The knowledge evangelists move in on teacher training

Launch of ‘first knowledge-based PGCE’ sparks anger among university providers
21st July 2017, 12:00am
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The knowledge evangelists move in on teacher training

https://www.tes.com/magazine/archived/knowledge-evangelists-move-teacher-training

University education departments have long been accused by the government of being bastions of outdated orthodoxy when it comes to initial teacher training. Former education secretary Michael Gove even went so far as to deride them as “The Blob” - a group that he accused of trying to stymie his reforms.

But a private university is now set to offer “the UK’s first PGCE to focus on ‘knowledge-based’ secondary and primary school teaching”. BPP University, which provides law, accountancy and other professional qualifications, will offer its new course from September. In doing so, it will be deliberately distancing itself from courses that emphasise what it calls “popular but unproductive teaching methods”.

The programme may be in tune with current government thinking, but critics are branding the move “arrogant” and are questioning its approach to pedagogy.

It will be the first teacher-training course to align itself squarely with a movement that rails against more “progressive” teaching styles that tend to emphasise transferable skills, group work and hands-on learning.

The course‘s programme director is Robert Peal, a Teach First alumnus who currently teaches history at the West London Free School and is a leading voice in the “neotraditionalist” education movement.

Peal worked as a “teacher in residence” at the Department for Education, supporting schools minister Nick Gibb with policy advice and speechwriting, and has also authored a book lambasting the legacy of “progressive” education in British state schools. He believes that the new PGCE is part of a wider movement in British education. “There has been a surge of enthusiasm over the past few years for knowledge-based teaching,” Peal says.

He justifies BPP’s main claim - that its course will be the first knowledge-based PGCE in the country - in three ways.

The first relates to the curriculum, which includes texts by neotrad favourites such as Daisy Christodoulou and ED Hirsch. “The reading list is very different, the sorts of texts that you would encounter, the sorts of ideas that you will be exposed to,” Peal says.

He does not go so far as to suggest that his core texts are absent from other PGCE reading lists - a quick internet search shows that Daniel Willingham appears on the University of Roehampton science PGCE list; Christodoulou features on the MFL PGCE list at Oxford Brookes University.

Despite this, Peal says “that the focus on cognitive science, on empirical studies into different teaching methods, and the focus on recent publications” in the BPP course will be “quite unique”. The course website says that students will “review the evidence calling into question popular but unproductive teaching methods”. These include “discovery-based learning, minimal teacher guidance, and the tailoring of lessons to pupils’ individual learning styles”.

However, Peal says students will not fail if they reject their tutors’ favoured methods. “Your ability to pass the PGCE is not dependent on conformity to a particular outlook,” he says.

Exciting, or unimpressive?

The second key difference, he says, is “a big focus on actual subject knowledge”.

“Not just how you would communicate the subject in schools … but also just on the things that it is important for you yourself to know as a teacher”.

The third differentiator is perhaps the most distinctive aspect of the course. Peal says the course will be the only PGCE to his knowledge in which candidates will have to sit and pass an exam.

But will there be a genuine wave of excitement about it? Certainly, it can expect backing from some quarters on Twitter where there is support for knowledge-rich teaching.

Similarly, Parents and Teachers for Excellence - an organisation that counts several leaders from some of the biggest multi-academy trusts among its supporters - was set up to promote knowledge-based education last year.

Michaela Community School, in north-west London - dubbed “Britain’s strictest school” by some media - teaches a knowledge-based curriculum and recently received an “outstanding” Ofsted judgement.

However, some established figures in the university ITT sector are unimpressed by this latest development.

James Noble-Rogers, executive director of the Universities Council for the Education of Teachers, says Peal’s characterisation of other ITT providers is “outdated clichéd prejudice” with “no bearing on reality”.

James Williams, a lecturer in education at the University of Sussex, expresses a similar degree of caution. He says BPP’s claim that it will provide the first PGCE with a knowledge-based focus is “arrogant, boastful and complete nonsense” because it suggests that knowledge is “eschewed by all other ITT providers”.

Williams also has reservations about its pedagogical approach. “Education is not just about rote learning, it’s about understanding. Understanding means the application of knowledge - it isn’t just about the knowledge itself,” he says.

Williams argues that the BPP course will also not be the first to challenge education myths. “I’ve given whole lectures to 300-plus ITT students about pseudoscience, about the myth of learning styles,” he says.

In contrast, some figures in the neotrad wing of English education are already warmly welcoming the move.

“We all know how important teacher training is for preparing people for the start of their careers,” says Mark Lehain, campaign director of Parents and Teachers for Excellence. “We know there is a growing feeling among many, many teachers that teacher training ultimately didn’t prepare them as well as they would have liked for when they stepped into their classroom in their QTS year.”

While Lehain suggests that many teachers do not feel satisfied with their training, according to the NCTL’s 2016 newly qualified teacher survey, 81 per cent of NQTs rated the overall quality of their training as at least 7 out of 10. However, the survey did show that NQTs trained by SCITTs (school-centred initial teacher-training providers) typically felt that their training prepared them better for teaching than NQTs on university-led courses.

Could BPP’s programme prove to be a new model for the delivery of teacher-training courses? BPP, along with its competitor the University of Law, has come to dominate legal training for ambitious graduates joining top firms.

A bone of contention is BPP’s status as a for-profit organisation. Peal says BPP is not currently in a position to disclose the fees it will be charging, and this is “something we can talk to SCITTs about once they show an interest”.

Noble-Rogers says other university providers are not in ITT to “make a buck”.

“From a personal perspective, I don’t feel comfortable with profit-making educational institutions,” adds Williams. However, BPP’s deputy dean, Paul Evans, says he thinks the education world will be “absolutely comfortable” with his university’s status.

“We teach some of the finest accountants, the finest lawyers, the finest business people in the country, with no worries at all about our status,” he says.

Evans says branching out into teacher training is a “natural fit” for BPP. “We’re not going in there to shake trees,” he insists.

BPP will not be directly recruiting students for the course because it is not certified by the National College for Teaching and Leadership (NCTL) to recommend people for QTS.

Peal says BPP would like to have this power “eventually”, but for the time being the PGCE will be run in partnership with SCITTs, with the awarding of QTS remaining the responsibility of these providers.

Peal, a veteran of stormy Twitter discussion, seems relaxed about the course’s potential to generate controversy.

But “child-centred ideas about teaching have been quite a dominant orthodoxy in ITT,” he says. “There are currently, I think, around 60 university-led courses which for the most part have that outlook. This is one that’s offering a slightly different approach.

“Having a diversity of different ideas within higher education when it comes to teacher training can only be a good thing.”

@whazell

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