School of Education awarded Outstanding in 2010 Ofsted report

This is the third consecutive occasion that the University has been awarded the highest inspection grade.

The report identified the key strengths of the University as:

• excellent procedures to ensure that trainees from a diversity of backgrounds are selected on the basis of their potential to teach
• the good preparation of trainees to teach in a diverse society
• high quality training that inspires trainees to be successful teachers
• high expectations that are consistently shared across the partnership to ensure all trainees succeed
• the excellent clarity and cohesion of purpose between centre- and school-based training
• the outstanding quality of resources
• extremely innovative course leaders

Professor Ann Shelton-Mayes, Dean of the School of Education, commented: “This is the third time in succession that our Primary and Early Years Initial Teacher Training programmes have been judged ‘outstanding’ by Ofsted.

“This is a wonderful achievement that reflects the professional commitment of all the University and partner school staff who work in Initial Teacher Training to develop our future teachers”.

The University of Northampton offers five routes to Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) – Primary and Early Years at undergraduate and postgraduate level, and employment graduate based route teacher programme for Primary Early Years and Secondary.

A team of inspectors carried out the week-long assessment in March 2010.