“Troops to Teachers”: implications for the coalition government’sapproach to education policy and pedagogical beliefs and practice

Alan Tipping*

School of Education, Communication and Language Sciences, University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Kingston-upon-Thames, UK

(Received 30 October 2012; final version received 21 February 2013)

On taking power the coalition government embarked on what many commenta-tors believe is a radical programme of public policy reform. Under MichaelGove, education policy has become totemic to those arguing that Britain’s class-rooms are mired in academic mediocrity and behavioural failure. One policyresponse by the government has been to propose fast-tracking ex-armed servicespersonnel into schools in England as teachers, especially in inner-city areas.This paper examines the educational and pedagogical merits of this proposaland the underlying beliefs that underpin it. Based on a critical evaluation of theliterature, it argues that rather than representing a genuinely radical and innova-tive attempt to tackle educational underachievement, the Troops to Teachers ini-tiative is deeply reactionary. One, based on discredited pedagogical philosophieswhich fail to address what the educational community believes a “good” educa-tion is, devalues teaching as a profession and ignores the socio-economic factorsthat primarily determine academic performance.

Keywords: coalition government; educational policy; Troops to Teachers;Michael Gove; socio-economic factors

1. Introduction

Britain’s troubled classrooms are holding back the education of thousands of children,so is it time to send in the troops? (Panorama 28 February 2011)

This is how the BBC recently prefaced a documentary following the coalition gov-ernment’s announcement in 2010 of their “commitment to encourage Armed ServiceLeavers to become teachers and to work in schools as mentors” (Department ofEducation 2010).

This paper explores the thinking – both explicit and implied – behind the“Troops to Teachers” (T2T) initiative as proposed for schools in England.

It sets out the views of the professional and policy-making communities, thencritically evaluates the rationale behind the initiative and concludes by reflecting onwhat this may mean for the Government’s approach to teaching practice and educa-tional policy.

*Email: alan_tipping@hotmail.com

Educational Studies, 2013Vol. 39, No. 4, 468–478, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03055698.2013.781941

� 2013 Taylor & Francis

2. Policy rationale and critical evaluation

2.1. Background

The Schools White Paper, The Importance of Teaching, published by the Depart-ment for Education in November 2010, set out the Government’s plans to:

Encourage Armed Forces leavers to become teachers, by developing a “Troops toTeachers” programme which will sponsor service leavers to train as teachers.

This proposal applies to schools in England but not the devolved administrations ofScotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

It is largely inspired by the long-running and well-regarded American policy ofthe same name – “The Troops to Teachers” (T3) programme in the USA retrainssoldiers with a minimum of 10 years experience, and a higher education collegedegree, as fully certified teachers.

Those with lower qualifications are retrained as vocational teachers and since1994 some 16,000 service personnel have qualified as teachers since T3 was set upin the USA.

2.2. Rationale and evidence base behind troops to teachers (T2T)

A number of assumptions – both explicit and implied – underpin the introductionof T2T. There appear to be four discrete, overlapping themes which are as follows:

2.2.1. Restoring traditional values

During a Panorama documentary broadcast in February 2011, Michael Gove statedthat: “The current generation of soldiers have many of the virtues that many parentsfeel have ebbed away from schools and would like to see restored” (BBC 28February 2011).

It was in itself striking that Mr. Gove felt no need to elaborate on what thosevirtues might be as his implicit meaning was all too clear. His premise is thatex-military personnel will be able to restore order and discipline to Britain’sclassrooms; the subtext being that UK schools are no longer environments fit forlearning. This interpretation is echoed by a range of commentators. Francis Gilbert,teacher and educational campaigner, has written that:

The [Troops to Teachers] programme is being presented by the government in such away that denigrates teachers like me in the profession by suggesting that we need tocall in the military to solve the discipline crisis in our schools. (Local Schools Net-work 28 February 2011)

Panorama journalists boldly stated that “the Government think that ex-servicemanlike this can bring order back to Britain’s classrooms” (BBC 28 February 2011).

American proponents of T2T highlight that “if you don’t have control of yourclassroom, you can’t teach” (BBC 28 February 2011) and The Centre for PolicyStudies, an influential think-tank who published a report recommending adopting aUS-style T2T approach, argues that “ex-soldiers could have a profound effect ondiscipline and learning” (BBC 15 February 2008).

