At the start of September, we welcomed our new cohort of primary and secondary trainees to the John Taylor SCITT at the National Forest Teaching School for their induction. Our induction programme is designed to create a concrete foundation on which to build over their subsequent weeks as they begin their school placements.

On their first day our JTHS SCITT trainees developed their knowledge and understanding of the Educational Landscape with expert input from JTMAT CEO and West Midlands Teaching Schools Council Representative Mike Donoghue, an introduction to the required professionalism of being a teacher through the SCITT Assessment Framework: Professional Behaviours and their roles and responsibilities with regards to Safeguarding in schools, e-safety and the Prevent Strategy.

Over the remaining days of the induction period trainees were introduced to the remaining strands of our SCITT Assessment Framework; Pedagogy, Curriculum, Behaviour and Assessment with explicit links to learning theories, cognitive science and stages of child development.

Our professional study sessions at the John Taylor SCITT do acknowledge trainees as adult learners and our sessions utilise evidence informed research to support the knowledge and understanding of new and potentially quite abstract concepts for those embarking on their first steps into the teaching career. At the John Taylor SCITT we are pleased to have strong connections with the Staffordshire Research School and we are confident in saying that our trainees, with-in 4 days of starting their teaching careers, are developing a sound awareness of teaching in an evidence informed profession and are developing as critically reflective practitioners.

The final session of the John Taylor SCITT Induction week was designed to seamlessly maximise their first two weeks in school placements by exploring strategies to enhance their learning from lesson observations and pupil trails. The John Taylor SCITT is led by expert practitioners. As all good educators do, we are confident in our approach to lead by example, even if that means dissecting a very cringey, 10 year old video of their course leader teaching in the first term of their initial teacher training year!