Campus close-up: University of Brighton

Imagine a hulking ex-RAF fighter pilot teaching a group of 9-, 10- and 11-year-olds mathematics. It sounds like the premise for a new Disney comedy starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, but this is the reality for “Steve”, a trainee on the Troops to Teachers (TtT) programme. This Department for Education-funded initiative, introduced by former education secretary Michael Gove in 2012, is led by the University of Brighton.

Although Hollywood has yet to come knocking for the film rights, the results are worthy of celluloid, according to Carol Plater, TtT course manager and principal lecturer at Brighton’s School of Education.

“If you look [at] and talk to the people we’ve taken on in cohort one, more than two-thirds of them already have jobs. A normal cohort of teacher education trainees wouldn’t be in that position at this early stage. They’re high quality,” she said.

TtT has received some negative press since its introduction. Expected to train 180 people in its first two years, the programme’s first cohort attracted just 41 trainees. There have also been reservations about funding such a scheme while graduate teacher training is cut.

But Ms Plater insisted that TtT has been popular and attracted quality applicants: the first cohort had about 945 applications.

“The whole world and his wife wanted to be part of the programme,” she said, but many didn’t understand they needed subject-specific credits before entry.

“Advice was given to those lacking qualifications about further study and many have now successfully joined other cohorts,” she added. Cohort two had 52 trainees and “about 50 to 60” have joined cohort three, which is still recruiting.

Ms Plater said that she “hoped to have 100 in cohort four”, adding: “We have headteachers ringing up, saying: ‘I’ve had one trainee, I’d now like 10.’ The programme speaks for itself. These are highly capable people and they make some excellent teachers.”

Mike Parry, a trainee religious education teacher and former army corporal, said that the course had come along at just the right time.

“When you leave the forces there are a lot of jobs you can go into, but there are very few careers. That’s what I was looking for: something that had a long-term future, as well as being something I enjoyed,” he said.

Because he had failed to complete a degree course (he dropped out after two years), Mr Parry thought that teaching was not an option. But TtT took his previous study into account. “I don’t know where I’d be if this hadn’t existed,” he said.

The course, which is employment-based, is similar to the government’s salaried School Direct model (teacher training in schools), but also touches on the traditional PGCE route by including university study: graduates receive a degree as well as qualified teacher status.

TtT trainees do not pay fees and are employed by the schools where they train (they receive 80 per cent of the wages enjoyed by unqualified teachers, about £12,000 a year).

Former troops can study at a number of universities as part of the course, but as the programme’s lead institution, Brighton controls the funding provided by the DfE. A total of £10 million was allocated to cohorts one and two as the scheme was set up, and a further £8.65 million has been provisionally earmarked for cohorts three and four.

“There is regular monitoring and tracking, which is vital because the degree we are awarding to all of them is a University of Brighton degree, so we’ve got a high quality assurance role,” Ms Plater said.

Consequently, she has chosen Brighton’s partners carefully, based on veterans’ resettlement areas. They include the universities of Bath Spa, Canterbury Christ Church, Southampton and Reading.

“I did a grid of the Ofsted grades for universities, then I [picked] a balance of redbrick and newer universities,” she said.

“This gives a really good flavour because I wanted…a wide spread of [partners] and…subjects.”

Ms Plater said that there would be a DfE evaluation of the scheme this Christmas, concentrating on cohort one graduates, to check if it is value for money.

“At one level it’s an expensive route because a standard undergraduate would pay £9,000 a year; these trainees are getting this degree thrown in.

“It needs to be value for money, but I think it’s more than value for money with the quality of people coming in.”

john.elmes@tesglobal.com

In numbers

£10m – DfE funding allocated to get Troops to Teachers off the ground

Campus news

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University of Huddersfield
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King’s College London
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Goldsmiths, University of London
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Northumbria and Newcastle universities
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University of East Anglia
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University of Essex
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