Our Ethos and Aims
We offer a range of teacher education courses across the partnership, all of which lead to a PGCE qualification, with masters level credits and Qualified Teacher Status.
All mentors and coordinators in partnership schools undertake training with the University, with students and trainees receiving a high level of support from both University and school colleagues.
The course structure, design, content and aims and ethos have been agreed in consultation with representatives from our partnership schools according to our governance structure. The focus across the partnership is collaborative, collegial and developmental support for beginning teachers.
Ethos
Our ITE courses educate teachers from diverse backgrounds, who are committed to critical engagement with the goals of education, and who are able to make informed and thoughtful judgements about what is educationally worthwhile.
These judgements are informed by their evolving philosophy of education, which is shaped and re-shaped by research, debate and their own intellectual curiosity.
The development of such a philosophy is underpinned by a scholarly understanding of the relationship between educational theory and practice, and informed by a continual process of professional inquiry and personal reflection.
We believe that such teachers are committed to working in a variety of schools within diverse communities and that they serve as role models for the young people they teach. We also believe that their practice is underpinned by a sense of responsibility towards the social, emotional and intellectual wellbeing of children.
This in itself will manifest in their passion for teaching and their subject and in their desire to support their students in developing the qualities, skills and dispositions necessary in a fast-changing world.
Aims
We're committed to helping students develop:
- professional confidence and identity as an active member of the teaching community
- positive relationships with young people which value them for who they are and what they bring to education
- the knowledge, skills, understanding and values necessary to become an effective teacher
- strategies to promote social justice through teaching and by engaging more broadly with the life of a school and its wider community
- their own theories of learning and models of good practice through critical engagement with theories of education, education policy and education practice
- an understanding of the importance of maintaining an ongoing association with developments in their subject and the whole school curriculum in order to contribute to imaginative curriculum making and challenging classroom teaching
- the ability to critically reflect on their own practice and that of others and become part of a collaborative community of inquiry
- the attitudes and aptitudes necessary to take responsibility for their own continuing professional development