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NQTs
How good is your
induction panel for
NQTs?
Peter Beaven reminds schools that
Ofsted inspections will look at the
quality of support offered to NQTs
In his speech at the North of England Education Conference,
Sir Michael Wilshaw made it clear that Ofsted would be
looking at the quality of support for NQTs. He said:
“We will be much tougher on ... schools that don’t adequately
support those new to the profession. So from September, in every
section 5 school inspection, inspectors will meet with NQTs to ask
them if they are being well supported, particularly in dealing with
pupil behaviour. Where we see NQTs struggling in the classroom,
we will ask about the support in the school.”
He has repeated this in his article in this issue of Academy
magazine, saying that Ofsted Inspectors will look at the quality of
support given to new entrants to teaching in the first years.
So now, more than ever, schools and academies need to be
sure that they have a clear, systematic programme of support
for their NQTs. Some schools and academies already have this.
They have programmes they have designed themselves which are
perfectly adequate. However, many do not. Even if they do, they
may have staff who are not trained in their role, systems that are
not well supported with relevant guidance, and staff who are ill
equipped to make tough demands of NQTs to ensure they are
performing at a suitably high level.
And then, what of the Appropriate Body – which is usually the
Local Authority? Do they check the quality of what their schools
are doing? Do they provide support and training? Do schools get
feedback on their assessments? And most crucially of all, are they
willing to support schools who want to fail an NQT?
If NQTs are not up to the standard academies require, despite
being well supported, academies must be confident that their
judgement will be upheld by their Appropriate Body. This hasn’t
been the case in the past with Local Authorities being reluctant to
fail NQTs – out of more than 30,000 NQTs only 11 failed in the
last year we have records for.
Clearly a structured induction programme, supported by
a well-organised Appropriate Body, with first-rate quality
assurance processes, and a commitment to schools making
their own judgements about the quality of teaching in their own
school, is necessary. NIPT was established by IAA and FASNA to
do just that.
Since it started in September 2013 NIPT has recruited over
250 NQTs and has almost 100 member schools. NIPT provides
them with a clear, robust and well-structured programme to
follow. This includes an on-line document library providing all
the documents needed to support the programme, as well as online
assessments linking directly with the National database.
Very often schools and academies will send off their NQT
assessments and hear nothing in return. Have they been received?
Are they good enough? There are no answers to this. On the
other hand, NIPT gives feedback on all assessments as part of an
ongoing commitment to improving and developing the quality
of NQT Induction in all schools.
To ensure Induction Coordinators are sufficiently well trained
NIPT holds annual training courses at different locations across
the country. These are free courses and in September were
attended by about 40% of member schools. They were rated as
Excellent (84%) and Good (16%) by attendees. For those schools
who do not want to send staff out for training NIPT has on-line
training videos, which can be accessed at any time by school staff.
It is this aspect which has attracted international schools, such as
the Gulf English School in Qatar, to subscribe too NIPT.
Besides reading and responding to all assessments NIPT has
a team of Quality Assurance Officers who visit schools to ensure
processes are in place and to check everything has been done
properly if an NQT is failing. Every school and academy in the
scheme will be visited at least once every three years.
The National Induction Panel is determined to be responsive
and able to meet the different needs of schools. NIPT can cater
for schools with different and unusual term dates. NIPT can
advise on, and cater for, shortened Induction (or lengthened
52 | Summer 2014