Teacher Recruitment

Teacher training, recruitment and retention

The extension of the school and increase in pupil numbers was accompanied by an increase in staff, some of whom were relatively young and newly qualified. The appointment of young teachers in 1959, such as Mr Kevin Horrocks, Mr George Duffy and Mr Peter Purdy, was followed in 1960 by the arrival of Mr Frank Topp, Mr Tom Duddy (who had just completed his teaching practice at the school), Mr Eamon Burke, Mr Eric Smith, Mr Bernard Valleley, Mr Ray Sumner, Mr John Madden, Mr Frank Evans, Mr Gerry Quinn, Mr Tony Vain and Mr Mark Lloyd, several of whom were old boys of the school. In addition, Mrs C. Krzempek joined the staff as a part-time teacher of mathematics and Mr Henderson was appointed as a laboratory technician. 

1961 saw the appointment of another batch of predominantly young staff including Mr Ken Riley, Mr Gerry Kelly, Mr Peter Tobin, Mr Peter Bone, Mr John Farrell, Mr Tony Day, Mr John Collins, Mr Arthur Pounder, Mr Gerry Cambridge and Mrs Winifred Livingstone. Mr Richard Dearman, who had recently ‘retired’, continued in a part-time capacity. 

These staff, and others, had been trained either at specialist teacher training colleges or university departments of education. Among the established teacher training colleges in 1960 was St Mary’s at Strawberry Hill, Twickenham, London. This was generally acknowledged to be the oldest Roman Catholic college in the United Kingdom, having being founded in 1850. The campus was often referred to as “Strawberry Hill” and the college was known colloquially as “Simmery’s”. Its alumni of male graduates were known as “Simmarians”, with many who went on to teach in Manchester meeting locally for an annual Mass and reunion. It wasn’t until 1966 that the college saw its first intake of full-time women students. At least sixteen of the school’s post-war teachers were trained at St Mary’s.

De La Salle Teacher Training College was opened in 1947 with 60 male students and seven staff. Most of the students had previously been in the Forces. In 1950, Brother Augustine Casey, aged 37, became the new Principal, a position he would hold for the next 28 years. Students and qualified teachers generally referred to the college as “Hopwood Hall”, a reference to its location in Middleton. At least 36 of the school’s teachers were trained there.

As for young catholic female students, Notre Dame in Liverpool, established in 1856, and Sedgley Park, Prestwich, opened in 1903, were among those colleges that provided teacher training. Other post-war teacher training colleges attended by St Gregory’s women teachers included St Katharine’s, Liverpool; City of Liverpool C.F. Mott Training College; Liverpool School of Art; Alsager; Padgate and, from the late 1960s, St Mary’s, Strawberry Hill. In addition, a growing number of female teachers had graduated from universities.

As St Gregory’s was a boys’ school, many of its staff had been trained at St Mary’s or De La Salle. Students from the latter college, who had worked at St Gregory’s on teaching practice, had the opportunity of impressing the headmaster and being offered a permanent post at the school on completion of their course. Not all teaching posts were advertised and Mr Rocca was known to offer positions to young trainee teachers with whom he had been impressed. Needless to say, such offers had to be confirmed by the governors.

Teaching vacancies were advertised in a variety of local and national publications. These included the Manchester Schools Vacancies Bulletin, which was free and available in all school staffrooms, and newspapers such as The Catholic Universe. Since the school had a good reputation it invariable attracted applicants and, where these were known to existing staff, Mr Rocca would seek opinions and advice as to their calibre and worthiness. One newly qualified teacher, on visiting the school for a job interview, asked Mr Rocca if he would be interviewed by the governors. “I am the governors and I make the appointments," Mr Rocca is said to have replied.

The time it took to train a teacher varied. In the 1920s until the early ’40s it was a two-year course. After the war there was a shortage of teachers and students were emergency-trained in one year. Throughout the 1950s it reverted to a two-year course but from the early 1960s this was increased to three years in line with the length of university courses.

On the successful completion of the course, students were normally awarded a Certificate in Education.  For Catholic teachers it was especially desirable to also obtain a Catholic Teachers’ Certificate. (Although this tended not to be a requirement for university graduates, at least in my experience.) Once settled in their careers, some successfully studied in their own time for external degrees on courses offered by the likes of London and Manchester Universities. Armed with an honours degree and a few years’ experience, an ambitious teacher improved their chances of promotion and higher earnings. Having said that, some of St Gregory’s teachers scaled the heights of their profession without a degree. 

Some staff entered the profession by a different route. They first obtained a good honours degree at a university after three years of study. Then they completed a one-year course of study at the university’s department of education, which also involved a number of weeks of teaching practice in local schools.  The award for the successful completion of this course was the PGCE (Post-Graduate Certificate in Education). Although it was not compulsory for a graduate teacher to have a PGCE at that time, the possession of such a qualification strengthened a teacher’s career prospects.

The first year of a teacher’s career was referred to as their “probationary year”, at the end of which they were usually notified by the Chief Education Officer as having “qualified” although no formal inspection or assessment seemed to have taken place. Nevertheless, it was yet another milestone in the onward journey of the young teacher.

In addition to the colleges mentioned above, Christ’s College of Education, Liverpool, was opened around 1964, becoming the first Roman Catholic teacher training college for both women and men. As with other similar institutions, it provided courses leading to the Teachers’ Certificate, Bachelor of Education (a four-year degree course) and, from about 1969, PGCE courses. Only a few teachers from this college ever taught at St Gregory’s.

