West London Teacher Training Alliance (Primary) Primary (37FB)

PGCE with QTS full time

• Accredited body: St Mary’s University, Twickenham
• Financial support: Student finance if you’re eligible
• Qualification:
  PGCE with QTS

  A postgraduate certificate in education (PGCE) with qualified teacher status (QTS) will allow you to teach in state schools in England and may allow you to teach in other parts of the UK.

  It may also allow you to teach overseas, though you should always check what qualifications are needed in the country you’d like to teach in.

  Many PGCE courses include credits that count toward a Master’s degree.

• Age range: 5 to 11
• Course length: 1 year
• Date you can apply from: 11 October 2022
• Date course starts: September 2023
• Website: http://www.wltta.org.uk/initial-teacher-training/primary-courses/

Contents

Course summary

QUALIFICATION OUTCOME

This course 37FB leads to PGCE(M)QTS. The significance of the qualifications can be found here

SPECIAL FEATURES

This course is run by the West London Teacher Training Alliance (WLTTA) in partnership with St Mary’s University, Twickenham. We make prompt shortlisting decisions and will liaise with you quickly if we need additional information.

WLTTA enables you to choose your host school. Later, if there is a teaching vacancy and they want to retain you, you can be employed for the following year without the post being advertised. By becoming a WLTTA trainee, all our other schools could employ you this way and we operate a pool.

Our aim is to produce exceptional teachers who could remain in alliance schools to continue their careers, taking advantage of further professional development, including the accredited Early Career induction programme.

THE TRAINING

Through us, you enrol at the university and would attend all the same university sessions with those who applied directly through the university; have full access to university facilities/mentors. The university still awards your PGCE.

WLTTA selects a contrasting school for your ‘away’ placement which occurs before your (longer) time at your chosen host school.

As a guide: Typical timetable

The university programme covers: teaching and assessing; classroom management; child protection; maths, English, science, music, history, drama, geography, art, design and technology, PE, MFL and Masters.

At school, through an initial programme of observations you will become familiar with the organisation and working of the school (pupil groups and pastoral systems, staffing, curriculum, resources, facilities, approaches to learning and teaching, lesson planning and assessment.

You will be treated like a member of staff. With your school mentors, you will feel supported as you progress and become ready to teach. Our mentors are excellent teachers and undertake rigorous training to develop their mentoring skills. Your time in school provides you with the opportunity to develop your teaching expertise and relationships with children and young people in a familiar environment.

You will have the opportunity to teach a range of year groups (children aged 5-11) covering Maths, English and Science as well as other subjects and themed projects. You will have experience of the National Curriculum and teacher assessment.

Your university tutor will visit to monitor your progress at both schools and discuss your development with you and your mentors. You will maintain close links with your host school throughout the course.

School placements

CHOOSING YOUR SCHOOL

We want you to select your main host school at application, as a school where you aspire to work.The schools seeking trainees on this particular course are listed in the table at the end of this section.

The characters and location of our schools are varied. To help you decide, please refer to our WLTSA Primary & Nursery School Summary Descriptions and our Map of WLTTA Schools.

You can contact us to ask how many applications (if any) are being considered by different schools when you are applying.

How to apply and how to choose more than one school on a course

DETAILED WEBSITE AND LIVE ONLINE PRESENTATION & Q&A

We recommend that you visit our website www.wltta.org.uk to properly see all our vacancies. We have many other primary teacher training courses at other schools including a few salaried places. You can download the course documents and see a video about us, with previous trainees being interviewed.

You can also sign up there to join our fortnightly Zoom presentation about getting into teaching and it includes an opportunity for Q&A. The presentation explains all about the different routes into teaching and their separate benefits; how the money works; tips about using the ‘Find Postgraduate Teacher Training’ portal; applications; offers; etc. No pressure, you don’t have to attend this at all - it’s just there for anyone who is trying to understand it all better. We get excellent feedback on this year after year.

Locations

You can select one of the following locations when you apply.

