Developing authentic confidence about further education teaching

KATE SIDA-NICHOLLS, GROUP DIRECTOR OF TEACHER DEVELOPMENT, PROFESSIONAL LEARNING AND RESEARCH, EASTERN EDUCATION GROUP, UK Teachers in further education (FE) have to embrace the role of being dual professionals because, in addition to mastering pedagogy, they also need to keep up their industry knowledge and expertise throughout their teaching careers. Teachers in FE enter teaching with significant vocational experience, and at West Suffolk Sixth Form College, it is a requirement that teachers maintain that knowledge by engaging with a specific number of hours updating their professional knowledge every year. The advantage of this is that our FE teachers ensure that they are up to date with the latest techniques and strategies in their specific industry and can ensure that their teaching includes all of these vocational methods in their particular field. Fejes and Kopsen (2014) describe this as ‘boundary crossing’ for FE teachers, as they move between previous occupations, teache