Our work with Service Leavers
The University of Brighton has played a pivotal role in successfully supporting career changers and service leavers to draw on existing skills and develop new competencies in the field of education. As an institution we have worked on a national scale with employers to develop robust programmes that have enabled these individuals to accrue new knowledge and skills whilst also being able to draw on previous life experiences and workplace expertise.
We have been educating teachers for over 100 years with a long-established reputation for our high quality courses.
Since 2013 we have successfully worked with employers on two projects targeted at Service Leavers who have the potential to become outstanding teachers.
Troops to Teachers
This £13 million project funded by the Department for Education was led by the University of Brighton and delivered through a consortium of universities, lead delivery schools and employers. The programme operated across England with pathways to teach specialist subjects in secondary schools and at primary level.
The first trainees began their two years of studies in January 2014 and the final cohort graduated in July 2020. The programme was replaced with a Service Leaver bursary in 2018.
Further Forces Programme
Further Forces offers Service Leavers the opportunity to train as a Further Education (FE) teacher in England.
Led by the Education and Training Foundation, with support from the Ministry of Defence, Department for Education and the Gatsby Charitable Foundation, the Further Forces programme aims to harness the technical skills from the Armed Forces to help meet the demand for technical teaching across FE.
The Certificate in Education/PGCE teaching programme is delivered by the University of Portsmouth with the national mentoring programme operated by the University of Brighton.
Since 2017, 204 Service Leavers have been placed with employers, receiving substantial skills training and support.
The expertise and experience from these employer-based partnership programmes has been pivotal to the development of our new regional apprenticeship and work-based learning programmes.
Case Study
Mike Parry was an Army Corporal prior to joining the Troops to Teachers programme.