Blog: World Teachers’ Day (5 October 2022)

For World Teachers’ Day (Wednesday 5 October) Julian Brown, Head of Education at UON, blogs about the importance of teachers and how the University celebrates 50 years of training and supporting new teachers.

Can you remember your favourite teacher – that person who inspired you and made learning fun?

I can look back with fondness and gratitude on many teachers who made a difference to me through their patience, humour, praise, tolerance, and drive for me to improve. I am convinced I wouldn’t be the person I am now, or have the skills I have, without the support from good teachers from my early years to now. Sometimes, though, we forget the day-to-day impact teachers can have and lose sight of how important our education system is for the future of our local community, nation and world.

This November the University of Northampton celebrates fifty years of training and supporting new teachers into the profession through our Initial Teacher Training (ITT) programmes. We remain, as a University, committed to the development of teachers, support staff and other professionals in the field of education as part of our Changemaker values.

Outcomes for the University remain positive – a recent OfSTED inspection in May 2022 rated our ITT as ‘Good’ and on 29 September we met the DfE’s criteria in becoming an accredited provider of ITT from September 2024 as part of its Market Review. Training quality teachers remains fundamental to who we are and how we started.

The past five decades has seen a great deal of change in education, as has our society, but one thing remains the same – quality education requires quality teachers. Nelson Mandela reminded us that ‘education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world’. Those words are even more important now, as we try and recover from the challenges presented by Covid-19. Investing in education is an investment in our future.

In their policy brief, ‘Education during Covid-19 and Beyond’, the United Nations reminds us of the startling impact Covid-19 has had since 2020 on the education of the world’s people: 1.6 billion learners affected; closures of schools for 94% of the student population; an estimated 2 trillion hours of learning lost. We know that within England the achievement gap for students who are disadvantaged has increased as a result of Covid-19, particularly in reading and maths. Lost learning is not quickly recovered.

Teachers remain central to any recovery and development as we recover from the lost education over the past few years. On ‘World Teachers’ Day’ take a moment to think about those teachers who made a difference to you and remember what it was those teachers did that was important. In the meantime, the University of Northampton will contribute to our future by continuing to educate the teachers of tomorrow who will enable children and young people to fulfil their potential.