TTR0033

Written evidence submitted by The Historical Association

The Historical Association is the subject association for history in schools. Incorporated by royal charter, we have represented the voice of history teachers since 1906. We currently reach over 55% of secondary schools and around 25% of primary schools through membership and engage with a further 42,000 individuals through our electronic communications. We submit evidence to this call on behalf of our members.

Our submission will not cover all aspects of the call for evidence, but specific areas where we can provide insights.

Recruitment

History has tended to recruit well and has at times exceeded the target. However, the lack of a bursary suggests the subject is not valued and could be a barrier to a more diverse teaching workforce. The fact that training to teach history does not carry a bursary immediately closes it off as an option for those from less affluent backgrounds. In the 2021 school census 88.8% of teachers were from white backgrounds with this figure rising to 92.5% for headteachers. In 2015, an FOI request found that black teachers accounted for 9.3% of the whole teacher workforce, while only 1.5% of the history teacher workforce, indicating severe under-representation. We fear this situation will only get worse through the lack of a bursary.

Although history did recruit successfully to target for the academic year 2022/3, providers reported that it took much longer than usual to fill places and that this pattern is being repeated for the 2023/4 cohort. Some providers are telling us that the picture is even worse than this:

We run the largest history PGCE course in England, consistently recruiting large numbers of high quality trainees.  In recent years - with the exception of 2020-21 - the application rate has gradually declined.  In the current recruitment cycle however, the fall in applications is unprecedented, dropping by 40% compared to last year by April 2023. (IoE, UCL)

Additionally they are drawing from a smaller pool of less well qualified applicants in order to fill places. There are real and growing concerns about the quality of future recruits into the history teaching workforce, which will ultimately affect the quality of history education that pupils receive. This concern is compounded by the genericism of the Core Curriculum Framework (CCF) and the Early Career Framework (ECF), an issue to which we will return to later in this submission. The Covid years, which made it challenging for those entering the profession to gain sufficient practical training in teaching the subject, have also not helped in terms of the supply and quality of history teacher recruits.

We are of course painfully aware of how “lucky” history is to be currently a subject that looks to be one of the few recruiting to target; particularly so against a backdrop of failed teacher recruitment targets overall every year since 2015 aside from 2021. As the government’s Teacher Recruitment and Retention Report points out, one of the positives of the covid pandemic was that recruitment rose temporarily to provide one year in which recruitment targets were achieved, but this has been short-lived, with worrying recruitment statistics for both primary and secondary teacher recruitment in 2022/3 and if NFER forecast statistics are accurate, the picture looks even gloomier for 2023/4. NFER statistics provide cause for concern as we see numbers of recruits dropping substantially even in subjects like history. In 2022/3 history recruited to 133%. According to NFER forecasts, this will look more like 108% in 2023/4. Set this against the numbers of teachers expressing a desire to leave the profession, a rise in the number of vacancies, the lack of a bursary and it becomes clear that if this trend continues, history will also become a shortage subject. As things stand, there is already a real threat to the quality of recruits that history teaching is able to attract. This is of little surprise given the implicit message that history teaching  is not valued, conveyed by the removal of any bursary for those training to teach history  and the wider messages of how little the profession appears to matter created by the low pay that the teaching work-force is offered (a real terms 11% pay cut in the last 10 years, resulting in 75% of teachers being unhappy with their pay according to the government  Working Lives of Teachers and Leaders report). OECD research also indicates that UK teachers work some of the longest hours in the world. The government has as yet done very little to address the report based on its own early 2022 survey on The Working Lives of Teachers and Leaders. Leaked news of the report highlighted the long hours worked by teachers and indicated that over 50% of the teaching workforce felt that the job impacted their mental health. It is little wonder that teaching is being seen as less and less appealing for graduates. This of course applies to all teachers, but taken with the NFER recruitment forecasts, it makes worrying reading for the future of history teaching.

  While DfE data for 2021 shows a rise in the teacher workforce, the 2022 Teacher Recruitment and Retention report points out that these numbers are not keeping pace with pupil numbers, increased timetable demand for some subjects, existing vacancies and potential losses of teachers leaving the profession. In short, teacher recruitment is in crisis and the situation will be worse in some places than in others - often to the detriment of less advantaged young people.

How well does the current teacher training framework work to prepare new teachers and how could it be improved?

