School Direct: Partnership agreements and recruiting - getting ready for next year

Online seminar – 10 July 2014

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Welcome to our final School Direct online seminar in this series.

While we’re waiting to start, why not let us know who you are and where you are based by typing in the chat box on the right-hand side of the screen.

School Direct for academic year 2015 to 2016

The purpose of this online seminar is to:

Provide advice on developing partnership agreements with School Direct lead schools, teaching schools and Initial Teacher Training (ITT) providers

Provide advice about marketing and recruiting Outline the support on offer from the National College for

Teaching and Leadership (NCTL) Give you the chance to ask hear about and ask questions to

schools about their individual experiences

Setting up a partnership agreement School Direct partnerships must be led by a ‘lead school’ and must

also include an ITT provider As School Direct offers a leading role for schools, the NCTL would

expect that any training model developed in partnership would reflect the leading role and vision of the school or partnership of schools, whilst ensuring that the quality and standards required by the ITT provider are met (p5: School Direct Operations Manual).

We encourage schools to work in partnerships led by outstanding schools. They (schools) must be Local Authority (LA) maintained (primary or secondary), a special school, an academy, free school or a Sixth Form College (p6: School Direct Operations Manual).

Partnership agreement: top tip When choosing the lead school, teaching school and provider(s) partnership to work with you should consider the ‘best fit’ for your school’s vision and strategic objectives, ethos and values.

Essential areas to agree PGCE or QTS only How funding is split between schools and providers School and provider lead roles and responsibilities Process for resolving differences Support and plans for marketing and recruitment - including events, job adverts,

website information The process, timelines and deadlines for recruitment and selection of trainees; who is

involved, is it a two stage process and what is the communication to applicants At what stage in the process you expect trainees to have completed their skills tests How much school experience you expect potential applicants to have before applying Which elements of the training are going to be delivered by the school and which by

the ITTP and arrangements for assessment, quality assurance, subject knowledge training and mentoring/mentor training

Who is responsible for fulfilling NCTL data requirements. See Section 3 Recruiting trainees for further information on data requirements.

Partnership roles and responsibilities top tips Start early, meet frequently, communicate regularly Conduct an audit across schools to determine likely number of places Assess available resources skills, knowledge and experience across schools

and any training needs e.g. mentor training Think about which schools to work with and why - diversity of placements

opportunities for trainees - cross phase, special schools pupil referral units, urban and rural schools

Clarify what minimum entry requirements you/your provider may have on top of the ITT Criteria e.g.. academic qualifications, school experience

Be clear about your shared vision and who is doing what Plan together to the last detail and know what you want to achieve Agree cost and shared resources Monitor review and adjust regularly

“Being part of a large alliance and where all Heads develop a new vision for how they find NQTs and why training their own (with a teaching school alliance to support), this will give them better staff in the long term. Going large makes it worth requesting enough places that you can have a sustainable business with funded roles for alliance staff rather than doing a small project on good will.” Hallam TSA, Sheffield

From a school’s perspective Online we also have two colleagues from schools and partnerships who can offer practical advice from their own experience. Jo Fogg ITE Administrations Manager The Kemnal Academies Trust SCITT Alex Dijkhuis Administrator Manager West London Teaching Schools’ Alliance

5 Top Tips on Partnership from WLTSA perspective

• Keep everything as simple as possible for host schools, particularly those joining for the first time. Explain advantages of SD as opposed to core PGCE trainees.

• Dispel complicated nature of SD. Clarify what the host school

needs to do (could be as little as approve entry profile document, tab on school website, circulate letter, shortlisting, interview morning, mentoring as for standard PGCE trainee)

• Clarify what Alliance/lead school does: eg set up UCAS, oversee recruitment process/marketing; liaison with universities; setting up agreements; managing money etc.

