Graduates to help raise GCSE grades

Jul 19 2008 by Paul Loraine, The Journal

HIGH-FLYING graduates could be brought in to teach in struggling North East schools to help them reach Government GCSE targets.

The Teach First programme, which places top graduates in schools facing the greatest challenges, is currently running in London, Manchester and Birmingham.

Recently, the charity’s board agreed a 10-year strategy, which will see the number of new teachers trained through Teach First more than treble by 2018. They are also proposing to roll out the programme in other regions, including the North East.

On a visit to the region yesterday, Schools Minister Ed Balls said the impending expansion of the programme would benefit the 20 North East schools named in the National Challenge programme. A total of 638 schools across the country have been asked to produce action plans because fewer than 30% of their children achieve five or more GCSE grades A*-C, including maths and English.

The schools that do not achieve the 30% target by 2011 could be closed, merged with top-performing grammar schools or replaced with privately-backed academies.

Speaking at the opening of the Beacon Hill School in Wallsend, North Tyneside, he said: “Teach First is making a real difference. There are around 350 young people on the programme a year but I would like to see the figure get closer to 1,000.

“I would like to see Teach First go national because I think it can be of enormous benefit to schools – particularly the National Challenge schools.

“That’s the kind of school where Teach First students could really make a difference.”

Earlier this week, Teach First announced that HRH The Prince of Wales had agreed to become its Patron. The charity recruits at top universities and 5% of all Oxford graduates applied to it this year. The 380 places offered on the scheme were at least four times oversubscribed.

Praise for the programme has been forthcoming from Ofsted, though concerns have been raised about the ability of young teachers to control difficult classes after just six weeks of intensive training.