The importance of ITT in developing a whole school culture of improving Teaching & Learning

Initial Teacher Training (ITT) is the first step on the journey to becoming a teacher. It is during this time that the foundations of good Teaching and Learning can be set and the seeds can be sown for a trainee to flourish into a good teacher. However, as it is such an important time in the development of a teacher then it can also be a time when bad habits become established – the seeds fall on stony ground as it were. That’s why ITT, and getting it right, is so important to the culture of any school.

At Nova Hreod Academy our vision for Teaching and Learning is to provide better teaching to make better students that have better life chances. This philosophy is at the heart of our culture and for it to be effective across the whole school then we have to make ITT a central aspect of improving Teaching and Learning across the whole school.

Perhaps one of the most obvious ways in which trainees can help to develop a school’s culture of Teaching and Learning is by what they bring with them from their training provider. Trainees are often acquiring the most up-to-date teaching methods and evidence based methodology. If you’ve been teaching for a decade (or longer), the things you learned at university might be out-of-date (or even debunked) and trainees are bringing fresh ideas into the school. Obviously, these ideas and methods need evaluating, but if we’re observing in a developmental way then we can see what’s beneficial and disseminate that as appropriate. At Nova, we encourage our trainees to share their knowledge and they are just as much a part of our CPD and Best Practice cycles as our most experienced members of staff.

One would hope that at this stage in their careers trainees are driven by the desire to improve the lives of young people. In our experience this is true. Some training providers, especially Teach First, put this philosophy front and centre and it is fundamental to how a trainee approaches their training year. By recruiting via Teach First we’re bringing trainees into our school that subscribe to a core philosophy that no student should be at an educational disadvantage because of their economic background. Teach First also aims to recruit high attaining graduates, equip them with strong Teaching and Learning strategies and, over time, build a network of ambassadors that share their experience, knowledge and expertise to continuously improve their own Teaching and Learning.

Not only are trainees developing their practice, they are also beginning to implement it consistently and consistency is key to good Teaching and Learning. One of the great advantages of training at Nova is the Binary behaviour policy. This has been written about before, but it can’t be understated what a valuable tool this is in developing the Teaching and Learning of our trainees. If you’re a mentor or a training provider I wonder how long you’ve spent helping your trainee deal with behaviour before they really get to grips with the nuts and bolts of Teaching and Learning. A term? Two? Longer? At Nova, Binary is a tool trainees have from day one. And, by providing our trainees with disruption free classrooms they are working on their Teaching and Learning from day one too. By implementing the Binary policy consistently trainees are able to concentrate on developing their pedagogical practice and this in turn leads to building a culture of improvement that lasts.

This is where a culture of improvement being implemented over time is key to the success of the school. By embedding a culture of continual improvement into the practice of our trainees we’re working towards establishing a whole school legacy. Our trainees are cultivating their pedagogy and continue to implement it over their time with us. As we all know, staff retention is key to any school and by fostering a culture of continual improvement we hope to encourage our trainees to stay with us and advance their careers with us. We have, for example, recently qualified teachers in positions in the SEND team and coordinating SMSC provision. We also have teachers that have trained with us that lead our Best Practice Briefings and introduce new pedagogical methods to the whole faculty. By advancing members of staff that are committed to the philosophy of continual improvement we are ensuring that we have a culture of improvement that becomes embedded in the school’s ethos. It becomes our habit – and as Mr Barton is keen to remind us, “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”

And what if they don’t stay with us? Several of our trainees have completed their ITT through United Teaching and moved to schools within the United Learning group. They have developed their educational philosophy here and taken it with them – but they have also stayed within the trust and continued their improvement as part of the wider United Learning community.

Ultimately, our culture of improvement - acquiring new ideas, tapping into philosophical enthusiasm, developing consistency, or advancing staff to build a lasting culture – should serve one purpose: to provide better teaching to make better students that have better life chances.