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Lewisham College - Supporting Individual Workplace Skills Development through Initial Teacher Training (ITT) - A Case Study

 

 

Introduction and background

Lewisham College has established a reputation for developing and sustaining excellence in teaching and learning. Its successful Transforming Teaching initiative contributed to a significant rise in the quality of teaching in the college over a two-year period. The scheme involved the initial teacher training (ITT) team, a network of senior practitioners, heads of department and course teams in a series of action research projects including mentoring, coaching, peer observation and ‘teaching labs’.

This individual learning plan (ILP) pilot was designed to build on existing experience and extend capacity to shape the working relationships between ITT tutors, departmental heads and trainees.

 

Key idea
"Our ambition was to begin to act as the hub of a local network of providers who employ trainee teachers, to design, test and refine an ILP process that would provide solutions to ‘capacity problems’ facing smaller providers and to offer opportunities for continuing professional development (CPD) to all trainees through Lewisham College’s own CPD programme."

 

Further, the intention was to extend capacity to vocational teachers (VTs) within the college and to trainees from external organisations. A number of principal assumptions were made, drawing on the reform proposals set out in Equipping our Teachers for the Future:

 

• ITT is increasingly focused on work-related learning, which means that trainees will require a greater concentration on their subject pedagogy in their workplace

 

• Employers, supported by Human Resources (HR), must be engaged in the CPD of their employees through the development and delivery of an ‘entitlement‘ that extends from workplace induction through to structured and appropriate on-the-job training

 

• ITT should form part of a broad CPD provision with flexibility and responsiveness to individual training needs and requirements

 

• New structures and mechanisms for the delivery of ITT would include a three-way engagement between trainees, tutors and managers (and mentors) to ensure appropriate work-related learning

 

• The ILP would become the central plank for individual development and communication in the tri-angular engagement ultimately leading to a Professional Development Portfolio (PDP)

 

• The college’s Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) would become a central means of communication between trainees, tutors and line managers and/or mentors.

 

The project was delivered through the Lewisham College/Canterbury Christ Church University Certificate in Education (Post-Compulsory) programme by a team of four: Kit Jillings (manager), Graham de Smidt (leader of the pilot), and Jim Jenkins and Andy Cobb (project team).