Ms Mary Grennan:

That is what a lot of people would say. I am a teacher trainer myself and I find it incredible how much people learn in that short time. I have a friend who recently completed a qualification from Cambridge and she then went on to do a two-year masters in teaching Spanish. She said she used, as she called it, the toolbox of teaching techniques and tools on classroom management, how to manage students and how to help students learn more than she used the input from her masters degree. I found it incredible but that is what she said. She actually used the practical skills that she had developed on this course more than her two-year masters. Increasingly, that typical 120-hour qualification is used as the practical teaching component of masters degrees. For example, at King's College London, that is used as the practical teaching component for its masters degree in TESOL. It is highly regarded in that sense.

Obviously, a newly qualified teacher will need a lot of support, depending on the levels, depending on the types of students they are teaching and depending on the context. It is really the job of the international education mark, IEM, to ensure that newly qualified teachers are supported and given the CPD and the training they need to meet the learner needs.