Position Papers

This is a GTCW position paper advocating the case for professional self regulation in Further Education (FE) with the aim of bringing greater consistency and coherence to the education of 14-19 year olds across learning settings.

The issue

• Under the Welsh Assembly Government’s ‘Transforming Education’ agenda, education and training providers are required to work in partnership in order to provide genuine choice of learning pathways to 14- 19 year olds across school and college settings.
• Parents and the public are entitled to the reassurance that, regardless of school or college setting, young people are taught by teachers who are regulated and aspire to the highest possible professional standards. This is a fundamental issue of equity in the quality of learning of all young people.
• The draft Learning & Skills Measure, amongst other things, will require schools to ensure vocational provision for pupils and this is likely to increase the number of FE teachers in schools. As it is, many FE teachers already teach the same group of 14-19 year olds as school teachers but they are not required to adhere to the same professional expectations nor do they have parity in professional development opportunities. There should be a common set of expectations and access to continuing professional development for FE teachers and school teachers.

What the GTCW is advocating

• There is a need for an overarching set of high level professional standards which apply to teachers in both school and FE settings. This would help ensure comparability of qualifications and transferability of employment between school and FE sectors.
• FE teachers would benefit from a strong, autonomous, respected and high profile professional body that can inspire the highest standards of conduct and competence, regulate the FE teaching profession, improve professional development opportunities and provide a voice and direction on teaching issues.
• A coherent and consistent approach to the professional recognition of teachers across learning settings could be achieved by the GTCW becoming the professional body for teachers in both school and FE settings. The GTCW does not advocate the regulation of the wider lifelong-learning sector at this stage.
• The GTCW advocates the need for urgent action in this area.

In accordance with the General Teaching Council for Wales’ mission to contribute to improving standards of teaching and the quality of learning and to maintain and improve standards of professional conduct amongst teachers, the Council believes that as the autonomous professional body or teachers, it is the most appropriate body to own professional standards and to accredit programmes of initial teacher education in Wales. The Council believes that undertaking such a role would bring about a more coherent and rational system.

The Council's position paper can be downloaded from here in PDF (k)

The policy position developed by the Council has seven key themes to inform the development of future inspection arrangements in Wales as part of a wider process of capacity building for continued improvement:

• a move away from the term ‘inspection’ to a model of ‘service review’;
• a whole system approach to review by Estyn in considering the roles and responsibilities of the Welsh Assembly Government, LEAs and schools;
• the increased use of robust self-evaluation outcomes to inform the need for ‘light-touch’ or more comprehensive reviews;
• the replacement of contracted private inspection teams with HMI-led teams of released current teachers;
• the need to support capacity building for improvement within and between schools and other providers, and to ensure that LEAs are ‘fit for purpose’
  to provide support and are publicly accountable for their provision;
• the expectation that there would be reduced bureaucratic demands in preparing for notified inspections and associated post-inspection actions;
• ending the public labelling of under-performing schools as ‘giving cause for concern’ as this is often unhelpful in terms of building and retaining a school’s capacity to improve, and, instead, using the term ‘schools in need of enhanced support’.

The underlying ethos of the position is around maximising the impact of review whilst minimising its intrusion.

The Paper can be downloaded in PDF from here (75k)