A Full List of the Institute S Responses and Submissions to Consultations Can Be Found At

An Institute of Physics response to proposed changes to the funding of supplementary subject knowledge training for postgraduate ITT trainees from 2008/09

A full list of the Institute’s responses and submissions to consultations can be found at

07 March 2008

IOP Response to the

PROPOSED CHANGES TO THE FUNDING OF SUPPLEMENTARY SUBJECT KNOWLEDGE TRAINING FOR POSTGRADUATE ITT TRAINEES FROM 2008/09

Introduction

The Institute of Physics is a scientific membership organisation devoted to increasing the understanding and application of physics. It has an extensive worldwide membership (currently over 34,000) and is a leading communicator of physics with all audiences from specialists through government to the general public. Its publishing company, IOP Publishing, is a world leader in scientific publishing and the electronic dissemination of physics.

The Institute is heavily engaged in professional development and provides around 4000 teacher days of professional development. This covers the full range of needs from those embarking on a career in physics teaching and non-specialist wanting to improve their subject knowledge to physics specialists who want to maintain their knowledge of contemporary physics.

We have substantial links with the ITE community, and formally represent the science Learned Societies on the board of the Association for Tutors in Science Education (ATSE). We have been involved in the Physics Enhancement Courses (PEC) from their inception in 2003, and have had ongoing very close contact with the PEC providers through the Gatsby funded support programmes. We are therefore very gladto have the chance to be able contribute to this discussion.

We would like to state at the outset that we welcome the simplification of the administrative procedures outlined in the proposals. The process of competitive bid, tender and award was clearly inefficient, particularly as the number of bids received in the past for the Enhancement courses was so limited in practice. The process was also a poor guarantor of actually course quality. We believe the current proposals therefore better meet the needs of providers.However we note the need to maintain and promote cooperation between centres, which the bid system did achieve.

The comments below are intended to identify issues around the funding model proposed.

Course Commentary

Booster Course (2 weeks to one month), up to 10 credits

The Institute very much welcomes the extra flexibility and funding for setting up intensive booster courses for up to one month duration, and believe it meets the needs of providers.

We would also recommend special consideration for language training courses for those for whom English is not their first language, as this has been a significant barrier to PEC participants obtaining jobs in practice.

We do not see there being a demand, or time in the academic year for individual centres to run booster type courses of duration longer than one month, but we have no objections in principle.However there might be enough demand on a national basis, for a rigorously devised online flexible booster course of greater duration, which could serve as a flexible pre-PGCE or pre-GTP course. It would help candidates in the Transition to Teaching programme.

The proposed arrangements would allow the extra time necessary to allow more applicants to take on a joint Mathematics and Physics PGCE course. We believe this could harness the 25% of physics graduates entering ITE who currently go on a Maths PGCE. More might now consider teaching as an option, but are currently deterred by the requirement to teach across the sciences.

Six month courses (60 credits)

We think that the six month Enhancement courses areof sufficient length and depth for subject knowledge development and should be preserved in their current form.

We believe that in the transition period every effort must be made to ensure that the brand of Enhancement courses must not be eroded. Enhancement courses are now recognised by schools and applicants and this hard-won advantage must not now be undermined by the loss of the name or brand.

The proposals, though generally fit for purpose and welcome for a broad range of courses, must be shaped so as not undermine cooperation between Enhancement centres. In particular where two institutions currently cooperate on equal terms these proposals may tempt institutions to go their separate ways, resulting in loss of economies of scale in terms of marketing and administration, and consequent greater risk to the viability of both the courses. The TDA should exercise its right to refuse funding in such cases unless both providers can show that there is sufficient demand for both courses to run.

In addition, the IOP has anecdotal evidence that for normal PGCE courses applications are delayed, or applicants drop out as applications are passed between institutions, or between institutions and GTTR.The cooperation between Enhancement centres allowed the GTTR process to be sidestepped and personal attention given to individual applicants, who might otherwise have been lost.

