For many years graduates have been able to train in schools and gain vital classroom experience - but the new postgraduate teaching apprenticeships announced today will transform the school-based route into teaching.

Postgraduate teaching apprentices will help create, and certainly benefit from, a new culture of learning within schools as they work with, and learn from, fantastic teachers before reaching qualified teacher status. Moreover, the tangible benefits of such a route are clear.

Fledgling teachers witness the expertise and dedication of established teachers at close quarters, those already in the profession gain vital mentorship experience, while pupils and schools more generally benefit from an injection of energy.

When a school takes responsibility for training it has to understand the systems and processes that work best. Apprentices can then learn from this understanding to ensure pupils are at the heart of good teaching from the outset.

Apprenticeships’ capacity

Putting in place this kind of structure, which ensures schools are clear in the way they want to conduct training and what they want their teachers to articulate about their practice, allows schools to become better places of learning for the children. For this reason, postgraduate teaching apprenticeships have the capacity not only to improve the supply of teachers, but also to improve schools.

The reward for talented graduates with a real commitment to becoming a teacher is a job that sits alongside a detailed and extensive programme of study - spending time with their feet firmly placed in the rich pedagogical soil of a school.

Apprentices will learn “on the job” and through experienced School Centred Initial Teacher Trainers or with the support of Higher Education Institutes.

This programme is not simply a new way of doing the same thing. This programme has the capacity to transform teacher supply. If every school in England had one postgraduate teaching apprenticeship, that could train thousands of teachers per year. If each school had two apprentices, then we would have enough new teachers to meet demand comfortably.

Opening the door

Historically, some schools have struggled to attract the right teachers in the right places. Postgraduate teaching apprenticeships place another tool in the armoury of schools to allow them to create their own supply. Each community has people within it who would like to be teachers, but it is not always easy for them to find a way in - so, let each school be the centre for Initial Teacher Training.

When someone wants to be a teacher, they should be able to go to their nearest school to find a programme to meets their needs and skillset.

Postgraduate teaching apprenticeships will open the door to many who have been unable to access a route into this great and noble profession. Remember, we only need to find one each.

Sir Andrew Carter is CEO of South Farnham School Educational Trust and was chair of the government-commissioned Carter Review of initial teacher training

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