International Teacher Education Conference 2014 1

International Teacher Education Conference 2014
For the primary PGCE there have been some changes to interview processes for the School Direct route.
Candidates are invited to be interviewed at one of the partnership schools within an alliance. Both school staff
and university staff contribute to the process which takes the best part of a day. The procedure has been designed
to try to assess the potential of the applicants to respond well to the programme of training, in order to be
developed as an outstanding teacher.
For both primary and secondary school centred routes assessments at interviews are made against key criteria
such as intellectual qualities, commitment to, experience and understanding of primary or secondary education
and the ability to communicate effectively with adults and children in a school context.
There are key features of the interview days that are common to both primary and secondary school centred
routes. A guided tour of the school conducted by pupils; a written task to assess the quality of their academic
writing and potential to engage with master’s level study; a short teaching task designed to provide candidates
with an opportunity to demonstrate their ability to plan, deliver and engage pupils in learning. Here candidates
demonstrate if they have good presence and can communicate ideas effectively. The best candidates show that
they have a genuine interest in learning, good subject knowledge and are enthusiastic and animated. Behaviour
management skills become apparent during the session and their response to often unpredicted situations can be
noted. It is recognised that all this takes place ‘pre’ initial teacher education – a situation going wrong would not
preclude a candidate from gaining a place, rather, if they are able to demonstrate good reflective skills as a result
of engagement in the process, this would actually stand them in good stead and of course enable specific targets
to be set to support preparation for the programme. In-tray activities, common across programmes provide
opportunities for candidates to demonstrate their ability to prioritise difficult situations with competing demands
whilst the formal staff interview provides the interview panel opportunity to make assessments about candidates’
motivation for entering the profession; personal and intellectual qualities related to the job; their understanding
of the role of an effective teacher and their knowledge and understanding of subject/phase specific issues as well
as current educational issues.
As the PGCE is a particularly demanding programme candidates are also encouraged to consider strategies and
skills they might employ to ensure that they are able to cope with the challenging demands that engagement with
this programme would present.
Candidates have opportunities to reflect on their experiences during the interview day which also supports target
setting and identification of areas to focus on in preparation for the programme.
The Programme
School Direct school-centred ITE programmes were written and validated together with the university-centred
ITE programmes within a very tight timescale, as the recruitment process had already begun for a September
2013 intake. A key complication can be seen in that in addition to the award of QTS, this was also an academic
award from the university and therefore strict university regulatory frameworks needed to be adhered to.
This process involved the writing of much documentation; partnership agreements, due diligence documentation,
risk assessments, programme specifications and module documents to name but a few.
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