In addition, we believe that the referral premium of £1000 should be retained, as this is essential to course cooperation and maintaining the viability of the existing model.

We have some concerns that if the course conditions are relaxed tutors will come under pressure from their institutions to move towards greater self study by participants, resulting in a dilution of the course content, and quality assurance concerns. Currently we hear from tutors that the insistence on full time, face to face study has acted as a protection for the tutors concerned, who are anxious to preserve course quality. We recommend that the TDA carefully pilot and monitor the use of online tools. Much of the strength of the existing model is from the strong relationships that develop during the course, which would not be possible in a largely online or self-study environment.However we recognise that online study, properly administered, could meet the exceptional needs of participants who have to defer for some reason, and would otherwisebe unable to complete the course. The use of the flexible online booster provision might be useful under those circumstances.

Six to twelve month courses

The Institute very much welcomes the extra flexibility and funding for these longer courses.The possibility of combined nine month physics and chemistry, or mathematics and physics enhancement courses, and a full 12 month course covering Biology, Chemistry and Physics is highly desirable.

Other Issues

We strongly support the objectives outlined in the consultation document but are concerned that although the funding proposals go some way to ensuring these objectives are met, there are a number of other substantial barriers which do not seem to have been addressed. In particular we have concerns about the marketing of these courses and the institutional capacity to deliver them.

Marketing

The Enhancement courses uncovered a new group of applicants, since the tutors engaged in much more extensive local marketing than ITE tutors would normally have undertaken.In the past these applicants would not normally have applied for a physics ITE course, or possibly even any ITE course.

Whilst we very much admire the national advertising campaigns run by the TDA, the above success owed as much to local marketing through websites, radio and newspapers.

We believe that there is a central role for the TDA in helping providers to market subject booster courses effectively, this would include

carrying out an audit of existing provider recruitment marketing tools
providing dedicated expert time to assist ITE staff to market their courses
helping providers to ensure that administrative staff are able to deal effectively with applications that might now be eligible within the recruitment intake
promoting cooperation between centres, in terms of setting up mechanisms for fast referrals of applications.

Institutional Barriers

There are a number of “glass ceilings” that together all but eliminate wider tutor involvement in referral or increasing their own normal PGCE or GTP recruitment.

increased personal workload following increased recuitment
threat to RAE obligations, especially among Russell group tutors
lack of school placements for extra recruits
lack of financial reward to the actual department as universities often withhold funds centrally
lack of administrative staff to set up or market their own or others’ Enhancement Courses, or normal PGCE courses.

The proposals, based on a proportional sum per head do not provide a useful source of income for overcoming these barriers. This means that centres and tutors have no incentive to take the risk of setting up a new course, or increasing their marketing of any ITE existing course, unless there are pressing institutional reasons. This in turn means no increase in income, and hence no extra staffing.

We believe that providing the marketing expertise outlined above would help to reduce some of these barriers. In addition, we would suggest that the TDA should consider a start-up grant for new Enhancement Courses to support marketing, administration and staffing to supplement an existing department.This would lift the centres over the threshold of viability, which as we have noted previously.

The Institute’s role

As we identified at the start of this response, the Institute is already engaged in work on subject development and would welcome the opportunity to work with providers in delivering booster courses. We have been very fortunate that funding from Gatsby as enabled the Institute to support PEP participants. We believe that there is a case for the TDA doing more to encourage input from learned societies and professional bodies in the delivery of booster courses.

One particular role where we believe there is a role for learned societies in the assessment of subject knowledge. We believe that we need to move towards a set of national standards for the subject knowledge of specialist teacher. The current assessment arrangements are fragmented and we have some concerns that they are not sufficiently rigorous.

We would be interested in working with the TDA on a nationally available subject knowledge evaluation tool to provide information for participants, centres and future employers.

Chris Shepherd

Institute of Physics

March 2008

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