High-quality resources
As a United Teaching trainee, you will have access to a wide range of high-quality resources to help you with lesson planning and delivery, time management, and day-to-day teaching tasks – all contributing to improved wellbeing and work-life balance.
Wellbeing and support
You will be supported from the very start with dedicated mentor support, high-quality resources, and excellent CPD opportunities.
Here is who you can expect to support you in your journey.
HR and Programme coordinator
- HR and finance-related concerns
- Weekly help forms
- 1:1 drop-in meeting
Subject mentor (school-based)
- Weekly meeting and target setting
- Weekly observation and feedback
- Professional learning conversations
- Assessments and reports
Professional mentor (school-based)
- Termly observation and feedback
- Professional learning conversations (with subject mentor)
- Internal QA of assessments and reports
- Internal QA of subject mentoring
Lead mentor
- Ongoing pastoral support for trainee teachers
- Formal termly meeting to review progress
- Termly observation and feedback
- Quality assurance of mentoring
Subject leads
- Subject study sessions (Friday training)
University tutor (PGCE students only)
- Lead and facilitate Bath Spa PGCE sessions (Friday training)
- PGCE assignment support and feedback
Find out more about how we support you in your training year.
Weekly training
Training sessions are on Friday afternoons, led by the United Teaching team and subject leads.
These dive into the theory of teaching and cover aspects such as Rosenshine’s principles, professional behaviour, and curriculum. The benefit of a school-based programme is that you can quickly put your learning into practice in the classroom, adapting and refining as you go.
After each session, you will add to your training log to keep a record of what you’ve learned, how you plan on implementing it, and ultimately show how you have met each Teacher's Standard.
Most sessions are delivered remotely, but at least one each half term takes place in person at one of our regional training centres.
Summer institute
Our 10-day summer institute has a mix of in-person and online training to help prepare you for your official September start.
You’ll meet key members of the United Teaching team, as well as fellow trainees, and learn more about what you can expect from your training. You’ll also have plenty of chances to ask questions and get to meet some United Teaching graduates and hear their top tips.
After getting to grips with teaching basics like behaviour management, classroom presence, and teaching methods, you’ll finish the induction feeling confident and ready for your training year.
Second school placement
Alongside the main training in your host school, you will also complete a secondary three-week school placement in the spring term to give you experience teaching in different settings.
It involves a mixture of observing lessons, teaching, and actively engaging with the school community. Weekly mentor meetings, lesson observations and training sessions continue as normal.
You’ll attend an induction to familiarise yourself with the school before the official placement.
Assessment
To qualify as a teacher, you must successfully meet all Teachers’ Standards.
Our assessment model focuses on formative assessment and target setting, which allows you to develop continuously throughout your training year. You will maintain an online portfolio as a folder of evidence of how you meet each Teacher Standard. This is a formal record of your training year and will form part of the final assessment.
The final assessment takes place in May - July and includes a joint lesson observation, progress and feedback discussion, and a review of your portfolio.
Curriculum
You’ll learn about what makes a good teacher and how to put this into practice.
Our initial teacher training curriculum focuses on five core areas:
- Behaviour management
- Pedagogy
- Curriculum
- Assessment
- Professional behaviours
PGCE
If you choose to study a PGCE, you’ll complete this alongside your school-based training.
You will be assessed via two written assignments, which are designed to work in conjunction with our curriculum: pedagogy for learning in the classroom and planning for learning in the classroom. These assignments ask you to reflect on and evaluate your own practice and that of your placement schools. They provide you with 60 credits at Level 7, which can be used as part of a future Master's degree (180 credits).
You will be allocated an academic tutor who will support you throughout the course. For each academic assignment, you will be provided with taught sessions and 1:1tutorials.
To be successful, you will need to engage thoroughly with published academic research and educational theory.
Feedback loops
We value feedback and want to know where we could be doing better. Feedback loops, surveys and panels take place regularly to gain whole cohort feedback and gather ideas for improvement.