QTS isn’t everything. What it represents is. If good teachers excel because of their “innate talent and determination”, it’s very probably because their training helped them to harness and apply those qualities. Similarly, effective teaching involves more than simply being able to “engage with young people”. Teacher training provides knowledge of how young people develop and learn, what is worth learning and what they are required to learn. Such knowledge is not innate. I wonder how many teachers Mr Petty knows who were born with an understanding of how to teach reading through phonics.

Professor Andy Kempe, Teaching fellow, University of Reading.