• Empower host schools by explaining implications of different school

direct pathways and cost/income implications – use simple indicative cash flow table (eg face to face meetings, event)

• If acting as a lead school, do not feel intimidated to accept an

agreement sent to you as non negotiable from a university. Read it carefully.

• Communication: Highly effective communication across the

partnership is key to ensure consistency.

• Training/resources: As well as providing regular Mentor training, create a resources/course document section on your Lead School’s website with access only for partnership schools. Resources, subject reading material and blogs can be shared by Mentors/Subject Tutors.

Helpful tips on Partnership

Getting ready for next year’s recruitment – something to be aware of: Reconciliation 4.53 A reconciliation exercise will be carried out at the end of the

academic year. NCTL will recover any surplus funds. NCTL funds are to be used for the named trainee only; any surplus funds as a result of withdrawals cannot be used for any other purpose, i.e. to fund additional trainees. The NCTL will recover all funding that is unused as a result of:

Under-recruitment against allocated places; training location; or trainee withdrawal; trainees completing the programme early.

Recruitment top tips All initial teacher training places – including for School Direct – are advertised through

a single application system, (UCAS). You will manage your training places through this system and you must agree who will handle the process for applications.

Before applications open on UCAS Teacher Training, you should agree your overall approach with your partner schools and ITT provider so that your recruitment process is open and fair and you have a clear and effective marketing strategy. You should consider:

– what type of candidates you wish to target and the minimum entry requirements, for example, if you are accepting applications from candidates with less than 3 years’ work experience for School Direct (salaried places) in hard to fill subjects

– how you will attract high-quality candidates – for example, using your own website, working with your ITT provider, making the most of any local marketing opportunities or by offering the School Experience Programme

– how you will fulfil the expectation of employment after trainees have qualified…

Recruitment top tips (continued) ..what national marketing opportunities you can take advantage of – for example

NCTL-run Train to Teach and Premier Plus events what salary levels you will offer for any School Direct (salaried) places – for

maintained schools, this should be at least point 1 of the unqualified teacher pay scale and for academies and free schools, whatever you agree to set (which must be advertised)

whether to offer subject knowledge enhancement courses to trainees – these can be made available (with funding from us) in hard to fill subjects such as maths, physics and computing to help potential trainees gain the depth of subject knowledge required prior to starting training

what career opportunities and post-ITT training your partnership can offer to attract the best candidates

You should also take a look at our marketing resource bank. This contains lots of useful information and practical resources to help you run a successful recruitment campaign.

Candidates must meet the ITT eligibility criteria as well as the requirements for the relevant School Direct place.

Recruitment activity What you can do: Ensure that your places are clearly advertised on the UCAS site Mystery shop your entry from a candidate’s perspective Ensure that if you offer a PGCE it is clear because a candidate can search

by qualification Ensure that your school website describes your SD offer Advertise your vacancies across ALL partner school newsletters Put your salaried vacancies on your Local Authority vacancy website Distribute leaflets into the community – library, doctors, businesses Provide SEP school experience opportunities to encourage applicants Host open days for candidates and put it on the What`s on Where section of

the NCTL website Discuss with your partner provider how they can support you. Do they have

any potential candidates who could be sent your way?

Recruitment and selection

Schools and ITT providers must ensure that all aspects of the ITT criteria are met when the recruiting and selecting candidates. The relevant ITT criteria can be found in section C1 of the ITT criteria document, further guidance can be found in the supporting advice document.

Schools should take the lead in interviewing and selecting candidates, but all School Direct candidates must meet ITT eligibility and entry criteria. All School Direct candidates will also have to meet the entry requirements of the school’s chosen ITT provider. ITT providers retain the final accountability for ensuring that all trainees meet the entry criteria. If the candidate fails the ITT provider’s entry requirements they will be declined by the ITT provider and cannot be offered a School Direct place.

Candidates should only be given confirmation of an offer of a place after the formal partnership agreement between the lead school and ITT provider is signed.

