Recently I’ve noticed a bit of discourse around the idea of Degree Level Apprenticeships as a possible new route into teaching. I’ve seen some good discussion around this and I’m currently sitting with a fairly open mind as to how it might go. I’ve seen people express concerns that there will not be a way to ensure that subject knowledge is adequately addressed. There are concerns that the government will be looking at it as a cost saving measure to drive down wages. There is plenty to worry about, to be honest. But I don’t know if it’s worth worrying too much yet. We have a recruitment and retention crisis in teaching, and we need to be exploring options that may alleviate this. Maybe Apprenticeships can help. But how would they work?
We already have a type of teacher training that is an apprenticeship. The post graduate teaching apprenticeship (similar to the old schools direct salaried route). This is a similar route as teach first I believe, in that trainees basically take their classes on their own from day one. I don’t think that this is a workable option. I think about all the year 13s I’ve taught over the years, and the throughout of them walking into a class and leading it from the get go a few weeks after their a levels is an idea that would terrify me.
I had a look at some course programmes for some current degree apprenticeships, they seemed to suggest that students would receive 20% of the time they were at work as study time, plus that they would have roughly 24 days per year in university. Applying this to a 25 hour timetable, I guess we are talking about 5 hours blocked off for university study, this could be a mixture of assignments and potentially some online content. This could be used for building subject knowledge and for pedagogical knowledge. Then the university days could cover both. Which would leave the 20 periods a week for the “working” part of it.
This is the part I’m really interested in, presumably the first year each class would have a host teacher attached to it – meaning that in order for it to be cost affective for the school the wage of the apprentice would need to be less than the money the school receives for the apprentice. The other alternative is a real throwing them in at the deepend situation of giving them classes and hoping for the best day one.
Perhaps the idea is to start them on one class in year 1, closely watched by a mentor, then in years 2 and 3 to expand the amount of students they have, and start to have times timetabled when it is just them and the class. I don’t know. Will be interesting to see.
I’d also like to find the retention rate for other jobs who have taken the degree apprenticeships route. The retention rate for teachers at the moment is around 59% (for ten years), apprenticeships have around the percentage actually make it to the end of their apprenticeship. So I’m not even sure it will help this.
If you have an opinion on this, I’d love to hear it either here in the comments or over on the socials. Also, if you have managed to find any more out than i have, please drop me a line too.
cavmaths 
Degree Level Apprenticeships for Teachers
Recently I’ve noticed a bit of discourse around the idea of Degree Level Apprenticeships as a possible new route into teaching. I’ve seen some good discussion around this and I’m currently sitting with a fairly open mind as to how it might go. I’ve seen people express concerns that there will not be a way to ensure that subject knowledge is adequately addressed. There are concerns that the government will be looking at it as a cost saving measure to drive down wages. There is plenty to worry about, to be honest. But I don’t know if it’s worth worrying too much yet. We have a recruitment and retention crisis in teaching, and we need to be exploring options that may alleviate this. Maybe Apprenticeships can help. But how would they work?
We already have a type of teacher training that is an apprenticeship. The post graduate teaching apprenticeship (similar to the old schools direct salaried route). This is a similar route as teach first I believe, in that trainees basically take their classes on their own from day one. I don’t think that this is a workable option. I think about all the year 13s I’ve taught over the years, and the throughout of them walking into a class and leading it from the get go a few weeks after their a levels is an idea that would terrify me.
I had a look at some course programmes for some current degree apprenticeships, they seemed to suggest that students would receive 20% of the time they were at work as study time, plus that they would have roughly 24 days per year in university. Applying this to a 25 hour timetable, I guess we are talking about 5 hours blocked off for university study, this could be a mixture of assignments and potentially some online content. This could be used for building subject knowledge and for pedagogical knowledge. Then the university days could cover both. Which would leave the 20 periods a week for the “working” part of it.
This is the part I’m really interested in, presumably the first year each class would have a host teacher attached to it – meaning that in order for it to be cost affective for the school the wage of the apprentice would need to be less than the money the school receives for the apprentice. The other alternative is a real throwing them in at the deepend situation of giving them classes and hoping for the best day one.
Perhaps the idea is to start them on one class in year 1, closely watched by a mentor, then in years 2 and 3 to expand the amount of students they have, and start to have times timetabled when it is just them and the class. I don’t know. Will be interesting to see.
I’d also like to find the retention rate for other jobs who have taken the degree apprenticeships route. The retention rate for teachers at the moment is around 59% (for ten years), apprenticeships have around the percentage actually make it to the end of their apprenticeship. So I’m not even sure it will help this.
If you have an opinion on this, I’d love to hear it either here in the comments or over on the socials. Also, if you have managed to find any more out than i have, please drop me a line too.
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