Guide to Placements

01 Sep 2016

Fee paying APTs, whether PGCE or QTS, are always supernumerary and the class teacher retains responsibility for the class as they are the employee of the school. The responsibility for classes therefore reverts to the class teacher when the APT is at the university and the APT is not required to set cover work.

	Supported Teaching	Activities in support of teaching (observations, Mentor meeting, Professional Studies in school, working as a TA)	Planning and Preparation
Main School – Shared teaching	33%	33%	33%
Second school – Moving from Shared to Guided teaching in a new context	Building towards a maximum of 50%	25%	25%
Main school – moving from Guided to Independent teaching in a familiar context	Building up to 50%	25%	25%
Main school – Independent teaching:	70%	20%	10%
Enrichment Placement:	Flexible according to placement	Flexible according to placement	Flexible according to placement

Enrichment period This is a two week period during which APTs will be offered the opportunity to enrich their practice through an experience beyond normal classroom teaching. It is intended not only that the APT will benefit, but also that this will contribute in some way to the Main Placement School. This opportunity will be available to all APTs with grades of Secure or Excellent at Report 3. (Any APTs with a lower grade will continue to teach as normal.) Placements can take place within the Main Placement School or externally and APTs will report back on their work to their Main Placement School on Friday 16 June 2017.

Induction to the Second School Placement Two days have been allocated specifically for induction to the Second School Placement: 12, 13 December 2016. ITTCos at Second School Placements are asked to prepare a schedule of activities for their APTs over these two days. The most important part of the induction will be for the APT to meet you and their Mentor as well as other key members of staff. This is a time when administration can be carried out (e.g. arranging network access).

Fee-paying APTs will provide a letter from Astra confirming their DBS clearance. Salaried APTs will provide a letter from their employing school likewise confirming this. (Please note that your school is not entitled to see the original DBS certificate.)

It will be important for the Mentor and APT to have enough time together for the Mentor to start planning a timetable that responds to the APT’s strengths and areas for development. APTs taking the PGCE should not be expected to undertake any planning or preparation over the Christmas break: they will have an assignment to write (and will also need some holiday).

Primary school placement Astra staff will arrange for APTs to spend at least one day in a primary school at some point during their Main School Placements - this is likely to be over the Enrichment period.

Sixth form experience All APTs should have the opportunity to experience sixth form teaching as all secondary ITT courses are now designed as 11-19. Astra Staff will ensure that at least one placement school will provide this opportunity. As it can prove challenging to allocate sixth form classes to APTs and indications from Ofsted suggest that 20 hours experience is what is expected; this teaching should involve planning and assessing as well as leading learning. The following approaches may be of some help:

Team teaching or collaborative teaching, where the APT prepares part of a lesson (or sequence of lessons) or teaches part of the group and is involved in planning and assessing. Revision lessons prepared by the APT in discussion with the Mentor. For APTs with strong subject knowledge, sixth form teaching may form a good introduction to teaching early on in the programme. It will enable them to focus on the pupils’ learning while thinking less about classroom management issues.

Astra will provide a tracking sheet for APTs to record their post 16 teaching and to note whether the experience was observing practice, collaborative teaching or sole teaching and we will monitor and support schools in delivering this increased contact through 2016-2017.