Our teacher training course focuses strongly on subject specificity, with distinctive weekly subject pathway sessions and an extra four weeks set aside for intensive training and practice. These additional sessions cover behaviour management, Special Educational Needs and Disabilities, planning for progress and adaptive teaching in a range of taught sessions, school experience, implementation and practice, followed by an assessment.
Last week was one of our ITAP weeks and was a whole week focused on the ‘subject’. Trainees worked with our brilliant GITEP subject leads and expert colleagues from our partnership schools to develop their understanding of planning for student progress over time in their specific subject.
At our last inspection, Ofsted stated: “The curriculum provides trainees with a well-sequenced, impressive bank of knowledge about the teaching of their subjects. Trainees are guided expertly by their mentors, professional leads and subject leads. Trainees are overwhelmingly positive about the guidance they receive.” The only thing they missed in that statement is that the training is also great fun!