Training School

St Thomas More became a DFES designated Training School in September 2000 and has been re-accredited. Our main areas of development are ITT, Mentoring and the CPD of all staff.

We have been heavily involved with ITT for years. We have developed very strong links with local Universities and this undoubtedly helps us monitor and improve our ITT provision. Our links with Newcastle University have led to a number of staff teaching on the PGCE and MEd courses, working as Visiting Lecturers and General Tutors, interviewing prospective PGCE students and visiting trainees in other schools to observe and mentor them.

We have begun to develop similar links to the University of Northumbria and also have staff involved in the management of the North East Partnership SCITT.Each year we take a large number of PGCE students from these institutions - this academic year we have trainee students in ten departments.

Trainees get a lot of support in their subject area. All members of staff are being trained as school-based tutors and are expected to have a major input into the training and development of ITT students. Each trainee will be observed and debriefed by another member of staff each week, thus improving the experience of the trainee.

We also use 'Joint mentoring' and 'cross-mentoring':

'Joint mentoring' involves the school-based tutor and Training Co-ordinator jointly observing and debriefing a trainee, with the result that the Training Co-ordinator is able to monitor the consistency of both the trainees' teaching and the mentoring skills of the school-based tutors across the whole school.

'Cross-mentoring' involves school-based tutors observing and debriefing each others' trainees, across departments. Again, this is beneficial all round: it improves the consistency of assessment of our school-based tutors; they like the chance to see another subject and the trainees really appreciate the generic, non-subject specific feedback.

Another powerful tool in the whole ITT process is the use of video. All school-based tutors will be encouraged to video their trainees teaching at least once per month.Video is a very powerful medium in teaching and professional development. Trainees find it enlightening to see themselves on video but we take it further and expect the school-based tutors to use the video in the weekly mentoring session as a means of reflection and target setting. Some of our staff are trained Teacher Coaches and these skills are very transferable with mentoring. One of our mentors has even begun to video the mentoring sessions to help her reflect on her own skills and development. We also encourage the trainees to video their school-based tutor teach and to use this video as a tool for reflection.

We are striving to create a 'community of mentors' within the school. We are also developing networks across schools and beginning to share good practice. We host regular meeting of Training Co-ordinators from other Partnership schools in the region and this is a forum to share ideas and improve the consistency of the ITT provision and assessment in other schools.

We offer free courses for current Heads of Department, aspiring Heads of Department and aspiring Heads of Maths