Our president-elect gives evidence in Parliament
Sir John Holman has provided oral evidence to the House of Commons Education Select Committee as part of their inquiry into the supply of teachers.
We are already working to address this issue, through our campaign for specialist teaching. Research shows that strong subject knowledge leads to greater impact in science teaching, but a third of chemistry teachers in England do not have a chemistry degree. Furthermore a third of primary school teachers report a lack of confidence in teaching science. Non-specialists teaching these subjects do not have consistent access to continuing professional development (CPD), which would help boost their knowledge and confidence.
In collaboration with the Association for Science Education, the Institute of Physics (IoP), the Royal Society and the Royal Society of Biology, we submitted written evidence to the inquiry, in which we made a number of recommendations to the government.
These included developing long term plans for recruitment, retention incentives based on local, regional and national needs, and the expectation that all students from KS4 onwards should be taught by subject specialists. We also recommended giving all teachers access to subject knowledge enhancement (SKE) courses, and improving the coordination, collection and monitoring of data relevant to the teaching workforce.
Continuing professional development
The evidence session dealt specifically with the impact of CPD on the teaching profession. John spoke alongside Charles Tracy from the IOP and they were joined on the panel by Dr Robin Bevan, Headteacher at Southend High School for Boys, Andy Mitchell, Curriculum Director and assessment chief executive at the Design and Technology Association, and Dr Jane Courtney, Member of Deans of Education Network, MillionPlus.
During the session, John highlighted the importance of subject-specificity in CPD. “By and large schools put a greater emphasis on generic professional development, and the National Science Learning Centre has found that it’s harder for teachers to get release from their schools for subject-specific development”, he said.
The panel advocated a need for a national framework for teacher CPD, owned by the profession. John expressed support for the suggestion that the College of Teaching, the new professional body for teachers, could play a role in developing this framework.
“If it came about in the way that it is hoped, then it could provide the framework of expectations for teachers’ professional development and for their professional status. The College of Teaching would have to be a very big tent, into which would be clustered a number of smaller subsections. I think there is a real opportunity here for subject associations to be responsible for the professional standards within their specialism.”
The second evidence session of the morning looked at the quality of data used by the Government to assess the recruitment, retention and quality of teachers. In particular the session highlighted the need for subject-specific data on the reasons for teachers leaving the profession, in order to inform more targeted retention initiatives.
At the Royal Society of Chemistry we already provide a range of teacher support, including a number of online and face-to-face CPD courses, our award winning home for chemistry resources, Learn Chemistry, and our online forum Talk Chemistry.
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