The first thing to note here is that that the current Teachers’ Standards are workable - the streamlined and coherent nature of the current Standards are valued; however the Core Content Framework (CCF) and Early Career Frameworks (ECF) through which these standards are to be achieved are not fit for purpose.

The generic nature of the Core Content Framework discourages subject-specific teacher education. This is a profound problem, as much at primary as at secondary level, especially given the new emphasis placed by the current inspection framework on the quality of the curriculum offered to young people. Teacher training should not and must not be separated from subject. A UCL blog makes this case compellingly.[1]  A new teacher must learn to teach the discipline, not learn to teach and then try to apply what they have learned  to the discipline. In history, if a new teacher starts their role without, for example, a strong understanding of what is meant by historical enquiry (different from enquiry approaches adopted in some subjects as a pedagogical approach) they will be immediately at a disadvantage. Divorcing subject from initial teacher education turns teaching into a generic skill or process. Christine Counsell points out that the importance of building secure knowledge in any curriculum subject must be understood in terms of the epistemic traditions that gives knowledge of different kinds its particular structure. Generic, non-subject-specific demand for memorization that fails to attend to the nature of what is being remembered and its role in subsequent learning leads to deep confusion. Boundaries between subjects matter. The relationship between abstract substantive concepts and their particular realisations differs profoundly between science and history, between music and languages. The distinctive ways in which facts interrelate to become new knowledge, the peculiar ways in which narrative ‘carries’ knowledge differ in epistemic role and in their means of nurture. Those who are learning to teach need to develop a subject-specific taxonomy of, for example,  historical knowledge that directly relates to its curricular function. This is essential if teachers are going to be equipped to plan effectively.[2]

Academic professionals have spent years researching and theorising about education and how children learn most effectively  – specifically in their subject areas. The history community across all phases has invested years in professional theorising, drawing on academic research in history education, as well as teachers’ own classroom research and on the work of academic historians. To ignore the wealth of knowledge and academic/teacher research that has been carried out specifically in relation to history education is to ignore a key knowledge base that would enrich any new history teacher. It is important for any teacher starting out to know what the thinking on a particular issue in history education has been, how it has been  developing and where it’s going. It is no surprise to us that one of the regular  features in our journal Teaching History entitled What’s the Wisdom On…is our second most popular secondary download resource across over 7.5000 resources. What’s The Wisdom On…collates the research and thinking about a particular issue in history education over the last 20 or so years for example teaching of second order concepts like significance or extended writing in history. It continues to be one of our most popular resources and among our top downloads because teachers and beginning teachers need to explore what has been learned by others and how the history education community has refined and developed its thinking and practice over time. These pieces developed out of the research and thinking of strong and stable ITE partnerships that already existed with history specialists who contribute to this national conversation, a point we’ll return to later in this submission. Before beginners can master the practice of teaching and begin to make a positive contribution to its development and renewal, they need to develop a sense of the complexities of the story so far. This is just one area where the combined experience of long and well-established ITE partnerships is extremely valuable.

Subject aside, the CCF is not adequate even on its own generic terms. There is a lack of nuance in consideration of child maturation particularly in relation to EYFS and primary age phases. The section concerned with ‘How Pupils Learn’ is underdeveloped and essentially reduces the process of learning to memorisation. It comprises a rather odd selection of some elements of cognitive science learning theory with no mention of metacognition, one of the core elements of cognitive science and of our understanding of how learning takes place. Significant attempts to synthesise research findings for teachers, such as the Education Endowment Foundation’s toolkit or John Hattie’s (2009) synthesis of what works in school to improve learning (Visible Learning: A synthesis of 800+ meta-analyses on achievement) has consistently pointed to a focus on metacognition as one of the most powerful strategies that can be used to raise attainment, especially for the most disadvantaged.

What has been the impact of the Early Career Framework implemented in September 2021?

