At The Prince’s Teaching Institute Headteachers' Residential in January 2012 the idea of a new College of Teaching was discussed. In the following May, the House of Commons Education Committee published a report entitled Great teachers: attracting, training and retaining the best, which made the recommendation for the establishment of a new member-driven College of Teaching, independent from government. Following this report, six Headteachers involved in the January conference asked the PTI to host an exploratory workshop to discuss the idea.
In keeping with the Minister for Schools’ argument in the report that “a new College of Teaching would need to come from within the profession”, the workshop brought together stakeholders from across the education spectrum, including Headteachers of secondary and primary schools, representatives from Unions, Higher Education, Subject Associations, the existing College of Teachers and school employers. The meeting lasted two hours, was moderated by Sir Richard Lambert, Chancellor of Warwick University, and was held at the Lansdowne Club in London on Wednesday 5th September 2012. The roundtable discussions and plenary were minuted independently by the PTI and this report outlines the main themes and attendees’ conclusions.
The workshop group was unanimous in asking the PTI to act as "honest broker" in taking forward the work to explore further the idea of a new member-driven College of Teaching.