Category Archives: local issues

Senate says no to PGCE closure review

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Senate has rejected calls for a review of the decision to close Bath’s PGCE programme from 2014.   This was despite opposition from Academic Assembly, a petition from hundreds of staff and students at Bath, supported by hundreds of others in local schools and Departments of Education across the country.   UCU briefed all members of Senate on the arguments against closure,  and some members were clearly unhappy with the decision and the way in which it was reached.    The decision means that a record of outstanding teacher training that dates back almost to the opening of the University will come to an end just before the University celebrates its 50th birthday.

 

Bath PGCE closure threat goes national

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On top of the Chronicle article about the threatened PGCE closure, the matter continues to attract national attention.

“Our experience, working with head teachers who have been doing recruitment and selection with us as a school-based provider for something like 10 years, is that they are finding that those schools that do not have the experience are looking for teachers and not trainees. They are not selecting, and we are getting returned to us people who we would probably have put on the course but they do not, because they clearly do not represent the finished article. If schools have not had significant experience in ITT recruitment as opposed to teacher recruitment, they tend to miss some of the opportunities that are presented to them.”

Martin Thompson, Executive Director, The National Association of School-Based Teacher Trainers speaking to the House of Commons Select Committee on Education, September 2013.

The problem outlined by Martin Thompson is one of the reasons why UCU opposes the closure of university-based teacher training courses.   Many able candidates will be turned down as school heads look to admit only those candidates who can do a job of work in the classroom even before they have been trained.   The question is – how good a job will they be able to do ?

Support the petition against the Bath closure