Schools must be transparent and open in their recruitment activities, which will be subject to inspection of the ITT provider by Ofsted. All applications for School Direct places will be made through the UCAS Teacher Training application system.

The recruitment period should be well communicated to candidates and be long enough to allow open and fair access to places.

5 Top Tips on Recruitment

• Decent website where further information can be found, all

host schools to have tab linking to this central location. • Clear information in entry profile including website, email and

phone number. • Paper based marketing: Logo, Pop up Banners, leaflets (with

photos/permissions) / posters, letterheads. Avoid looking amateur.

• Free marketing: parentmail, newsletters, posters in local

community, university careers centres

• Awareness about recruitment events: Retain email addresses and mark those who standout as potentially good. Email them back after the event.

• Recruitment events: once your training programme is up and running,

an effective marketing strategy is to ask one or two of your current trainees to accompany you to future recruitment events to help promote your programme. They can speak to interested candidates, first hand, about what the programme involves and answer any questions the candidate might have from a trainee’s point of view.

• School Experience Programme: Asking your partnership schools to register is a really good way of finding those candidates who are potentially strong. Schools can recommend outstanding candidates for you to follow up or they can provide further information to the candidate as a possible option when applying to UCAS.

Helpful tips on Recruitment

Support from us We can help you find out more and meet schools that are already participating Our new GOV.UK information for schools web pages are regularly updated

with advice and guidance e.g. quick start guide, top tips; FAQs, the School Direct bulletin

Make sure your schools main and also partnership contact on the Allocation Resource Managements system is up-to-date and the lead school will receive and forward on regular email bulletins with reminders about next steps throughout the process

www.education.gov.uk/sdmarketing is a Marketing Resource Bank where guidance, useful presentations and ready-to-use advertisements are available for your partnership’s recruitment marketing

New on the resource bank this month is a ‘summer checklist’ to help schools who need to recruit over the summer

You can learn from other schools in our case studies on the national archives http://www.education.gov.uk/schools/careers/traininganddevelopment/initial/b00205704/school-direct/school-case-studies

Support from us (cont.) Our events team also runs events in areas which may be finding it

difficult to recruit, inviting potential applicants interested in teaching to come and meet with providers and schools. Find out more on www.education.gov.uk/get-into-teaching/events

You can advertise your own recruitment events for free on our “Get into Teaching” website which attracts c.3m visits per annum - email WhatsOn.WHERE@education.gsi.gov.uk

You can also advertise your events or vacancies on our Get into teaching Facebook page using your own school’s Facebook account. Simply add a post (from your account) onto our wall at www.facebook.com/getintoteaching

We’re also always happy to retweet from the Get into teaching Twitter account. Top tip: tag us (@getintoteaching) in your tweet and we’ll be much more likely to spot it and RT

Continue this discussion Continue this dialogue and share best practice in your School Direct online community: https://network.nationalcollege.org.uk/groups/25941 A recording of today’s seminar will be available and emailed to you together with links to the slides and to other information. Thank you for taking part, this was the final in our first ever series of School Direct online seminars. We’ll be planning some more for the coming academic year, we’d appreciate your feedback on this series to make sure we meet your needs in the next ones. Please complete our online survey http://lg.ncsl.org.uk/survey/view_survey.cfm?surveyID=2364

Your online community is changing To support the move to a school-led system the NCTL is making changes to the way in which our national qualifications for school will be delivered in the future, and we will be moving a significant amount of our web presence to the GOV.UK website and closing the membership website. This means our online communities will close from September but you can continue to view and contribute to the School Direct community, and other groups and discussions until then. The NCTL will be identifying other places where colleagues can continue online dialogue with each other, so look out for updates soon. We’ll be in touch again soon with a checklist of actions you may want to take before the system closes down. Information will also be available on our website.

Contact details For queries about the online seminar or online community email: TA.RESOURCEBANK@education.gsi.gov.uk For general queries about School Direct email: School.Direct@education.gsi.gov.uk