17 December 2007

Newly qualified teachers in Wales are being given a head start over their colleagues elsewhere in the UK because they are provided with a guaranteed three years of mentoring, support and early professional development, says HAYDEN LLEWELLYN, Deputy Chief Executive of the General Teaching Council for Wales.

Facing a classroom of children for the first time as a newly qualified teacher (NQT) can be a daunting prospect. It is a very different experience to teaching practice undertaken during initial teacher training, and often exposes a teacher to a range of classroom management and lesson delivery issues for which they may feel unprepared.

In Wales, NQTs have access to funding worth £5,700 over the first three years of their career to help them find their feet and establish themselves in the classroom. The first tranche of funding, £3,700, covers a three-term period of induction which all new teachers must successfully complete. Thereafter a new teacher can access £1,000 per annum to fund early professional development activities and opportunities.

Responsibility for managing the distribution of the Welsh Assembly Government funding for NQTs passed to the General Teaching Council for Wales in September 2006 in a bid to streamline the procedure for distributing funding to teachers. The previous system saw each of the 22 local education authorities in Wales being responsible for managing the funding for NQTs – a situation that proved difficult when teachers moved between schools and counties, and which led to some NQTs not getting the funded support they needed and to which they were entitled. The old system saw the Assembly allocating funding based on estimates from the LEAs, which led to some authorities losing out, and some schools and teachers not receiving the funding to which they were entitled.

The GTCW holds the register of teachers in Wales, which enables us to ensure that funding follows the new teacher as they move from school to school. This is necessary because NQTs are able to complete induction at either the same school or at different schools over a school year. Indeed, some NQTs carry out their induction in three separate schools in three different local education authorities (LEAs).

Throughout the induction period, new teachers are given the opportunity to demonstrate that they have the skills and qualities needed for a successful career in the classroom. This is achieved through mentoring, in service training and learning opportunities funded by the Welsh Assembly Government through the GTCW. At the end of each term the teacher is assessed and they must pass all three terms of induction to continue as a teacher.

On successfully completing induction, teachers can access further support through an annual entitlement to £1,000 of Early Professional Development (EPD) funding, again from the Assembly and managed by GTCW. The EPD funding programme enables teachers and the school to work together to identify a programme of activities designed to help the teacher gain further experience and learn from best practice examples.

The benefits gained from vesting the management of the funding for Induction and EPD with the Council are obvious in terms of streamlining 22 local authority schemes into one Wales-wide programme, with the ensuing reduction in bureaucracy and administration. In addition, by matching a teacher’s induction and EPD activity with their entry on the register of teachers, the Council is able to ensure they are both aware of and actually receive the full benefit of the funding available to them.

Finally, the General Teaching Council for Wales also manages the distribution of funding for individually focussed continuing professional development (CPD) for experienced teachers. By bringing induction, EPD and CPD all under the Council’s remit in this way, we can help foster a strong culture of professional development and lifelong learning from the very beginning and right through a teacher’s career.

Teachers are often held up as role models for young people. What better role model for young people as learners for them to see that their teacher is also an avid, lifelong learner.