Ministers have been warned “excessive” teacher training mentor requirements are causing a recruitment “nightmare” for schools, as a union calls for the new rules to be reviewed.
From this month, mentors of trainee teachers must complete up to 20 hours of initial training and spend at least 1.5 hours a week with their mentees.
Both are new requirements brought in by the government’s initial teacher training market review.
But the ASCL school leaders’ union has urged ministers to review the policy and work with schools on a “more deliverable expectation”, after schools warned they were turning away trainees and struggling to cover mentors’ time.
Sara Tanton, ASCL’s deputy policy director, said the requirement was “a concern for school leaders”. It is “unrealistic to expect schools to be able to commit existing staff – who are already thinly stretched – to such a large time commitment”.
The requirement also posed “a significant problem” to the new government in achieving its target of 6,500 new teachers as schools were unlikely to be able to offer those placements.
It comes as two trade bodies representing teacher trainers are calling for Ofsted to pause inspections of ITT providers for this academic year, in part so changes can “bed in”.
Schools turning away trainees
Schools can claim up to £1,072 for each mentor that completes the training, but that will be paid in arrears at the end of the academic year.
Laura Baxter, the assistant head of Woodlands Primary in Birkenhead, is a mentor for ITT trainees and early career teachers.
Her school had 10 trainees in previous years but could only take three this year.
“We can’t ask teachers to do that in their own time. We don’t have the budget to release teachers to do it within school time. It’s an absolute nightmare.”
Baxter said the policy felt like an “own goal” amid a recruitment and retention crisis.
The National Foundation for Educational Research this week forecast that the government was likely to miss its secondary teacher recruitment target by 40 per cent and its primary target by 12 per cent this year.
Kulvarn Atwal, the executive head of two primary schools in east London, said five of his teachers were mentors this year.
“School budgets are dwindling and we’re going to have to cover very experienced mentors so they get the training.”
Recruitment suffering
Teacher trainers report they are also struggling to find placements for trainees.
The Bradford Birth to 19 SCITT normally has school placements sorted for trainees in July, but this year was still struggling in early September.
Ben McGregor, its head of initial teacher training, said the SCITT was forced to stop recruiting at the end of June, two months early, as it wasn’t sure if it could place the extra trainees.
It has 95 trainees, all with placements, for this year. But McGregor says it could have recruited another six to 12 who would have qualified by next September.
Uncertainty over Ofsted changes
The market review launched in 2021 forced providers to go through a bruising re-accreditation process.
Key changes, including an intensive training and practice (ITAP) requirement that undergraduate trainees must set aside at least 20 days for, have now come into effect.
Ofsted has said it will update its ITT inspection framework and handbook to reflect the changes. In July, it told providers these would be published this autumn.
But with ITT inspections due to start in January, providers say they remain in the dark about what they will be assessed against.
NASBTT and UCET call for inspection pause
Ofsted has also promised a number of changes to the way it inspects teacher training.
It has pledged to axe the overall effectiveness grade for its teacher development inspections and to roll out report cards looking at a “broader range” of criteria.
It also committed to introducing “rubrics to highlight the areas that make the most difference to the quality of teacher development”.
In light of these looming changes, the National Association of School-Based Trainers (NASBTT) is lobbying for inspections of ITT providers to be paused for this academic year to give Ofsted time to test out new approaches to the framework, carry out focused monitoring visits and develop a “robust approach”, said Emma Hollis, its chief executive.
The Universities’ Council for the Education of Teachers (UCET) also wants a pause.
An Ofsted spokesperson said: “We continue to consider the feedback received through the Big Listen and will publish an updated handbook well before any inspection activity starts.”
The DfE was approached for comment.
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