About the course
Placement Schools
We work with a number of fantastic schools in Greater Manchester. During the training year you will spend time in a range of schools, in order to give you the broadest experience. Our course leaders know our placement schools well – we spend time getting to know you at interview and we match you with the schools and mentors with the right expertise to support you as a beginning teacher. This means that you won’t be able to pick your own placement school, but your training provider will be sure to place you in schools you can travel to and where your experience will provide you with the best introduction to the teaching profession. Your host teaching placement is likely to be at one of our schools in the Rochdale, Tameside, Manchester or Oldham boroughs of Greater Manchester.
How quickly will I be teaching?
The placement is split into different phases – you will begin with observations of expert teachers and very soon, you will be given the increasing responsibility for teaching groups of learners, whilst also gaining understanding of a teacher’s pastoral responsibilities.
Second placement
For your second main teaching placement, you will join the staff of a different school in order to experience teaching in a different context. You will be challenged to develop the skills from your host placement school and adapt them to the needs of different groups of learners in a different environment. You will then return to your host school, enabling you to consolidate your practice and hone any aspects require further development.
Enrichment opportunities and personalisation
Structured enrichment opportunities will also provide experience across different phases and types of provision including for example visits to primary schools, secondary schools, sixth form or specialist SEND provision.
Qualifications
Pioneers Partnership offers Primary and Secondary School Centred Initial Teacher Training (SCITT) where you will gain Qualified Teacher Status and a PGCE cert. Our one-year, research-led training will give you hands-on experience and allows you to train to teach in a school near you.
The training year
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 engage in training and development to support your teaching practice one day a week, as well as ten weeks gaining broader school experience in other educational settings. The programme balances developing subject knowledge and expertise alongside a deep understanding of effective teaching methods and techniques to manage your workload and wellbeing.
In September, you will have two weeks of intensive training on the core areas of teaching; behaviour management and lesson planning. You will have a further two weeks of intensive training later in the year.
In school, you will spend time with expert teachers, observing lessons and learning how to teach and plan lessons, and practise your own teaching. You will work closely with highly skilled, knowledgeable mentors, who will also receive support and training from Pioneers Partnership.
Your weekly training days are led by 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.
