Become a Partner School
Our Partner Schools play a vital role in the training and mentoring of new teachers; shaping their early experiences and setting them up for a career rooted in professionalism, collaboration and a strong work ethic. It provides a real opportunity to contribute to the profession, recruiting and retaining current and future teachers.
Hosting Trainees is a reciprocal arrangement; trainees bring vibrant, fresh and research informed ideas and Mentors contribute their lessons learnt, wisdom, guidance and care to shape them into the best teachers. Our Mentors frequently celebrate the wider impact that Trainees have on their school community, including the opportunity for them to refine their own practice and showcase their expertise.
Our School-Based Mentors, ITT Leads and Headteachers are invited to contribute to the curriculum, really shaping the content of it to help train local teachers for local schools - we literally ask the question... If you were recruiting a new teacher, what do you need them to know?
We work with a diverse range of schools including Primary, Secondary and Special schools including maintained, academies, secular, faith-based, rural, urban, coastal and those which serve differing socio-economic communities. We don’t deny schools based on their Ofsted grade - if you have the capacity to support our Trainees, we can work with you to assess your readiness to host placements. We also recognise that circumstances can change in school with very little notice and can work with schools to manage this to limit the impact on the schools and Trainees.
Frequently Asked Questions
We want to host a Trainee Teacher? How do we get involved?
That’s great! We’d love to hear from you - email SCITT@embrace-education.co.uk or ring the office on 01706 214640 (Option 5).
Is there any support for us as a school?
Yes! As a provider, we have a team of Lead Mentors who oversees a group of Trainees and their School-Based Mentors to monitor the Trainee’s progress and provide advice and guidance for Mentors. They help to shape the Mentor’s training and signpost them to available support.
What’s the time commitment for Mentors?
The DfE require Trainees and Apprentices to receive a minimum of 90 minute of ‘mentoring activity’ each week. In reality, we know that this is easily achieved through the range of typical support including lesson observations, feedback, target setting, teachers’ meetings, meetings with specialist staff, and much more. We have worked hard to define what mean by ‘mentoring activity’ and this is shared with schools when we induct them to the SCITT.
Will you support our Mentors to develop their Mentoring practice?
Absolutely! We have a dedicated Mentoring Programme Leader who oversees, quality assures and refines the Mentor curriculum. The DfE require Mentors to complete training and then annually refresh their knowledge. We have devised our own research informed training materials which sit within six core modules:
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Module 1: The role of the School-Based Mentor |
Module 2: The Initial Teacher Training Early Career Framework |
Module 3: Inclusive Mentoring |
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Module 4: Cognition & Metacognition |
Module 5: Behaviour |
Module 6: Mentoring Skills |
These modules are delivered through short asynchronous videos which expose Mentors to the most current research and then brief reflective tasks which help them to better understand how this applies to their role as a Mentor of a novice teacher.
This training has been written in conjunction with a consortium of North-West Initial Teacher Training providers to reduce the burden on schools - if Mentors have completed training previously with one of the providers, we can accept their prior experience as it’s all written to the same research knowledge base.
Furthermore, our flexible, provider-specific training is delivered through face-to-face training (voluntarily), videos, newsletters and onsite visits to reduce the burden on Mentors and their schools.
My Mentor has loads of prior experience and has completed previous training - do they need to do the whole suite of training?
Not necessarily (although they may want to when they see how good it is!). We will work with the Mentor to identify the right training plan for them so that it’s compliant, beneficial for the school and purposeful for the Mentor and Trainee/Apprentice.
We don’t have capacity to host a Trainee at the moment but we have a keen teacher who may be ready to mentor soon - can they access the training?
Of course! We would just hope that, when you feel you are in a position to host a placement, you let us know and we can match you with a suitable Trainee.
Is there payment for hosting Trainees?
We know that the time and energy that goes into support Trainees comes at a human-cost. Embrace SCITT and its Lead Partners have different approaches to acknowledging the time and effort:
Embrace SCITT, Blackpool Sea View Trust ITT and Rowan Learning Trust pay up to £50/week/full-time Trainee and up to £30/week/part-time Trainee.
Yarrow Schools Alliance provides an extensive suite of high-quality Professional Development for their Partner Schools.