Initial Teacher Training
About the course
Ironstone Academy Trust is working in partnership with Teach First to provide School-Centred Initial Teacher Training (SCITT) where you will gain Qualified Teacher Status and a PGCE. ‘Ironstone SCITT’ is a new and exciting part of our Ironstone Academy Trust career pathway. We aim to attract and train the strongest new teachers, offering an excellent training partnership with our North East Trust schools and Teach First. All of these schools are rated as at least good by Ofsted, and have their own specialisms and areas of expertise. Ironstone schools have a history of training top-quality teachers through our partnerships with North East Schools Teaching Alliance and Redcar and Cleveland SCITT. Many of the teachers who train at Ironstone go on to teach within the Trust; in one of our schools almost all of the teachers trained there!
Our courses are led and delivered by expert teachers and leaders from across our Trust, including education sector leaders, to ensure that our graduates are confident to embark on the best career that there is! Our programme has 2 course options, an age 3-7 option for those particularly interested in working with the youngest pupils, and an age 5-11 for the full primary range. Applicants wishing to specialise in the Early Years should choose the 3-7 course.
Our one-year, research-led training will give you plenty of hands-on experience and allows you to train to teach in a school near you. Our curriculum focuses on supporting you to put learning into practice to have an impact on pupils during a four day a week core school placement from mid-September to July. You will have one day a week to engage in training and development to support your teaching practice, as well as six weeks gaining broader school experience in other educational settings. The programme balances developing your subject knowledge and expertise alongside giving you a deep understanding of effective teaching methods and techniques to manage your workload and wellbeing.
At the start of the programme in September, you’ll have two weeks of intensive training which will focus on the core areas of teaching such as behaviour management and lesson planning. You will have a further two separate weeks of intensive training later in the year.
In your school, you will spend your time with other expert teachers, observing their lessons and learning how to teach and plan lessons and throughout the year practise your own teaching. You will work closely with a highly skilled and knowledgeable mentor, who will also receive support and training from Ironstone SCITT.
Your weekly training day is designed in collaboration with Teach First’s expert curriculum designers and sequenced to make sure you are focused on the areas of teaching that are most relevant to that point in the year. The training will include a mixture of online and face-to-face elements and will ensure that you develop the knowledge and skills you need to become a great teacher, gain your Qualified Teacher Status and your PGCE.
The programme also includes six weeks in another school, starting in January. This placement will be designed in partnership with the graduate to gain experience in another school and setting. This will be an alternative key stage.
At the end of the programme, you will have the foundational knowledge and skills to become an effective early career teacher alongside achieving a PGCE and Qualified Teacher Status.
Within our Trust, we have 6 schools across Redcar and Cleveland which are allocated as our SCITT placement schools for 2024/25. These are:
• Ormesby Primary School (Ormesby, Middlesbrough)
• Overfields Primary School (Ormesby, Middlesbrough)
• Normanby Primary School (Normanby, Middlesbrough)
• Nunthorpe Primary Academy (Nunthorpe, Middlesbrough)
• Riverdale Primary School (Redcar)
• Zetland Primary School (Redcar)
Graduates will be placed in a ‘home school’ and class for the majority of the year. This secures a strong bond with the class teacher, pupils and in-school mentor. Placements are also supported by Trust ‘Lead Mentors’, and the Course Lead, who is also a headteacher within one of our schools. Our SCITT Training Centre is located in Normanby, at our Head Office, based within Normanby Primary School.
Contact details
To find out more…
Telephone: 01642 315508
Email: IATSCITT@ironstoneacademy.org.uk
Click the link below for more information about Teach First and the national SCITT programme:
Click the link below to view our SCITT brochure:
