Schools must ‘fiercely protect’ teacher training despite cuts

Schools facing squeezed budgets should “fiercely protect” teacher training from cuts, the head of a new training organisation has said. Melanie Renowden, interim chief executive of the Ambition Institute, said that one of the new organisation's tasks will be to “continually demonstrate” to schools the long-term benefits of investing in CPD, despite budget pressures. The self-styled "graduate school" was officially launched last week, following the merger of Ambition School Leadership and the Institute of Teaching – to give them a “greater impact”. It says its programmes will offer support to "educators" at all stages of their careers, from new teachers through to the chief executives and trustees of multi-academy trusts.In January, the Teacher Development Trust released research showing that teacher training budgets have fallen for the first time in six years as schools looked to make savings.Ms Renowden told Tes it was an issue she comes up against “all the time”.She said: “We know that when schools are having to make really difficult decisions about funding, and particularly when that affects staffing as well, they will look for the places that they feel are cuttable, and one of the things that feels more easily cuttable would be teacher development, so CPD budgets can often be a casualty of really pressurised school finances.