‘After decades of compliance with prescriptions that have tended to narrow and trivialise education, there is much still to be done and a long way for the teaching profession to move,’ Bernice McCabe told delegates at the Prince’s Teaching Institute (PTI) Autumn residential course in Crewe today.
The second of this year’s PTI residential courses was aimed at secondary school teachers of mathematics and science. Course director Mrs McCabe told teachers that research undertaken by subject associations showed that effective subject-specific teaching methods improved pupils’ achievements, by getting pupils to engage with mathematical language and using appropriate models in mathematics; by changing teaching methods to get more girls to take up advanced level physics; and ensuring clarity of purpose for science practical work linked to progression in pupils’ understanding of scientific ideas.
‘But there are real challenges for science and mathematics in our schools,’ said Mrs McCabe. ‘Any head teacher will acknowledge the difficulty of recruiting well-qualified teachers; there have been continual changes to examination specifications; and much evidence that subject knowledge has taken a back seat.’
Mrs McCabe said that the PTI had long argued that subject knowledge should come before the teaching of social issues. ‘The recent increase in the number of pupils studying three separate sciences at GCSE is an encouraging sign. And there are growing numbers of those studying Further Mathematics at A level – an increase of nearly 50% in the last four years. And at undergraduate level, in 2003 there were only 3800 mathematics undergraduate places awarded to under-subscribed courses, but in 2009 the courses were over-subscribed and 6900 places were awarded.’
HRH The Prince of Wales launched the first of his residential courses for teachers in 2001. From that course has grown The Prince’s Teaching Institute in which courses have been refined in the light of experience of changes in context; four further subjects have been added to the original English and History (Geography, Mathematics, Science and Modern Foreign Languages), as have one-day courses and membership of the Schools Programme to embed the PTI’s principles of challenge and enrichment into school development plans.
Mrs McCabe also announced a collaboration with Warwick University and well advanced plans for a Master of Studies qualification, containing a strong subject component, with Cambridge University.
‘It is possible,’ she said, ‘to teach in schools in this country for 40 years without experiencing a course in the subject that drew us into teaching in the first place. There are, of course, opportunities to be trained in the latest exam specifications or in managing classroom behaviour or preparing for inspection, but these courses do not refresh or deepen knowledge of the subject we teach.’
The PTI’s core purposes are to reinvigorate teachers with the passion for their subject, and give them confidence to enrich their teaching with diverse and challenging material rather than simply meeting specified test requirements.
The PTI has now reached over 20% of all the secondary schools in the country and over 800 teachers took part in its activities in the last year school alone. 284 academic departments in 169 schools have this year committed themselves to the PTI Schools Programme, and 90% of those which have signed up say that they have already raised the level of challenge in their work as a result of their participation.