Moves to set up a Royal College of Teaching are gathering pace. Should teaching have a self-regulating professional body? Will it make a difference? Here leaders share their views.

The realms of possibility?

Royal College is an excellent idea

I think that a Royal College that operates in a similar way to the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) and the General Medical Council (GMC) would be an excellent idea. This should not just be for the role once covered by the GMC but should be where research is peer reviewed as well as a repository for all that is excellent to be established.

Ian Fenn
Headteacher, Burnage Media Arts College in Manchester

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A wonderful opportunity

This wonderful opportunity brings many benefits, and a Royal College will enable teachers to explore the deep roots of our professional identity. We can do this through setting out some principles, as well as focusing on standards. How about these to start with?

1. Teachers are trusted guardians of the young. We devote ourselves to their development so that they might live good, happy, fulfilled and useful lives. We have a special commitment to their protection.
2. We value young people for themselves in the present, not for whatever their future usefulness might be.
3. We are committed to a just and fair society by opening doors into a better future for all young people.
4. Every day we offer powerful knowledge and learning interpreted anew by teachers in every generation so that young people might change the world. Teachers are bound by the principles of public life, having ethical standards that prevent our skills being subverted for political ends.

Carolyn Roberts
Headteacher, Durham Johnston Comprehensive School

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Déjà vu?

Sounds promising, doesn’t it? Royal approval for the noble profession of teaching can only be a good thing surely? However, we have been here recently – does anyone remember the General Teaching Council (GTC)? My understanding of that body when it was launched was that it was to be a self-regulating, self-promoting professional body for the teaching profession.

Now it’s gone, I can’t say I have missed it. Surely the existing professional associations can represent teachers effectively and in fact are already doing so quite well. Even if you don’t agree with the view of a particular group, surely the diversity of opinion is a strength and not a weakness and perhaps provides some security in numbers?

Matthew Gibson
Deputy headteacher, Newport Free Grammar School in Essex

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No need for another body

I would suggest that teaching stands apart from other professions because of the strength of its unions and associations, and because of its integration with Higher Education (HE) in so many ways. The unions/associations provide substantial guidance and support in many respects, and the profession does not need another body that sits uncomfortably with these, as we discovered with the General Teaching Council (GTC), which always struggled to find a role beyond the regulation and licensing of teachers.

The massive body of expertise found in HE, and it’s very close working with schools and colleges, means that professional development is well taken care of, and the fundamental issues of pedagogy, curriculum, values and structures are all well catered for also. A Royal College will not raise our esteem in the eyes of the general public and other professions who, as Sir Peter Lampl recently wrote, view teachers as part-timers with a chip on their shoulder (to paraphrase). In the end it will cost money and achieve nothing, because a ‘Govian’ administration will retain the reins, and the profession’s existing organisations and networks will make the running. There is nothing for a Royal College to do.

Richard Coupe
Head of religion and philosophy, and an academic director, Berkhamsted School in Hertfordshire

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