just measure – learning. Of course schools must remain accountable to parents and the public and we have recommended both to Government and to the children, schools and families select committee a system of sample testing that would retain accountability, reduce the testing demands made of pupils and free up curriculum time for learning.’
* Heads of department, year and key stage