These views imply that the current philosophy and practice in UK schools, oftencaricatured as overly liberal and progressive, is responsible for a decline in

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standards of behaviour, and by association, a decline in standards of academicachievement. As Gove has himself stated, “many British schools need a change ofculture because they face real problems with violence and bad behaviour” (BBCPanorama 28 February 2011).

Seen in this way, T2T is partially at least, as Francis Gilbert suggests “a deeplynostalgic policy” (The Guardian 24 November 2010) and conceptually, appears tosit within a wider discourse of a longing for a return to traditional values, teachingpractice and curriculum content.

As Gary McCulloch argues, political comment on education policy often“reflects a nostalgia for an idealised ‘Golden Age’, remote from the machinationsof the ‘educational establishment, but vivid in the memories of educational reform-ers’” (1997, 79).

It would appear that many cheerleaders for T2T are also sympathetic for a resto-ration of an “idealised ‘Golden Age’” of teaching based around traditional teachingmethods coupled with strong discipline. This it seems is the necessary and urgentantidote to pernicious “trendy teaching”, which its critics argue, misguidedly relieson pupils as partners in learning. It is what Francis Gilbert has described as a politi-cal call to arms for “a ‘boot camp’ mentality in our namby-pamby schools” (TheGuardian 24 November 2010).

2.2.2. Teaching effectiveness

The central claim of T2T advocates is that ex-service personnel have proven leader-ship qualities and teaching skills and that will help them teach more effectively incomparison to their civilian colleagues.

The main evidence to support this is a survey of US head teachers views on theTroops to Teachers (T3) Programme conducted six years ago (Owings et al. 2005).Their key findings (3–4) include that:

• Principals overwhelmingly reported that Troops to Teachers are more effectivein classroom instruction and classroom management/student discipline thanare traditionally prepared teachers with similar years of experience.

• Principals state that T3s have a positive impact on student achievement to agreater degree than do traditionally prepared teachers with similar experience.

In 2008, the same authors, in a study of Florida schools assessed:

academic achievement of elementary, middle, and high school students taught byTTTs. Results indicate that compared to all teachers, students served by TTTs per-formed about equally well in Reading and achieved a small but statistically significantadvantage in Mathematics. (Nunnery et al. submitted for publication)

2.2.3. Raising educational standards for disadvantaged children

Advocates for the policy loudly proclaim that T2T teachers would work in “highpoverty, typically violent schools” (Burkard 2008, 2) and argue that the similarsocial and class background of non-commissioned ex-service personnel will helpthem relate to, and mentor, pupils from deprived communities (BBC Panorama 28February 2011).

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2.2.4. Facilitating recruitment

The CPS report is unambiguous that part of the rationale of Troops to Teachers isto enhance the appeal of a military career by exposing school children to positiveimages of life in the armed services:

T3 could also relieve the chronic recruiting problems faced by our armed forces. Now,relatively few young men and women even consider a career in the forces, and manyof those who do have no idea of what military life is like. Knowing (and probablyrespecting) someone who has had a successful military career would ease some of thedifficulties faced by the armed forces in finding suitable recruits. (Burkard 2008, 9)

3. Critical evaluation

3.1. Return to outdated and discredited philosophies?

The restoration of traditional values has been challenged by a number of commenta-tors across a range of educational contexts. On a theoretical level, academics suchas McCulloch (1997), Hill (2001) and Gillard (2005) argue that an idealised“Golden Age” of education never existed in the way that many politicians, opinion-formers – and even parents – like to conceive.

For these authors, returning to a system of rigid selection, transmission styleteaching and the acquisition of facts would be pedagogically questionable and edu-cationally regressive. Effective and meaningful education in the twenty-first centuryis incompatible to such practice. There is a consensus, across a diverse spectrum ofacademic disciplines, policy-makers and even business people, that critical-thinkingskills and creativity will serve pupils and wider society better, than a narrow curric-ulum or a teaching philosophy that overly rewards learning by rote, rather thanexperiential activity and questioning. (Alexander et al. 2009, 17–19)

Many commentators have also challenged the belief that UK schools are “trou-bled places” and “out of control” and need ex-military staff “to bring order back toBritain’s classrooms” ( BBC Panorama 28 February 2011).

