Glowing Ofsted report for our teacher training courses

The University of Brighton’s established strength in teacher training has been acknowledged in an extremely positive Ofsted report.

Our Initial Teacher Education (ITE) Partnership received ratings of ‘outstanding’ for its Early Years, Primary and Secondary Courses and ‘good’ in Further Education and Training.

This makes the University of Brighton the only university in Sussex and Kent rated ‘outstanding’ by Ofsted for Early Years, Primary and Secondary Initial Teacher Training.

The inspection assessed how well the partnership secures consistently high-quality outcomes for trainees; the quality of training across the partnership; and the quality of leadership and management across the partnership.

The inspection focused on more than 650 trainees in their final stage of training and first year of teaching, covering both undergraduate, postgraduate and employment-based routes.

Andy Davies and Sarah Fitzjohn-Scott, leaders of the ITE Partnership, said: “We are extremely proud of these outcomes and the way the report describes the extraordinary hard work, skill and passion of the trainees, our partners and university staff with their deep commitment to the profession of teaching.”

The Head of the School of Education, Dr John Smith, added: “This excellent report confirms the high quality of our partnership and our continued outstanding regional and national reputation and status.”

The report praised the partnership of trainees and staff from schools, settings and the university for training teachers who are “highly committed to and ambitious for their learners’ progress; critically reflective and committed to keep learning and improving their practice and quick to adapt to different contexts and confident to challenge inequalities”.

It went on to state that the partnership courses trained teachers to be an “asset to their profession…resilient and well prepared for the realities of teaching”.

The report added: “Leaders’ focus on excellence and continuous improvement ensures that the continuum from recruitment, through initial training, to ongoing professional development is well thought out and highly effective.

“Acutely aware of teacher supply and retention issues regionally and nationally, the partnership demonstrates professional generosity in increasingly opening up many of its ongoing training opportunities and resources to teachers who are not University of Brighton alumni.”

The University of Brighton is a long-established provider of ITE. It works in partnership with schools, colleges and other higher education institutions to provide teacher training.

The partnership, the largest in the region, predominantly covers south-east England but extends nationally across a large number of local authority areas in the primary and secondary phases.

The Ofsted report reinforces the sterling reputation of the University’s School of Education which has been named in the top 10 for education courses in England by the Times and Complete University Guide 2019.

Find out more about the University’s ITE Partnership.