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Your training year

Once you have accepted an offer to train with us, we’ll keep in touch with you as you move towards beginning your training. Since you’ll be with us at our classrooms in Norfolk House every Friday of your training year, you’ll find that you build strong relationships with your peers and with the NTTC team: we want this to begin as soon as possible! 

The time leading up to your training, together with the first two weeks of our programme, are invaluable for providing you with information, resources and opportunities to learn how our course works. You’ll have opportunities to meet, work with and get to know some of the key people who will be working with you across your training year: 

  • We’ll send you a series of emails as you get closer to your training, so that you can begin to get to know the NTTC team and our ways of working. 

  • You will be invited to attend one of our summer induction days, at which we’ll introduce you to key elements of our programme including subject-knowledge development, placement working, professional approaches to training and how to look after your wellbeing. 

  • Our course begins in late August with an autumn induction week, during which you’ll begin to reinforce relationships with your peers and NTTC tutors, learn about some essential elements of teaching, prepare to go into your first week on placement and understand how we will work together across the year. You’ll be enrolled as a student of City College Norwich (CCN) and will have access to CCN’s library, academic and support services.  

  • During your first week on placement, you will be invited to join your school’s inset days – usually two, at the very beginning of the autumn term. If you have been working in your employing school as a teaching assistant or a similar this will be your opportunity to establish yourself in your new role as a trainee teacher, and continue to develop professional relationships with your colleagues, including your mentor. 

In a typical week, you’ll have a range of experiences to support your progress in planning, teaching and assessment. 

From Monday to Thursday you’ll typically be in your placement school. Over the year you’ll spend a minimum of 120 days in two schools, teaching classes across two consecutive key stages.  

Primary PGTAs will typically spend two and a half terms in one placement attached to a class and half a term in a second school, working in their other key stage. This usually happens in the spring term. 

Secondary teachers will teach across key stages 3 and 4 on both placements, with opportunities to observe and teach where appropriate in key stage 5 classrooms. Your second placement will be half term, usually in the spring term. 

You’ll spend about 15 hours each week in lessons, beginning with observations and gradually building up your teaching over each term so that by the end of the course you’re ready to teach a full teacher’s timetable. 

You’ll have a mentor in each school, who is an expert in the year group (primary) or subject (secondary) that you’re training in. They’ll be your first point of contact and will support you through professional discussion, sharing of resources, observing your teaching, setting and working with weekly targets. 

Your placement is the perfect place to apply your learning from our centre-based training by trying out new teaching approaches in your own classroom, then reflecting on them with your mentor. 

Your centre-based training will be made up of a range of sessions, which cover NTTC’s curriculum. Our curriculum covers all elements of the Teachers’ Standards, necessary for gaining QTS. 

Our centre-based training, which we call PD (professional development) is built around NTTC’s curriculum, which has five key areas. 

  • ECL: Establishing a Positive Climate for Learning. This includes high expectations for pupil behaviour and learning and knowing how to care for pupils’ physical and mental health. 

  • P: Pedagogy. This includes developing effective classroom practice, understanding how children learn and using this to inform planning and teaching, and being responsive to pupils’ learning needs. 

  • C: Curriculum and subject. This includes knowing your subject(s) well and knowing the most effective ways to teach them. It also includes assessing in your subject(s).  

  • A: Assessment and feedback. This includes knowing a range of effective strategies for assessing your students and giving them feedback to help them make progress. 

  • PB: Developing professional behaviours. This includes understanding what it is to work professionally and continuing with professional development beyond your ITT training. 

As well as your Friday training, there are a number of additional training experiences we plan for you: 

  • We provide an additional six days across the year to focus on curriculum-knowledge development alongside our usual college training. The days are run by our curriculum leaders and experts from within our partnership who regularly work in classrooms, who are experts in curriculum and subject. 

  • You’ll train in three Intensive Training and Practice focuses across the year, starting with a thorough grounding in managing your classroom in early September, to support your developing confidence as a teacher. 

  • We have two Learning Conference days in the year, which have a focus on building inclusive communities and supporting students with additional needs. 

  • Our curriculum is built around the vocational aspects of the course: we support you to develop professional behaviours necessary for success in teaching, including working with colleagues, manging your time and workload, and modelling exemplary behaviour in your school community. Read what Ofsted had to say about our strengths in this area here: Norfolk Teacher Training Centre - Open - Find an Inspection Report - Ofsted. 

  • We support you to move into a paid role after qualification through centre-based training sessions on securing your first position including writing personal statements and preparing for interviews. We can provide interview coaching and work with local schools to give you the best advice. You’ll learn about what it’s like to be an ECT, with sessions from recent graduates of NTTC’s training and local ECT training providers. 

  • We also provide a programme of enrichment, including visits to local schools and session focusing on aspects of student experience, wider educational debates and whole-school communities.