Location	Vacancies
John Perryn Primary School Long Dr, , London , W3 7PD	Yes
Larmenier & Sacred Heart Catholic Primary School 41a Brook Green, , Hammersmith, , London, , W6 7BL	Yes
Little Ealing Primary School Weymouth Avenue, Ealing, W5 4EA	Yes
Park Walk Primary School Park Walk, London, SW10 0AY	Yes
Queen’s Manor Primary School Lysia Street, Fulham, London, SW6 6ND	No
Ravenor Primary School Greenway Gardens, Greenford, UB6 9TT	Yes
St Mary of the Angels Catholic Primary School Shrewsbury Rd, , London , W2 5PR	Yes
St Mary’s Catholic Primary School W14 40 Masbro Road, Hammersmith, London, W14 0LT	Yes
St Vincent’s Catholic Primary School 1 Pierrepoint Road, Acton, London, W3 9JR	Yes
Sulivan Primary School Peterborough Road, , Fulham, , London, , SW6 3BN	Yes

Entry requirements

Qualifications needed

An undergraduate degree at class 2:2 or above, or equivalent.

Grade 4 (C) or above in English, maths and science, or equivalent qualification.

We’ll consider candidates with pending GCSEs.

We’ll consider candidates who need to take a GCSE equivalency test in English, maths or science.

For the avoidance of doubt: ALL WLTTA primary courses require a degree equivalent to a UK honours degree at 2:2 or above.

For both the degree and GCSEs, where appropriate, see our important guidance on Overseas Qualifications.

See also which equivalency tests we accept GCSE Equivalency tests.

We would not shortlist anyone with all three GCSEs outstanding.

We prioritise shortlisting of those with either none outstanding, or only one outstanding, over someone who still needs to take two equivalency tests.

Personal qualities

We seek trainees with a passion to engage and inspire students to a love of learning, who are:

• committed to championing their students;
• open to learning about children’s physical/social/emotional/cognitive needs and how these can affect behaviour;
• in good health with ability to cope with stress. Teaching is incredibly rewarding, but also requires an element of resilience!
• professional and committed to equal opportunities;
• able to communicate well in written/spoken English, with at least basic computer skills and commitment to developing these.

It helps to have a sense of humour and an ability to laugh at yourself!

Other requirements

A realistic understanding of the role of a teacher and an awareness of some current issues facing the profession is also important. We have some advice relating to school experience on our website: WLTTA School Experience tab

Offers are conditional on satisfactory outcome of a DBS check (approx. £60) and an occupational health check (approx. £20) both administered through the university after an offer is accepted.

Fees and financial support

The course fees for UK students in 2023 to 2024 are £9,250.

The fees are payable to St Mary’s University, Twickenham.

Financial support from the training provider

With regards to the loans linked above, its worth noting that you can take out a student loan even if you already have an undergraduate loan. Loans for tuition fees are not normally means tested (whereas loans for maintenance are means tested) but you should confirm all this using the link above.

Please also be aware that as a full time student you would be eligible for cheaper travel in London using a student Oyster card and in many boroughs you can get a reduction on your council tax payments.

About the training provider

THE WEST LONDON TEACHER TRAINING ALLIANCE (WLTTA)

The West London Teacher Training Alliance represents a large group of 70 schools (nurseries, primaries, special needs, secondaries, sixth forms; faith and non-faith, maintained schools, independent schools and free schools) – who are all seeking to mentor and build a relationship with a trainee who aspires to work in their school.

Most of our schools are in Hammersmith & Fulham and Kensington & Chelsea, but we also have schools in Westminster, Richmond, Twickenham, Ealing, Hounslow, Hillingdon and Brent.

The WLTTA office is based at Sacred Heart High School, in Hammersmith.

We have formal partnership arrangements with four universities

• St Mary’s University, Twickenham
• University of Roehampton
• University College London (UCL)
• London Metropolitan University

OUR APPROACH TO TRAINEE RECRUITMENT

We pride ourselves in the support that we provide potential applicants and in the speed of our shortlisting. We have a detailed website (see link at top of page) and the WLTTA office is staffed full time with experts to talk to on the phone.

We want you to choose the schools where you aspire to work, when you apply. If you perform well at interview but fail to get a place at your preferred school, we operate an internal referral system rather than rejecting you (see the interview section below).

We place significant emphasis on getting a good fit between trainee and school because we are all keenly focused on recruitment for qualified teachers in our alliance schools the following year.