As Francis Gilbert, teacher and educational campaigner, using official dataretorts:

Let’s make it clear that any notion our schools are in such uproar that we need mili-tary intervention is false; Ofsted judges seven out of 10 of them to be good or out-standing, with behaviour in the vast majority of them being good. (The Guardian 24November 2010)

3.2. Teaching effectiveness or cost-effectiveness?

The second claim of efficacy has been vigorously contested as well. Critics havequestioned the independence of the survey conducted by Owings et al. (2005) asthis was commissioned for the Director of the Virginia Office of Troops to Teachersrather than for publication in a peer-reviewed educational research journal.

The methodology of the Owings survey has also been criticised. The findingswere based on self-reporting by T3 teachers and the perceptions of their colleagues.Crucially, however, they lack corroborating evidence to support the validity of theviews expressed by the teachers and their principals. Nor were these subjectiveevaluations of teacher performance and suitability correlated against objective mea-sures of academic attainment.

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It should be recognised that the authors of the 2005 report acknowledge thesefundamental concerns. As they conclude themselves:

[Our] study does not provide evidence of T3’s self-reported or actual teaching behav-iours. Neither does it provide empirical observations of school administrators watchingT3s’ actual teaching behaviours. Nor does it provide evidence of students’ learninggains as a result of working for a period of defined time with T3s as compared withother teachers of similar experience. Further study of the actual teaching practicesfrom T3 self-report or assessment of their students’ measured achievement, althoughvery complex and difficult studies to undertake, would provide important informationabout T3s’ quality as well as feedback about how to strengthen T3 preparation.(Owings et al. 2005, 57–58)

In 2008, the authors then attempted to partially address these issues in a Floridastudy comparing academic achievement of elementary, middle, and high school stu-dents taught by T3s against non-T3s.

Their findings “indicated that compared to all teachers, students served byTroops teachers performed about equally well in Reading and achieved a small butstatistically significant advantage in Mathematics” (Nunnery et al. submitted forpublication, 2). Showing that academic performance in numeracy and literacy is sta-tistically comparable does not seem to provide the empirical evidence to supporttheir belief in the superior efficacy of ex-service personnel teachers. Rather, it sug-gests that the causes of effective teaching do not originate within a single, definablegroup. Instead, it indicates that the qualities of good teaching lie elsewhere and thatmore research on what constitutes good teaching and the conditions that are respon-sible for it requires further attention.

As before, this study was not published in an academic, peer-reviewed educa-tional journal but instead submitted to magazine targeted at “leaders” in Americanschools. Selecting this magazine appears a sensible choice for the authors. Its audi-ence are principals and administrators, who naturally would be very receptive to anyclaims that help support their recruitment decisions, including Troops to Teachers.

Likewise, its independence as objective research is open to conjecture given thecover displays the Troops to Teachers logo prominently and the report’s readers aredirected to contact the Regional Director, Mountain West Troops to Teachers, formore information about the programme and the findings.

3.3. Raising standards or exerting social control?

The final argument put forward is that T2T will have positive academic benefits forsocially economically disadvantaged children. The foreword, written by former Chiefof the Defence Staff, Lord Guthrie, to Tom Burkards’ report advocating Troops toTeachers in the UK, opens with a gloomy depiction of inner-city life as an everydayordeal of “knife crime, drugs and violence” (2008, 2). It then goes on to suggest thatTroops to Teachers is “a possible answer” to this claim of pervasive social break-down and lawlessness because it “will provide youths with role models who under-stand discipline and self-restraint at the time in their lives when they need it most”.

This sentiment is echoed by Burkard who writes:

At a time of rising youth violence, a full-scale T3 programme to train ex-servicemenand service women as teachers to work in a full teaching role inside schools areneeded. (2008, 2)

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In a recent interview about Troops to Teachers, Michael Gove, Secretary of Statefor Education said that “children, particularly in the worst schools, desperately needorder and role models for self-discipline” (BBC Panorama 15 February 2011).

Strikingly, none of these commentators suggest that Troops to Teachers wouldbenefit other parts of Britain or groups of society and Burkard goes on to say that“whether we like it or not, children from more deprived neighbourhoods oftenrespond to raw physical power” (Burkard 2008, 8).

