Induction rites and wrongs: the educational vandalism of new teachers' professional development

The central theme of this paper is that teachers’ professional development in England is not being taken as seriously as it needs to be. With reference to the induction of newly-qualified teachers and the early professional development pilot schemes, it draws on data from several related pieces of research, to argue that cases of ‘educational vandalism’ exist. These are identified at three levels – the school, the individual and the current funding policy of the government. It is argued that the short term gain of money and time saved by non existent, inadequate or inappropriate continuing professional development has a number of significant effects; teachers work below their potential, get stale, leave the profession - all of which result in generations of children not learning as well as they might have been. ‘Educational vandalism’ needs to be eliminated; investing in people’s development costs money but the alternative is more expensive

School Based Induction Tutors: a challenging role

Since September 1999, all Newly Qualified Teachers (NQTs) in England who wish to teach in the maintained sector have to complete an induction period. In the light of the introduction of this statutory policy, this paper critically examines the key role of the school based induction tutor in managing the process. It draws upon an analysis of the government’s induction circulars (DfEE/S 1999;2000;2001) and uses empirical data from a large, national DfES-funded project which evaluated the implementation of the policy. We argue that, for the majority of schools the work of the induction tutor within the whole school context, including management by the headteacher, is the major factor in the success of the policy. Further, we argue that there remain some tensions in the policy between the professional development and the assessment agenda

The impact of NQT induction programmes on the enhancement of teacher expertise, professional development, job satisfaction or retention rates: a systematic review of research literature on induction

This report is the result of a preliminary study undertaken by the Induction Review Group between January and March 2003 which essentially involved a mapping exercise to identify the range and type of research studies addressing the research question, ‘How does current research characterise the impact of induction programmes on new teachers in relation to enhancing teaching expertise, professional development, job satisfaction and retention rates?’ Results of the initial in-depth review are reported in Chapter 4. The Review Group plans further refinements of the mapping exercise and other in-depth reviews drawing on it