ATL

Fast-track for financiers

As the pilot fast-track teacher training course aimed at City successes gets underway, Report speaks to an ATL member who has already made the move from trading to teaching. Words by Charlotte Tamvakis

Up to 40 high-flyers will swap the boardroom for the classroom this month when they take their places on the new six-month teacher training course in England. The scheme was unveiled in March, when financial institutions were cutting thousands of jobs. In July, Baroness Morgan of Drefelin, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Children, Young People and Families announced details of the course for "people who are what you might term 'City high-flyers', who are looking to change career".

The Accelerated Route to QTS (qualified teacher status) for 'top level' graduates is being piloted at the Institute of Education (IOE) in London. There are 15 places in science, 15 in maths and 10 in information and communications technology. The course has been developed by the IOE and the Training and Development Agency (TDA) and sees students spend their first two weeks in sessions at the IOE. From then on they spend one day a week at the IOE and the rest of their time in schools.

Dr Mary Stiasny, the IOE's assistant director (learning and teaching), is confident. She said: "We are firmly committed to guaranteeing that anyone qualifying as a teacher through this accelerated programme meets the same standards for QTS as all other teachers. Because the students only have six months to attain this, rather than the nine months of a traditional PGCE, the entry standards will be higher than for the PGCE."

Twelve years ago, ATL member Paul de Kort made exactly the sort of career change the government hopes this new course will encourage. The 47-year-old economics and politics graduate worked for a large multinational company and, after posts in Aberdeen and the US, became an oil trading manager in the City of London.

He said: "After 15 years in a big corporation with a certain kind of people and behaviour I was seeking a new challenge. In my previous career, a successful year meant taking money off another large company."

He had become more involved with training and the graduate recruitment team at his company and also with football coaching at his children's local primary school. "These were all triggers that something I'd never considered going into - teaching - might actually make sense," he remembered.

After speaking to teachers and going on a three-day teacher 'taster' course, Paul enrolled on a PGCE in economics and business education at the IOE. He is now head of sixth form at Beaumont School in St Albans, teaching politics, economics and government.

He said: "My view is that there are two kinds of teacher that come into the profession later in life. The ones who have made the genuine choice are usually highly successful and the ones who have come into it because it's a second choice or they've left their jobs involuntarily are usually unsuccessful - and there's not much in the middle."
He continued: "If there are people in the City who have been thinking they want a new direction and a different satisfaction from doing something, but they haven't made the leap because of the barriers in the way, then clearly, making it easier would be a very good thing.

"However, if they are people who never thought about it until they lost their job and are wondering how they're going to pay their mortgage, and they see the promotion that says 'come and be a teacher', I think that is a disaster.

"An extra six months won't put you off if you're committed to doing it. There's a bigger danger it will be seen by people in that second group as 'only six months'. It's most likely to encourage people with the wrong skill set."

ATL has concerns about the impact of the fast-track course on trainees and schools. Mary Bousted, general secretary of ATL, said: "Not enough thought has been given to the impact on schools supporting these trainees, on opportunities for trainees to share best practice with teachers in their schools or on the long-term support trainees will need.

"We know that, when thrown into their first school, these trainees will swim only with exceptional support, so this scheme will be testing for them and the school. In the many schools without excellent staff development practices, they would sink. All in all, this sounds like another case of a daft idea which will be saved by a few outstanding schools."