Troops to Teachers update

The first cohort of the DfE funded ‘Troops to Teachers’ (TtT) programme has been recruited. The trainees began their studies in January and they are all currently placed in school settings across the country.

The delivery schools employ the TtT trainee as a non-qualified member of the teaching staff and the university pays a £12,780.80* salary grant (per annum) directly to the school to subsidise the salary costs. The University of Brighton is leading the Troops to Teachers consortium of seven universities who provide the training.

The programme design is unique and enables trainees to:

• Spend two years in their school (known as a delivery school)
• Undertake a range of employment-based activities, Monday through to Thursday each week
• Engage in degree level scheduled learning activities on ‘Study Fridays’
• Participate in intensive, residential study weeks

At the end of March the trainees undertook their first Intensive Study week. The event was held at the university of Brighton and it enabled trainees to:

• engage with new concepts and ideas
• learn how to implement teaching and learning strategies
• understand how to interpret and develop their achievements against the Teachers’ Standards
• share and learn from each other’s experiences.

Highlights from the week included:

Keynote lecture about career progression opportunities for teachers from Nick Wergan, head teacher, Steyning Grammar School

Keynote address from Charlie Taylor, CEO, NCTL (Charlie also met with members of the UoB team and gave highly positive feedback to both  UoB colleagues and the trainees). Charlie also agreed to be filmed giving some Top Tips on behaviour for trainees and for this to be shared across the Partnership; view the film here.

Keynote lecture about behaviour management led by Paula Sargent and pupils from Patcham High School

Dance performance: Kickstart and Fidget dance companies, led by Fiona Smith and Lucy Pocknell, SASM

We are now actively recruiting a second cohort for a  September 2014 start. Find out more about this new and exciting initiative: Troops to Teachers schools’ info sheet 2014