Aimee Quickfall – författare

Amidst ongoing policy reforms and a persistent recruitment crisis, Initial Teacher Education (ITE) in England is undergoing a significant transformation. This timely examination maps the evolving landscape—reaccreditation processes, shifting partnerships, and the emergence of the National Institute for Teaching—while critically assessing England’s unique approach to teacher preparation.Through international comparisons with Denmark, Finland, and Australia, the authors explore whether England’s frequent policy shifts signal innovation or instability. Chapters dissect the role of ITE in shaping qualified professionals and interrogate the implications of a standardised national curriculum. With a sharp focus on systemic governance, Ofsted's influence, and strategies for addressing teacher shortages, this book provides a vital critique of the intersection between political ideology and education reform.Initial Teacher Education in England serves as both a reflective discussion for researchers and a practical guide for students and practitioners. By illuminating the processes and challenges shaping the sector, it equips readers with a deeper understanding of the forces driving teacher education today and the potential pathways toward a more sustainable future.

Amidst ongoing policy reforms and a persistent recruitment crisis, Initial Teacher Education (ITE) in England is undergoing a significant transformation. This timely examination maps the evolving landscape—reaccreditation processes, shifting partnerships, and the emergence of the National Institute for Teaching—while critically assessing England’s unique approach to teacher preparation.Through international comparisons with Denmark, Finland, and Australia, the authors explore whether England’s frequent policy shifts signal innovation or instability. Chapters dissect the role of ITE in shaping qualified professionals and interrogate the implications of a standardised national curriculum. With a sharp focus on systemic governance, Ofsted's influence, and strategies for addressing teacher shortages, this book provides a vital critique of the intersection between political ideology and education reform.Initial Teacher Education in England serves as both a reflective discussion for researchers and a practical guide for students and practitioners. By illuminating the processes and challenges shaping the sector, it equips readers with a deeper understanding of the forces driving teacher education today and the potential pathways toward a more sustainable future.

There is clear evidence that teacher work is increasingly unsustainable, leading to an impact on health and well-being, and sector-wide and international challenges such as teacher retention and recruitment. Leadership, Organisation and the Sustainability of Teacher Work focuses on the intersections between educational leadership, organisational processes, well-being and how these relate to concerns regarding teacher work, workload and the sustainability of the profession.Amidst the performative pressures on teachers, the authors explain that central to all these issues is the process of leadership and its embedded nature within organisations. Leaders play an important role in developing positive workplace environments in which teachers can thrive, but their work is part of a wider flow of activities which constitute the essential nature of organisations and hence teacher work. By advocating a view of leadership, organisation and teacher work as complex, intertwined tangles of processes, this book begins to sketch out an alternative perspective for understanding educational organisations and how the work of teachers might be made sustainable.Leadership, Organisation and the Sustainability of Teacher Work argues for the need to understand leaders and leadership as part of a wider network of processes and relationships so as to draw out the complexity of the work involved for all within educational organisations. Drawing on organisational sciences, sociology, psychology and education research, it is offered for reflection and challenge to scholars in those fields interested in a sustainable future for the teaching profession.

Recruitment and retention problems existed within the teaching sector before the COVID-19 pandemic, with an increasing number of teachers deciding to leave the profession for either early retirement, careers in other sectors, or for teaching jobs in other countries. However, the pandemic, and the period subsequent to it, have amplified the problems of a sector in crisis.Aimee Quickfall and Phil Wood offer insights into a profession overburdened by central diktat and performance management, and a system which is inefficient, overbearing and in many cases responsible for poor mental health and unsustainable pressures. Through a consideration of teachers’ experiences both during and after the pandemic they outline a policy direction concerning the work of teachers and leaders which is necessary to reorientate the education system in England to one which encourages individuals to become teachers, and which sustains them in a supportive professional environment once they are there.Transforming Teacher Work reflects on lessons learned during the COVID-19 pandemic to consider how we might renew and revitalise a failing system.

Recruitment and retention problems existed within the teaching sector before the COVID-19 pandemic, with an increasing number of teachers deciding to leave the profession for either early retirement, careers in other sectors, or for teaching jobs in other countries. However, the pandemic, and the period subsequent to it, have amplified the problems of a sector in crisis.Aimee Quickfall and Phil Wood offer insights into a profession overburdened by central diktat and performance management, and a system which is inefficient, overbearing and in many cases responsible for poor mental health and unsustainable pressures. Through a consideration of teachers’ experiences both during and after the pandemic they outline a policy direction concerning the work of teachers and leaders which is necessary to reorientate the education system in England to one which encourages individuals to become teachers, and which sustains them in a supportive professional environment once they are there.Transforming Teacher Work reflects on lessons learned during the COVID-19 pandemic to consider how we might renew and revitalise a failing system.