Overview

Transform your future and the lives of young people with expert-led, in-school teacher training, run by Astrea Academy Trust in partnership with England’s largest professional development provider, Ambition Institute.

• Qualify as a primary teacher in 12 months.
• Benefit from evidence-based, flexible learning online and in-person.
• Achieve qualified teacher status (QTS) with a postgraduate certificate in education (PGCE).
• Gain hands-on classroom experience and start your career with confidence.

 

       

 

Benefits

Learn with England’s largest professional development provider: We are partnered with national education charity, Ambition Institute, to deliver our programme. Ambition is England’s largest professional development provider with 1 in 9 teachers and school leaders in state-funded schools currently developing professionally with Ambition.

Improve children’s lives: Our mission with Ambition is to help young people reach their full potential, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds. By joining our programme, you can help give every child the best possible start in life.

Train in school: You will complete most of your training in your main placement school and will also gain further skills and experience in a contrasting school. This school-based approach will give you immediate opportunities to practise the theory you have learnt in a classroom and will also allow you to build relationships with your pupils, teachers, staff, and the wider school community. By the end of your training, you will have the confidence to teach in a classroom independently.

Be guided by a mentor: You will also receive one-on-one support every week from your dedicated mentor, who will be an experienced teacher that works in your school. You mentor will offer coaching and guidance enabling you to put your learning into practice in a structured, step-by-step way, before taking it live in the classroom. Your mentoring sessions will also include protected time to discuss your wellbeing.

Qualify as a teacher in 12 months: On successful completion of the programme, you will have Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) with a Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) and 60 credits towards a Master’s Degree. Each of which will help you thrive in the classroom and start earning a minimum starting salary of £30,000 once qualified.

Benefit from blended learning: We blend the high-quality academic training you would expect to get from a university with immersive, classroom learning. You will benefit from a combination of face-to-face training sessions and theoretical study on our easy-to-use online learning portal.

       

 

Eligibility

To be eligible to apply, you will need:

• An undergraduate bachelor’s degree with honours, generally 2:2 or above, or equivalent.
• A GCSE grade 4/C or above in English and maths, or equivalent.
• Primary school trainees will need a GCSE grade 4/C or above in science, or equivalent.

Training

The programme begins with a three-day conference, where you will meet your fellow trainees and start to build a foundation of expertise to underpin your teacher training year. Following the conference, you will begin your main placement in a school, where you will experience a mix of study modules, live training sessions and classroom practice. Study modules can be completed at your own pace through our online learning platform, which will provide you with a foundation of theory to build your practice on.

At every stage, you will be guided by your own personal mentor.

How you will learn

You will learn through a combination of weekly self-guided learning, face-to-face and online sessions with other trainees. These sessions are paced and structured to give you the opportunity to take a complex area of teaching and unpick it with the help of education experts.

Your practice builds straight from your weekly study activities and includes classroom teaching practice, peer support and one-to-one coaching from your mentor.

You will also have:

• Focused topic weeks where we take a complex area of teaching and study it with the help of additional experts in education.
• Additional placement days outside of your school where you will experience the breadth of the education system in England.

 

What you will learn

You will learn about what makes a good teacher and put this learning into practice inside and outside the classroom. At every step, you will be supported by your own dedicated teaching mentor.

Teacher Training is divided into five strands:

• Behaviour: How you can create calm, safe and purposeful places of learning where all children and young people can achieve.
• Instruction: How you can support all children and young people to learn in the classroom – from thinking about how you present information to helping them learn independently in lessons.
• Curriculum: How you can design lessons and curricula that help children and young people learn new and more complex ideas over time.
• Assessment: How you can better understand the impact your teaching is having and how to respond when your pupils struggle.
• Professionalism: Looking at what it is to be a teacher and how to prepare for your professional career.

Each module starts by introducing you to the ideas and theories underpinning the practice. You will then learn, step-by-step, how to apply these ideas in the classroom. Your tutors and mentor will make sure you have plenty of opportunities to see great teaching in action and understand the key learning before you put it into practice yourself.

We have designed the curriculum so that you:

• Build confidence in teaching your subject.
• Focus intensely on areas of teaching we know can be complex and difficult to master.
• Tackle areas, like pupil behaviour, right from the beginning of your training.
• Revisit all your learning over time so that you keep improving.
• If you are teaching a primary phase your weekly modules will focus on different subjects, supporting you to develop your subject-specific expertise across the full breadth of the primary curriculum.

 

 

How you will be assessed

You will be assessed through a mixture of written assignments and classroom observation.

We will make sure your assessment is energising, supportive and manageable. In your day-to-day training there will be opportunities to show us what you can do and where we can help you further. We will use a range of assessment tools to help you showcase your growing capabilities, inside and outside the classroom.

Programme length

This is a 12-month, full-time, postgraduate programme. You may also be able to do part-time training, spread across two academic years.

A5 Teacher Training Schools Leaflet – Astrea Academy Trust (1)

Apply

Email our dedicated Initial Teacher Training team – traintoteach@astreaacademytrust.org

Get in touch

Email us using the contact form below to find out more.