There appear to be a number of questionable beliefs and assumptions that under-pin this rather sinister and alarming statement. Firstly, children who come fromsocially economically disadvantaged backgrounds are, by definition, different interms of behaviour and values from more affluent ones. Secondly, this means thatonly the threat or prospect of coercion will regulate their behaviour. Therefore, incontrast, middle-class children by virtue of birth and circumstance are better attunedto more sophisticated behavioural measures and stimuli.

The political implication seems also clear. “Inner-cities” and “worst schools” arereally euphemisms for working-class and BME communities; groups, which appar-ently in the belief of Guthrie, Burkard and other T2T proponents are making manymetropolitan areas increasingly lawless, dangerous and ungovernable. Rather likethe earlier claims of unmanageable, out-of-control schools which the Ofsted datacontradicts, the most reliable official data on crime powerfully refutes the portrayalof urban Britain presented by Guthrie, Burkard and Gove. According to Sir HughOrde, head of the Association of Chief Police Officers, recent figures from the inde-pendent British Crime Survey show an “underlying drop in violent crime” with adownward trend “since 1995 of forty-nine percent” (Today Programme, BBC Radio4, 6 February 2010).

3.4. Basic education for basic training?

In contrast to the USA, where T2T is based on ex-service personnel with highereducation degrees, the UK context is characterised by lower educational standards.According to Burkhard, UK educational policy-makers should welcome less aca-demically qualified candidates as teachers because these are ideally suited to workin remedial education.

“An attractive option for T3 is the teaching of basic literacy and numeracyskills” given that “unlike their US colleagues, 40% of whom have at least a BA,relatively few British NCOs are university educated” and that (2008, 13).

The Burkard report makes it clear that T2T will be targeted at working-class com-munities through NCOs concentrating on elementary aspects of education as well asproviding a positive image of the military to help improve rates of recruitment.

The Army, after all, tends to attract recruits who have not done well at school. How-ever, at the Promethean Trust, we have discovered that this is exactly the kind of per-son who makes the best remedial literacy tutor. (Burkard 2008, 13)

This raises serious ethical questions about the expectations this policy holds forworking-class communities given this is the recruitment pool the programme isclearly aimed at.

Though recent research (Gorard, See, and Davies 2012, 40) challenges the viewthat, compared to their middle-class peers, working-class children suffer from rela-

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tively limited aspirations (Strand 2008, 34), it appears a key presumption under T3is that ex-military personnel will provide a “remedial” education and act as highlyvisible role models that working-class pupils can readily identify with.

This could, either explicitly or sub-consciously, risk restricting their career andeducational horizons by biasing their ambitions towards the military arena and mak-ing their choice of entering the lower-ranks of the services more likely.

4. Comparison of teaching methods and learning theories

Burkard’s report has a section entitled “Subject-oriented teaching” (2008, 8) whichdismissively refutes learning approaches that could be described as pupil-centred ordiscovery based:

Enter “soldier-centered (or centred) teaching” in Google and you will not get a match.Unsurprisingly, the Army is not keen on letting recruits “investigate” hand grenades;nor does the RAF take a “learner-centred” approach to aircraft maintenance; and nordoes the Navy’s submarine school “personalise” instruction to suit each midshipman’s“learning style”. (Burkard 2008, 10)

He goes on to extol the fact that in the USA, the T3 teaching ethos has “survivedconventional teacher training” and is impervious to notions that “learning belongsto the child” (Burkard 2008, 11).

The following extract strongly suggests Burkard’s ideal of teaching seems to liewithin the behaviourist school of learning theory:

Rather than confusing children by presenting them with vague, open-ended learningobjectives, you teach an orderly syllabus where knowledge and skills are well definedand developed in a logical progression. Rather than “differentiating” lessons for mixed-ability classes, you ensure that all pupils meet the same learning objectives. (2008, 11)

From this, we also see his faith in the efficacy of a prescriptive and structuredapproach to content, knowledge, delivery and educational outcomes; an approachwhich appears to allow limited scope for exploratory talk and collaborative learning.Consequently, it seems justifiable to speculate that T3 teachers would be unlikely toembrace social constructivist models that regard learning in “essence as a verysocial activity” which is enhanced by a “dialogic” approach between teacher andpupils anchored strongly in a social setting of talking and speaking (Grugeon et al.2005, 74 and 76).

