Initial Teacher Education In England Research Articles

Geography teacher educators’ perspectives on education for sustainability: identity and agency in a period of rapid education policy change in England

Initial Teacher Education in England is in a period of rapid policy change. This is happening at a time when discourse about humans’ relationships with nature is changing, and there is increased recognition of the impacts that people have had on the Earth. Through a questionnaire and focus groups, we engaged with geography teacher educators’ experiences of, and perspectives on, Education for Sustainability (EfS). Using Priestley, Biesta, and Robinson, using the key dimensions of teacher agency model to analyse focus group data, we found that EfS was not consistently engaged with in geography teacher education, and where it was, it varied in the amount of time given to it, and the nature of the ideas, debates and knowledges engaged with through it. Whilst national education policy in England is constraining in some areas, its failure to truly engage with EfS has led geography teacher educators—in their own words—to “navigate” and “subvert” state-imposed policy. The article concludes by arguing for dialogue between geography teacher educators and policy makers to inform teacher education about EfS that supports the agency of young people, teachers and teacher educators in making informed decisions about education practices, as well as their lives and futures.

The role of schools within initial teacher education in England: an exploration of the shifting policy focus over the past 50 years

ABSTRACT Looking back at the very first issue of the Journal of Education for Teaching, it is clear that initial teacher education (ITE) was, at the time, undergoing significant change and has, in fact, been subject to political scrutiny in each of the intervening decades. Our paper traces key policy moments over the past 50 years in England, examining specifically those policies that have had implications for the role of schools and school-based teacher educators within ITE programmes. Our interest is in the broader context that has informed ITE policy-making, the content of those policies, and the implications for the role of schools. We go on to discuss how the concept of ITE partnership working has evolved over this period and then consider the pedagogic role that schools can play in the education of teachers, including the role of school-based mentors. Finally, we consider the potential impact on the practice of the most recent set of ITE reforms in England.

Reclaiming Initial Teacher Education in universities: Moving beyond a technicist model

Recent policy developments in England, particularly since 2021, have resulted in increased regulation and marketisation of Initial Teacher Training (ITT)/Initial Teacher Education (ITE). Although the origins of these developments go back much further than 2021, the current context in which ITE operates in England is, arguably, both challenging and unstable. Since 2010, the Government has increased the involvement of schools in ITE, creating an unstable climate for those who work in ITE in universities, through the School Direct initiative. School-Centred Initial teacher Training (SCITT) routes also precede this. The involvement of schools in ITE in England has extended to schools taking a leading role in the recruitment, selection and training of teachers and these developments have also, in some quarters, resulted in an anti-intellectual, anti-theoretical and anti-university discourse, which has been damaging to universities. This paper argues that current policy developments in ITE are reductionist and technicist and makes a case for the role of universities in ITE.

Participants’ perceptions of video-enhanced dialogic assessment as reflective practice in international teacher education

ABSTRACT Initial teacher education in England is characterised by lesson observation and assessment of teaching evidence against criterion-referenced teachers’ standards. In UK-based international teacher training, these situated practices are more challenging because of staff and trainees working in different time zones. In 2020, COVID-19 travel restrictions prevented assessors visiting trainees in international schools. Assessment therefore moved to a video-enhanced dialogic assessment process (VEDA), incorporating video-enhanced lesson observation and feedback, along with a dialogic online interview and evaluation of a digital portfolio of evidence. A first cycle of action research carried out in parallel to the change in provision gathered participants’ perceptions from recordings. These are themed around the way that technology supported reflection during assessment, and the holistic nature of this approach. Findings suggest that video-enhanced dialogic assessment allows for a deep and authentic assessment experience, and is a better fit as a reflective pedagogy for assessing teachers than the pre-pandemic approach.

