New geography teachers lack the confidence to teach fieldwork after having limited experience of it during the pandemic, due to missing vital training, according to thus report by the Geographical Association.
Disruption to education due to the Covid-19 pandemic has been experienced globally. Teachers who trained during the academic years 2019–20 and 2020–21 were significantly impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic.
The 2019–20 cohort of ITE students experienced the usual training for the first six months of the academic year, but the national lockdown from March 2020 resulted in the termination of most school placements and a switch to remote delivery of the ITE curriculum.
ITE students and providers highlighted how the inability to attend school in person impacted on this stage of their teacher training, i.e. at a time when many students would usually be expected to be teaching two-thirds of a timetable and gaining significant practice in lesson planning, lesson delivery, behaviour management, assessment and fieldwork.
During the summer of 2020, no external visitors were allowed in schools, which impacted the teacher-recruitment process as candidates were not permitted to physically visit schools, so interviews were held online.The 2020–21 cohort of students were accepted onto ITE courses after remote interviews and their experiences were variable.