In many schools, the summer term often means a reshuffle of both teaching and non-teaching staff and so begins the search for fresh talent. Whilst some roles are best filled by hiring someone new, schools are increasingly looking toward their existing school staff to train up and develop into qualified teachers.
There is plenty of appetite amongst HLTAs, TAs and other support staff too, with a survey of them finding 30% already had a degree and the desire to become a qualified teacher. There are many benefits of developing your existing staff over recruiting externally too; not only can it be more cost effective, it is also a great way to invest in your staff and ultimately when one of your teaching assistants say they’d like to train as a teacher, they really mean it. They’ve seen the job intimately over the course of many years and they know exactly what they’re signing up for.
Nominate your talented TAs
More than 1,400 schools have used our Straight to Teaching programme to grow their own teachers and since 2017 we have qualified over 2,000. Straight to Teaching acts as a professional development programme, with each one tailored to the staff and their existing teaching experience. It provides a structured, tutor-supported pathway that over a period of terms will prepare them for Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) assessment via the Assessment Only route.
And with our new nomination form, it’s now become even easier for you to start your staff on their QTS journey and build the programme into your workforce planning. The nomination form fast-tracks your TAs to our Straight to Teaching application form, where they can provide more detail about their teaching experience and in turn get an estimate from our team as to how long their programme may be.
If you have any questions or want to talk to us about your options just contact the Tes Institute team and we’ll be more than happy to help.
