Press Story

These are some of the findings from a new IPPR report written by Matthew Hood, an assistant headteacher in a Morecombe school, who is searching for new ways to stop the brain-drain of 20,000 disillusioned teachers leaving the profession each year.

The report, Beyond the Plateau, investigates why teacher progression plateau’s after five years and finds that the failure of the system to improve teaching techniques is equivalent to a pupil losing a whole year in school.

It finds that just 1% of the estimated £1 billion ploughed into teacher training each year is spent effectively and argues that a new generation highly expert, inspired and passionate teachers in every classroom and close the stubborn underachievement gap between rich and poor pupils.

Matthew Hood uses his personal experience trying to raise school standards in a deprived Lancashire community to re-imagine a teaching profession that actively encourages and rewards excellence by spreading expertise across schools.

He has gathered 130 teaching institutions together in a new project to test out ideas aimed at making the system work better for teachers and pupils alike.

Matthew Hood, the report author, said:

“Teachers should continue learning and improving, and they want to. They shouldn’t be plateauing five years into what could be a 30-year career. The problem is the education system tells them if they want to progress they have to teach less and manage more. And the schools where great teachers are most needed, those in economically deprived communities, often suppress ambition and innovation.

“We need to make low quality courses which fail to address the needs of pupils a thing of the past. Government ministers say they want a school-led system, and that is right. Many schools are now coming together and that is something that should be supported.”

The IPPR report finds that:

Britain’s education system is lagging behind Ontario, Singapore and Hong Kong;
Quality teaching has the greatest impact on pupil progress, especially for children from deprived backgrounds;
Excellent teaching is too often locked within the walls of individual schools;
On average teachers learn rapidly in their first three years, but slow down between years three to five, and plateau for the remainder of their classroom career. This plateauing occurs before the teacher becomes highly expert at their craft;
It is estimated that over £1 billion is spent on teacher training and development each year, up to 14 times more than other professions;
Teacher training too often fails to meet the needs of pupils or give teachers a clear understanding of their performance against a ‘highly expert’ standard.

The future of our economy depends on raising teaching capacity to equip more pupils for the increasingly skilled job markets they will eventually enter. This is all the more important with projections of 800,000 more pupils over the next decade while teacher recruitment remains largely static.

IPPR propose the creation of a new Institute for Advanced Teaching (IAT), which draws on a US model where high-potential teachers are identified and turned into highly-expert teachers.

We advocate a school-led system, not a Whitehall top-down one, where schools take ownership of their destiny. The plan is to develop a new ‘movement’ of expert teachers at under-privileged schools dedicated to spreading their expertise far and wide.

This IAT could:

Identify high-potential teachers already in the classroom, rather than the current focus on recruitment, moving them from being proficient to become highly expert teachers;
Involve a part-time Masters in advanced teaching;
Encourage them to share excellence in teaching practice across other schools in deprived areas;
Define new career paths for teachers who wish to remain in the classroom, including ‘badges’ to identify advanced-skilled teachers and more pay and status.

Jonathan Clifton, IPPR Associate Director for Public Service Reform, said:

“Bad teaching blights a child’s future prospects and can cost children the equivalent of a whole year’s worth of education. Poor classroom practice is made more likely because teacher’s progression plateau after five years, well before they become highly-expert teachers. Worryingly, all the training they get for the rest of their career does not seem to make much difference. So something is wrong in the system. Too many children are being failed by bad teachers while good teaching is often locked inside individual schools.

“That is why we are proposing a new Institute of Advanced Teaching, to match classroom practice more closely with pupils needs, to ensure that teachers keep learning and refining their craft, and that new career paths are identified for teachers who wish to remain in the classroom, which after all is where they make the most difference.”

Contact:

Sarah Horner, s.horner@ippr.org, 07584 604 607
Kieren Walters, k.walters@ippr.org, 07921 403651

Notes to Editors:

IPPR’s report – ‘Beyond the Plateau’ – is launched today and will be available here from 06:00 on Tuesday 19th July: http://www.ippr.org/publications/beyond-the-plateau-the-case-for-an-institute-for-advanced-teaching

IPPR project involved a collection of super-heads from schools and academies and was led by Matthew Hood, an economics teacher who has worked for the Department for Education, Teach First and Achievement for All.

Research on the ‘plateau effect’ of teachers learning is the subject of several studies, including Chingos and Peterson, 2011.

A US study (TNTP, 2015) found that the average per-teacher spend on training and development each year was $18,000, between four and 15 times the per-employee spend in other industries. It is estimated that total annual investment in teacher training is over £1 billion per year.

An earlier IPPR report – ‘Moving on up: Developing a strong, coherent upper-secondary education system in England’ – argued that secondary education in England was confusing and fragmented, and set out a more coherent vision for guiding young people through the vital transition to adulthood, higher education, further training and employment. See: http://www.ippr.org/publications/moving-on-up-developing-a-strong-coherent-upper-secondary-education-system-in-england

Another IPPR report – ‘Avoiding the same old mistakes: Lessons for reform of 14–19 education in England’ – looked at persistently high youth unemployment and changes in the labour market mean that the UK needs better, clearer school-to-work pathways for our young people. See: http://www.ippr.org/publications/avoiding-the-same-old-mistakes-lessons-for-reform-of-14-19-education-in-england

Jonathan Clifton has written on the question of whether schools should be fined if they fail to meet GCSE targets. See: http://www.cypnow.co.uk/cyp/school-report-blog/1153361/should-schools-be-fined-if-students-don-t-get-their-gcses