A social realist challenge to the structuring of professional practice knowledge for initial teacher education in England

ABSTRACT Professional practice knowledge for beginning teachers involves grappling with the extent to which ‘theory’ and ‘practice’ should be evident. This thesis contributes an analysis of the particular way that the theory/practice relationship has been structured within the Teachers’ Standards and the impact that this form has had on professional agency. The prioritisation of the observable is contrasted with manifestations that recognise that within a moment of practice, invisible yet durable knowledge structuring mechanisms are also present. In order to accord these mechanisms due agency, the concept of diffraction (the physical phenomenon of wave interference), (Barad 2007) was drawn upon to enrich Bernstein’s (2000) social realist analysis of discourse. The data was gathered from a School Centered Initial Teacher Training (SCITT) provider in the West Midlands. The findings suggest that when context-transcending forms of knowledge specialise observable practices relationally, there is increased potential for coherent professional knowledges to result. Structuring professional practice knowledge in this way, contrasts with forms of knowledge particularisation evident within the Teachers’ Standards. Therefore a challenge is offered to existing forms of professional practice knowledge structuring by drawing on quantum (entangling materials and minds) rather than Cartesian (separation of mind and matter) conceptions of time and space.

Decolonial praxis: Teacher educators' perspectives on tensions, barriers, and possibilities of anti‐racist practice‐based Initial Teacher Education in England

AbstractThe impact of colonisation, cognitive imperialism, and Eurocentric modes of knowing, being and doing has had an effect on Higher Education, including teacher education. Colonial epistemologies, epistemicide, academic dependency, disempowerment and intellectual inferiority are challenged by liberatory pedagogies that present opportunities to reconceptualise ontological and epistemic foundations to inform antiracist practice and decolonial praxis. However, prevailing teacher education policies of standardisation in England raise difficult obstacles against decolonial and anti‐racist practices. By acknowledging the existence of institutionalised forms of coloniality, which includes the reproduction of colonial‐modernist‐western modes of thinking and doing, a re‐imagined decolonial reality can be envisioned. We argue that this process can engender humanising, antiracist, and epistemically liberating pedagogies within teacher education, which can encourage the co‐existence of a diverse plurality of forms of knowing, being and doing. Through conversational semi‐structured interviews with nine teacher educators, enriched by a critical analytic ethnographic study, the findings suggest perceptible evidence of teacher educators' growing curiosity and commitment to exposing ITE's complicity in the reproduction and sustenance of the logics of coloniality of knowledge and relational inequities.

Practise and repeat, or practice and critique? A story of learning, feeling and resistance in teacher education

ABSTRACT Recent reforms to Initial Teacher Education in England are a continuation of a decades-long political project, aiming to change the whole social complex around teachers’ professional education. But the most recent frameworks present some new inflections to the construction of learning, pedagogical relationships and difference. Positivist versions of knowledge and progress and standards-based reform as ‘a solution’ to social inequalities, need to be countered strategically with accounts of teaching and learning that reclaim the affective realm in public discourse. This investigation sets the new frameworks against the work of one early-career teacher on his master’s research project. It draws on excerpts from his dissertation and accounts by a teacher educator of working with him, concluding that hybridised accounts of learning flexible enough to encompass affect and autobiographical experience, as well as policy, research and critique, are not only professionally purposeful for those involved but also offer wider strategies of resistance.

Harnessing the potential of recently retired physics teachers to mentor new physics teachers

Three new physics teachers graduating from a university provider of initial teacher education in England were paired with a recently retired physics subject specialist teacher in order to provide informal mentoring during their first year of teaching. The aim of this was to explore if a mentoring intervention of this kind could support teacher knowledge growth of the new physics teachers and influence their retention in the teaching profession. Qualitative data from the study suggests that substantive content of the mentoring discussions that took place addressed issues of general pedagogy and pedagogical content knowledge. The retired teacher mentors were enthusiastic and able to act as mentors. Suggestions emerge for ways of facilitating the mentoring.

