Guidance

School Direct: plan your programme

Published 6 August 2014

1. Questions for your school partnership

1.1 What is your vision for School Direct?

• Are you looking to attract the best trainees and train them to be great teachers? Or are you trying to develop future leaders for your school? If it’s the latter, consider what opportunities you can offer trainees after their initial training.
• How can School Direct contribute to your continuing professional development (CPD) and school improvement strategies? For example:
  • enabling existing teachers to mentor trainees
  • involving outstanding teachers in providing subject knowledge training
• How could your School Direct programme develop over time? How could partnerships with other schools help develop this?

1.2 Do you want to join an existing partnership or set up as a lead school?

• Could you offer placements in your school to an existing School Direct partnership? This will give you an insight into how School Direct works.
• Consider joining an existing partnership to ask for School Direct places rather than setting up as lead school. Talk to us or existing lead schools about programmes already up and running in your area.

1.3 Which training provider can offer what you need?

• How much training do you want your school to provide?
• Do you want all the placements to be inside your school partnership?
• What type of training is relevant for your school and what will appeal to your trainees?
• How flexible is the provider willing to be to provide what you want?
• How will your School Direct programme differ from the provider’s usual initial teacher training (ITT) programmes?
• What aspects of CPD could the provider contribute to?
• If you are considering working with more than 1 provider, how will you handle the logistics of this?

1.4 What kind of recruits do you want?

• Do you want career changers with specific skills? If so, consider the School Direct salaried option.
• Do you have minimum academic requirements in mind? If so, discuss this with your provider or school partners to make sure their requirements don’t contradict yours.
• Are you going to offer school experience opportunities or internship programmes to:
  • help select candidates
  • help candidates decide if your training programme is the right one for them

1.5 How do you make best use of expertise available across the school partners and from your provider?

• What training sessions do you need for the programme and who will deliver them?
• What expertise can your provider offer? For example, they could provide assessment and quality assurance.
• Can you involve outstanding teachers from partner schools? For example, they could provide subject knowledge training or other areas of expertise.
• Can your provider’s staff work with trainees in school rather than off site?
• Do you have suitable mentors and coaches and have you ensured they receive the relevant training to undertake their role effectively?
• Do you have the capacity to provide the training you will be providing?

1.6 What induction arrangements do you want for your trainees?

• Do you want any of the induction/registration activities to take place before the start of the academic year? For example:
  • cohort induction and meeting host schools
  • registration for the provider
  • overview of student services from the provider
  • school experience programmes
  • meeting mentors
• How will you keep in contact with trainees you have recruited over the summer/during summer term? Have you thought about employing them as teaching assistants until training starts?
• Will you arrange for trainees to be in school from the start of term, including INSET days? Trainees have told us they find this helpful.

1.7 How do you want make use of other school placements?

• Alongside your trainee’s 2 contrasting school placements, do you want to include any extra placements? You must meet the required training days in each area for the postgraduate certificate in education (PGCE) accreditation. This is 120 days for school placement. For example, these could focus on areas such as:
  • English as an additional language (EAL)
  • special educational needs and disability (SEND)
  • assessment for learning
  • behaviour
  • early reading
  • transition to secondary school

1.8 How will the trainee transfer into employment?

• Trainees are future teachers in your school partnership. How will your training programme build over the year to enable newly qualified teachers (NQTs) to start their first teaching post the following September?

1.9 How do you ensure quality of provision?

• To meet the assessment and validation requirements of qualified teacher status (QTS) and PGCE (if applicable), what will the quality assurance process between you, your partner schools and provider look like? Your provider will be able to advise you on quality assurance arrangements for their programmes. You should also consider how you would like to use the expertise in your school partnership to contribute to these.

1.10 How should funding be split between schools and the provider?

• What is the relative contributions to the programme from all those involved? As part of your negotiations with your provider, you should assess how funding will be distributed to reflect this. To enhance the experience of trainees on other routes, extra support can be provided by schools. This provides a consistent approach across different routes. It should be reflected in a separate partnership/funding agreement.

2. Questions for your school partnership to ask teacher training providers

2.1 The provider

• How long has the provision existed and in what form? For example, it is school-centred initial teacher training (SCITT) or university based?
• What is the provider’s vision for School Direct?

2.2 Location and existing partnerships

• Where is the provision based? (You should be aware that the administrative base may not be close to the provider’s training bases.)
• Where would your trainee have to go for centre-based training?
• Who are the other school partners?
• Where are the other school partners located?

2.3 Courses available

• What subjects, phases, specialisms and qualifications does the provider offer?

2.4 Finance

• Does the provider have a menu of School Direct options for schools?
• Is the provider prepared to negotiate the course fees (based on the level of training offered by you)?
• How much might this cost the school?

2.5 Trainee support

• What is the provider offering trainees for academic and pastoral support?
• What level of experience does the provider’s staff have?

2.6 School support and involvement

• How will the provider support the school if a trainee experiences difficulties?
• How will the provider support the school/trainee if there are changes in the circumstances of the school?
• How involved can you be in:
  • recruitment and selection
  • course design
  • course delivery
• How is the final assessment responsibility shared?
• What happens if the school does not believe a trainee should pass?
• How much administrative support will be provided?
• What will be the school’s involvement in record keeping and assessment of trainees?
• How much control will the school have over advertising that may involve the school name?
• Are there any opportunities for school improvement through engagement with this provider?
• Will the provider offer staff training?