| Summary: | Does Route Matter? A Comparison of the Career Choice, Route, Training and Early Teaching Experiences of Newly Qualified Primary Teachers. The research, carried out in England, compared the perceptions of 50 newly qualified primary teachers who trained via two different routes: 30 via the Post Graduate Certificate in Education and 20 via the Graduate Teacher Programme. It examines the influences on their choice of teaching as a career and their selection of route to qualified teacher status. Further, it investigates perceptions of their experiences of training, induction, early employment and deployment in primary schools. The context for this research is one of sustained and substantial policy change in initial teacher education. These changes have seen the development of new models of teacher training, and their increasing location in schools. In turn, they have required the development of initial teacher training partnerships, which have had an impact on the roles and relationships of those in higher education institutions as well as in schools. Data was collected through a postal survey with two cohorts of teacher trainees at the end of their training and in-depth interviews with 50 newly qualified, primary teachers from two Local Authorities in the West Midlands towards the end of their induction year. Email was used to conduct the interviews as this afforded flexibility and facilitated the development of democratic exchanges between respondents and the researcher. The experience of conducting interviews by email suggests that, despite some limitations, it has much to offer as a valid educational research tool. In addressing the central question, 'Does route matter?' insights were gained regarding perceptions of the quality of training on the two routes, the relationship between models of training and the early professional development and deployment of new entrants into teaching. The findings are intended to contribute to the debate on the value and relevance of employment based routes and school-based models of teacher training. They have practical implications for enhancing teacher training, recruitment and retention and of informing the choice of route of those intending to train to be primary teachers.
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