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Welcome to the Primary School Direct Programme. We are delighted that you will be joining us in the 2023-2024 academic year, and we very much look forward to seeing you in September. Please navigate around the site carefully to access key information.
– Dr Catherine Foley, Primary School Direct Programme Director and Dr Alison Silby, Primary School Direct Assistant Director
Gain insight into how the programme works.
Dr Catherine Foley, Programme Director
Dr Alison Silby, Assistant Director
Programme Administration email address
Admissions
In order for your conditional offer to become unconditional you must address all the aspects of your offer including:
This must be done by enrolment. Please note that we will not be able to enrol you unless all conditions have been met.
Please look out for the emails with instructions for how to obtain your Fitness to Teach and your Enhanced DBS clearance. You will also receive an email inviting you to come to the campus for one of our Initial Needs Assessment meetings and if you are tuition-fee funded (unsalaried) you will need to bring the three ID documents for your DBS check to this session.
You will need to show the original of your qualification certificates at enrolment in September.
Meeting these conditions takes time (in our experience, they often take far longer than expected). Please DO NOT leave it until the summer. You risk running out of time and not being able to enrol.
Online enrolment is the first step you need to take towards becoming a fully enrolled Reading Partnership Teacher. Please look out for the email with instructions for online enrolment which you should receive during the week commencing 21 August or when you have met all the conditions of your offer. You must complete online enrolment before coming to campus to collect your campus card.
Equipment for your training
We try to keep printing for our university-based sessions to a minimum. This means that it is often useful if you can access materials electronically, either live from our VLE (Blackboard) or by downloading materials in advance and accessing them on a laptop or tablet during the session. These documents are very difficult to access effectively through a phone screen, so it is likely that you will want to be able to bring a laptop or table to sessions. Although many schools do try to support student teachers by providing laptops, they are not funded for this and are not always able to do so.
The Teacher Standards
Please download the standards and guidance. Read and begin to become familiar with the terminology. These standards apply to all teachers regardless of their career stage and define the minimum level of practice expected of teachers from the point of being awarded QTS onwards.
The teachers' standards on one page is a particularly useful document - please make sure you keep it handy.
You should access, bookmark and begin to become familiar with these frameworks.
These documents are used during our Initial Needs Assessment meetings. They contain all the information you need to get started on the programme.
All Student Teachers need to demonstrate certain standards of subject knowledge. This requirement was introduced because there is overwhelming research evidence to show that secure subject knowledge is essential for teachers to support children’s learning. Teachers feel more confident about effectively questioning children when their own subject knowledge is good.
The Teachers’ Standards require you to have sufficient subject knowledge to challenge the most able children. Although you may not train to teach the full age range, you will be qualified to teach in any Primary school and so we aim to provide you with the confidence to teach the curriculum to Year 6 children, even for EYFS Student Teachers. You will be fully supported, through taught sessions and individual help as required to go beyond this level. Core subject audits will give you an indication of your strengths and areas for further work.
You should revise any areas that have become a bit “rusty” and identify any areas where you will need to spend time in private study before the programme begins. You will be better equipped to focus on teaching skills if you ensure that you arrive having already addressed any problems with subject knowledge to the best of your ability. Specific tasks and useful links to Subject Knowledge support are set out within the Pre-programme tasks above.