York St John's 'outstanding' teacher education highlighted in Ofsted report
A newly published Ofsted report has rated York
St John University ‘outstanding’ for its secondary teacher
education and ‘good’ for its primary programmes.
York St John, which has been training teachers
for 170 years, received particular praise for its recruitment and
selection process and for its leadership. The report states:
“The selection procedures are rigorous and ensure that trainees
have the expertise and personal qualities to becoming effective
teachers.”
The report says that a key strength of the
university is: “Quality trainees who display good professional
attributes and become reflective professionals with high
expectations of themselves and their pupils”. It highlighted
secondary education trainees as demonstrating “excellent
professional values and attitudes” and being “highly motivated,
independent and committed”.
Amongst the key strengths of the secondary
programme the report commented on the “strong programme leadership
and management”, the “positive pattern of enrichment activities”
and “excellent communication, mentoring and link tutoring across
the partnership”. The report also commented on the quality of
the secondary partnership as outstanding, with trainees benefitting
from “very high quality support from tutors and
mentors”.
Keither Parker, Head of Programme for
Secondary, remarked that she and Imelda O'Grady, subject tutor,
were both delighted with the report and that it was “a reflection
of the hard work and commitment of our secondary partnership to
developing quality teachers and leaders for our local and national
schools”.
Currently the University has 550 graduates
working in secondary and primary schools across Yorkshire and
Teesside. This year it received 2,950 applications for 338 places
across undergraduate and postgraduate teaching education
programmes.
Commenting on the Ofsted report Mike Hickman,
Head of Initial Teacher Education, said: “The report is testament
to the very high levels of commitment and achievement of both our
teaching staff and our trainees. It confirms that we are innovative
and excel in our approach to training teachers.
“I am particularly pleased to see that the
inspectors singled out for praise our selection process which we
believe ensures that we recruit the very best and most highly
motivated future teachers.”
For further information please contact Amy Hall, PR
& Communications Officer on T: 01904 876466 or E: a.hall@yorksj.ac.uk
