Trainee to Trained Teacher

The consortium brought together 6 partners from 5 countries to address Strategic Objective 2 of the EU policy on Education and Training (ET2020) ‘Improving the quality and efficiency of education and training’. The focus of the Strategic Partnership was to develop and transfer innovative practices at a European level with the aim of:• improving the quality of Initial Teacher Education (ITE) and in particular the transition from a trainee to a second year teacher• improving the capacities of schools in the professional development for both new teachers and experienced teachers through coaching and mentoring • developing new and innovative approaches to the training of school teachers and supporting the dissemination of best practice• reducing the drop-out rate of teachers at the start of their professional livesIt built on work undertaken by Carmel College as part of the UK Schools Direct programme and the objectives of the project were to identify the strategies, tools and resources required to develop a set of training packages, which are applicable to all schools across the EU for facilitating the transition from trainee to fully qualified teacher. It addressed a recognised development priority for schools in the partner countries, where there were no strategic approaches to supporting ITT and NQT from within the schools and the overall aim was to develop a training package, which included how to develop policy in school, which was applicable across the EU. The overall project objectives were to:• identify the tools used to support trainees and NQTs including formal training, induction programmes, teacher support, coaching and mentoring, and in-house professional development using the UK school as an example of best practice• develop a draft scheme of work for a set of training modules• pilot, test, evaluate and refine the training modules in 5 schools in each of 5 countries• identify and use the tools to evaluate impact in the short, medium and longer term, including data and feedback from trainees, teachers and pupils• develop a final set of training modules • explore the options for accreditation for the training