*** Welcome to piglix ***

Advanced Skills Teacher


Advanced Skills Teacher is a role in a maintained school in England and Wales. Advanced Skills Teachers are judged through external assessment against a range of criteria to demonstrate excellent classroom teaching practice. They are employed in Advanced Skills Teacher posts in roles which include an element of work dedicated to supporting teaching colleagues in their own schools, and other schools in the area, to improve their own practice. The role was introduced in 1998 to reward excellent teachers who chose to stay working in classrooms, rather than following other routes to promotion through leadership.

The Labour party manifesto for the general election of 1997 included a statement that they would "create a new grade of teachers to recognise the best." The intention was to ensure that teachers who excelled in the classroom were given both financial incentive and career-path options to allow them to continue in that role, providing a role model of high quality teaching.

Following its election in May of that year, the new government brought forward the white paper, Excellence in Schools, which outlined proposals for the new grade of teacher. The then Secretary of State for Education and Employment, David Blunkett, released additional details about the nature and pay relating to the posts in March 2008. In July of that year, regulations were put in place to provide funding for the role, with the grade being formally introduced from September 1998.

Advanced Skills Teachers (ASTs) are given additional non-teaching time to allow them to share their teaching skills with colleagues both within their own school, and in other schools in the local area. This time normally amounts to a minimum 20% of the working week. In this time, ASTs are expected to undertake a range of tasks related to the raising of standards of teaching and learning in classrooms. These include, although are not limited to:

It is expected that a considerable amount of this work will be undertaken in schools other than the teacher's own school as part of outreach schemes. This may involve working in liaison with the Local Education Authority.

To become an Advanced Skills Teacher, a qualified teacher must first be assessed as meeting the professional standards of the role. In addition, they must be appointed to a specially-created Advanced Skills Teacher post.


...
Wikipedia

...