Initial teacher education
This page provides a summary of the key messages from our work in the sector during the academic year 2021-22. Click on the arrows for details of what’s going well and what needs to improve, along with links to resources for providers.
What’s going well
- Most students are positive about entering the teaching profession. They particularly enjoy their school experiences and develop good working relationships with pupils and school staff.
- Partnership staff feel that students have developed resilience and adaptability by having to work within the pandemic restrictions.
- Partnerships have beneficial strategies to support students’ well-being. Regular ‘check-ins’ with university tutors and peers help students to discuss any issues and to focus on their progress.
- As pandemic restrictions eased, students valued the opportunity to meet tutors and their peers face-to-face. This helped them to develop positive professional relationships.
- Overall, partnerships use their tracking systems helpfully to support students who fall behind in their progress.
What needs to improve
- In some instances, students struggle to manage their workload, especially when balancing the demands of assignments and preparing for teaching.
- Some students regard their academic assignments as a necessity to pass the programme, rather than a way to enhance their skills, knowledge and understanding of teaching.
- There is a significant variability in students’ lesson planning.
What’s going well
- All partnerships have designed ITE programmes with a clear rationale based on curriculum reform in Wales. As a result, students are developing their knowledge and understanding of the key features of the Curriculum for Wales well.
- There are valuable opportunities for primary and secondary students to work across phases to explore cross-curricular work and to develop different teaching and learning approaches.
- In the best examples, programme content is aligned well to make effective links between theory and practice. This is most effective where there is clear communication about programme content across the partnership.
- All partnerships are developing helpful electronic systems to track students’ progress and to help students take ownership of their own development.
What needs to improve
- In a few partnerships, students, particularly those on secondary programmes, do not have a good enough understanding of how to plan effectively to develop pupils’ literacy and numeracy skills across the curriculum.
- Partly due to the pandemic, students’ exposure to effective curriculum design and delivery is too variable.
- Mentors are committed to supporting their students and help them to develop teaching strategies. However, too many do not engage students routinely in linking theory to practice or help them to think creatively about their teaching.
- Work to ensure that tutors and mentors evaluate students’ progress in school accurately and consistently is at an early stage of development. View resource.
What’s going well
- All partnerships have clear leadership structures that represent the community of the partnership well. Partners are committed to collaboration and demonstrate a genuine desire to support the reform of ITE in Wales.
- Most partnerships have developed beneficial leadership sub-groups to drive the development of important areas of the partnership’s work.
- All partnerships plan regular opportunities to reflect on the quality of the programme and student outcomes based on data and first-hand evidence, including the views of students.
- All partnerships have a clear strategy to develop research and inquiry across the partnership. In the most effective instances, tutors and mentors draw on their own research to support students’ learning.
What needs to improve
- Overall, self-evaluation and planning for improvement processes are not sharp enough, particularly at identifying what needs to improve in teaching and learning experiences. View resource.
- Although all partnerships collect a wealth of information on the views of students, they do not triangulate this well enough with other sources of evidence.
- The restrictions of the pandemic have meant that partnerships have not undertaken quality assurance procedures and individual mentor development as planned. As a result, students have had significantly variable experiences.