Minister meets top teaching graduates at University of Manchester

School Standards Minister Nick Gibb yesterday (Thursday, 14 December) visited the University of Manchester to celebrate the graduation ceremony of new teacher trainees.

Over 100 graduates were honoured at the ceremony before the Schools Minister met with trainees, including Harriett Gaynor and Jonathan Shortman to hear first-hand about their teaching experiences. Following their discussion, the minister also had a tour of the university’s facilities.

The graduates are among around 32,000 teaching trainees who will graduate this year from universities across the country. Many of them will have benefitted from the government’s generous bursary scheme and other financial incentives to attract top-class graduates into the teaching profession.

School Standards Minister Nick Gibb said:

It was a pleasure to meet so many talented graduates, whose enthusiasm reinforced my belief that great teachers can help ensure every young person reaches their potential.

It was recently confirmed that the number of teaching graduates holding a first-class degree is now at record levels. The quality of teachers entering our classrooms was evident at the graduation ceremony today.

“We want to build on this further and have introduced a number of measures to continue to attract the best and the brightest into the profession, including generous bursaries and the new student loan forgiveness pilot to ensure teachers are recruited in the subjects where they are most needed.”

Harriett Gaynor said:

I studied for a PGCE in Physics because I have a passion for science and I want to get that across to younger generations. The course leaders have been excellent, providing the support I needed throughout my time at Manchester. I chose the University of Manchester as it is one of the only places to offer to Physics SKE course which helped me to achieve my ambition of becoming a teacher.

Jonathan Shortman said:

I’ve graduated with a PGCE in Business Economics. I came into teaching to motivate young people to be inspired to get into business and economics. I’ve been supported by subject mentors in schools and staff at the university. The University of Manchester is one of the few universities to offer the specialist PGCE course I wanted to do. The vast majority of my cohort have secured employment within the PGCE year.

The Ministerial visit today follows the recent confirmation of a number of other government measures to recruit and retain more great teachers.

This includes:

• The commitment to invest £42million in a Teacher Development Premium pilot to enable teachers and leaders working in areas of greatest need to access high quality professional development, and drive school improvement;
• The introduction of the new, strengthened national professional qualifications, as well as a £10million fund to support teachers in the areas that need it most;
• Naming the projects that will receive a share of the £75 million Teaching and Leadership Innovation Fund. These projects will help provide tailored training opportunities for teachers on both managing challenging pupil behaviour and developing leadership, so they can make the most of their talent in the classroom.