UNIVERSITY VIEW
BUILDING relationships with partner schools has always been a key aspect of teacher training.
Looking ahead to reforms in education that will be introduced in Wales in 2019 – requiring student teachers to be immersed in the school experience, where they can undertake observation, practice, reflection and enquiry-based research – these partnerships will become even more important,
For the University of South Wales (USW), our work with Newport’s Llanwern High School has already become a well-established benchmark on how to build these relationships, and will guide our future work in the area.
Starting in 2016, the partnership has seen USW undergraduates – studying on the Introduction to Secondary Teaching, Certificate of Higher Education course – embedded in the school, initially planning and delivering a joint project with year 10 pupils to design and make stage props, and delivering sessions to pupils studying a BTEC Construction qualification.
From this year, they are operating exclusively at Llanwern, using workshops, classrooms, preparation spaces, and specialist machinery at the school, to deliver the project.
The partnership has become an example of how we immerse our students in real teaching opportunities on a live brief, and also getting them involved in risk assessment aspects of the sessions.
As part of the reciprocal agreement with the school, Year 11 Llanwern pupils have also made the return trip to USW’s Newport Campus – where our teacher training school is based –for GCSE maths and English revision sessions. Led by both school staff and a USW students, they were successful in providing additional revision opportunities for pupils, while also introducing them to a university environment. As well as raising aspirations about further study, it gave the pupils a positive campus experience, and helped a number to progress to on to year 12 after getting the GCSE grades they needed.
A great success of the partnership has also been seeing pupils from Llanwern walking through our doors to continue their study. Four have already joined us as teaching undergraduates, and we’re working hard to ensure that the relationship we have with the school will see that path to higher education built upon.
To ensure that Llanwern teachers have access to further training, USW’s education specialists are also working with school staff to help with curriculum developments, while specialised training for school-owned equipment has been commissioned.
Looking ahead, there are further joint projects planned, with a group that manages the day-to-day operation of the partnership between USW and the school being established, while a joint scheme to develop health and safety training also planned for development. We are making sure that we work smarter to achieve everyone’s goal of having work-ready graduates who can continue to give our youngsters the highest class of education.
Jamie James is Head of the School of Education, Early Years and Social Work at the University of South Wales.