It was an exciting day in the Institute on Tuesday 2 September, as we welcomed our largest ever cohort of trainee teachers for the start of their initial teacher training year with our SCITT.
The Institute auditorium was buzzing with anticipation, optimism and first day nerves!
Day 1 of their journey in the teaching profession included inputs from Michelle Moxham, SCITT Director, and the SCITT Programme Leader team; an introduction from Steve Taylor to the national and regional education context, key personnel and current priorities for the sector; and a welcome to the CLF Institute and Five Counties Alliance from Alison Fletcher.
Trainees recruited by our Lead Partners Olympus Academy Trust and the Leaf Trust attended inductions with our CLF trainees in the Institute, while those with The Priory Learning Trust followed a parallel induction week in Weston-super-Mare.
Induction week continued with inputs from leading experts in our trust, on safeguarding, looking after your voice and thriving as a teacher, in addition to learning the content of the Teachers’ Standards through rehearsing and performing them in a variety of creative mediums.
Trainees finished their first week with the daunting and thrilling task of delivering personal presentations and receiving feedback from tutors and peers, their first ‘mini-teach’ practise at the front of the classroom.
This week trainees are engaging in an ‘intensive training and practice’ week (an ‘ITAP’) focused on behaviour. They will be immersed in how we understand, teach and manage behaviour, learning about ‘relationships, routines and responses’ (the ‘3 Rs’!). They will spend time in schools and in classrooms, observing how teachers establish expectations and routines, supervised by lead mentors.
Next week, as trainees continue and complete their induction, the SCITT team will be preparing mentors in our school placements and professional tutors for their roles in visiting and supporting trainees and mentors throughout the training year.
We have a brilliant team of mentors in our schools ready to help develop our future teachers. This is important and essential work that really matters in nurturing the future teaching workforce for our children.
Meanwhile, we are looking forward to following the progress of our SCITT alumni as they start their ECT positions – many of them in our CLF and Five Counties partnership schools.
We will be welcoming them back for ECT conferences and continuing to work with them and their ECT mentors and induction leads throughout their two-year statutory induction period.
One of the huge benefits for our trainee teachers is that they embark on a continuous three years of teacher preparation and professional development with us.
Throughout last week we have been congratulating our new trainees on the great choices they have made – to take the step to train to teach and to embark on their initial teacher training with our SCITT programme, judged ‘Outstanding’ under inspection by Ofsted last year.
We are immensely proud of our teacher training and all the alumni of our SCITT now making a positive difference to the education and life chances of children across our region.
Good luck to this year’s trainees and enjoy the journey!