Our PGCE courses have consistently earned ‘outstanding’ ratings from various reviewers under different inspection systems. These evaluations often praise our strong collaboration with over 250 state schools, where our trainees spend most of their time; our ambitious curriculum built on our standing as a leading centre for education research; and our teacher-educators who bring decades of hands-on experience in both teaching and training.
We’re all for this review’s goal to raise the bar on teacher training quality, but honestly, we’re really worried that the suggested changes would force us into a setup where we couldn’t keep up the high standards we’ve worked hard for.
There are several reasons behind this, especially that the one-size-fits-all model they suggest would get in the way of delivering a flexible, tailored, and innovative curriculum that responds to what trainees and schools actually need – based on top-notch research. The facts show there’s no single “right” approach to training teachers for varied environments or for supporting kids with different needs. Plus, these proposals might damage long-standing partnerships with schools that have helped shape and improve our trainee programmes over time. Also, splitting roles between accredited providers and delivery partners causes real headaches. We’ll dive deeper into these points in our official consultation reply.
The University just can’t honestly offer future teachers a programme that lowers standards like this. Kids now more than ever need top-quality teachers. These recommendations would undermine key features of programmes like ours that already produce outstanding teachers year after year.
We know these are only suggestions at this stage. But if they do go ahead, sadly we’d probably have no choice but to rethink whether Initial Teacher Education at Cambridge is even viable anymore. So we’ve asked the Government to tweak their plans so university-based PGCE courses can keep running. Our programmes already give new teachers excellent education, training and development chances – which directly benefits countless children’s learning experiences. We really hope the Government makes room for us to keep doing just that.
Professor Graham Virgo, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Education
Professor Susan Robertson, Head of the Faculty of Education
