Tim Gander, a fourth-year BEd student is taking his first netball lesson. As he struggles to cope with a new sport, a voice in his ear reminds him to move about between the groups, to keep offering the pupils encouragement, and watch out for that clown in the corner who’s trying to disrupt things.

Strapped to Tim’s head is a microphone and earpiece, which keeps him in contact with his back-up team. The voice he hears is that of Jason Trevarthan, deputy director of PE at South Dartmoor community college in Ashburton, Devon, who has a two-way link to the student. At the side of the court, two other people can also listen easily to every word that Tim says: his college assessor from Marjons, Plymouth, and his school trainer. They are taking notes so they can give him an informed and constructive assessment later.

South Dartmoor is a training school, one of 82 in the country opened in the past three years to give staff a more practical form of training. They are also responsible for producing new ideas that will help to advance teacher training.

Hence the microphone system, adapted from a design for deaf children - an innovation that South Dartmoor is pioneering. Ray Tarleton, the head, likens the process to a driving instructor operating dual controls. “We estimate that we can advance the students at a much greater rate,” says Jason Trevarthan proudly. “They achieve as much in four weeks as they used to in a term before we introduced this system.

“You have to be careful not to take over the lesson - you could put a student off if you talked to them too much. But undoubtedly their work on skills acquisition has really taken off. And, of course, from a health and safety point of view - which is very important in PE - we’re covered.”

Everywhere you go at South Dartmoor, the impact of the training school can be felt as staff embrace the challenge: 30 teachers are directly involved, but 67 of the 105 staff helped out at some point last year. Two of them are working on PhDs as a direct result of their training work. One, Voltis Kudliskis, a psychology and sociology teacher and winner of this year’s South-West teaching award, is conducting research into neuro-linguistics and its teaching implications. “It is a pseudo-science that some people believe can help us gain hold of the unconscious mind and develop techniques that counteract any negative emotions we might have,” he says. “Getting pupils to believe in themselves is the key to teaching. Getting trainee teachers to think positively from the start must be a plus.”

Denise Morley, a former head of geography now teaching just eight periods out of 25, is in charge of most of the bread-and-butter training work at South Dartmoor. She believes that the quality-assurance systems that have been created for the training schools are a vast improvement on the ad hoc methods that prevailed when schools provided variable support to students on teaching practice. She also thinks that parents, who could have had genuine worries that too many students would harm their children’s education, have been won over.

“They perceive training as a positive advantage because they can see how we concentrate on the quality of teaching,” she says. “We can flag it up as double value: they realise the benefits of all the new ideas that are coming through.”

Helen Olds, the new head of geography, is another keen supporter of the idea. She lectures once a week to third-year students at Marjons, the training college in Plymouth, an experience she has found stimulating and a great boost to her confidence. “I think the students enjoyed the fact that I was someone who could give them examples of things that have happened in my lessons that day.”

She is compiling a DVD of good lesson practice from many angles: openings, transitions, questioning strategies, or plenaries. It should be ready by Christmas.

“Surprisingly, there are not many good video lessons available,” says Ray Tarleton. “Besides, that’s old technology. With this, you’ll be able to scroll through what’s available and concentrate on the generic skills.”

Andy Hamlyn runs what South Dartmoor calls the ‘inclusion unit’, the Year 10s and 11s who follow an alternative curriculum. Many of these use the audio technology of the PE department to work on a programme teaching ball skills to primary school children.

“They are empowered by the technology - otherwise they wouldn’t have been able to take this on,” says Mr Hamlyn.

He is conducting research with Exeter University, the other training institution that South Dartmoor works with, into why so many maths, modern languages and science students are dropping out of teacher-training.

“Is there something about the nature of these subjects that makes them inherently difficult or is it that pupils come to these lessons with baggage that does not affect other subjects?” he says.

Those in higher education are excited by the potential of training schools. “They are a partnership between theory and practice,” says Keith Jones of Marjons. “The effect on the curriculum and kids is massive - they’ve changed the culture in schools.”

Like other secondary training schools, South Dartmoor gets a grant of pound;55,000 from the Teacher Training Agency (primaries get pound;45,000), most of which it has spent on technology. But the benefits are far more widespread than that. “It has had a terrific impact throughout the school, energising staff,” says Tarleton. “And it’s only in its infancy.”

To find out about training schools in your area, go to www.standards.dfes.gov.uktrainingschools. More will be created next September: 270 schools have applied but only between 30 and 60 are likely to be successful