A Rigorous Approach to the Teaching of Reading? Systematic Synthetic Phonics in Initial Teacher Education

Abstract • This paper argues that no single method of teaching children to read is superior to any other. Although research suggests that a systematic approach to phonics produces gains in word reading and spelling, there is no clear evidence that synthetic phonics is the most effective approach for supporting reading development. • We highlight the current policy allegiance to synthetic phonics in England. This approach is mandated in the teachers’ standards and the inspection framework for initial teacher education in England. • This attempt to regulate the way new teachers are prepared to support children’s reading development is extremely concerning, given the body of research which demonstrates that no single approach is necessarily more effective than another.

The role of capital in the field of initial teacher education in England

The recruitment crisis for teachers in England has led to policy reforms which have significantly deregulated the sector, introduced market mechanisms to mimic aspects of the private sector and set providers in competition with one another. Leaders in Initial Teacher Education (ITE), from both schools and universities in England, were interviewed to understand their experiences of working in this policy context. Responses are analysed to reveal an emerging hierarchy in ITE provision. The research uses Bourdieu’s theoretical and methodological frame to make sense of the current field of ITE and conceptualises the providers as ‘agents’ working in the field who use capital to improve their position in the market. Teacher recruitment remains in crisis, and findings suggest that current reforms, rather than solving recruitment problems, are creating complex and unequal playing fields for both providers and applicants, which may be contributing to the continued crisis.

Initial teacher education in England and the Covid-19 pandemic: challenges and opportunities

ABSTRACT This paper examines the impact and implications on initial teacher education (ITE) of the crisis brought about by the Covid-19 lockdown of schools and universities from the perspectives of four university providers in England. The start of the pandemic meant that, in England, schools were closed to all but vulnerable pupils and the children of ‘key workers’, and so the normal placements of students in teacher education (ITE students) could not continue. The ‘virtualisation’ of the ITE programmes by, in some cases, both schools and universities, raised significant issues of both equity and pedagogy. The loss of time on school placement had the effect of lost opportunities for practising teaching but increasing the time for reading and reflection. We consider the effects on a teacher education programme when the practicum experience is abruptly curtailed, yet the programme is able to continue in a different way. We present a model framework for a new digital pedagogy for ITE and discuss the opportunities and affordances available as the post-Covid educational landscape emerges, and suggest that the Covid-19 crisis provides an opportunity to reflect on the idea that practicum experience may be a necessary but not, in itself, a sufficient condition for teacher learning.

The development of communication networks of pre-service teachers on a school-led and university-led programme of initial teacher education in England

This study examines the communication networks of 77 pre-service teachers in mathematics and science on university and school-led programmes in England. Communication as an indicator for establishing contact is considered as the starting point of building social capital among peers. Communication, advice-seeking and friendship network data were collected over four time-points during each programme. The descriptive results suggest limited boundary-spanning between the university and school-led programme types. Longitudinal modelling in RSIENA showed that friendship is a significant early-stage predictor of development of communication networks. By the end of the programme advice-seeking becomes a significant predictor of network development. Neither interpersonal trust, nor perceived self-efficacy were found to be consistent predictors of change in pre-service teacher communication networks.

The governance of a school network and implications for initial teacher education

ABSTRACT This paper presents a case study of a local school network in England that is well established as a provider of initial teacher education (ITE). School networks are now the favoured providers of ITE in England in a ‘school-led’ system. Our evidence comes from participant observation and interviews conducted over a five-month period (more than 400 h of data collection). We present evidence of the strategic intent and enactment of this programme. The policy of ‘school-led’ ITE has been directed by statements suggesting that governance will operate through local networks. However, we also observe the impact of hierarchical and market governance. We review this evidence in terms of interactions between hierarchies, markets and networks and use this review to reflect on the discourse that has driven policy and the discourse that has resisted this policy direction in England.