The Early Career Framework (ECF), while recognised as valuable in its intent to provide support beyond a single induction year, is not responsive enough to beginning teacher or mentor needs, and again it is mostly generic, aside from one or two small opportunities to address subject knowledge and misconceptions. Its generic nature does not support the curriculum development and subject expertise that Ofsted is trying to promote in schools. It also repeats what has already been learned in any good quality initial teacher education programme. It is for this reason that as a subject association, we decided to introduce an early career development programme of our own, aimed at history teachers who are just completing the ECF, specifically to enable them once again to re-focus upon their own particular needs – to develop their teaching of rigorous history. You can find out more in the link supplied. [3]

There are also real question marks over the feasibility of delivery of the ECF in schools and  where the time, proper funding and commitment for the additional mentor training required will come from, particularly so in smaller primary and secondary schools. It ignores the already strong subject mentor partnerships that had been built by existing subject ITE programmes and seems to consider mentoring as a generic activity. Research shows that some of the best mentoring happens in a subject environment. Good quality mentors are hard enough to recruit, train and keep as it is and consistency across partnerships is still something that Ofsted note in recent inspections.[4]
 

The increased demands of the ECF upon mentors are unrealistic for schools and will lead to a lower supply of those willing to offer placements and provide time as a mentor. Anecdotally, our ITE members are telling us that this is already happening. Headteacher members are also telling us that the interaction between the ECF and schools is challenging, not just because of funding, but also because teacher recruitment is in such a poor state in the first place, meaning less timetable flexibility:

Release time (for mentors) can be challenging - that’s more to do with recruitment being tougher though so we don't have the flexibility with timetables we may have had a few years ago. (Headteacher in Hampshire)

The introduction of 'Lead Mentors' within the new ITT criteria is additionally adding to the trend towards genericism and anecdotal evidence points towards the appointment of generic lead mentors already happening.

While maintaining high quality subject mentoring, we must look to reduce the burden of the ECF upon school-based mentors and allow room for mentoring to be highly subject specific. In 2022 the NEU State of Education survey of members found that 44% of teachers were considering quitting teaching in the next 5 years. The DfE’s own survey into teacher workload backs up this worrying statistic and government initiatives are one of the reasons cited. The potential impact of the ECF will provide yet more recruitment and retention issues. Providers of history training are anecdotally reporting a similar trend relating specifically to history trainee alumni.

The accreditation process following the Market Review has not been transparent and it is unclear how decisions to accredit providers have been reached. The process appears to have left some centres of history teaching excellence unaccredited without clear reason. Others appear to have gained accreditation only to then fall down on an Ofsted inspection of the programme. In addition, accredited providers are still able to sponsor those who lost accreditation to continue delivering a programme. Without clear rationale and transparency relating to the accreditation process, its validity is called into question. This makes life confusing for the would-be trainee trying to decide upon a course and route as well as for those trying to advise them.

The accreditation process has also left geographical holes in ITE at subject level and subject-specific ITE, which is responsive to the specific needs of local schools has been ignored. Overall, the curriculum reforms required to achieve fidelity to the CCF and ECF are reducing the time for subject specific ITE. The requirement for trainee teachers to teach 80% of a standard teaching timetable for at least 6 weeks will lead to a loss of history placements; smaller 11-16 and rural schools do not have enough timetable hours  to offer the same number of placements which will add to the geographical holes. The 80% teaching requirement for trainee teachers will also reduce time to focus on deepening and broadening knowledge of how to teach history - more is not better if the goal is to produce teachers who are thoughtful, well-informed and reflective. Recruitment and retention will not be not helped when established providers with a wide reach in local areas are being driven out by the Market Review and subsequent accreditation process.

Overall, while the current teaching standards and particularly the adoption of an ECF brings some positivity, the current framework as it stands is having a detrimental effect on both recruitment and retention of history teachers. A situation that we forecast will decline further if nothing is done to rescue the situation.

Are there ways in which teacher training could be improved to address the challenges in recruitment and retention?

Our recommendations are:

-          Reinstate the bursary for history teacher training

-          Reform the current CCF allowing room for vital subject instruction as part of ITE and allow greater acknowledgement of differences by phase of education.

-          Revise the 80% teaching requirement (see above) to a more manageable level for schools to allow for a wider number of schools to be in a position to offer placements and mentors

-          Revise the current ECF to allow greater scope for subject instruction, mentoring and reflection and re-think demands upon school-based mentors

-          Review the scale, format and timing of the ITE Market Review to avoid destabilising teacher supply at a time of acute recruitment and retention challenges.

-          Change rhetoric around the teaching profession as a valuable graduate profession.

-          Address and make positive changes, in consultation with the teaching profession to the unresolved workforce survey pressures such as workload, inspection processes, policy changes etc that are contributing to high teacher burnout.  

-          Resolve the current pay crisis in order to make teachers and teaching feel valued and appealing as a career choice

April 2023