Should soap’s first teacher pick up his chalk again, he may need a few pointers along the road to induction, writes Mike Sullivan

If Coronation Street’s Ken Barlow is serious about returning to teaching, he should see this publication. He’ll find that what to teach and how to teach it have changed in the six years since he taught English at Weatherfield Comprehensive - and he will notice that things on the bookshelf aren’t the same either.

Indeed, last time Ken was in school, student teachers read textbooks, while manuals were for mechanics or owners of new video recorders. Of course, there is no evidence that Ken ever did a PGCE, but no doubt in his heyday learning materials were print-based, written in continuous prose and occasionally illustrated by the odd line drawing.

By contrast, at the core of Helen Kenward’s publication are two CDs which are packed with video clips of real teachers at work and describing their work. The clips are well chosen, although sometimes interspersed with those teeth-grinding Powerpoint-style presentations of key points.

The package’s Achilles heel is the spiral-bound manual of instructions and supplementary materials for induction and teacher tutors, which brain-achingly takes the reader through the contents of the CDs and offers ideas for worksheets, discussions and handouts.

Ken would be astonished to discover that new teachers, rather than dim Year 7 pupils, are the targets of the instruction: “Try to make sure that you are familiar with your timetable and that you know where you are teaching if you have to move to different rooms during the day. If necessary, ask for a map of the school and spend some time finding your way around. If you get lost, do not be afraid to ask someone.”

While teacher authors and editors think that new entrants to the profession are so stupendously dull-witted, it is small wonder that outsiders hold teaching in such low regard.

Buy the publication, watch the useful CDs, but leave the manual on the shelf.

Mike Sullivan is an inspector and educational consultant based in the West Midlands