His philosophy of education also rests on having a “thorough mastery of [a]subject” which further suggests that military-style education is less about wider,critical-thinking skills and more about a traditional approach that focuses onmechanically learning technical steps which could impair inculcating a broader,deeper understanding. As Francis Gilbert, teacher and educational campaigner put itafter discussing military tuition with an ex-army instructor turned civilian secondaryschool teacher:

“We [The Army] had to train them up to be prepared to die at our command”, he said.“You simply couldn’t allow them to think for themselves”. I feel this comment morethan any other highlights a central problem with putting demobbed soldiers in ourclassrooms: in the military, independent thought can be fatal, whereas in schools, it’sabsolutely crucial. (The Guardian 24 November 2010)

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At this point, it would perhaps be opportune to caricature T3 teaching as anundated and unwelcome return to learning by rote, irreconcilable with teachingstyles that seek to nurture critical-thinking skills, creativity and experiential learningand questioning. However, Burkard seems to have a more progressive and nuancedapproach to teaching than his earlier comments suggests. His report does recognisethe value of “break[ing] the lesson down into smaller steps” so all pupils “can meetthe learning objectives”. Also, in apparent contradiction to previous assertions aboutdifferentiation, he goes on to say that “ex-soldiers also understand the need to adaptand alter training to suit the learner and the circumstances” (Burkard 2008, 14).

This more sophisticated, flexible and balanced approach is also supported by myliterature review of military training which strongly suggests that a significantportion of their teaching is based on learning through practical activity andproblem-solving; approaches that are not only more kinaesthetic but potentiallymore socially constructivist as well.

A typical view from an ex-service man turned teacher shows this well:

My lessons were conducted indoors and out and my class gained excellent results, thestudents having learnt through doing and not just being talked at. (The Guardian 24November 2011)

5. Ideology and government policy

Given that in the USATroops to Teachers has been running since 1994, this raises thekey question; why introduce it now? The obvious answer is the arrival of a new politi-cal administration with a particular ideology. A conservative ideology that as Gillard(2005) describes, since the mid-1970s, regards education as utilitarian and functional,and teaching less as an intellectual, philosophical and holistic endeavour and more asa practical trade, involving a programme of sequential, mechanistic tasks.

The Troops to Teachers policy fits neatly into this ideological paradigm; as theprevious sections have shown, it concentrates on skills rather than critical thinkingand conceives the curriculum as subject-based, linear and discrete. In this way, therole of teaching and teachers is not to encourage or inspire pupils to cherish inde-pendent thought, rather to perform uncritically a series of actions.

Yet not everyone agrees that all ex-servicemen and women would make such goodteachers. Behaviour seen as a virtue in the forces – such as shouting orders and unerr-ing obedience – sits uneasily with classroom values based on mutual respect. “Troopsare obliged to obey orders without question”, says one teacher, who asked to remainanonymous. “I suspect anyone who is used to barking out orders is going to strugglethe first time a class doesn’t stand to attention”. (TES 11 June 2010)

Whatever the virtues of Troops into Teachers within the classroom, it appears thatin Whitehall, in educational policy terms, teachers and teaching will be assessedand regulated not as a profession but more as a craft-based trade. The previous dis-cussion on non-graduate NCOs focusing on “the teaching of basic literacy andnumeracy skills” (2008, 13) provides further evidence of a challenge to the profes-sional status of teaching and raises urgent questions about levels of professionalautonomy and remuneration.

Furthermore, as the Troops to Teachers champions stridently proclaim, a funda-mental objective of the policy is to tackle a perceived moral, educational and

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behavioural crisis in inner city, metropolitan schools and communities. This stronglysuggests that instead of tackling the established and largely unchallenged consensusthat socio-economic status is the main determinant of academic success (Strand2008, 2), (Alexander et al. 2009, 14), (Perry and Francis 2010, 5), Troops to Teach-ers looks more about an elitist moral panic and conservative fears of a frighteningunderclass, rather than a serious, enlightened and comprehensive policy to addressmaterial, cultural and educational disadvantage. Tellingly, Guthrie and Burkard bothclaim that such a move will “cost little or no money” (2008, 7) which further sup-ports the interpretation that rather than recasting society more equally to genuinelychallenging educational under-achievement, Troops to Teachers represents a low-cost neo-liberal and conservative alternative to progressive approaches to taxation,wealth redistribution and educational opportunity which characterise academicallyhigh-performing Scandinavian countries (Wilkinson and Pickett 2009).

