“Katie. Lisa. Kelsey.” Headteacher, Brendan Tapping, reels off the names, checking them off on his fingers as he goes. He effortlessly reaches half a dozen. These are some of the Scots - past and present - who have come to England to take part in the Teach First training programme and who have ended up working at his school, St Wilfrid’s College in South Shields.

“Rather selfishly, I would say to Scotland ‘don’t bother’ [introducing Teach First], because if it does happen, that puts at risk the high calibre of staff I have the opportunity to recruit into St Wilfrid’s,” he says.

Teach First recruits from Scotland often prefer to be placed in the North East of England - in places such as South Shields - because it is closer to home, says Teach First.

Earlier this year, the organisation - which runs a five-week summer school for recruits, then places them in schools, where they teach while working towards the Postgraduate Diploma in Education (PGDE) over two years - told the Scottish Parliament’s education and skills committee that, since 2012, 392 Teach First participants had listed their first degree as having taken place in Scotland; 193 of them listed Scotland as their current location.

Tory leader Ruth Davidson accused first minister Nicola Sturgeon of knocking Teach First back with the result that “hundreds of bright graduates from Scottish universities” were now “teaching elsewhere in the UK”.

However, the possibility of a so-called “tartan Teach First” came one step closer last week when the Scottish government went out to tender for a new route into the profession. The tender says the route should attract “high-quality graduates” and career changers and be “genuinely new and distinct”, with the new provider expected to recruit a cohort of between 20 and 50.

One graduate who has already slipped through the government’s fingers is Kelsey McLuckie, a modern languages teacher at St Wilfrid’s College. She is from Scotland, went to school at Edinburgh’s Gracemount High and studied at the University of Edinburgh, gaining a 2:1 in French and Spanish. She knew she wanted to teach, but going back to university did not appeal. She wanted to get stuck into her career and was attracted by the Teach First message about making a difference to children from disadvantaged backgrounds.

“The more I read about it, the more I thought, ‘This is for me,’” she says.

Now when she comes home to Scotland, she is used to hearing that Teach First has been in the news. But reports are not usually positive.

Opposition to Teach First

The prospect of an on-the-job training route such as Teach First has not been well-received either by the deans of Scotland’s schools of education or the teaching unions. The deans argue that if on-the-job training schemes are introduced, Scotland will fail to create “critical professionals able to adapt to complexity and diverse circumstances”.

The EIS teaching union, meanwhile, says it is not opposed to alternative routes into teaching, but it is concerned about approaches that put “unqualified graduates in charge of children’s learning”. Introducing such schemes would be “a retrograde step”, it warns.

James Westhead - Teach First’s director of external relations - argues that Teach First is, essentially, already up and running in Scotland, thanks to the introduction of the new one-year, fast-track route into the profession for science, technology, engineering and maths (Stem) teachers set up by the University of Dundee, due to start in January.

The Dundee programme places students in schools for four days a week and in university for one day a week; Teach First recruits teach for 80 per cent of the working week and study for 20 per cent. Recruits to the Dundee programme are paid a salary; Teach First recruits also earn a wage. The Dundee course kicks off with a three-week block of training; Teach First runs a five-week summer school. Students on the Dundee programme have an in-school supporter; Teach First participants have an in-school mentor.

But Lauren Boath, leader of the Dundee programme, argues there are “significant differences between the Supported Induction Route (SIR) and Teach First”. Students on the Dundee route will observe and work closely with their mentors before teaching, she says. When they do take their first classes it will be under supervision and it will be “some time into the programme” before they take a class on their own.

She continues: “SIR is not a school-based teacher training programme. Rather than being thrown into a classroom after a few weeks, student-inductees will initially have no more responsibility than existing PGDE students when they go on placement. They will also have more university-based learning time than on the PGDE programme.”

Teach First was established in London in 2003 and its goal was to get teachers into schools serving disadvantaged areas. Now that London schools are on the up, the charity’s focus has shifted and increasingly it is sending teachers to rural and coastal areas that are struggling for staff, says Mr Westhead.

Scotland is suffering a national teacher shortage but it is particularly acute in certain areas and disciplines, and this is where Teach First could have a role, Mr Westhead believes.

Now Ms McLuckie, who is 28, is in her fifth year teaching at St Wilfrid’s. She arrived in the North East of England knowing no one but had an instant network of friends because of the 50 other Teach First recruits also placed in the area.

However, Teach First retention rates are poor when compared to other teacher training programmes, with only 43 per cent still in the profession three years after gaining fully qualified teacher status, according to a Westminster report published last year.

A report earlier this year also found Teach First to be the “most expensive” of the different initial teacher training routes.

St Wilfrid’s headteacher Mr Tapping says he has been “more successful than most” when it comes to retaining his Teach First staff.

Offering Teach First staff progression routes is vital if you want to keep them, he believes. Currently, around a quarter of his 79-strong teaching staff are Teach First trainees or alumni, such as Ms McLuckie.

He finds it “humbling” to read Teach First trainees’ CVs, he says, because of all that they have managed to “cram into their lives to date”. He says he is proud of all the staff at St Wilfrid’s but believes Teach First participants are “driven to be successful” and become effective teachers quickly because they are immersed in teaching from the outset.

“I would rather have a driven, effective professional for two or three years than have someone not quite so motivated or effective, where I could be more certain of having them longer term,” says Mr Tapping.

For Ms McLuckie’s part, she is baffled by how controversial the route she chose into teaching is back home in Scotland.

“It makes me sad,” she says. “I think it’s an excellent way to get people into the classroom. At the moment there are not enough teachers in Scotland. There are not enough people in front of classes who are qualified. There’s an issue there that needs solving.

“I would have stayed and taught in Scotland if there had been a similar option, but instead I’m in England.”