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Scrap teacher training days, leading academic urges

Teacher training days are a waste of time and should be replaced with Weight Watchers-style meetings that would do far more to improve teaching in schools, according to a leading academic.

Professor Dylan Wiliam, deputy director of the Institute of Education, told the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference in Bournemouth that 'Inset' days - where pupils have extra days at home while teachers undergo additional training - were failing to raise standards. Instead of the five days training a year teachers usually receive, Professor Wiliam advocates just four hours a month to meet with colleagues and assess progress on using new techniques in the classroom.

He recommended that teachers in each school should form Weight Watchers-style clubs where they set goals for each other in changing their practice to improve pupils' learning, then report back on the progress made. The move could also save the taxpayer millions of pounds.

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