Teacher training at Warwick graded “outstanding”

Ofsted has graded teacher training courses for primary and secondary school at Warwick’s Centre for Professional Education (CPE) as “outstanding”, in its latest inspection report.

This is an improvement on the 2010 Ofsted inspection, in which primary was judged “outstanding”, and secondary as “good”.

Further education (FE) teacher training was graded as “good”, and “outstanding” in the area of leadership. Meanwhile, early years teacher training was rated as “good”.

The courses were examined in the areas of overall effectiveness, outcomes for trainees, quality of training and leadership, and management.

A team of 8 of Her Majesty’s Inspectors and 8 Ofsted Inspectors conducted 6 days of inspections across June and November 2015, including 85 lesson observations in 40 schools and colleges.

The inspectors’ report praised the contribution that the University makes to teacher supply and to the school and college improvement agenda in the local area.

According to the University, 100 per cent of primary trainees gained employment in local and regional schools and 87 per cent of secondary trainees gained employment in local and regional schools.

Dr Adam Boddison, Director of the Centre for Professional Education during the inspection period, said: “This is a wonderful end of term report for the University of Warwick. It demonstrates that high quality teacher education can have a direct impact on learner progress in the classroom.”

Matthew Connor-Hemming, assistant headteacher (external relations) at Blue Coat CofE School & Music College, said: “A significant number of teaching staff initially trained at Warwick, and have since benefited from the continued professional development provided through engagement with initial teacher training and other outreach programmes.”

The University stated: “The Ofsted “outstanding” grade across all judgements is a significant accolade for the University of Warwick.

“The Centre for Professional Education is currently carrying out some analysis to ascertain how many other ITE providers have achieved this grade, which we believe is few.”