The New Opportunities Fund is distributing £183 million of lottery money to fund training for teachers and librarians in England’s state maintained schools. Fifty approved providers deliver the training in England, with the TTA responsible for quality assurance.

Training has been provided or arranged so far for around three-quarters of the 415,000 eligible teachers and school librarians in England. Schools have until March 2002 to sign up to take advantage of the initiative.

Ralph Tabberer, Chief Executive of the TTA, said the TTA’s work on quality assurance was helping make a difference to ICT training for schools.

He said:

'The National Lottery money offers a great opportunity for schools to ensure teachers and school librarians are trained to make appropriate use of ICT to enhance their teaching, and raise the standard of pupils’ achievements.

'Teachers and school librarians who have completed their training are more confident and more competent in using ICT and are beginning to put their new expertise into practice. For example, they can help students to use a datafile of information to search and analyse historical data and test their hypotheses, use digital video to review and improve their performance in dance, gymnastics and other physical activities, and access information on-line in other languages.

'This report shows the importance of schools properly considering the various methods of training available and choosing the one which best suits them.

'The findings emphasise that training is most effective in partnership – where teachers and school librarians have clear expectations of the purpose of the training, where they are involved in choosing the training provider, and where training providers are continually looking to improve the quality of their provision by acting on feedback.

'The TTA will continue to assess the quality of training to ensure it offers good value for money, and to work with OFSTED on evaluating its impact in schools.

'I encourage remaining schools to sign up with an approved provider by 31 March 2002 and invest the time necessary to help their teachers and librarians take full advantage of the opportunities offered through this lottery programme.'

Key findings from the report 'The New Opportunities Fund ICT training for teachers and school librarians: a report on the quality assurance findings in England – March 2001' include:

- Teachers’ use of ICT resources has increased as a result of the training. They are using technology to enhance subject teaching, aid communication and share good practice.

- Teachers’ understanding of when, when not, and how to use ICT to achieve subject teaching objectives has been raised, although the impact of the training is limited at this early stage of the programme.

- The support of the school’s senior management team for the training is very important. ICT training needs to be an integral part of the school’s overall development strategy for the NOF training to have an impact.

- Training providers have not generally placed sufficient focus in their materials on the subject/context or adequately reflected the Expected Outcomes, although all have improved as a result of quality assurance.

- Training is most effective where it is matched to identified training needs against the Expected Outcomes and where those individual needs are revisited on a regular basis to ensure progress.

- Effective training providers choose trainers carefully, offer them high quality training and support, and place a high priority on their continuing professional development. They also provide trainers with the means to share good practice with other trainers and access to equipment.

- The most effective training providers are those that are constantly looking to improve their training provision using the feedback from strong quality assurance systems.

Notes to Editors:

1. 'The New Opportunities Fund ICT training for teachers and school librarians: a report on the quality assurance findings in England – March 2001', is a report from the Teacher Training Agency to the New Opportunities Fund commenting on the findings from the quality assurance of the Fund’s ICT training programme to date. The programme is UK-wide, but this report covers the findings from the quality assurance in England only. It complements the findings of a report from the Office for Standards in Education on the impact in schools of Government ICT initiatives also published today.
2. The report can be ordered by calling the TTA Publications Line on 0845 606 0323, asking for publication number TPU0580/3-01.
3. For more information on the training programme, visit www.canteach.gov.uk/info/ict/nof/ or NOF. Advice for schools that have not yet chosen a training provider has been produced using the quality assurance findings and will shortly be available on the NOF website.
4. The TTA was established under the Education Act 1994. Its purpose is to raise standards in schools by attracting able and committed people into teaching and by improving the quality of teacher training.
   
5. The Teacher Training Agency is responsible for a wide range of initiatives to promote recruitment to the teaching profession; for funding initial teacher training, which is linked to the quality of the training provision; for further development of the standards for award of Qualified Teacher Status (QTS), including currently the new QTS Skills Tests for numeracy, literacy and ICT; and working with the New Opportunities Fund for the provision of training in the use of ICT in subject teaching.