These, then, were some of the institutions from which staff were recruited. In the Sixties, and even before, there was little or no provision in schools for “in-service staff training and personal professional development” as is the practice today. It was more a matter of “getting on with the job”. Advice and assistance were always available, but few schools had the formal structures of management and training.

Throughout the Sixties some teachers moved on as promotion beckoned elsewhere and they were replaced by others. There was an increase in the number of female teachers, together with the return of former pupils. The pros and cons of employing past pupils are easy to state. On one hand their return may signify the continuity of teaching methods and practices in a familiar environment by young teachers whose ability and characters are known and trusted.  On the other hand, the school lays itself open to the criticism of being somewhat insular, of not employing “new blood”, as it were; of not bringing in new ideas and practices garnered by teachers who had taught elsewhere and had seen schools run in a different way to St Gregory’s. What’s more, some old boys (including the author) went back to St Gregory’s straight from university or college with little experience of other schools except on the occasion of short teaching practices. Whether this was a good or bad thing is not part of this project. Suffice it to say that it was part of the school’s history and we leave it at that. 

Looking back, it is probably true to say that many former pupils went on to become teachers. This may have been a reflection of the influence of their former teachers at St Gregory’s who, in one way or another, inspired them to enter the profession. One of the consequences of this, of course, was the wide network of Gregorians in Manchester schools, both primary and secondary. Following the results of the Eleven Plus examinations, eleven-year-old boys in primary schools might well have been recommended by their head teachers to select St Gregory’s as their choice of high school, having had links with it themselves.

Another interesting facet was the tendency of some teachers who had resigned and moved on, returning at a later date to resume their career at the school.

Teachers’ pay

Whatever considerations motivated students to enter the teaching profession, serious financial gain was not one of them. To the student teacher of the late-Fifties, teaching as a career provided a secure job, assured remuneration and other benefits such as sickness pay and pension rights. It also provided job satisfaction and a feeling of helping others. However, the pay was relatively poor and could remain so for many years until promotion was achieved. A national system of pay scales was in operation and small increments were awarded annually over many years – “the longest apprenticeship in the work place”, it was joked.    The new recruit might be given extra increments for years spent in National Service or for having a degree. After deductions from gross pay for income tax, National Insurance and Teachers’ Superannuation, a newly qualified teacher’s take-home pay in the late Fifties could be around £30 per month – approximately a pound per day. Older and more experienced teachers sometimes received Special Responsibility allowances for being in charge of a subject department, but the young straight-from-college recruit might well have struggled financially in the early part of his career especially if he had a young family.

One teacher, who began his career in September 1964 at a Manchester Catholic secondary school, recalled that his initial salary was £640 and his take-home pay was £39 per month. 

Having said this, it has to be borne in mind that the cost of living was low and prices, rents, rates and other expenses tended to remain relatively stable for many years. 

Since running a car would have been unaffordable for many young teachers, public transport was much used. It was not uncommon for teachers to travel on the same bus as pupils and engage them in conversation; nor was it uncommon to see teachers walk with pupils from the bus stop to school.

Teachers’ unions

There were two main unions for assistant teachers at this time: the National Union of Teachers (NUT), and the National Association of Schoolmasters (NAS). Others included the Assistant Masters and Mistresses Association (AMMA), which had been formed in 1957, and the Union of Women Teachers (UWT), which was formed in 1965. As the secondary education sector expanded, the NAS built its organisation among male secondary teachers; it adopted the methods of collective bargaining and militant industrial action in pursuing a range of pay and conditions issues relating to the interests of full-time male ‘career teachers’. The NUT, on the other hand, had many members who were from the primary sector as well as secondary.

Young teachers were encouraged by colleagues to consider joining a union for the sake of safeguarding and promoting their interests; there were legal and financial benefits, advice, support and various services on offer. 

St Gregory’s expansion from around 1960 would have been accompanied by more teachers, both men and women, joining unions. Each union would have had a local (Manchester) branch with a secretary who was a practising teacher. Each school would have had an elected union representative who kept their members informed on issues and events and was an important source of advice for both young and old.  Each member was issued with a small pocket-sized handbook containing relevant union information. Meetings in school were held occasionally, perhaps once a term, usually at dinner times or after school. On the very rare occasion when all the members of a union in Manchester were urged to attend a meeting, the venue had to be large enough to accommodate them – such as Belle Vue. In later years, the Manchester Teachers’ Centre on Barlow Moor Road, Didsbury, was sometimes used.

Many, if not most, union members may have been rather passive and uninterested in militant action, being content to have joined their union primarily for legal protection cover. Eastertime saw the annual union conferences, usually held at seaside resorts, where outspoken activists kept the media supplied with headlines for weeks.

In 1976 the NAS and UWT merged to form the NAS/UWT.

Examples of Teachers' Certificates

New times

In November 1960, the time for commencing the morning session was brought forward to 9.15 in order to allow an extra 15 minutes for dinners. This was considered necessary by Mr Rocca in order “to serve the 650 dinners each day”, itself a testimony to the quality of the meals now being prepared and served.

Headship

Mr René Travers left the staff in December 1960 in order to take up an appointment as headteacher of St Anne’s Primary School in Crumpsall.  Mr Travers followed in the footsteps of his father, who had been a previous head of the school.

School Chaplain

Rev. Fr William Hunt began his duties as the chaplain in January 1961.

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