Ominously, the Coalition Government’s policy of retrenchment in related areas,such as Sure Start, further illustrates their belief in a minimalist state and limited gov-ernment intervention to address glaring inequalities (The Guardian 18 June 2011).

6. Conclusion

6.1. How does it shape our conception of what a “good teacher” is?

Tom Burkard writes that “what counts is the type of person who becomes a tea-cher” (2008, 8).

He recognises that being an ex-serviceman or woman does not automaticallyendow you with the qualities that a good teacher needs. Likewise, as one teacherobserved when discussing the T2T proposal:

The skills that would make an ex-forces person a good teacher are the same skillsdemonstrated by good teachers without a forces background. (Local Schools Network28 February 2011)

However, focusing on ex-service personnel does highlight certain aspects thatBurkard and others, who favour T2T, believe are needed to teach effectively.

The qualities that T2T teachers are believed to possess are the converse of thedeficiencies their pupils in state schools serving disadvantaged communities arealleged to suffer from. So, instead of disrespect for authority and chaotic lives, theyoffer discipline and structure. Rather than aggression and behaviour that lackboundaries, they practice self-control and self-restraint. In place of limited confi-dence and application, they display initiative, determination and resilience. Over-arching all this is T2T teachers as “role models”, classroom leaders, who inspirechildren to become better students and future citizens.

“Pupils need boundaries and soldiers are very good at imposing that”, says [RoyRobertson, primary school teacher and former soldier]. “They know about self-discipline and can pass it on to pupils”. (TES 11 June 2010)

6.2. How does it influence our belief in what a “good education” is?

This touches at the heart of the issue with T2T. As a stand-alone policy, it islaudable because it offers another way to bring passionate, committed and talented

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people into the profession. As Francis Gilbert, teacher and educational campaigner,rightly acknowledges, “clearly ex-soldiers have a great deal to offer in the class-room” (Local Schools Network 28 February 2011).

However, in terms of wider education policy-making, it appears to come witha large amount of ideological baggage, which the education community must bealert to and ready to challenge. It does not advance the debate of “what” aneducation is for. Instead, with its focus on traditional values and skills, it privi-leges a utilitarian and narrow conception of education and hinders policy-makersor the profession “asking what in the twenty-first century, is truly ‘basic’ to youngchildren’s education beyond reading, writing and arithmetic” (Alexander et al.2009, 18).

With its emphasis on discipline and control, the T2T policy risks marginalisingother crucial aspects of learning. Namely, the ability to think critically and indepen-dently; attributes which are equally important in providing an education of sufficientdepth within a curriculum of genuine breadth which makes connexions across top-ics. Instead, there is more chance of a programme of learning that is excessivelysubject-based, linear, discrete and potentially sterile.

This follows the conclusions of The Cambridge Primary Review which advocatea curriculum that “enables children to establish who they are and to what they mayaspire to [and] encourage their independence of thought and discrimination in thechoices they make” (Alexander et al. 2009, 19).

Encompassing this are concerns that T2T:

• Reflects the present government’s belief that teaching is a practical, mechanis-tic trade, rather than a profession with intellectual and moral foundations.

• Legitimises the view that there is a pervasive underclass responsible for adiscipline and academic crisis in state schools and urban communities, incontrast to the evidence from Ofsted or other sources of independent data.

• Diverts attention away from a serious and comprehensive attempt to reducematerial and class inequalities by championing traditional values, teaching andcontent as the preferred way to raise educational standards.

The best elements of T2T will provide schools with new teachers, possessingvaluable skills and experiences. In a broader sense, however, T2T could be part ofwider trend of subverting public services like education and health to privateends:

In a society that has increasingly separated economics from ethics and allows themarket to drive politics, it is not surprising that with the destruction of the social statethe only political model left for shaping society largely comes from the merger ofcorporations, prisons and the military. (Giroux, Saltman, and Gabbard 2010, 110)

Notes on contributorAlan Tipping is a school teacher who is currently teaching in primary schools across SWLondon, Middlesex and Surrey. Alongside educational policy and practice, Alan’s principalacademic interests are public policy and parliamentary politics, having first studied politicsand government at the University of York. After graduation, he worked in a variety ofpolicy and communication roles for a transport trade union, a professional servicesconsultancy and a government health regulator. This paper is based on an essay Alan wroteas part of a Masters module for the Newcastle University’s PGCE programme.

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