Move over Nelly: lessons from 30 years of employment-based initial teacher education in England

ABSTRACT Recruiting, preparing and retaining high-quality teachers are recurrent themes of local, national and international education agendas. Traditional university-led forms of teacher education continue to be challenged, and defended, as nations strive to secure a teaching force equipped to achieve high-quality learning outcomes for all students. One commonly adopted policy solution has been the diversification of teacher preparation routes: the alternative certification agenda. In this article, we examine the entire history of one alternative route in place in England from 1997 to 2012, the Graduate Teacher Programme. Using one example of an employment-based programme, we argue that opportunities to engineer innovative and creative spaces in the face of the current teacher preparation reform agenda need to be seized. This case study, which is contextualised in both the international debates about alternative teacher certification routes and the current policy agenda in England, demonstrates the extent to which successive administrations have failed to learn from the lessons of the past in the rush to recycle policies and claim them as their own.

1980年代英国の教員養成改革について : 「学校ベース型」の意味(IV 投稿論文)

1980年代英国の教員養成改革について : 「学校ベース型」の意味(IV 投稿論文)

Investigating Narrative Forms of History Pedagogy in Primary Initial Teacher Education in England

Investigating Narrative Forms of History Pedagogy in Primary Initial Teacher Education in England

Judgemental and developmental mentoring in further education initial teacher education in England: mentor and mentee perspectives

This article presents findings from a study which sought to identify the extent to which trainee teachers and their mentors considered their mentoring experiences and approaches to be judgemental or developmental. The article draws on a case study of trainee teachers and mentors on an Initial Teacher Education programme at a further education college on the south coast of England. Data were generated from an initial survey of 22 teachers, from which seven pairs of teachers and mentors also participated in part-structured individual interviews and direct observation of one of their mentoring meetings. In addition, eight of the interviewees also participated in a follow-up email survey. The findings highlight significant variation in mentoring practices, with both judgemental and developmental mentoring approaches in use. A distinct discrepancy is also identified between the perceptions of mentors and mentees regarding the nature of the mentoring experience, with most mentors describing their approaches as developmental and most mentees describing these as judgemental. In addition, mentor education was found to enhance mentors’ enactment of developmental as opposed to judgemental mentoring. A number of possible implications for policy, practice and further research are discussed.

To promote, or not to promote fundamental British values? Teachers’ standards, diversity and teacher education

In this article we seek to problematize the presence of the requirement within the teachers’ standards (DfE, 2012), that they ‘should not undermine fundamental British values’ in the context of initial teacher education in England. The inclusion of this statement within the teachers’ code of conduct has made its way from the counter‐terrorism strategy, Prevent and raises questions about Britishness, values and the relationship between the state and the profession more generally. We argue that the inclusion of the phrase within a statutory document that regulates the profession is de facto a politicization of the profession by the state thereby instilling the expectation that teachers are state instruments of surveillance. The absence of any wider debate around the inclusion of the statement is also problematic as is the lack of training for pre‐service and inservice teachers since it means this concept of fundamental British values is unchallenged and its insidious racialising implications are unrecognised by most teachers.

‘Letting the right one in’: Provider contexts for recruitment to initial teacher education in the United Kingdom

We exploit policy differences within the UK to investigate provider context and recruitment to initial teacher education (ITE). We identify three dimensions of variation: conceptions of professionalism, universal or context specific preparation and costs and benefits to providers. University-led ITE programmes used similar criteria and processes in each jurisdiction, but there were differences between university-led and school-led recruitment. Our study suggests that the current shortfall in recruitment to ITE in England may be a product of the contextual constraints which schools experience. It also suggests that school-led recruitment may tend to emphasise short-term and school-specific needs.

Overcoming stereotypes, discovering hidden capitals

This article presents a model of teacher research supported by academic partners to develop a better understanding of the barriers to education faced by young people growing up in poverty. It critiques politicians’ demands for teachers to ‘close the gap’ for ignoring the cumulative intergenerational effects of deprivation. The authors explain how a simplistic ‘craft’ version of teaching has tended to reduce initial teacher education in England to training in the pragmatics of curriculum ‘delivery’ and policy implementation, leaving teachers theoretically and practically ill-prepared to deal with extremes of inequality. Finally, it presents a pilot research project designed to see beyond statistical labels and into the particularities of students’ lives out of school, in order to reveal not only the realities of deprivation but also potential sources of cultural and social capital in their extended families and neighbourhoods.