Partnering with the IOE Teacher Education College means everyone wins

Deputy Head Nicky Pear wanted to partner with a team who could deliver the quality and depth he felt student teachers deserved – and her pupils needed. Luckily he knew exactly who to call.

Why does our school partner with IOE? Because everyone wins. Our school, our teachers and pupils and, of course, the student teachers themselves – for the four years we’ve been running the Initial Teacher Education Partnership, there have been massive positives for everyone. 

We chose to work with the IOE because we wanted to work with a training provider who could deliver the quality and depth we thought students deserved – and that our pupils needed. But as well as offering excellence, we chose the IOE because of their emphasis on developing as a reflective practitioner. It’s something we also passionately believe in – the idea that all teachers should be looking to develop consistently and keep improving throughout their careers.

It’s quite a competitive course and you can tell that these students are really engaging with the theoretical side of pedagogy, as well as the practical side when they're with us. It's great to have students on board who are training with the latest pedagogy to inject new energy and new ideas. And it's great to see their development – from their wide-eyed and bushy-tailed arrival in September to when they're working as hard, if not harder, than our teachers in the summer, developing their skills and ensuring they pass all the teaching standards to complete their PGCE. It doesn’t harm our recruitment process either! You already know a lot about the students when they apply for the job – you know they've been well trained; they know the school. It's a really helpful model.

Our own teachers’ professional development benefits as well. We are quite tactical about which teachers host a student in their class. Some have done it many times and are incredibly good at doing so – and there are others who are just in the first stage of their leadership journey, who have been perfecting their teaching for four or five years and we feel are ready to take on a student. Working with a student teacher enables them to practice giving daily feedback, doing lesson observations and other leadership skills. We find that expedites the development of our teachers at the same time as developing the student teachers, particularly if you get a student teacher who is really committed. It's mutually beneficial.

It’s also a really positive experience for our pupils. Having an additional adult in the class – someone who is keen to improve and keen to take part – is always a good thing. They can work with small groups to begin with, but then also take on the class teaching, giving our teachers a chance to get a really good overview of what's going on in the class and perhaps work with individuals or with groups. 

The support the student teachers get from their mentors at the IOE is really good. I've got an excellent working relationship with a number of the IOE mentors who we work with year after year. It’s something we really value because we know they're people with whom we can have an honest and frank discussion. They also know how our school runs and the sort of experience that they would expect their students to be having while they're with us.

It was a very deliberate decision to seek out student teachers to work with us – it adds to the culture of the school to have people who are just at the beginning of their teaching career in amongst more experienced professionals. And working with the IOE continues to be a brilliant experience for the whole school. 

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Nicky Pear is Deputy Head at Cubitt Town Junior School.

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