Information for Secondary Students and Schools

Click here for information on our Placement and Travel Policy.

• Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) Policy
• DBS Frequently Asked Questions

Please also note that we will send you all DBS numbers via a secure email before the commencement of a student's placement. This can then be added to your Single Central Record.

Read Our Partnership Agreement for information on becoming a partner of the university.

As you begin this course we view you not as a student but a professional in training, for which you may be receiving a UK government bursary.

The teachers' standards could not be clearer about the professional nature of this training, as you can see from this direct extract from part two of the standards:

Personal and Professional Conduct

A teacher is expected to demonstrate consistently high standards of personal and professional conduct. The following statements define the behaviour and attitudes which set the required standard for conduct throughout a teacher’s career.

Teachers uphold public trust in the profession and maintain high standards of ethics and behaviour, within and outside school, by:

• Treating pupils with dignity, building relationships rooted in mutual respect, and at all times observing proper boundaries appropriate to a teacher’s professional position
• Having regard for the need to safeguard pupils’ well-being, in accordance with statutory provisions
• Showing tolerance of and respect for the rights of others
• Not undermining fundamental British values, including democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect, and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs
• Ensuring that personal beliefs are not expressed in ways which exploit pupils’ vulnerability or might lead them to break the law.

Teachers must have proper and professional regard for the ethos, policies and practices of the school in which they teach, and maintain high standards in their own attendance and punctuality.

Teachers must have an understanding of, and always act within, the statutory frameworks which set out their professional duties and responsibilities.

The highest standards of professional conduct are expected at all times, both in university and school. A requirement of passing the course is that you meet the standards for professionalism right up until the last day of the course, as judged by university tutors and mentors.

Dressing Appropriately

As will have already been made clear by your subject tutors, you must dress in a very formal fashion. Many schools have very strict dress codes for their staff, which you will of course be required to follow. These expectations often extend to jewellery. Until you know exactly what the situation is in your placement school, play it safe. As such, limit your jewellery to a watch.

Please remove all body piercings until you know what a school expects in this respect. At university unconventional dress is almost de rigueur. In school, unconventional dress will be deemed unprofessional. Your subject tutors will have given you clear-cut guidance on these matters. Please follow very carefully their advice. Remember how many milliseconds it takes to make a judgement on a person: "Your clothes are a communication!"

We wish you every success in your placement. Please read the other sections of this webfolio for more information on issues such as travel and school dates. Good luck!

Your Holidays

As a trainee teacher you are no longer a university student in the traditional sense of the word. You are a person training to be part of the profession with money provided to you, for that purpose, by the government. As with any profession, you are required to follow the expectations and norms of that profession. so when it comes to holidays, what does this mean?

As you are probably aware, teachers do not take time off during the term to go on a quick trip to paris, go to a cousin’s wedding in Italy or even, for that matter, their own wedding! The same also applies to you. This means that you are required to follow a school's term dates, rather than the university's, when it is a matter of your holidays.

The most common issue that arises is over times such as the positioning of half-term dates and the start/end of the christmas and easter holidays. If you have children, then it is possible that your half-term dates could be different from theirs. In fact, Cumbria and Lancashire often vary quite a bit in their holiday dates.

Even in the same education authority, these dates can vary, especially if you are in a church school. It is your responsibility to find out the exact term dates as soon as you arrive in a placement school and book holidays, tickets etc accordingly. Furthermore, you must also consider your university commitments in the same way since the school half-term may be used by some subjects as teaching time because the university does not have half-terms.

Should you require leave of absence for an unmovable medical appointment or to attend the funeral of a close relative or friend, then you need to talk both to your school and your subject tutor in university. Part of this process requires you to complete a Request for Placement Deferral, which has to be discussed with your subject tutor and approved by the programme leader.

Click here to download our confidentiality statement.

Forms for Secondary Trainees are available in the Key Documentation section on the Secondary Pebblepad Site

Please download a copy Initial Teacher Training Core Content Framework

The initial teacher training (ITT) core content framework defines in detail the minimum entitlement of all trainee teachers. Drawing on the best available evidence, it sets out the content that ITT providers and their partnerships must draw upon when designing and delivering their ITT programmes.

It focusses on 2 key evidence statements used across the ITE curriculum for trainee teachers : ‘ Learn that...’ & ‘Learn how to…’; using these two foci it expects trainee teachers to learn from Expert colleagues (School mentors & University / SD lecturers/staff) to help them link the understanding behind practise and enactment of that practise.

See definitions below.

-Expert colleagues: Professional colleagues, including experienced and effective teachers, subject specialists, mentors, lecturers and tutors.

-Practise: Opportunities to use approaches defined in the ‘Learn how to...’ column of the ITT Core Content Framework. Throughout their training, trainees should expect multiple opportunities to rehearse and refine particular approaches, possibly beginning outside the classroom before using approaches in classrooms

-Discussing and analysing with expert colleagues: Interrogate with an expert colleague – using the best available evidence –what makes a particular approach successful or unsuccessful, reflecting on how this approach might be integrated into the trainee’s own practice.

-Observing how expert colleagues ... and deconstructing this approach: Working with expert colleagues – using the best available evidence – to critique a particular approach – whether using in-class observation, modelling or analysis of video –to understand what might make it successful or unsuccessful.

-Receiving clear consistent and effective mentoring: Receiving structured feedback from expert colleagues on a particular approach – using the best available evidence – to provide a structured process for improving the trainee’s practice

The ITT core content framework aligns with the Early Career Framework to establish an entitlement to a 3 or more year structured package of support for all new teachers at the start of their careers.

While the ITT Core Content Framework is presented around the Teachers’ Standards for clarity, the ITT Core Content Framework is not, and should not be used, as an assessment framework. Trainee teachers will not be expected to collect evidence against the ITT Core Content Framework, and they will continue to be assessed against the Teachers’ Standards only.

This document (Initial Teacher Training Core Content Framework - Reading Only) includes amongst other elements a range of current literature mapped directly to each of the national teacher standards. Need to link to the READING ONLY doc attached

Mentors (Expert colleagues) should utilise this resource to support the setting of ongoing targets; As part of the weekly meeting with their assigned student to review and set new targets. It would be excellent to see the students being signalled not only to the practical elements they need to demonstrate but how they can locate or access further thinking / reading on each target set.

Students have a direct library link to this reading list via their learning support platform ‘Onelist’

Please also see the linked resources below This selection of CCF Exemplification Resources has been produced ‘by the sector’ and ‘for the sector.’ It provides links to resources which support each of the ‘learn how to’ emboldened statements in the ITT Core Content Framework (CCF).

https://v3.pebblepad.co.uk/spa/#/public/94jgbwqyzpr8kZdfm6xbqpHGzy?historyId=1ZEtAsPa1K&pageId=94jgbwqyzpr8mdH3kfrHp5w5RM