About the accredited body

This WLTTA course is accredited by St Mary’s University, Twickenham, with 170 years in Education.

With just under 4,000 students training to teach on primary and secondary, they are now London’s second largest teacher training course provider and in 2019 the St Mary’s Institute of Education was once again rated Ofsted ‘Outstanding’.

Course tutors at St Mary’s are all skilful teachers themselves, with many years of experience in schools and higher education. Schools in the Alliance have excellent relationships with the university.

Interview process

Our schools seek trainees that aspire to work for them. We enable you to select your preferred host school(s) at application and later through a referral process. We provide information about the schools to help you choose.

STAGE 1: UNIVERSITY INTERVIEW

Once shortlisted, we arrange for you to be invited to an online university interview. You will be asked to upload ID documents and relevant certificates if available. We can still make an offer subject to later verification of qualifications.

The university may ask you to prepare a very brief presentation on a particular topic.

STAGE 2: SCHOOL INTERVIEW

The school interview follows 3-4 days later and could lead to an offer.

INTERNAL REFERRALS

If you do not get an offer from Stage 2 but have demonstrated potential, you can then choose another school and we would recommend your shortlisting. The university interview would not be repeated. We hope to fit good candidates with schools that they are happy with and where they can secure an offer.

There remains an advantage to apply to the course at more than one school, because such applications would be considered in parallel rather than sequentially. If you have a clear first choice, email us and we can try to ensure a sensible order for the interviews.

APPLICATIONS This link shows you how to choose more than one school on the same course if you want to. This won’t be evident within the application portal itself: How application system works.

International candidates

You’ll need the right to study in the UK. You already have this if, for example, you:

• are an Irish citizen
• have settled or pre-settled status under the EU Settlement Scheme (you may still be able to apply)
• have indefinite leave to remain in the UK

If you do not already have the right to study in the UK for the duration of this course, you may need to apply for a Student visa.

To do this, you’ll need to be sponsored by your training provider.

Before you apply for this course, contact us to check Student visa sponsorship is available. If it is, and you get a place on this course, we’ll help you apply for your visa.

Alternatively, check if you’re eligible for a different type of visa, such as a Graduate or Family visa, that allows you to train to be a teacher without being sponsored.

Find out more about training to teach in England.

International qualifications

If your qualifications come from a non-UK institution, we may want to see a ‘statement of comparability’ from UK ENIC. This will show us how they compare to UK qualifications.

You can call Get Into Teaching on 0800 389 2500 for:

• guidance on the UK equivalents of your qualifications
• a free statement of comparability once you’ve submitted your application (if we ask you for this)

Training with disabilities and other needs

WLTTA and all our partner universities are committed to supporting students with disabilities. Please contact us as early as possible in your application process so that your needs are met and support can be arranged.

You can also find support and information from the university accrediting the course that you hope to apply for:

ST MARY’S UNIVERSITY offers advice and support to their students who have requirements as a result of a disability, specific learning difficulty (e.g. dyslexia), medical condition or temporary disability, such as injury. St Mary’s Dyslexia and Disability Co-ordinator (DDC) works closely with the other members of the Student Services team, supporting students in their time at university assisting them to be proactive in their studies as an independent learner. http://www.smuc.ac.uk/student-support/dyslexia-and-disability/

UNIVERSITY OF ROEHAMPTON: http://www.roehampton.ac.uk/Disabilities/Support/

London Met  

Contact this training provider

• Email: pcurrey@sacredh.lbhf.sch.uk
• Telephone: 020 8748 7600 x466
• Website: http://www.wltta.org.uk/initial-teacher-training/primary-courses/
• Address: WLTTA Office c/o Sacred Heart High School; 212 Hammersmith Road; Hammersmith; London; W6 7DG

Support and advice

For support and advice, you can speak to a teacher training adviser for free. They’re all experienced teachers who can help you to prepare your application, book school experience, and access exclusive teaching events.

You can also call Get Into Teaching free of charge on 0800 389 2500, or chat online Monday to Friday, 8.30am to 5.30pm (except public holidays).

Find out about the different ways to train if you do not have a degree, or are already an experienced teacher.

If there is something wrong with this course listing, contact us by email.