Qualified Teachers

Richard Fuller Excerpts

Wednesday 30th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

Having been a college principal only three years ago, I bring the perspective of the head teacher to the debate. In the college I led, the sixth-formers would have expected debaters to refer to the motion. I think that they would have found that much of the Secretary of State’s 30-minute speech related not to the motion, but to peripheral issues concerning free schools and the question of regulation. Those are valid areas of debate, but if he had taken the trouble to read the motion, which I think would have been helpful—it is what I would have advised my sixth-formers to do—he would have seen that it states:

“That this House endorses the view that in state funded schools teachers should be qualified or working towards qualified teacher status while they are teaching.”

Having listened to the contributions from Government Members so far, one might be forgiven for forgetting the important phrase

“working towards qualified teacher status”.

When I appointed teachers, as I did frequently in my 28-year career in education, they either would have teaching qualifications or would be put in a framework in which they could gain them. That was for their benefit and that of their students, and there is a lot of evidence to demonstrate that. I think that any Member who intends to go through the Lobbies tonight ought to look carefully at the motion. If they vote against it, they need to understand what they are doing.

[Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for drawing us back to the motion. If it became Government policy, will he explain what would happen to those teachers currently employed who did not work towards qualified teacher status? Would he want them to be sacked?

[Nic Dakin]

As a practical person and a head teacher, I would give the people employed in my college a framework in which they could get those qualifications, and we could have accreditation of prior learning, assessments and so on. Those people who have not done the job I did will have theoretical views on this, but I know how it is done, because I have done it day in, day out. The people out there know how they are running their schools and colleges, and the people who work in them know what they are doing as well. We trust them, but they need to be in a framework that delivers. We also need to listen to what parents are saying. In a recent YouGov poll, 78% of parents said that they want the teachers teaching their kids to be qualified.

I have just left a symposium in Portcullis House on the Finnish teaching system. I was reminded that not only do Finnish teachers need a master’s degree in their subject knowledge, but the degree has to deal with pedagogy. That is what teachers need: the knowledge and the pedagogy. That is what I needed when I had teachers standing in front of the kids in my college who I had a responsibility to deliver for. I am sure that is what people up and down the land want.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to this debate. I was genuinely surprised to see the words of today’s motion, because this debate is based on the fact that fewer than four in every 100 teachers do not have qualified status. If the purpose of the debate is to try to draw out differences between the coalition parties, and sow the seeds of public concern that if free schools and academies expand—I sincerely hope they will—vast numbers of state-educated children will be taught by unregulated, unqualified and unsuitable individuals, it will fail in that objective.

My view is that free schools and academies provide freedoms for head teachers and leadership teams to employ individuals from a range of diverse backgrounds—perhaps for shorter periods or on an ad hoc basis to suit the developmental needs of their pupils, or, where necessary, to extend the curriculum. It is right to trust head teachers to appoint the staff they need locally, and to take on experts from industry and those with varied skills who sometimes simply may not have ticked the final box before qualifying. The fundamental principle that teachers are more likely than politicians to know their staff and what they need in their school is undoubtedly true.

Most importantly, academies and free schools will not be free from Government oversight, and the process for becoming an academy or starting a free school is rigorous—in my constituency, several applications have been unsuccessful. If schools get through that rigorous process, Ofsted can come in at a few days’ notice, and Ebacc requirements will involve more and more scrutiny of outcomes. I fear that this debate is really about an obsession with process and uniformity, and discomfort with getting to the heart of education, which is about inspiring young people and securing better outcomes for our children.

Salisbury has a wide range of excellent schools which each have different requirements from their staff. We are about to gain a university technical college that specialises in science and engineering, and a free sixth form with a broader academic curriculum focused on STEM subjects. We also have three sixth forms that have converted to academies, two of which are nationally leading grammar schools. All five institutions will deliver a high-quality curriculum to young people in my constituency, but why should any of them be restricted to a narrower pool of talent on the basis of dogma?

I was recently contacted by a top academic from Southampton university about its teacher training programme. She noted that one of its graduates had been described as “phenomenal” by Ofsted just 10 days after gaining NQT status. While important skills can be taught and honed on teacher training programmes, those programmes cannot fully replicate raw talent and a passion for teaching, which—among some—is evident in the classroom from the start. In other words, teachers may become properly trained through on-the-job training alone, and it seems unnecessary to make high-quality candidates jump through arbitrary assessment hoops and delays, when their skills are being tested and they can demonstrate them to the head teacher’s satisfaction and secure better outcomes in exams at the end of the year.

The university technical college that will open in Salisbury in 2015 has developed a partnership with many local employers, such as defence industry employers, the Army, and the university of Southampton. It will provide brilliant teaching opportunities for industry experts on a part-time basis. Those specialist inputs, which come from individuals who will not have all the teaching qualifications, must be valued in our education system.

[Richard Fuller]

Is my hon. Friend concerned about some of the terminology? We are using the phrase “qualified”, when what we mean is that someone has a qualification. Those he is talking about are qualified, and we want them to educate our children, whether or not they have a particular qualification.

[John Glen]

My hon. Friend makes a characteristically wise and perceptive point. We must think more broadly about education and not be held back by dogma in our approach on who we allow in the classroom. We know that Ofsted exists and that there is real rigour in the oversight that we expect in terms of outcomes. I fundamentally disagree with the premise and motives behind the motion. The Government have done a lot to raise standards as well as the expectations of pupils and parents. That is about removing Whitehall interference, and demonstrating our trust in head teachers to employ who they need in individual schools, which will have different appetites and needs to suit their different local populations and employment opportunities. It is right that we continue in that way, and I will vote against the motion this afternoon.