Teach First is inspirational. An independent charity, it has helped to place driven and talented teachers in schools in some of the country’s poorer areas – places where, in the past, lack of academic achievement has been taken for granted.
It has trained and supported top graduates to become teachers. These are people who have just graduated from university, or have decided to switch career to join this fulfilling profession. These trainees join Teach First and their university partners for six weeks of intensive training before they teach in a school for at least two years. It’s after this rewarding experience that they get a Post Graduate Certificate in Education.
Its numbers are impressive. Since 2002 it has placed more than 3,700 teachers in schools across the country. More than 400,000 young people have been taught by Teach First teachers.
So I am delighted that Teach First will now play a role in improving the quality of early education. Currently its primary provision covers children aged five and over.
But from September this year, 20 recruits will begin working with younger children as young as three years of age. More trainees will begin in September 2014.
The first trainees will begin their courses in just a few months’ time. They will spend time learning about teaching and leadership, doing coursework and on-the-job training over two years. As part of a very thorough programme, trainees will also gain a clear understanding of working with children as young as two.
This matters because we know that quality early education makes a real difference. As Andreas Schleicher of the OECD has said, high-performing education systems consistently prioritise the quality of their staff over class size and 'staff qualifications are the best predictor of the quality of early childhood education and care'.
I want to improve quality, and make sure that the early years profession gets the respect it deserves. It does not get enough, and that is mirrored in salaries.
While early years staff in England earn less than their continental counterparts, primary school teachers in England earn more. For example, in England childcare workers in formal settings, like a crèche, earn an average of £13,300 a year, while they earn £22,450 in Sweden and £22,100 in the Netherlands. On the other hand, primary school teachers in England earn an average of £33,250, a figure which compares well with France, where they earn £25,400, and Sweden, where they earn £23,250.
Our childcare reforms are underpinned by a drive to have a high-quality and highly qualified workforce. We will give high-quality providers the flexibility to pay their staff higher salaries.
This Teach First extension will be part of a sea-change in the way we view the early years profession. Extending Teach First’s primary provision will encourage brilliant people who might otherwise have pursued a different career path to work in the early years.
So this is a win-win situation. Young children will get the benefit of graduate leadership in schools, nurseries and other early years settings, while driven and talented people will have before them the prospect of an attractive and enormously fulfilling career.
And in years to come, this will be seen as the norm.