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

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

Online seminar – 10 July 2014
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.

                                                                          1

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        “Being part of a large alliance and where all Heads
   Monitor review and adjust regularly 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.

Helpful tips on Partnership

•   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.

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.

Helpful tips on Recruitment

•   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.

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/b0
    0205704/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